Opinion – Walter Casagrande Jr.: Football hides itself when it is necessary to fight for democracy

At 8:30 am this Thursday, August 11, I arrived at Largo São Francisco to read the Letter for Democracy and the Democratic State of Law, that “letter” signed by more than 1 million people “face-to-face” and ” bad character” (in the president’s words).

I saw all the people, public figures or not, arriving at the scene. And a movie came to my mind when I realized that all that space, both outside and inside the college, started to fill with people.

I soon understood that it would go down in history, because I already had the experience of the Diretas Já rallies. 38 years ago, while experiencing that moment, I had no idea how marked that night would be forever. But today I was realizing this in real time, at the same instant.

Representatives of the press from all over the world were there, as well as musicians, activists, journalists, jurists, anti-racist groups and for democracy in general. And few football representatives. No current manager or player.

Of course, there are those who fought for democracy who, for personal reasons, could not go, but even if they were, we would be very few representatives of the people’s sport. Or is it no longer of the people?

I confess that it bothered me a lot not to meet anyone from football. I came across Magrão’s son, Gustavo, who is a lawyer and works with football, but no former players and managers.

The biggest representative of football managers in the demonstration was Roque Citadini. Well, anyway, Corinthian Democracy was present – ​​besides me, I know that Wladimir and Adilson Monteiro Alves attended the event.

Reading the letter was moving, in the same way that we were moved by singing our anthem, the National Anthem of the Brazilian people – and not just a few, as the President of the Republic tries to make us believe.

The flag is also ours, as are the colors green, yellow, white and blue.

I was moved because I had doubts if the internet and social media generation would realize that they needed to leave the house, stop just posting and recording videos, and actually be present in a democratic act.

The world has changed a lot, but the peaceful struggle for democracy has not: it is necessary to take to the streets. And they did, joining older generations of protesters.

There were people who suffered from the worst moments of the dictatorship. There were also those who fought for amnesty in 1979, those who fought for Diretas Já in 1984, and those who joined the cara-pintadas chorus in 1992.

All together to defend our democracy from the real demons of politics.

We saw representatives of various religions in perfect harmony and civility, with respectful behavior towards each other and without idiotic prejudices, as the First Lady has already demonstrated.

On that day, there was no color, race, social class, gender or profession that separated us: we were all united by the same struggle and with the same importance.

I thought Magrão would be with me in this, as we have always been to fight and defend our democracy.

I think we kick-started several popular demonstrations for the Democratic Rule of Law.

I cannot forget the representatives of indigenous peoples, under the leadership of Sônia Guajajara, present at the demonstration.

It was beautiful, exciting, exciting and will go down in history.

We are going in search of a historic victory in the October elections, which means, above all, respect for the results of the polls.

I have faith. I have faith, in the voice of Mano Brown.