By Pablo Jofré Leal on July 16, 2020
When arrogance prevails, when megalomania and haughtiness are the axis of discourse and action of political authority, the results are often disastrous not only for the person responsible for that behavior but for society as a whole.
This has been the case in Brazil, where the president of this South American country, Jair Mesías Bolsonaro, has contracted the covid-19 after months of minimizing its risk, the danger and the effects it could have on him and the Brazilian population. A president who used to mock the pandemic, describing it as a little cold encouraging people to proceed to a normal life, and he, personally, ignoring the recommendations of social distancing, use of masks and quarantine, especially when visiting the United States when several members of his entourage contracted the disease. The results? Catastrophic!
Today, Brazil is the second country in the world with the highest number of infections and deaths. These figures represent: 76,000 deaths and nearly 2 million Brazilians who have contracted the disease. It is a sad record to be in this position, especially when Bolsonaro was warned that his irresponsible policy would bring dramatic consequences for the population of South America’s largest country.
Brazil is only behind the United States in these numbers of death and pain. Symptomatically, it follows a United States administered by a character with characteristics similar to those of Bolsonaro: megalomaniacal, arrogant, totalitarian, and a denier of medical science and health warnings. Both were driven by their ideas, which would not be a problem if those decisions affected only them, but those who suffer the consequences are precisely their societies, part of the faithful followers of what their leaders plan. In this ranking, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was also affected by the covid-19, after a period of absolute disregard for all personal and public care recommendations and who even had three days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a London hospital, should be included.
When it comes to analyzing and recounting what this fight against the pandemic has been, both Trump and Bolsonaro – and even Johnson if his society considers it so – will have to respond first to their peoples in the way they have handled this health crisis, accompanied, logically, by an economic and social trance whose effects are long-term. It is clear that there must also be a self-criticism of our societies that ends up choosing, to govern their countries, people with insufficient political, technical and human capacities.
Bolsonaro represents the maximum expression of the contempt for the other, the character incapable of having a self-criticism for his way of acting and proof of this is that the same day he announced, in a press conference, that he was infected by the covid-19, he took off his mask at the end of that meeting. President of the Brazilian Press Association (ABI) Paulo Jerónimo de Sousa commented on that by saying, “with this action, President Jair Bolsonaro, breaking the isolation recommended by the doctors, despite knowing that he was infected by covid-19, continues to act in a criminal manner endangering the lives of others.”
For the ABI, the government also violated the country’s health laws by exposing the lives or health of others to direct and imminent danger. It is not possible for the country to attend without reacting to successive behaviors that go beyond irresponsibility and configure clear crimes against public health”. The critical statements don’t seem to bother the arrogant Brazilian president, who even with covid-19, downplays the importance of the disease by pointing out that ” I feel perfectly well” and also informed everyone that he is being treated with hydroxychloroquine, a drug used against malaria whose efficacy is neither proven nor recommended by specialists or the World Health Organization (WHO) but nevertheless Bolsonaro strongly defends it as safe against the disease and influencing people, as happened in the United States where Trump’s views, to face the disease, meant the infecting of thousands of people.
The Brazilian leader, Jair Mesias Bolsonaro, who as an envoy or leader has accomplished absolutely nothing, has proved that he is mortal like all human beings, ephemeral and irresponsible. Will he assume it? Difficult, but it could serve to lower the level of this character, who in March 2020, in the midst of the intensification of the pandemic in Brazil, declared, like an oracle from Delphi, a world-renowned virologist or expert in epidemiology, that “90% of the population will not manifest the virus if they contract it. In my particular case, because of my history as an athlete, if I were to be contaminated by the virus, I would have nothing to worry about, I would not feel anything or at most a little cold”. Bolsonaro should be worried, because neither his past as an athlete nor as a military coup leader protects him from the dangers of covid-19, since only because of his age he is not exempt but rather part of a so-called risk group.
Jair Mesías Bolsonaro is a public danger, his risky behavior should force the health authorities of the South American giant to confine him, to put him in isolation as it is done in many parts of the world, where it is a matter of protecting the population and not privileging economic aspects, which has been the permanent discourse of the Brazilian president, by maintaining that it is essential to keep the economy running. This idea was expressed, for example, through a campaign on social networks “Brazil, can’t stop” that was banned by Judge Laura Bastos in the city of Rio de Janeiro at the request of federal judges. This restriction caused the indignation of Bolsonaro, who usually attacks like a wounded beast, all those who prevent his measures from being carried out: judges, governors, journalists, ministers who end up out of office, as well as police chiefs, among others.
The former captain of the Brazilian army, an apologist for the coup d’état and an admirer of the military man who is being prosecuted for torturing former President Dilma Rousseff, is usually described as a pragmatist, which does not imply intelligence or an outstanding characteristic in someone who has come to occupy the head of the Brazilian executive branch. His self-praised pragmatism is simply the discourse of the mediocre, the one who handles the obvious but expresses the profound contempt for the life of the Brazilian people by comparing the pandemic to other types of deaths. “Will some die? They are going to die, I’m sorry,” he said in response to a journalistic question. We can’t stop the car factory because there are 60,000 traffic deaths a year, right?”
This is true to a certain extent, death cannot be stopped, but policies can be put in place to reduce the risk of death. It is clear that presidents, health authorities, those responsible for our road safety, do not go around calling for skipping the stop sign, running a red light or speeding over the limit. Nor should they do so with regard to the covid-19 whose call is to prevent not assume risky behaviors and contravene the calls of those who represent the health authority.
It is clear that the Brazilian president is not an envoy, someone who generates respect with his actions, he is not someone endowed with miraculous potions. But he has an enormous responsibility, he does not assume it and everything indicates that he will not, because arrogance and the empire of pride pervade his life. “So what, I’m sorry, but what do you want me to do,” the president of Brazil replied to journalists when he was questioned at the end of April about the increase in the number of deaths from covid-19 in the country. “I’m a messiah, but I don’t work miracles,” he added, referring to his middle name. It’s true, it’s the only truth we can extract from a politician who has done so much damage to Brazil, who has become the gravedigger of thousands of Brazilians and who must now fight against a disease that can mean his own definitive silence.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation, North America bureau