Week 10 - Brazil 3 and Conclusions

PART I – Brazil’s Current Crisis

Readings

Cleuci de Oliveira, “Brazil grapples with lynch mob epidemic: ‘A good criminal is a dead criminal’,” The Guardian (2016)

Brian Winters, “Brazil’s Authoritarian Side Makes a Comeback,” Americas Quarterly, November 3, 2016

Benjamin Cowan, “Holy Ghosts of Brazil’s Past,” NACLA 48(4), pp. 346-352 (2016)

Tuesday readings describe Brazil’s current socio-political moment—the moment stemming from the August 2016 impeachment of Workers Party president Dilma Rousseff. After the impeachment, Rousseff’s vice president, a center-right businessman named Michel Temer became president. As of this writing (July 2018), the leading contenders for Brazil’s next presidential election (October 2018) are none other than Lula (who is now in prison!) and a conservative congressman named Jair Bolsonaro. A controversial figure in Brazil, he has been known for advocating in favor of far-right political views. In a 2017 opinion poll conducted, Bolsonaro ranked third in two of three election scenarios presented and fourth in the other; in a prompt in which no candidate option is given, Bolsonaro comes in second place after former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Watch this clip to get a sense of the man who could be Brazil’s next president. Lula, meanwhile, has just been convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison (see this short New York Times article).

PART II – Looking Forward

Readings

Bryan Pitts et al., “21st Century Golpismo: A NACLA Roundtable,” NACLA 48(4), pp. 334-345 (2016)

Barry Cannon, “Inside the Mind of Latin America’s New Right,” NACLA 48(4), pp. 328-333 (2016)

For an introduction to the recent trend toward right-leaning governments across Latin America, watch this clip. Frequently, these political transformations take place through what critics call a “legislative coup” (“golpe” means coup in Spanish and Portuguese). You can find examples of these with Paraguay (watch this clip) and of course in Brazil (watch this clip from last August). With Paraguay, Lugo was a Catholic bishop with strong ties to peasant organizations and NGOS. He was elected in 2008, ending 60 years of rule by Colorado Party, but then, in 2012, Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies voted to impeach Lugo, ostensibly in response to the socialist president’s failure to prevent bloodshed at a confrontation between police and farmers.

For recent commentary on Latin America’s “post-pink” moment, watch this short interview with MIT linguist Noam Chomsky.

Finally, as we reach the end of the course, a plug for Latin American studies. Why consider LAS as a major or minor?

1.     Because the region’s literature, art, music and film are extraordinary;

2.     Because we can learn something from their experimentations with democracy;

3.     Because they elect female presidents;

4.     Because the African diaspora in the Americas has given rise to an incredible mosaic of culture, identity and political resistance;

5.     Because there are presently 54 million Latinos living US – 17%, and the figure will likely double in the next couple of decades—and the cultural and political importance of Latino/as in the United States continues to grow;

6.     Because the Pope is from Argentina;

7.     Because nearly 20% of our students at New Paltz – one out of every six – are Latino/a.