Brazil's January 6th - Second Verse, Same as the First
On January 8th, Bolsonaro supporters sieged Brazil's Congress after the democratic victory of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
On January 8th, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters, in a move eerily indicative of Trumps supporters on January 6th, 2021 in America, stormed Congress in the capital city Brasilia as well as other federal buildings while Jair Bolsonaro sojourns in Florida, where he was recently admitted to the hospital for supposed abdominal pain.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the democratically-elected incumbent whom the far-right Bolsonaristas were violently insurrecting against, stated at his news conference that there was “incompetence or bad faith″ on behalf of the police, who were extensively documented abetting and fraternizing with the “fascist fanatics,” as Lula termed them during a news conference in Sao Paulo. “I want to remind you all that those from the left have been tortured, killed, and disappeared with in the past, and you’ve never read the news that some left-wing party, some left-wing movement has invaded the National Congress, the Supreme Court and the Planalto Palace.”
“We are going to find out who the financiers of these vandals who went to Brasília are,” said Lula, “and they will all pay with the force of law.” On Sunday evening, police were able to secure the besieged government buildings and arrest 400 Bolsonaristas. On Monday, police were ordered to clear out all remaining Bolsonaro camps, arresting some 1,200 supporters according to reporting from the Associated Press. Alexandre de Moraes, The minister of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil, has ordered that the governor of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, be removed from office for 90 days as the local military police reported to Rocha, a Bolsonaro supporter. The district’s secretary of public safety, who has accompanied Bolsonaro in Florida, is a renown Bolsonaro supporter.
Lula, alongside the heads of the Supreme Court, Senate and Lower House, signed a letter denouncing terrorism and vow to take legal action against the fascist insurrectionists.
Despite the vigilant response from Lula and his government, footage is still being released showing Bolsonaro supporters protesting and resisting the legitimacy of the latest presidential election results.
This footage is reminiscent of Bolsonaristas protesting Brazilian election results a few months earlier where they - with the complicity of the police - blockaded at least 300 roadways.
Since the insurrection there have been mass rallies and protests in Sao Paulo celebrating the arrest of the Bolsonaristas and calling for democracy in Brazil to be protected with the rallying cry “Democracy Forever” on posters and shirts.
January 6th and 8th
As reported by Jacobin, there are multiple similarities between how the far-right acted Jan 6 in America and Jan 8 in Brazil.
From the use of social media as a coordinating tool to the lackluster response of law-enforcement agencies and the aimless behavior of the crowd once they found themselves inside, there were indeed striking resemblances between the two events.
However, there are not only similarities in behavior but in motivation and ideology. Jair Bolsonaro has often been described as the South American Trump because of his likewise policy and ideological prescriptions. Since Lula’s victory, Bolsonaro has been publicly spreading misinformation on social media regarding the election, similar to Trump after Biden’s victory.
More alarmingly, we saw Brazilian military police escorting, protecting and outright fraternizing with the fascist insurrectionists as they stormed the halls of the presidential palace and other government buildings, just like police were doing with Jan 6 insurrectionists in 2021.
And this is where the similarities end. Unlike Biden, who praised D.C. police (despite their dealings with the Proud Boys), Lula has openly criticized the police for their complicity with fascists.
This is important for many reasons. For one, historically police were integral to the ascendancy of fascism in Europe. Since fascism’s inception, police have always backed fascist and reactionary paramilitaries in their efforts to suppress oppressed populations.
Second, the response by Lula represents an incisive pushback against the development of fascism overall. While Lula’s Workers Party (PT) is a bourgeois political party, its criticism of the police and military in abetting the fascist insurrection is an important landmark in anti-fascism and the recognition that liberal bourgeois policing is instrumental in fascism, especially in Brazil where there existed a military dictatorship decades ago.
Meanwhile, the senior brass defended the demonstrations around the barracks, which called for a military coup, as a legitimate “popular movement.” This is in a country where the military seized power in 1964 and ruled by means of a bloody dictatorship for two decades.