Image: Poster against Bolsonarismo published by the CAB.

From A Las Barricadas, English machine translation

"we do not believe that it is possible to exercise our political action if it is not in conjunction with the popular classes"

ALB News.- We publish an interview with the Brazilian Anarchist Coordinator, CAB. As it was done during the days after Lula's inauguration, days in which the situation was unclear in the face of the Bolsonaro coup attempt, most of the questions deal with the phenomenon of the extreme right, which we find interesting given the parallels in other territories. The Secretariat of Foreign Relations of the CAB, a senior organization in the libertarian movement in Brazil, answered our questions.

ALB.- Bolsonaro's coming to power is situated within the international context opened by Donald Trump in the USA. The right went on the offensive on a global scale and radicalized it. Treating progressivism in a pejorative way as if it were communism moved the entire political chessboard to the right. How has Brazilian society evolved in the years in which the ultra-right has ruled?

The extreme right has always been present in Brazil in various expressions, such as integralism , neo-Nazis, or even landowners. Our analysis of the current scenario has as its main vector the consolidation of an extreme right-wing mass movement headed in Brazil by Bolsonaro and his core of ideologues and political organizers.

With the support of a ruling class thirsty for more profits, even with large capital gains during the PT governments between 2002 and 2015, they make an alliance with these conservative sectors and with organized fascism, to overthrow a government that was guaranteeing social rights. minima.

Into this soup enters the oldest and most organized informal party in Brazil, made up of high-ranking military personnel, with its project to reorganize the country in an exploitative and expansionist development model associated with agribusiness.

The most militant face in this context was that of the conservative popular sectors stimulated by the neo-Pentecostal churches and by broad sectors of the conservative and historically privileged middle and upper classes.

In the current scenario, it is always necessary to consider the consolidation of this movement that has as indirect data the expressive vote of Bolsonaro in 2022 with almost 50% of the valid votes, despite all the wear and tear caused by his handling of the pandemic and of the economic crisis that followed the times of the plague.

ALB.- It was announced in November that Bolsonarismo was going to wage war. The adjusted electoral result favored this scenario. How did the events unfold from the elections to January 8?

These articulated sectors of the extreme right have been characterized in the last four years by a constant coup tone. Both the statements by Hamilton Mourão (reserve general, vice president and member of the unsuccessful and violent UN peacekeeping force - MINHUSTAH - in Haiti) about the possibility of a self-coup, the political interference of Villas-Boas (former Army commander Brazilian between 2015 and 2019 and very influential in military circles) and above all the coup tone of all Bolsonaro's official speeches on September 7, the military parade commemorating Brazil's independence from Portugal.

The difference since the day of Bolsonaro's defeat was his silence. The Brazilian press has verified that it did not really believe in the possibility of a defeat for Lula, although it has always tried to create justifications for a coup in case of defeat - as previously alleging the inefficiency and insecurity of the electronic ballot box system. We all expected a more immediate and inflamed reaction from the extreme right, coming from the upper echelons of the army as well as from the state bureaucracy and organized popular sectors. Another observation is that, most likely, Bolsonaro was articulating all these supporters for the coup plot.

In January, we witnessed the announced tragedy of the coup attempt, with an already expected leniency of the national and state military sectors (the Brazilian gendarmerie), the articulation of the Institutional Security Cabinet by Augusto Heleno (former head of the GSI, general of reserve, Bolsonaro's political articulator and MINUSTAH commander) to allow the Bolsonaro masses to enter the Planalto Palace and the financing of the caravans of neo-fascist militants to Brasilia by agribusiness.

ALB.- What support and social composition does the Brazilian ultra-right have? What sectors do you have?

There are countless groups, from the oldest and most classic sectors of the Brazilian right -such as agribusiness landowners and the military- to newer and popular sectors -such as ultra-conservative Christian neo-Pentecostalism or the right-wing movement of the middle class. Certainly a rigorous social study will be necessary to better understand the internal divisions of this phenomenon; what we do as a militant analysis is something that still lacks many more contributions. However, we can affirm that the union of these sectors in a capitalist, ultra-liberal, conservative and anti-leftist project characterizes the moment in which we live.

ALB.- With Bolsonaro out of Brazil, who is leading these sectors?

The news we have is that Bolsonaro has regrouped several of his ideologues and political articulators around his house and has already held a "conservative meeting" in his new bunker. The movements formed and stimulated in recent years remain active, although with a certain level of ebb after the investigations and arrests of their leaders and funders, however, they maintain mobilizations and constantly create content on social networks and groups in text messaging applications. like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Recent news has even reported that [Bolsonaro] will attend a conservative event at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, in which Donald Trump will be present.

ALB.- From a distance, we get the impression that the coup has failed because there was no army general or the supreme court that was at the head of the seditious movement. That makes the difference with other cases. Do you think that the ultra-right has made its calculations wrong?

The military's plan has always been very explicit and is even revealed in an official army document called the Projeto de Nação (Nation Project).

ALB.- What has been the role of the Brazilian anarchist movement?

The Brazilian anarchist movement has built communication and direct action with social movements in the struggle for land, territory and the protection of the knowledge and ways of life of native peoples, as well as with urban movements in the struggle for housing and decent work. We have these articulations as a reference and we seek to join forces to strengthen popular power and initiatives for self-management and mutual support. A recent example is the work of the CAC in the 7th Agroecological Conference of Bahia, organized by the Teia dos Povos (Peoples Network), where we promised to continue the Terreiro Lúdico, a space for the care and political formation of the children present at the event. Over there,

In addition to that, we seek to promote direct action against state attacks on the oppressed classes. Last year, we built the Campaign to Fight Hunger with the objective of thinking about alternatives to this problem built by the people, in this way, we brought together social movements, groups and popular collectives in the task of organizing kitchen gardens and community kitchens, distribution of food and food baskets, as well as acts in the streets for food dignity and in protest and fight against hunger as a political project of the ruling classes.

ALB.- Changing the subject, does anarchism have the capacity to reach the popular classes in Brazil?

Yes, we do not believe that it is possible to exercise our political action if it is not in conjunction with the popular classes. We understand that it is a long road to demystify what anarchism means and also to channel the energy of the popular revolt towards a sphere outside of institutional politics, in the sense of demonstrating other paths than those of bourgeois liberal democracy. Unfortunately, many areas of struggle continue to be dominated by political parties whose main objective is to win votes and appropriate the struggle of the self-organized people. Thus, there are many disputes over space with these entities, however, we believe that it is possible to plant our seeds and join with the people, a people who already know how to organize and carry out the struggle and do not need the guidance of the political parties to do it.

We wish you good luck and success

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