“We should have killed her,” her torturers will have repeated hundreds of times to themselves when they saw her becoming Brazil’s first woman president. Or they would have wanted cancer to make her disappear from the political scene, just like Evita (but temporarily, because she is immortal). Dilma marked a watershed moment in Brazil and Latin America. A woman president overcoming patriarchy and gender inequality. A woman who in government has created policies of gender inclusion and social policies that have benefited millions of outcasts who the oligarchy only see as pawns and who they have exploited for centuries, and want to continue exploiting.
The life of women has always been an uphill struggle; we continue to fight against the worst enemy: patriarchy, from where misogyny and machismo – that is so damaging to us as a society and as a gender – is derived. It is much more difficult for women who dare to challenge the limits and rules imposed on them and actively participate in politics. For being a woman and for having the courage, the dignity and the ability to lead a nation, you pay dearly in Latin America, as both Cristina and Dilma have found out.
Both have been smeared. Much of the post-coup analysis, written by intellectuals and international political analysts condemns and blames her for being a woman.
It is an analysis made by the patriarchy, subjective and with a high level of misogyny and stereotype, with all kinds of insults, contempt and fallacies.
This fraudulent coup against Dilma has been carried out from a position of betrayal, hatred, and jealousy, from a feeling of inferiority, and that’s why it has been so vicious. An attack on progressivism and democracy developed since Lula came to power, and with an increasing dose of hatred when it was Dilma calling the shots: too many women in government, too many African descendants, something intolerable for classism and the oligarchy, and much more so for the patriarchy.
Too many benefits for those hardest hit by the system; the neglected and exploited. Too many improvements for the outcasts, too much life in the favelas, too much visibility for women, and too many rights for the LGBTI community. The progress achieved by Brazil under Dilma as president is undeniable from any point of view.
Her administration was backed by 54 million Brazilians, and overthrown by 50 treacherous votes from the pawns of capitalism. One of the new methods of the Condor Plan: undemocratic coups supported by a media which manipulates and plays politics.
There is not a single piece of evidence to implicate her. Let them leave no stone unturned in looking for it! Her unforgivable sin has been to govern for the vilified and to create policies of inclusion, development and social equality, trying to impose justice in Human Rights, giving voice to the invisible and dreams to the nobodies; there is no oligarchy, neoliberalism or classism that would condone or allow it.
By decapitating Dilma they have hit the hearts of the outcasts, hence the ferocious attack driven by treason. Because at the polls they would lose.
They were unable to succeed against a woman who has put a plate of food on the table and provided a roof over the heads of millions of marginalized people, someone who has created jobs, invested in education, health and infrastructure, someone who has showered the formerly oppressed peripheries with a utopia, someone who backed the BRICS instead of the USA and the oligarchic capital of the region.
This is someone who didn’t sell the oil into the hands of the greedy, someone who has a futuristic vision of regional integration, and someone who wants comprehensive development for Brazilian children in their own country so they are not forced to migrate – unlike in neoliberal countries – towards US exploitation.
This is someone who wants and fights for women rights so that women stop being seen as third class human beings.
Those 54 million Brazilians have the political and human obligation to take to the streets and demonstrate peacefully in defence of their rights. Dilma cannot do it alone, she has defended them during her term in office, and with her life since her adolescence. Never forget that she was tortured by those who now want to destroy her!
Now they have to assert their votes and make their voices heard. No one can defend the rights of the outcasts, except the outcasts themselves. For Dilma, for Brazil, for the favelas. For the right to live in a country that deserves to flourish. For the historical memory, dignity, identity, for human and workers’ rights. For prosperity. For justice, for integrity and love. For those who were, for those who are and for those who will be.
Dilma is unbreakable, they won’t defeat her. But they are not going after her; they want to dismantle the achievements of her progressive government and to destroy the dreams of the outcasts. They want to extinguish the unprecedented beauty of a blooming Brazil. But there is no source of big capital, no oppressor and no treacherous power that has ever been able to subdue the enormous strength of a wounded and honest people. Brazil has to show what it is made of. The time is now. The fight is today.
Now and forever, my love and support for my president Dilma, and my homeland Brazil.
Translated by Marvin Najarro
