What is the common denominator of bozism? – 02/26/2024 – Vera Iaconelli

A woman saying that she wears the Israeli flag because they are “Christians like us”, a man who calls himself liberal and shouts for the return of the dictatorship, a brown boy who prays alongside white supremacists. A legion of patriots who salute the US flag and dream of living in Miami. All set to the sound of Geraldo Vandré, an icon of the left exiled during the dictatorship. These are some flashes from last Sunday, in which the fine flower of bozism returned to the streets.

There is no great merit in filling Avenida Paulista on a sunny Sunday. And some of those who were there already frequent the city’s most celebrated spot every week. Add to this those devastated by the loss, who spent a year experiencing a drastic reduction in their social and motivational life, and we have yet another considerable contribution.

We still have the wealthy, who felt safe participating in the event since the current government never said it intended to machine-gun them. They experienced the hardship of sharing space with poor people, but they did so in the hope of not having to meet them at airports again. And so this Sunday passed, the return of someone who never leaves, always on the lookout to respond to the desires of a people.

The astonishment at the total lack of coherence in Bozista speeches serves as a smokescreen for the question that really matters: what world do they aspire to? A question that was raised by Paul Preçado in “Dysphoria Mundi”, which I have already commented on here.

In the strong Oscar candidate “Zone of Interest”, we have a mother’s visit to the home of her daughter, wife of Rudolf Höss, director of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The mother is enchanted by her daughter’s social climb and conjectures whether so-and-so — a Jewish woman whose house she cleaned — was in the country. It is not a detail that Hedwig Höss’s mother worked as a cleaner in the house of a Jewish family, since now she is the one in a beautiful house with servants. The inversion of power positions is the motto of these relationships.

But she doesn’t seem to fully understand what’s going on behind that wall, where the chimneys constantly expel smoke, but which has the phrase “work makes you free” on its door. The question about the world we want to live well finds different answers between mother and daughter. Watch.

The rationalization of the fact and its denial cannot be justified only through the action of lies. They are the powder that allows unconfessed desires to find a palatable form to be accepted by ourselves. The desire to dominate, to control, to abuse another’s body finds justification not because the facts are distorted, but because they come in handy.

Hence, bringing together evangelicals and Jews under the Christian umbrella, blacks and racists for meritocracy and women against female liberation seems like a small price to pay in the name of a greater demand. It is about the choice to live in a society in which some continue to be exploited by others, but with the intention of becoming part of the exploiters, not the exploited.

Although the damage caused by fake news is immense and the fight against it deserves no respite, we cannot forget that it only serves to feed the cultural broth that serves exclusion and subordination. For the icons of capitalism such as Trump, Musk, Bezos, Lemann, Telles, Sicupira…, the idyllic scene of a world in which we live in peace with our families —always somewhat mafia-like— is only sustained by the denial of the ovens in which our humanity burns.

“Zone of Interest” goes beyond the schematics of films of the genre and allows us to recognize that the exploitation and destruction of minorities is not limited to a historical moment and a people. Here, for example, are the tumbeiros who won’t let us lie.

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