11 August: book ‘Backstage’ reveals secrets of the letter – 06/08/2023 – Politics

A pact of silence united the main articulators of the “Letter to Brazilian women and men in defense of the democratic rule of law”, signed by more than 1 million people and read on August 11 of last year, at the Faculty of Law of USP .

Throughout the entire process, they refused to share details that might suggest or induce ego feuds. They did not tell who came up with the original idea, did not individualize the wording of the letter, did not disclose the tensions between the various actors involved.

Many of these secrets are now revealed in “Backstage: the Articulation of the Letter to Brazilians and Brazilians in Defense of the Democratic State of Law” (ed. Hucitec), by federal judge Ricardo de Castro Nascimento, 61.

Scheduled for launch this Monday (7), at the Martins Fontes bookshop on Avenida Paulista, the book brings the first-person account of who, it is now known, launched the initial spark of that movement.

“If a dispute for protagonism had been installed, we would not have come this far”, writes the judge, in a reasoning followed by the other articulators of a crucial document to contain the coup impetus fueled by then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

That is why, at the letter reading ceremony, Antonio Roque Citadini, Dimas Ramalho, Luiz Antonio Marrey, Roberto Vomero Mônaco and Thiago Pinheiro Lima, in addition to Nascimento, made a point of not going up on stage or in the pulpits.

The sextet’s decisive role is rescued in “Backstage”. To the set of facts reported by the press, the federal judge adds others, unknown to the general public, but no less important for the chain of events that culminated in the courtyard of São Francisco.

Nascimento, in possession of records on his cell phone, mentions everything from names that were lost in the process to those who took over the proscenium in the final stretch; from remote episodes that only gain relevance in hindsight to those that occurred on national television.

The letter, he writes, is a collective work. “The great secret of its success is not having an owner. I try to explain that. This was the greatest teaching left. It was not easy to tame egos and pressures”, he says in the book.

As was already known, the six articulators, who were joined by Celso Campilongo and Ana Elisa Bechara, director and deputy director of the Faculty of Law, respectively, assumed the paternity of the text.

What was not said, however, is that the initial version fell to Nascimento and that it was from this draft, prepared on June 29, that the others made changes in style and content, with the aim of guaranteeing the supra-party spirit desired by the majority.

Little has always been known about the events that took place between the spark and the fire —or, in other words, between the uncertain idea that Nascimento started dating in March and its viability from the end of June, with the fortuitous formation of the group of organizers.

“Bastidores” sheds light on these moments of joy, as well as on the fears that its author felt — for example, when he learned that there was already a reading of a manifesto by entities scheduled for August 11, also at USP.

Although he followed a lot of things, Nascimento didn’t see everything, and he makes a point of saying so: “I didn’t have direct participation in important passages, as they were the responsibility of other agents in the process. I didn’t try to find out how they happened. “.

He also writes: “I chose to write in the first person, assuming partiality. I do not want and should not have a monopoly on possible narratives”.

In particular, Nascimento was less present in the organization of the act itself, whose preparations were in charge of the Faculty of Law and the Prerogativas group, also responsible for attracting artists to the political manifestation.

Campilongo and Bechara, who write the preface to “Bastidores”, affirm that Ricardo Nascimento’s account is faithful, but say: “Of course, other reconstructions may reveal unexplored or unknown perspectives by the author. He himself highlights this possibility”.