Caitríona Balfe Source

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING IN BRAZIL? Brazil is heading into the second round of its presidential election, with Flávio Bolsonaro and Lula competing for the presidency. You probably recognize the first candidate’s last name. His father, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, was in power during the COVID-19 pandemic, when more than 716,000 Brazilians died. His government repeatedly downplayed the crisis, neglected the suffering of our people, and treated our desperation as a joke. His son is not much different. Both have openly expressed admiration for figures associated with Brazil’s 1964 military coup, including torturers and members of the dictatorship. Women were among those who were imprisoned, censored, sexually abused, and tortured during that regime. Flávio Bolsonaro has recently invoked the name of General Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra — one of Brazil’s most notorious torturers — to promote a YouTube livestream and has praised him, just as his father did. Flávio Bolsonaro is also an ally of Donald Trump. Trump has been increasingly involved in Brazil’s political affairs, raising serious concerns about foreign interference in our 2026 elections. There is a growing fear that the United States is seeking to exert control over Brazil and turn our country into a colony once again — this time, an North-American one. And what is perhaps most disturbing is how willing Flávio appears to be to hand Brazil over to Trump. We also cannot forget that Jair Bolsonaro is currently imprisoned following his conviction for attempting to organize a coup against Brazil’s democratic institutions. This followed the January 8, 2023 attacks, when Bolsonaro supporters, enraged by Lula’s electoral victory, stormed Brazil’s government buildings, including the Palácio do Planalto — one of the country’s most important symbols of democracy — vandalizing public property and destroying historical objects and documents. And then there is another alarming part of this story. The most-voted female state representative in the country was a woman who, in many ways, resembles Serena Joy. Eduarda Campopiano describes herself as “the greatest enemy of feminists in São Paulo” — despite the fact that the feminist movement fought for the very rights that allowed her to run for office and be elected. Brazil has laws specifically designed to protect women from domestic violence and to punish gender-based killings. They are known as the Maria da Penha Law and the Femicide Law. Eduarda Campopiano has argued that neither should exist. She claims that “a man does not kill a woman because she is a woman” and that “a man who does not know how to be aggressive is not a man.” She has also said that she thanks God that Europeans colonized and Christianized Brazil’s Indigenous peoples. But there is an uncomfortable reality that cannot be erased from this history: alongside the enslavement of Indigenous peoples and Africans — millions of whom were violently trafficked to the Americas — Indigenous and enslaved women were subjected to sexual violence of European colonization. Brazil’s history of racial mixture cannot be separated from the violence of colonization, slavery, and sexual exploitation. We need all the help we can get. You need to know what is happening in Brazil. This cannot remain inside our country’s political bubble. The world needs to understand what is at stake — and how devastating the consequences could be for Brazil, its democracy, its people, and especially for women and other marginalized communities. Please share this. Talk about Brazil. Pay attention to what is happening here. Our future is at stake.