Opinion: Bolsonaro’s Silence After 50,000 Deaths Confirms That Covid Is Not Priority

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) In terms of significance, 50,000 Brazilians killed were less important than the arrest of Fabrício Queiroz, who was hiding in the house of Bolsonaro’s attorney. So much so that, a few hours after the family fixer was taken to Bangu penitentiary, the President expressed himself during a live broadcast.

But maybe it was for the best. Publicly challenged to deliver a statement to the victims’ families on June 2nd, he said: “I mourn all the dead, but it is everyone’s fate”.

The President may even come forward following the negative impact of his unexplained silence and say something. But it will have been over a day since the figure was released, and therefore it will sound more like a damage control strategy than a legitimate demonstration of solidarity.

On Sunday, June 21st, he traveled to Rio de Janeiro to attend the funeral of soldier Pedro Lucas Ferreira Chaves, who died when his parachute failed to open properly during a training session. He said in the tribute that “worse than the pain of defeat is the pain of shame for not having fought. And he added, “Our mission is to defend the homeland, our freedom and the interests of the majority of our people.”

If he were to take his own words seriously, Bolsonaro should be feeling a crippling shame, one that makes it difficult for us to look people in the eye. For his militant denialism prevented the country from planning to fight the disease, thereby inflicting pain on the infected and their families.

But it can’t be said that he did not fight. He fought bravely on behalf of the coronavirus, being recognized as one of its greatest advocates in the world. By fighting to overthrow quarantines and providing useless “magic elixirs”, he helped to catalyze the virus throughout the country.

Considering that we are experiencing biological warfare, the fact of allying with the enemy turns Bolsonaro into a traitor. If the courts do not judge him as such, history will do the job.

However, he is wrong in saying that his mission is “the interests of the majority of our people”. Our people are dying of Covid-19 or other diseases because of overcrowding in the public health system while the President tries to lessen the severity of the disease by challenging the death toll. The interests of the people are a government that thinks about saving lives. His mission, in fact, is to save himself and his own kin.

Trying to interfere politically with the Federal Police to secure information regarding investigations into his family and friends. Attacking the Supreme Court whenever it authorizes operations against hate groups that act to protect him. Allowing the resigning Abraham Weintraub to escape to the United States with a diplomatic passport. Seeking an outlet so that the Queiroz scandal doesn’t drag him into the mud along with his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro.

Focused on himself, he addresses the tragedy as if it were something natural – a contempt that is the product of a narrative that seeks to outsource his responsibility. Because if they happen anyway, as he preaches, nothing that the President can do will interfere with the natural course of the disease, correct?

“Are some going to die from the virus? Yes, they’re going to die,” said Bolsonaro on March 20th. “Unfortunately there will be some deaths. Too bad, it happens, and we’ll move on. The consequences, after these mistaken measures, will be much more harmful than the virus itself,” he said on March 27th.

“We will face the virus with reality. It is life. We will all die one day”, he said on March 29th. “So what? I’m sorry. What do you want me to do? My [middle] name is Messias (Messiah), but I don’t perform miracles,” he said on April 28th. “Are people dying? Yes. Am I sorry? I’m sorry. But many more are going to die a lot, many more, if the economy continues to be torn apart by these [social isolation] measures,” he said on May 14th.

The President continues to believe that tens of thousands of deaths will impact the people less than millions of unemployed. He is therefore concerned with shifting the blame for the drop in GDP to mayors and governors, thinking about his re-election in 2022.

Last week, Brazil reported over 1,200 daily deaths four times. It was as if six TAM planes from the 2007 tragedy had crashed every day for four days.

The death of 50,000 people from a virus makes no sense in a country where the people are the priority of its rulers. In Brazil, it’s “too bad, it happens, and we’ll move on”.

Source: Leonardo Sakamoto, UOL June 21, 2020