I'm Brazilian and 27 years old, but even with the political conscience still young, Brazil has given me the opportunity to feel scandalized several times in the last 10 years. There have been many big corruption scandals, a coup d'état, the strengthening of powerful religious-based political groups and countless situations that make us believe this scenario is a joke or a disaster.
I always wondered how the Brazilian folks are continuing to vote and believing in the politicians' good intentions. I was bewildered when my country elected Bolsonaro as president. Perhaps much of this article is dedicated to showing how dangerous it is, especially in times of a pandemic, to have a backward, unprepared and corrupt man as a president, but a man who is still considered as a patriotic hero whose popularity increases even in the current scenario.
Bolsonaro is a popular personality who spoke out against human rights. He is a racist, homophobic and sexist politician, who has declared support for the Brazilian military dictatorship (if you google some Bolsonaro’s controversial statements, you will be as perplexed as I am).
I believe that most of the Brazilians who supported him have considered that Bolsonaro was the only option to change the Brazilian political scenario after so many corruption scandals. With a campaign based on ridiculous fake news and the belief that he was the only saviour of Brazilian politics, he became president in 2019 and his performance didn't disappoint me since then. Just as I expected, each month new cases of corruption, aggressive statements and greater involvement between Bolsonaro’s family and the Rio de Janeiro militia were discovered.
In 2020, the arrival of the coronavirus in Brazil was marked by the media's role in the dissemination of WHO guidelines and information about the pandemic in the world, on the other hand, the president's first official statement occurred on March 24, approximately 1 month after the first case in Brazil, when we had already buried approximately 40 dead. Bolsonaro denied the seriousness of the pandemic and criticized the governors who established quarantine. After this 5 minutes speech, many people started to have doubts about the seriousness of the pandemic , since the president preached that the economy couldn't stop, with the belief that hunger would kill more than the disease. Bolsonaro called the covid19 a "small flu" and said that if he himself became ill, he would not have symptoms due to his athletic background (so says the man who performs push-ups only with his neck).
I consider this speech an important milestone because it makes evident both the war between Bolsonaro and the media, as well as the war within the Brazilian government itself. Because while the president denied the seriousness of the pandemic, his health minister issued guidelines allied to WHO. As a result, since March Brazil has had 2 health ministers who have not held the position and, until today, we have no health minister in Brazil.
The president's absurd statements became worldwide news. Also many “fake news” were propagated by him, who considered isolation measures as a “hysteria”, and the pandemic as “fantasy”. While the number of cases and deaths were increasing all over the country, Bolsonaro became more aggressive and disrespectful to reporters when they asked him about the coronavirus situation in Brazil: “I am not a doctor, but I heard that other flu kills more than this.”; “So what?”, “I'm not an undertaker!”; "I don't do miracles"; “The Brazilians do not get sick, they jump into the sewer and nothing happens to them.”; "We'll all going to die someday" ...
Besides on insisting that covid19 was not as dangerous as the “hysterical” media was reporting, Bolsonaro said that the best treatment for the disease was the use of chloroquine and, in the opposite direction to scientific discoveries, he advertised the medicine in several ways, including displaying one chloroquine box as if it were the world cup, which we know touches the Brazilians hearts. I could add that Brazil currently has a large stock of chloroquine which has been produced by our army since the beginning of the pandemic, but perhaps this information is not so important, is it?
In the chaotic political scenario, while Bolsonaro was pushing for nothing to change in the lives of people, some of our politicians tried to establish measures to protect the population, so the social isolation was declared in many states, as well as government aid for the poorest. The amount of aid was very low and people had to continue leaving their homes to look for jobs, but as the Brazilians are not used to being helped by the state, this measure made the president's popularity rise and people came to believe that Bolsonaro was a brave man, who is properly facing a “small flu” and distributing some money to help the workers.
Bolsonaro has continued giving reasons for people not to believe in the seriousness of the pandemic, and more, he gave hope that the disease could be cured quickly and that the responsibility for the high unemployment rate should be attributed to the politicians who tried to follow the OMS recommendations. With a crazy president and more and more corruption scandals, Brazil has one of the highest numbers of covid19 cases and deaths, even considering the underreporting (because our army produced chloroquine, not tests).
As the months go by, the death toll has exceeded 125,000 while the president continues to spread misinformation and encourage people not to wear masks, not to stay home, to treat themselves with chloroquine and even to invade hospitals to check if the covid19 situation is really that serious (some people obeyed that craziness!). But the Brazilians reality is that most of us need to work and we are used to not being supported by the state. For Brazilian people, believing in the “small flu” myth also means believing that the economy should not stop, and everything should get to normal soon, just as the president had said. Believing in Bolsonaro’s tale means having hope that everything will be fine because our leader is a courageous, honest and patriotic man, who is fighting against Brazilian high unemployment rate and the hunger in our nation.
It is easy to understand it is more comfortable to believe that if someone gets sick chloroquine will be the solution, then people can get together to drink a beer at weekend, trying to forget their huge problems. Most of Brazilian people have a tough life, working for many hour at hard jobs that don’t give them much financial or moral reward, so they just want to live their lives with dignity and have food on the table for their kids to eat. When a crazy president tells them the pandemic is a fantasy, they want to believe that and move on with one less problem to worry about.
One less problem to worry about, some magical solutions to resolve it, many lies to believe, and, always, a tough life to live.
