Delirious New Year

My intention had been to usher in 2026 with a rendition of the epic 48-hour party we hosted on the roof terrace of our ten-storey apartment block. Clips of the live samba band, of forty people dancing underneath glittering fireworks, of plates of the traditional Bacalhau and of the faithful, jumping ‘seven waves’ in honour of Iemanjá, African goddess of the sea. Nobody will miss Maduro, but visions of attack helicopters and blood red explosions cast a shadow over the prolonged festivities in which the horror memories of Yankee Imperialism came flooding back.  In 1964, American politicians and the CIA actively backed a military coup against the elected left leaning Brazilian president Joao Goulart, a disaster that ushered in a twenty-year dictatorship. The building above on Belo Horizonte’s Avenida Afonso Pena, was a weapon in this assault on democracy. As the former headquarters of the Department of Political and Social Order,  the interior security police, it was part of a nationwide network of similar institutions that were responsible for the dirty everyday business of mass repression – arrest, torture, and murder. Designed in 1958 by Hélio Ferreira Pinto, its incongruous modernist façade hides the machinery of interrogation and incarceration that is spread over its four floors and which includes kennels where dogs were trained to attack political prisoners. Like the Stasi HQ in East Berlin, the most terrifying thing about these places is how stark and ordinary the interior architecture; to paraphrase Hannah Ahrendt, evil reduced to a banal arrangement of offices and cells. Occupied by leftwing militants in 2017, it now functions as a Memorial to Human Rights, a warning as to what happens when democracy is usurped by tyrants backed by the clandestine forces of the United States military. “We want truth, reparations and justice.” “Dictatorship, Never Again,” read two of the banners. Apart from the far right who popped corks at the bombing of Venezuela and envisioned elite troops kidnapping President Lula, the indignation in Brazil was palpable even for those who have no love of Chavismo.  The historical context may be different, but there is good reason for the outrage and fear, not least because Brazil shares a border with Venezuela in an area of the Amazon that boasts untold reserves of oil, gas and rare earth metals. Ever since the sequestration of half of Mexico in 1847, the United States has been messing in the sovereign affairs of virtually every central and south American country. Nicaragua, Cuba, Panama, Haiti, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, Brazil. Like the attack on Venezuela, none of these interventions had anything to do with democracy. It was about the robbery of resources, geo-political interests and the prevention of socialism in ‘America’s backyard.’ For the time being the building occupation continues much to the irritation of the Minas Gerais State governor Romeu Zema, an unapologetic supporter of the extreme right, who denies the crimes of the military dictatorship, is a friend of international mining corporations and a rabid advocate of the privatisation of public services, including water.  Welcome to 2026.