“It is not possible! Nowadays, politics is permeated in the daily life of the whole world. There is no way to come to a popular party and not talk about politics.” The phrase is from Diógenes Moraes, who insisted on being present at the samba wheel in the Glória neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, not only to dance samba and have a few drinks, but to talk about politics.
Diogenes is part of a small group where the conversation was related to the elections next Sunday. For the rest, almost all the groups sometimes gave a foot to the samba, sometimes a little to Bolsonaro.
And despite being a very crowded samba circle, by the way, it could well be a campaign event in favor of Lula. On the chest, on the shoulder, on the head, in the hands, there are phrases and images alluding to the ex who wants to be president again. If there is any certainty, it is that Glory on Sunday is his land.
With a sticker pasted on her chest with the face of Lula da Silva and her numbers for the vote, the famous number 13, Isabel Santos appears relaxed in this environment, but she does not stop expressing some fear.
“This specific place is a place where people feel safe to come. People who are campaigning or supporting Lula today do not feel safe to attend any space. On the side of Bolsonaro’s supporters, there is a lot of violence, there is a charge of a weapon, we have seen in recent weeks people being shot at houses or cars because they have Lula’s flag or decal,” says Isabel.
The participant in this Sunday’s samba circle stresses that “there are specific places where Lula supporters feel safe to visit.” “Probably when we leave, we’ll take off the sticker because we don’t know what we’re going to find on the subway,” he says.
But fear is not the same for everyone, be it as it is. Not so much during what is going to be the period before the elections, but the next day. Natália Ferreira points out that she is “a black, peripheral and lesbian woman” and that her “greatest fear” is to see her identity reduced. “How are our survival, existence and agendas, if the extreme right candidate wins?” She asks herself at the microphone of the TSF.
However, all in good time because, for now, “How about a samba?” This is how Chico Buarque sings and this is how these hundreds of people prefer to be, at a party that is, at the same time, a kind of catharsis, as Isabel Santos points out.
Especially since intolerance “is much greater”, as Cristiane Figueiredo says, and the latest news even proves extremism. Look at the case of Roberto Jefferson entitled to several headlines in Brazil: the former federal deputy, a great supporter of Bolsonaro, faced with the police attempt to arrest him, resisted police action, exchanged fire with the authorities and even threw grenades at the police.
This man was serving a sentence of house arrest, but due to the lack of respect for the rules, the justice decided to go to preventive detention. Jefferson is suspected of leading a criminal organization that intends to attack democracy and the Legislative and Judicial powers.
However, if the mobilization in the samba circle was more or less spontaneous with the “supports” of Lula, before there was another coordination: the marginal of Copacabana received a kind of carnival block out of season with the theme “Lula” . There are also shouts and slogans and printed propaganda such as, for example, “Marijuana is a herb, drugs are Bolsonaro,” as read on a cloth bag.
There, Gaucho did not stop earning money, but also entertaining. Asked about the beer business “outside of Bolsonaro,” the bearded man who sells beer to passersby recalls that it all started with beer “outside of Temer.” “Then it became the beer ‘neither he, nor his children’, then it became Lula Livre beer and now # Lula2023”.
While he gets lost in the microphone that he brings to communicate more with the clientele, he also shows the green shirt that he is wearing and that has a very clear message (in addition to Lula da Silva’s four-fingered hand): “I miss my ex, went back”.
Do you think you’ll really come back? “He’s back, friend. Even with 500,000 fake news, with 500 million released by this guy for the amendment, he’s back, he doesn’t have this one. Generous beers and improvised songs addressed to the current president of Brazil.
Source: TSF
