Opinion – Rodrigo Tavares: How to overcome electoral hatred in Brazil

Brazil is in civil war. In recent years, families have been torn apart, friendships have been torn apart and the already fragile collective social contract has imploded. Possibly the country has never been so polarized. There is certainly a history of violent internal conflicts over the last hundred years, whether in the form of revolts (Jacareacanga, Quebra-Milho), uprisings (Integralista), revolutions (from 1930, Constitutionalist from 1932), coups d’état (1964). ), insurrections (anarchist of 1918) and guerrilla movements (Araguaia, Caparaó). Brazil is also one of the countries with the greatest urban insecurity in the world. But internal conflicts have always been relatively ephemeral or regional. None of them pitted tens of millions of Brazilians against tens of millions of Brazilians.

The current division between Bolsonaristas and Lulas, or between the radical right and the democratic left, can no longer be portrayed as an antipathy or embarrassment, typical of electoral disputes. It is hatred and disgust that we speak. Like any country in civil war, part of Brazil has cut ties with the other part of itself. And without the need to universalize the use of armed violence.

Whatever the outcome of these elections, Brazil needs to start a long process of pacification. In addition to recovering the economy and reducing poverty, the president-elect’s menu of priorities should be reconciling the country.

But how to do it? The column interviewed Guy Banim, a recognized international expert with 25 years of experience in conflict mediation in countries such as Nepal, Myanmar, Mozambique, Afghanistan or Ireland. He has worked for several multilateral organizations and is currently a visiting professor at the College of Europe, a postgraduate teaching and training institute dedicated to international topics.

Post-elections, the first challenge for the Brazilian president is to recognize that there is mass hostility that needs to be resolved. It will not be easy. The natural inclination of any politician is to exacerbate his base of support in order to fatten the expectations of future electoral victories. In the case of Bolsonaro’s victory, the agenda will be destabilization, not civic harmonization.

Then, in dismembered societies, the side that will acquire power will not be able to expropriate the losing side. Guy Banim points out that the academic literature and the experience of dozens of conflicts demonstrate that “the systematic exclusion of a specific group from access to power, opportunities, services and security creates fertile ground for the mobilization of legitimate protests and demands. Whoever wins the elections will have to adopt long-term policies that also consider the economic and social aspirations of the defeated. Fostering the participation of young people, organizations, movements and networks that supported Bolsonaro or Lula is fundamental.” If excluded or persecuted, Bolsonarism or Lulismo will grow and may become violent. Social cohesion does not represent the cancellation of debate, but a democratic space in which pluralism can peacefully flourish.

Arts and culture can also play a key role. Cultural creators and managers have to pull the extremes by the ears to bring them into a common space for debate, imagination and creation. It worked in Colombia and Ireland. It is up to the arts to transpose their natural political link to the left to create elements of collective sharing.

Guy also states that, in the Brazilian case, as in the American case, if the theater of war is in social networks, conflict resolution strategies should prioritize this digital territory. Networks, despite all their benefits, have also become instruments that accentuate social stratifications and categorizations, in addition to amplifying human weaknesses and vulnerabilities. A good solution to mitigate the nefarious version of social networks is The Commons Project, a project launched in 2017 with the aim of depolarizing public and private debate in the United States.

The central premise of The Commons is that most people in the US are not active promoters of polarization. Instead, polarization is something that happens to them. They are victims, not defendants. Through its own tools, The Commons is able to identify the millions of people on Twitter and Facebook who are most likely to be polarized. Then they create moderated content to test reactions. Then, facilitators get in direct contact with network users in order to demystify dogmas, allay fears and instill some digital literacy. The methodologies applied make it possible to reach potentially millions of people in a direct and personalized way. Brazil needs a similar program.

Our optimism leads us to believe that many of those who vote for Lula or Bolsonaro have ideological mobility and make political choices in a utilitarian way. They don’t hold grudges or jump into any trenches. But there are tens of millions of Brazilians who are acutely Bolsonaristas, Lulaistas, antibolsonaristas or antilulistas. It is this demographic that we should focus on. At the end of the 19th century, Brazil had a president who was nicknamed the “Pacifier”, after having put an end to the Federalist Revolution. We’re going to need a new president with the same skills. For that, you need to be a democratic president.