By J.R. Guzzo*
(Opinion) The Lula government, that apostle of good that saved democracy in Brazil, has just announced the creation of a “Department for the Promotion of Freedom of Expression,” another arm of its increasingly aggressive Ministry of Propaganda.
To link Lula’s name to the idea of democracy is one of the great fairy tales of the 21st century, but this farce has become the only truth in Brazil and the world today.
What can we do? If the guy disagrees, he will be called a coup plotter, a terrorist, and even a Bolsonarist.
Even so, the facts are the facts, and the concrete actions of Lula and his government are the exact opposite of anything related to democracy.
The most recent proof of this is the so-called “department”, or “secretariat”, or “committee”, or whatever, “to promote” “freedom of speech” in Brazil.
It is an outrage.
Lula has just created a new police force to control what citizens say in public.
There was already one in the Public Ministry; now they have doubled it.
The idea itself is obviously absurd: who ever heard, at any time in history, that freedom of speech should be handed over to a public office? There is no such thing.
Every time they get into the matter, governments restrict public and individual freedoms; they have never left people freer to express themselves.
It will inevitably happen again with this latest invention of the Lula government.
Or does anyone honestly think that the department of freedom promotion will encourage Brazilians to criticize the government more or to denounce what they think is wrong?
Of course, this will not happen. What there will be is censorship.
You can’t set up a watchdog group, which in this case will be composed solely of left-wing militants, give them the authority to judge what the population says – and think, at the same time, that they are not going to cut, block and forbid things that they read, hear or watch.
To say, as the government is saying and many people automatically repeat, that this deal was set up to “combat disinformation” is a lie in its pure state.
“Disinformation?” What is that? For the left, which has become the sole inspector of truth in Brazil, disinformation is everything that government does not want to be published in the media and social networks.
That is it, and only that.
If there was a modicum of honesty in this fervor to rid Brazil of the evils of “disinformation,” the new government censors could begin their work by punishing President Lula.
He has just said in public, once again, that Dilma Rousseff was overthrown by a “coup d’état” – when even a 10-year-old child knows perfectly well that she was thrown out of office by a 100% legal process of impeachment, including the direct supervision of the Supreme Court in every step of the procedure.
How is it possible to say that this was a “coup”? That’s not “disinformation” – that’s a lie.
The truth fighters, of course, will do nothing about it.
Governments in free countries have only one role regarding freedom of thought: to enforce laws ensuring citizens have the right to say everything they think and loudly.
The rest is dictatorship talk.
*Journalist and columnist at Revista Oeste and O Estado de S. Paulo
With information from Revista Oeste