Solidarity with Brazil is Imperative Against the Global Rise of Fascism

2015 protest in São Paulo against the police killing of Afro-Brazilian youth.

We are writing this statement to extend our solidarity to our comrades in Brazil, who are facing a rising fascist threat in their country. We commit ourselves to building a resistance to right-wing authoritarianism in Brazil, the US, and around the world.

Far-right figure Jair Bolsonaro’s win in Brazil’s most recent presidential election is cause for alarm for anyone concerned with the fight against oppression. Bolsonaro is a misogynist who has spoken casually about raping women.  He supports the use of torture and speaks with nostalgia about Brazil’s twenty-one year dictatorship.

Bolsonaro’s election is the latest development in a series of disturbing events in Brazil. In 2016, the right wing impeached leftist president Dilma Roussef—the first female president of Brazil—ending her presidency not with a democratic election, but with a quiet coup. In that same year, left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was jailed and he has remained in prison ever since. A Brazilian electoral court then prevented Lula from running in the most recent Presidential election while he appealed his case. And earlier this year, Black, queer, socialist militant and politician Marielle Franco was assassinated in Rio de Janeiro while she was on way home from delivering a speech.

Left: rally in support of Dilma and Lula. Right: Bolsonaro at a rally.

As Black activists who build solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, our outlook is always one that connects freedom struggles around the world with our struggles within the borders of the US state. As internationalists, we know that the fates of oppressed groups of people around the world are bound up with each other; we rise or fall together. 

We also know that our enemies support each other and work together to undermine democracy and people’s liberation movements. The United States for instance, has long been a friend of dictatorships and reactionary violence around the world, and with Trump as president, we know that Bolsonaro has a friend in the White House. The U.S. has a history of meddling in the politics countries around the world, specifically, funding right-wing opposition movements and inciting coups in Latin America. 

In 2013, WikiLeaks revealed that the NSA was spying on world leaders, including former President Roussef and members of her administration. Wikileaks also revealed that Rouseff’s successor, Michele Temer was an informant for US intelligence services. With the U.S. government’s long history of supporting right-wing coups and interfering in the politics of countries around the world, its spying capabilities and its alignment with Brazil’s corporate right-wing, it has undermined and continues to undermine democracy in Brazil.  It must be stopped.

We are concerned for Indigenous peoples, as Bolsonaro calls for the seizure of more Native land to feed the desires of Brazilian and international corporations and banks. We are concerned for LGBTQ people and women, whom Bolsonaro speaks about with hateful contempt.  We are concerned for migrants, who are particularly vulnerable to Bolsonaro’s nationalism. We are concerned for the poor and working class of Brazil, who will suffer because of Bolsonaro’s policies.

On the left, Marielle Franco, the Black, queer, socialist politician who was assassinated earlier this year. On the right, Brazilians marching for justice against her killers.

We are also concerned for Afro-Brazilians, who already face alarming levels of state violence and who Bolsonaro explicitly denigrates.  We want to call attention to this population—and what it is facing--in particular. More enslaved Africans were sent to Brazil than any other country during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and Brazil today has the largest population of African descent outside of the continent. The result is that the largest Black populations in the Americas each live and struggle under right wing rule. It is essential for us to learn more about the conditions of our family in Brazil and to resist the U.S.’ efforts to further destabilize the country.

Posters by Carlos Latuff representing solidarity and shared experiences of state violence between Palestinians and Brazilians.

Black for Palestine specifically offers our support to the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), a mass movement in Brazil that has helped almost 400,000 landless families settle on land that corporations stole from the people. The MST offers international solidarity and training to peoples’ struggles around the world, including the Black struggle here, Palestine, and movements on the African continent, from South Africa to Tanzania and Kenya. Bolsonaro wants to designate the MST as a terrorist organization and police have recently raided and attacked MST encampments. From the Palestinian resistance to the Black Panthers, we reject the work of oppressive states to criminalize and delegitimize our resistance. We offer our unequivocal solidarity and gratitude to the MST.

Lastly, as activists especially concerned with building solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, we are not surprised that Bolsonaro is a vocal supporter of the Israeli state.  Following after Trump, Bolsonaro wants to move the Brazilian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This action is meant to embolden ever aggressive Israeli violence. 

With friends like these, our enemies should be clear.

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We call on others where we are and around the world to join us in building solidarity with our comrades in Brazil. We will do what we can to contribute to that solidarity. From the streets of US cities to Brazil, to Palestine, we fight with each other and for each other.