The Shape of Things to Come

At the age of sixty-seven, I have finally joined the army, the “Exército de Lula.” In a response to the far-right domination of social media, ably abetted by Meta who have declared that the blocking of sites associated with PT and the Brasilian left was the result of technical glitches, Janones, a lawyer and Federal Deputy for Minas Gerais launched a WhatsApp counter campaign. From a following of sixty thousand two weeks ago, it now numbers eight and half million, including my good self. The mobilisation of the left on the streets and digital airwaves has been remarkable and has threatened the far right’s presumption of victory. As of this morning, it stands at a straight 50-50 draw. In the midst of an avalanche of dirty tricks, lies and insults, backed by a determined attempt by right wing lawyers to suspend the ‘Exército’, it is not clear what will happen in Sunday’s vote. What is certain however, is what will happen to Brasil if the Bolsonaristas gain power. The function of dystopian literature is not to predict the future but to critically analyse the present, and if you want to know what Brasil will look like if the Bolsonaristas win, you could do no better than to read Bernardo Kucinski’s, short novel A Nova Ordem (2019). It depicts a dictatorship reminiscent of Zamyatin, Orwell and Huxley but with a modern twist in which fascism, neo-liberal fundamentalism and scriptural evangelical Christianity are woven together in an ideological nightmare that is so extreme it borders on the absurd. The copious footnotes that appear on every other page list the new laws passed by the New Order government and reads like a compendium of all the reactionary policy decisions taken by authoritarian governments around the world over the last hundred years. Here is a taste. Using a combination of techniques adapted from the Inquisition, Nazism, Psychoanalysis and Scientology, the police interrogate citizens to capture their dreams. The teaching of sociology, philosophy, literature and history is banned and replaced by creationism. Taliban like restrictions on clothing and music are introduced. Utopians, a catch all phrase for any opponent of the regime, are hunted down like animals. The legal protection of quilombos and indigenous reserves is abolished. The Movimento de Sem-Terra, MST, trade unions and cooperatives are criminalised. Labour protection laws and the prohibition of slavery are repealed. Brasil’s oil reserves and mineral resources are auctioned off to the highest bidder. The requirement to protect the rain forest is annulled and Brasil exits from all climate-change accords. Conservation organisations like the Chico Mendes Institute, the National Agency for Water and the system of National Parks are all dismantled. Article 4 liberates the use of all forms of agro-toxins without regard for the presence of mutant genes or carcinogens, whilst Article 9 orders the complete deforestation of the Amazon and its incorporation into the New Programme of the Accelerated Expansion of Agricultural Frontiers. Welcome to the future.[1]

[1] The title is of course an homage to H.G.Wells novel (1933) memorably transcribed onto celluloid in William Cameron Menzies 1936 film epic which for the architects amongst us has a memorable sequence that shows the city of tomorrow being prefabricated by giant machines.