A Brazilian Congressman was found guilty of embezzlement and organized crime earlier this year and sentenced to 13 years in jail, thus becoming the first parliamentarian in almost three decades to be imprisoned while holding elected office.
Last night, his colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies voted that Natan Donadon should not lose his parliamentary perks.
Brazil’s hated political class could not have sent a clearer message to their citizens.
Your protests against corruption, abuse of power and impunity were a waste of time. Their vote last night said, “We don’t care what you think.” It screamed, “Business as usual.”
The mass protests that shook Brazil in June lasted just a few weeks and only a hard core have continued protesting in the weeks and months since. (I explain some of the reasons here.)
But if Brazilians really want change, then this is the time to act. It is at moments like this they must make their voices heard. They must tell their politicians that such decisions are unacceptable.
Impunity is the grease that oils the wheels of corruption. It is time to take to the streets again and say, once again, Enough is Enough.
ANDREW DOWNIE'S BRAZIL BLOG 
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August 30, 2013 at 7:29 am
Mari
O Brasil ainda é um país de pessoas despolitizadas. A maioria nem se lembra em quem votou na última eleicao. Podemos citar vários motivos que levam o brasileiro a nao se interessar por política: a falta de escolaridade, a distância fisica de Brasília da maioria dos brasileiros, a falta de cultura em se discutir política no dia a dia, a estabilidade econômica do Brasil desde a estabilizacao do Real (o que leva à uma relativa tranquilidade política), e como já dito na matéria, a impunidade.
Desde o impeachment do Collor, o Brasil nao vivenciou mais nenhum grande protesto politico. Alguns casos que me vêm agora à cabeca: escândalo dos anoes do orcamento, dos vários bancos que quebraram – Banestado, Noroeste, Econômico, Santos – Escândalo da Mesbla, dos Bingos, dos Correios, Celso Daniel. Em nenhum desses casos me lembro de ter visto alguma comocao social nas ruas.
Os brasileiros ainda têm uma relacao de “clientela” com seus políticos. Eles nao vêem os politicos como seus representantes, mas sim, como um mero despachante que resolvem problemas de cunho particular – o que sempre dá brecha pros tais “votos de cabresto”. Maluf era conhecido como o político do “rouba mas faz”, e por incrível que pareca, ainda é um pouco essa a mentalidade que persiste sobre os politicos no Brasil. O importante é fazer algo, de preferência algo individual. O resto é irrelevante.
Isso dito, temos que distinguir agora o motivo a que levaram os brasileiros a protestarem em junho. Na ocasiao, a razao principal foi o aumento das passagens, ou seja, um motivo econômico, que atinge diretamente o dia a dia das pessoas (o bolso). Claro que depois que o movimento tomou proporcoes maiores, os motivos dos protestos também eram outros – impunidade, corrupcao, entre outras coisas viraram alvo dos protestos) – mas o que desencadeou o movimento foi um motivo meramente econômico.
Assim, nao acredito que os brasileiros vao sair às ruas pra protestarem sobre “mais” um caso de corrupcao com impunidade. Um professor na faculdade de Direito dizia: “na época da Ditadura, nao se podia protestar. Hoje em dia, nao adianta protestar“. Esse desânimo social vem dos motivos que elenquei acima, tendo como um dos principais a impunidade.
É uma pena que os brasileiros estao perdendo a oportunidade de usar os protestos como mecanimo de mudancas sociais. A falta da cobranca popular gera nos politicos a sensacao de que podem fazer o que querem. Dizem que o poder por si só corrompe. Um poder, sem controle popular, corrompe absolutamente e é muito perigoso.
September 12, 2013 at 6:38 am
Natália
I’m sorry sir, but what exactly legitimates a pacific protest and discards a violent one? Protests are protests, right? The mean anger and unsatisfaction. I’ve been researching about what the gringos thought about the protests in Brazil, if they could see better how everything started (sadly everyone in the world is confused about how and why it started) and ended up here. This is your last post here, but then I saw your last tweets. Here you talk about brazilians having to take up the streets again but there you call the only people who are actually still protesting as troublemakers. I don’t quite get it, what’s the problem with black blocs?
Here in Sao Paulo after those MPL events, the streets were freaking empty! Nor pacific or violent people continued to shout for the change they wanted. Rio kept going though and with all the repression some people here organized an act to show that we supported the cariocas. It’s curious that most people who actually showed up were black blocs. There were like 400 people, 300 were ok with breaking up stuff (oh the vandals). How did they scare other protesters if they were majority? Middle class abandoned the streets cause “being a rebel” takes too much effort and the tear gas bombs aren’t that fun.
September 12, 2013 at 12:05 pm
andrewdownie
Natalia,
I never ever said that violent protest is not legitimate. It can be.
But the violence of the black blocs doesn’t fall into that category, in my opinion. The problem with the black blocs is that they are essentially doing the bidding of the government. They are effectively agents for the status quo.
How? It’s very simple: Their senseless violence has scared the ordinary protesters (the ones that came out in June). So now there is no longer any overwhelming presence on the streets or clamour for change. That means authorities don’t feel the same pressure as before. They can paint the protesters (who may have legitimate gripes) as radicals, not as representative of the masses. That enables them to do nothing.
Thanks for commenting and I’m happy to continue debating…
Cheers, Andrew
September 15, 2013 at 6:15 am
Natália
Sorry, only saw your reply today!
Any kind of protest is legitimate, we aren’t able to judge the ones that wouldn’t be considerated legit. Which would be the criteria anyways?
In my opinion it’s crystal clear that BBs are against the status quo, they try to show all those flaws of the government (not to mention our capitalist system) that people choose to ignore. The racist side of Brazil, the violent PM that we have, the unconstitutional laws that some states adopt (and how it’s quite easy to get away with it), the indifference of our representatives when facing people’s needs, etc etc. There are a lot of messages that a person can get seeing black blocs acting but no one can say it’s senseless violence (what’s the concept of violence anyways? have you realized that no protester was beaten up by them?).
Oh our midia is really something else. They pick anyone to paint as a violent radical. Do you remember the beginning of the MPL protests here in Sao Paulo? The very beginning, not that cold thursday night where people (read: middle class) actually gave a fuck about what was happenning ( which was maybe the 5th event, I’m not sure). Before that thursday every one in our “traditional” midia was saying the same thing: rebels without a cause, vandals interfering the traffic and making the real worker’s life hell. Now the funny thing is: the protests were getting bigger even with the midia calling them vandals. It was a fucking amazing thing to see, really, each event had more people and black blocs were there too my friend. Banks were broken at the time, barricades were made, stones were thrown! shit, even the anarchists flags could be seen. According to you, this should’ve enabled them to do nothing and yet, it was the sparkle for Brazil’s most puzzling moment in history.
September 15, 2013 at 6:59 am
Natália
Tbh, I think that if the protests were in fact pacific, nothing would’ve happened, passeatas are tiriding and people here were not that involved with their causes to do some passeatas everyday. I’m doing some research and since the 3rd act in SP for free transportation there’s this being pacificXvandalizing discussion. So, since the beginning, people of the same group try to argue the best way of protesting (man, aren’t we stupid or what hahaha). In POA the bus fare was reduced before here and some people from there commented about this same discussion happening in their events and how yes they didn’t agree with being “violent”, but it did call attention to their movement and without this the government wouldn’t have heard them.
This makes sense, direct action needs a mass so they can pass their message and so the repression isn’t so hard on them and the mass wants their needs attended and for that they need our representatives attention that the radicals get. Now this is the tricky part, I get that the millions who went to the streets after that thursday in SP were a consequence of the midia’s overturn, but before that, why was the protest getting bigger? This is why it isn’t BBs fault that the people aren’t on the streets protesting, all of the protests that happened in june had some violence involved and they continued and they worked.
September 19, 2013 at 10:59 am
Mari
Natalia, I think there are some points that need to be sorted out here.
1)First one, yes, protests are protests, violent or pacific ones. And yes, they are both legitimate practices. If the violent ones are acceptable practices, that is the question.
So, what kind of protests do most people want for the future? I think people have already answered this question by not showing up on the streets anymore since violence in protests started after the big pacific ones in June.
So, that means, people want pacific protests. And the more violence, the less people will be willing to protest, which is a pity.
Having said that, another point you mentioned is: (2) do all protests with the BB really end up badly, or is the media exaggerating the whole thing so to demoralize the popular movements? The more radicals might even say that media is together with the government (em CONLUIO! Adoro essa palavra em português rs) in this in order to contain public fury… This we will never know for sure…
By reading your posts I noticed (3) you try to justify violence by saying that if it weren´t for violence, all those big protests wouldn´t have happened on the first place. You may be right about that but does that mean that violence has to be always a part of the future protests? For me nothing justifies violence. I know it might be a “chavao”, but Mahatma Gandhi did not achieve India´s independence (and much more) with violence, but with nonviolent resistance. Yes, violence might have been the sparkle of the protests, but they cannot be the way to lead the protests in the future.
Last point, about the (4)middle class abandoning the protests, onn Andrew´s post about the protests “is it the beginning or the end” I also wrote some reasons why I thought it would be the end. Among them are the “modismo “ of the Brazilians, the lack of attention of the media and what you also mentioned “being a rebel” takes too much effort..rs
BTW, about your words “being a rebel” takes too much effort and the tear gas bombs aren’t that fun, I think you don´t need to be middle class to think that bombs aren´t fun rs (unless you are a kamikaze middle class ha ha). Brincadeiras à parte, we all know that we Brazilians live in a culture of fear. We are scared to death of violence. Everyone in Brazil knows someone who has been at least robbed or worse than that – deusmelivre! – if not himself as well. This combined with “Datenas da vida” generates the culture of fear in Brazil. So, if there is any sign of violence in the protests, of course this will scare away people, after all, we have to live with fear of violence in our daily lives, so why should I bother to put myself on purpose in danger? Again, you don´t need to be middle class to do this math rs.
September 15, 2013 at 1:33 pm
andrewdownie
Natalia, you miss my point.
The BB might be against the status quo but as I said before, “it is largely because of their actions that the protests have run out of steam.” I explain why above.
The mass protests, after that Thursday, started mainly because the police crackdown was so out of kilter.