Well, there is more to it coming from Brazil, like it is true that there is a lot of good will towards the BRICS members and with straightening ties with China, but it’s important to not make it seem that Brazil’s internal politics are more to the left than they actually are, there are some very pro market and austerity inducing measures in course in Brazil, that bodes poorly for the short to mid term future. There is a need here for grater popular protests and movements, and there are some groups showing promise on the subject, but the situation here is not good, although Lula’s posture on international matters are nothing short of amazing, his team of ministers here are a far cry from what it would be expected of him. TLDR: Things are good, on one side, but really not good on the other.
That said, Brazil becoming aligned with China and having its economy aligning away from the west will help drive political change as well. These things don’t happen overnight, but I think that the overall trajectory is promising.
for sure, not to dismiss that at all, that is something that I’m very proud of my country, but I think it’s important to show the struggles we’re facing internally too, to enrich the vision of the country, cause when this nice parts are getting traction people tend to think that Brazil is going hard to the left, which is not exactly true, and if a right turn come about people know where it came from
Completely agree, and I think there’s a broader point here that any serious political change is a long and complex process that will have many setbacks. One of the traps people fall into is thinking that change can be accomplished via single action like a protest, a strike, or an election. Lack of realization that it’s going to be a struggle and that people need to commit to this struggle for a long term vision is how movements fall apart.
One of the best recent examples of this was the whole Bernie movement in US. He managed to organize and motivate millions of young people across the country, but all that was focused on winning an election without any broader vision. Once he was shuffled off in favor of Biden the whole thing fizzled overnight. This illustrates why a politically literate and principled vanguard is so important.
I know for sure that it takes time, but the issue, is that Lula’s strategy inside the country seems to be treading away from lasting change and more into the hands of the pressures of the capital, one of those austerity inducing measures, and quite a heavy one, is from one of his main allies, the equivalent the secretary of treasury, which was the presidential candidate when Lula was in jail. There is quite a bit of departure from a leftist line on his government in many issues, and a concerning lack of organized mass movements in the country. So the struggle is quite real, and rough
Indeed, Lula strikes me like a version of Bernie in many ways. He’s not trying to create a dictatorship of the proletariat, but rather to stabilize the current capitalist system.
The president of a miscellaneous Global South nation was walking along the beach with Xi Jinping.
“Xi,” said the President, sometimes it feels like you’re there for us, but sometimes it feels like you’ve abandoned us.
Xi bade the President to look back along the two sets of tracks they had made on the beach.
“My like-minded good friend,” said Xi Jinping, “the Chinese people have been walking hand-in-hand with you ever since we stood up in 1949.”
“But Xi,” said the President again, “sometimes one pair of footsteps veers away.”
“Those are the times you turned to the Americans.” Xi pointed to where the straying footsteps came to an abrupt stop at an ice cream truck. “But we have always been here to resume walking together once your people grew weary of being fed junk food.”
Beautiful
