The truck drivers' strike is a political and social phenomenon of the greatest relevance. The fact that we are astonished about the possible developments of the movement that began on May 21st is sufficient evidence that we are used to reading situations and processes from a logic centered on major political figures or large organizations such as parties and unions. The articulations of movements in other contexts and configurations surprise analysts, academics, the press and the population. Popular dissatisfaction in 2013 or 2018 was expressed, felt and, without a clear definition of purposes, erupted in a succession of events that sometimes can be read in their singularity, and sometimes allow concatenations and appropriations by groups that entered the radar of major decisions. public.
Decanting so much information in a prolonged period of crisis is a herculean task and, sometimes, impossible to do without being surprised by the next moment. However, without any pretension to an analysis that exhausts the issue, it is necessary that we venture to understand the processes that are unfolding in our days. Contingencies are more defining than pre-existing contexts that could explain recent episodes.
Apart from the explicit issue of truck drivers and their demands for reduced fuel costs, tolls and taxes, there is a political noise in the support received by the population and in the disconcerting defense of some sectors of military intervention. What brings 2013 and 2018 closer is the proposal, without constraints, of a government of force based on a military coup. Obviously, those who defend a coup of this nature camouflage their vocabulary with words like “constitutional military intervention” and calls for the “defense of order”. In this sense, the paths to building democracy, followed after the 1988 Constitution, are being obstructed by an increasingly strident and implausible clamor.
The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), in “The Social Contract” (1757), explained that the exchange of freedom for a regime of servitude is not a credible basis for the formation of a society. Those who argue that people could exchange their political freedom for the civil tranquility offered by a despot are mistaken, as it is possible to live peacefully in dungeons, but one cannot live well in them. Some might say: this is the will of the majority of the population who cannot stand excesses, corruption and are tired of so many taxes and precarious rights. The answer, following Rousseau, would be: it is inconceivable that an entire people would give up their freedom in favor of a tyrant. And, if this were to happen, we could just say that they are a people of madmen and, in the words of the philosopher, “madness does not create law”.
The dictatorship fetish
The idea of a social pact, trivialized during redemocratization, has lost any meaning or importance in the current political framework. Demands for income redistribution or combating inequalities have been important topics at different times in recent decades, but they seem to have succumbed to a logic of cutting expenses and suspending rights based on a conservative reformist agenda. Protests on the roads are seductive because they present tangible benefits that can be enjoyed immediately: paying less for fuel. The agenda is not illegitimate, but it signals other points that attract popular support, such as the ban on a broader debate on the deepening of the welfare state, while astronomical profits from international capital and the financial system remain untouchable.
If there was a need to worsen the situation, we live in the context of a government and a political-legal system that have severely damaged their credibility. Corruption, negotiations, administrative inefficiency, economic stagnation and a succession of scandals produce a map for chaos. The defense of democracy collapsed a few years ago and dictatorship, or as they want to say, “military intervention” is proposed by various segments of the population.
The seduction of authority – rigid, without dialogue, without respect – reveals the childishness of those who desire a command that mutilates their own conscience. Nostalgia, as many people refer to, for example, an authoritarian school with well-defined roles, is a symptom of accepting severity and humiliation just to justify the idea of a disciplined society.
A fair demonstration, like the one presented by the truck drivers, could not have a worse outcome than being used to propagandize the defense of order and authoritarianism. I do not consider that the movement is homogeneous or manipulated, just that it catapults other issues into its organizational model: the emergence of decentralized movements can harbor reckless ideas and predictions. Once the material conquest is over, the symbolism of bitter themes remains, as if a historical fate were prescribed for us to experience the horror of the dictatorship again.
No recent movement has managed to stop the country like that of the truck drivers. The opportunism of supporters of the coup or “intervention” ignores that a demonstration like this would never be possible under a dictatorship. Those deluded by the military solution were driven by a discourse of rancor and hatred that blames the victims of the dictatorship while they do not even ask themselves what would lead the State and its agents to persecute and cruelly murder their opponents or, simply, people who dared to challenge the political-economic order, as truck drivers do at this moment.
Depending on the developments of these days, the billions of reais to meet the truck drivers' agendas could be the cheapest part of this mess. There is something much more expensive and that cannot be priced: freedom and the chimera of democracy, even if fragile.
Dictatorship, never!
