Ji Temple, Jia Min
Will Lula get another chance to change Brazil?
Brazil's upcoming presidential elections are of great importance: whether to allow Bolsonaro's reactionary, corrupt, right-wing rule to continue for another four years, or to return Brazil's most transformative president, Lula, ever.
The choice faced by Brazilian voters on October 2 could not have been clearer: either Bolsonaro will remain in charge for another four years, with hundreds of thousands of deaths and record destruction of the Amazon rainforest during his tenure as gun-loving and God-fearing populist; Or let Lula, the representative of the Workers' Party who ruled Brazil from 2003 to 2010, return.
On August 28, 2022, local time, São Paulo, Brazil, former Brazilian President Lula da Silva appeared on the screen during the first televised presidential debate.
While Lula's two terms led to a significant rise in working-class living standards and some incremental reforms, allegations of corruption (mostly baseless and maliciously exploited by the right) and a judicial coup against his successor, Dilma Rousseff, fueled opposition that eventually led to Bolsonaro's rise to power in 2018. Since becoming president, Bolsonaro has privatized as much as possible, scaled back social welfare programs, and fostered a toxic climate of chauvinism and resentment.
Lula, who is making a comeback politically after being jailed on false corruption charges four years ago, is now declaring that he will "defeat the totalitarian threat" and "rebuild and transform Brazil," but the stakes are high.
With more than a month to go before voters vote, Brazilian ecosocialist Sabrina Fernandes briefed Loren Balhorn of the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation on Bolsonaro's poor record, his opposition to the current president and what the left can learn from the campaign experience. The interview was published in the journal Jacobin and is excerpted below.
How has Brazil changed during Bolsonaro's four years?
Former interim President Michel Temer has embarked on an austerity agenda and a retrogressive reform of workers' rights and pensions. When Bolsonaro came to power, he laid out a plan to dismantle more things, such as privatizing public companies. His economy minister, Paul Guedes, is considered an overall success by Bolsonaro's supporters, but they actually want to privatize more companies, such as Brazil's post office Correios, or Petrobras, the petrobras.
Covid-19 is supposed to be a time to demonstrate the power of public health care. But because of the austerity program implemented during temer' time, and further pushes by Bolsonaro, the government claimed no money.
Do you think Bolsonaro has a coherent ideological agenda, or is he more of a right-wing opportunist serving Brazilian capital?
I think the easiest way to describe Bolsonaro is to be a liberal conservative.
Nor is he a big protectionist. His economic agenda is really playing with imperialist power. His connection to Donald Trump is important here. When Trump was president of the United States, Bolsonaro felt like he really had a connection with the United States because of Brazil's main ally in the region. We are coming out of the "pink tide". Many right-wing governments have come to power throughout Latin America, such as Argentina and Chile, followed by coups in Bolivia, and Bolsonaro sees himself as part of that trend.
As far as the international capitalist class is concerned, Bolsonaro ensures that foreign shareholders of Brazilian companies benefit and that foreign investors have access to Brazilian land. But the traditional Brazilian elite is probably the happiest, especially the agribusiness. Even though Bolsonaro was not a traditional protectionist, he had always served the interests of the national capitalist class.
What about the working people during his presidency? Has the social achievements of Lula's government been reversed?
One of Lula's biggest victories in his first term was his anti-hunger program. Brazil has a huge food insecurity in its history, and Lula has made it a priority to eliminate it. He launched a program called Home Zero (or Zero Hunger), which combines school food programs, expanding state reserves to help regulate food prices, credit, and cash transfers. Lula is so proud of these initiatives that the Family Grant may be the most successful conditional cash transfer program in the world that the World Bank uses it as a model. It may not be very aggressive, but it is very important.
Now, under Bolsonaro's leadership, Brazil is back to a deep state of food insecurity. This is reflected in the data, but you can also just look at it, we have more people rummaging through the trash cans for food, picking up bones in the back of the butcher shop because they can't afford meat, and so on.
Brazil has always been quite dangerous for environmentalists and indigenous activists, but it has gotten worse under Bolsonaro. This is combined with the overall destruction of nature. Bolsonaro bears a great deal of responsibility for this. Female suicide rates and gender-based violence rates are also alarmingly high.
From all angles, we can see the deterioration of people's ability to live. It's not just that more than 600,000 people died during the pandemic, it's not just about Bolsonaro's delays in getting vaccines, or his refusal to take appropriate action to stop the spread of the virus.
If Bolsonaro is such a disaster, how do we understand his rise in the first place? How was he able to beat the once very popular and successful alliance? After all, there wasn't even a political machine behind him.
There is a common explanation that is linked to much of the analysis surrounding the pink tide and the commodity boom of the time. These governments place great emphasis on redistribution, but because the economic pie is growing, record high profits can go hand in hand with redistribution. This means that some of the elites are quite satisfied with social projects because they are also winning. When the economic crisis comes, these capitalists try to change the rules of the game to preserve their profits.
It's certainly part of the story, but I think it's more than that. To understand Bolsonaro, we need to talk about the role of conservative and Christian fundamentalist leaders who are unhappy with the progressive policies of the Labor government. For example, the Afro-Brazilian movement has long campaigned for affirmative action policies, some of which were implemented under the leadership of the Brazilian Labor Party. This is enough to change the perception of some of the middle class.
The Workers' Party is a democratization project, but it is also a project to raise the consciousness of the working class. Over time, some of the middle class began to see themselves separate from the working class.
Conservatism and the historical privileges enjoyed by certain parts of Brazilian society also played a role. Some are upset to see that their domestic cleaners now have more rights to travel with them or hang out in the same mall. This caused discontent among the middle class and even parts of the working class, which was then amplified by allegations of government corruption.
How is Lula doing in the current campaign?
It is clear that Lula could not have won with a vote of the "pure" left, and they had to choose from the center-right.
For me, the problem wasn't that they chose someone from the center-right — which I expected — but with the specific person they chose, Geraldo Alckmin. The latter served four terms as governor of São Paulo State and has been linked to many acts of corruption. He also came from a political party that helped launch a smear campaign against the left and promoted fake news before it appeared.
Many on the Brazilian left believe that Alckmin is the key to victory. It's not just a small group of people from Lula or the Labour Party. Part of Lula's social movement base was pleased with Alkmin's presence.
We'll have to see how it turns out, but I think it hurts him, especially in the state of São Paulo, where poor communities are really miserable under his rule. When the teachers' union went on strike, they were beaten by the police. When you say, "Listen, I know this guy is bad for you, but you have to deal with him because that's the guy we need to win." "There's a credit problem.
The coalition behind Lula takes the fight against Bolsonaro very seriously. If Lula's main opponent had not been Bolsonaro but other moderate center-right figures, he might not have pursued the same strategy. But now in order to purge Bolsonaro, there is a tendency to accept certain things in the campaign just to make sure Bolsonaro is kicked out.
You say that despite all the criticism and limitations, Lula is still the best president Brazil has ever had. At the same time, none of his far-left critics have had much success in advancing a more radical agenda. Do you think that in building a left-wing majority, is it possible to draw any general lessons from the historical record of the Brazilian Labour Party?
One of the main problems we have in Brazil is that our politics is very focused on the institutions we have built — trade unions, political parties and social movements — rather than on how to make these projects resonate with the rest of society. One of the challenges is that our left often eats its own. We're fighting for the same foundation, but we're not too concerned about how to expand it.
I'm not sure if the left has learned this lesson, especially if Lula comes back and people are used to thinking that an electoral basis is enough. But at least some in the PT leadership are aware of this. If they want to implement some of Lula's bolder proposals, they will have to get people back on the streets. They will have to mobilize.
You mentioned the "pink wave," in which Lula's victory was part of a wave of left-wing governments in Latin America, and the setbacks it has faced over the past decade. After a string of electoral victories in Bolivia, Colombia and elsewhere, what impact do you think Lula's victory will have on Latin America?
The fact that Lula is a very skilled politician has also helped a lot in terms of Latin American integration. If he does win, assuming there is no coup, he will be very important for strengthening relations between these new progressive governments, as well as for reconciling some tensions. For example, there is definitely tension between Chile's Boric government and Venezuela's Maduro government, and I think Lula can help with that.
Lula is also key to dialogue around alternative governance institutions in the region, such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and against U.S. hegemonism on the continent. But his influence extends far beyond Latin America. Lula attaches great importance to South-South cooperation involving BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and other partnerships. At the same time, he is also highly regarded in Europe and the United States, especially because Bolsonaro has performed badly.
Can green agriculture feed the world?
Under the impact of the climate crisis, the human food system will change. The New York Review of Books recently published a review of the new book Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, with an australian mammalian and environmental protection expert Tim Flannery exploring the future of agriculture and food.
George Monbiot, author of Regeneration, is a British environmental writer and environmental advocate. Even if the climate impacts aren't as severe as some predict, industrial agriculture and the so-called global standard diets it creates are environmentally unsustainable and are rapidly destroying the planet's soil, and we are already on the brink of a worldwide catastrophe. The window of time we can use to reshape the food system is very short.
At the beginning of the book, Mobio explores the tempting idea that we can at least grow some food in our backyard or near our yard. Anyone who has eaten the fruits and vegetables in their yard knows that homegrown organic food is not only a source of nutrition, but also a source of pride and satisfaction. But even growing a lettuce is difficult. If insecticides are not used, slugs and snails are caught at night and caterpillars are caught during the day. To prevent the destruction of larger pests or animals, plants are surrounded by fences, and crops must be watered and fertilized if they want to thrive. The patronage of the god of the weather is also indispensable. As a professional, Mobio understands that these difficulties make growing even a small portion of food as a supplement a time-consuming and uncertain task. He rented a plot of land in Oxford to grow apple trees, and his orchard is already experiencing the effects of climate change. In the spring, with pleasant days and warm nights, the orchards produced more fruit than ever before, but by mid-May a severe frost killed every fruit in every tree.
In the book, Mobio also describes that every square foot of the orchard is inhabited by thousands of species, from centipedes to jumping insects, and every tiny organism plays its part in maintaining the ecological health of the place. In contrast, most fields are bio-deserts, as modern agricultural practices increasingly use hydroponic models, requiring only nutrients and water to be added to a sterile growth medium. Commercial farmland is therefore unable to maintain its fertility and ecological balance. Instead, large amounts of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides must be used each year, which flow into adjacent lands and waterways and poison entire ecosystems. For a small number of large enterprises that monopolize the supply of food, the system is incredibly profitable. They have monopoly markets where farmers have to buy nutrients and additives for their crops. At the same time, farmers around the world have to pay for water. For many, this became a form of servitude, leading to an increase in debt and despair. Forced to live in isolation in an environment that has been destroyed and lost its natural beauty, and watching mortgages grow more steadily than crops, some even begin to wonder if it is worth living. In some areas, the suicide rate among farmers is frighteningly high, especially in India. Even in wealthy countries like France, Britain, the United States and Australia, farmer suicide rates are almost twice as high as the entire population.
On the one hand, the price of food is too low for many farmers to make a living, but for many consumers and even consumers in developed countries, food is still too expensive, and many people are experiencing hunger and malnutrition. Mobio found at the local food bank that the freshest and healthiest food was in short supply. The short shelf life of fresh products is a problem on the one hand, and the food supply system itself on the other. Supermarkets, he wrote, do not need to pay suppliers if they are not sold, so supermarkets tend to over-order and then donate excess goods to charities in exasperation. Processors and packers further up the food chain are not directly related to shoppers, and even if they throw away most of the food they handle, there will be no loss in terms of corporate reputation.
Food banks are often crammed with highly processed foods that contain a lot of fat and sugar, and people who rely on these foods are prone to obesity and malnutrition. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, a good diet is five times more expensive than a diet that simply provides enough calories, and a high proportion of diabetes, heart and circulation problems triggered by an incomplete diet can lead to early death. Many experts claim that obese people suffer from a lack of "willpower" and are "irresponsible" for their diets, ignoring the disastrous consequences of poverty and inequality. Mobio believes that "obesity is an infectious disease, and its vector is enterprise".
Our food production system is also not safe. The origin of staple foods in the global standard diet is increasingly concentrated in a few regions and then distributed across the globe. This seems irrational given the effects of the climate, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict further reveals the folly of this approach. Ukraine and Russia account for almost a third of global wheat and barley exports, and the conflict disrupts the production and trade of these staple foods, with a huge impact on importers in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
The overuse of chemical fertilizers, glyphosate (the main component of widely used herbicides and also suspected carcinogens), combined with soil-damaging farming practices, has destroyed the most viable soils on Earth and the wider environment. It's not just chemicals that cause environmental damage. Due to poor legislation and inadequate environmental protection, the boom in factory farming is destroying the rivers of England. Mobio tracked the pollution in the upper reaches of the Waiyi River and found that the source of pollution was often a giant steel barn holding 40,000 chickens. An estimated 20 million chickens exist in the Wai river basin, and rainwater washes their droppings into the river, killing fish and other aquatic life. In New Zealand, which cherishes its "clean, green" image, the waste of the dairy industry is turning once pure rivers into stinky gutters.
Mobio called for an end to the cycle of destruction, but he examined a range of potential solutions and found that none of them were satisfactory. For example, the idea of growing food in cities was rejected because he believed that there was not enough land in the city and that the problem with vertical cultivation was energy and other costs, but he still agreed that growing food locally could be "greatly beneficial to mental health." He also argues that rapidly spreading alternative farming methods will not help. He believes that the use of biochar or the incineration of organic matter can increase the productivity of the soil, but it is too expensive; Increasingly popular livestock management methods, such as rotational grazing, seemed to him to be of little use. But in Flannery's view, Mobio was too hasty and general in denying these moves. The cost of biochar may decrease as production methods improve, and in some cases rotational grazing is of great benefit to the environment. In Australia, where 90 per cent of the land is not adapted to agricultural production, methods such as rotational grazing have led to significant soil and biodiversity restoration. Flannery argues that Mobio's book focuses on Britain and is powerful in describing the details of some of the problems and solutions, but this local view is an obstacle here.
Mobio believes that one of the keys to solving these problems is the widespread adoption of diets that do not include animal products, but he is also happy to admit that even adopting a universal vegetarian diet is still not enough, because growing crops is extremely destructive in itself.
In his search for answers, Mobio met a number of British farmers who tried differently. Iaean Tolhurst, known as Toli, rented 7 hectares of flint-covered land on a cliff overlooking the River Thames and, after years of trial and error, developed many unique cultivation methods for stony fields. The year before his interview with Mobio, Toli harvested 120 tons of vegetables and fruits without using any pesticides, herbicides, minerals, animal droppings or any other fertilizers. At the same time, soil fertility increases, and the farm becomes a paradise for a rich and diverse wildlife. However, the price behind this was a lot of manpower investment, and Tory worked all day, employing 12 workers in the peak season, but the profits were very small, and he had to rely on his half pension, consulting fees and price control of the rent to survive. Tim Ashton, a farmer in Shropshire, works "no-till" on 500 acres of grain-growing land. He uses herbicides to eliminate weeds and then drills the seeds into the soil. The system has shown resilience in the face of climate change, and four years later crop yields have returned to farming levels, fertilizer use has been reduced by 85 percent, fossil fuel consumption has been greatly reduced, and the biggest problem is the use of glyphosate. Like Torrey's farm, his farm has a meager income and must be sustained by other incomes. Flannery felt that the entire agricultural system was so fragmented that it was impossible to reform.
In Finland, Mobio met Pasi Vainikka, the founder of Solar Foods. The startup explored a potential solution to the food crisis, which Mobio called "the beginning of the end of most agriculture." The breakthrough included growing a strange bacterium called Knallgas in fermentation vats, which were first isolated in 1989 and, in particular, were able to use hydrogen as a food source. Vainikka thought of feeding the bacteria hydrogen from solar energy to harvest a product he called Solein. The number of bacteria doubles every three hours and can be harvested 8 times a day. Solein is a pale yellow powder with a protein content of 60% that can be added to many foods without changing the original taste, with the potential to become a staple food. Mobio tasted pancakes made with Solein and felt "rich, mellow and full", just like the pancakes he had eaten before he became a vegetarian.
The amount of land liberated by this technology will be a real change, but while Solein may reduce the environmental impact of food production, it won't necessarily increase food security because it will make us heavily dependent on a single source of protein. The cultivation of microorganisms can be plagued by contamination problems, and once a toxic bacterium can invade and grow in Solein planting barrels, the consequences will be unimaginable. And, large iron barrels filled with bacteria lack the romantic gravity of traditional apple orchards and even Toly's mixed farming methods. It sounds futuristic, cold, and perhaps even hostile. However, if solar food is successfully commercially opened, solein seems likely to be quietly added to our food.
Flannery concludes by pointing out that humans have only been farmers for about ten thousand years, and before that, we were hunter-gatherers, and the earth could only feed a few million people. Agriculture has moved us downstream the food chain and more people are fed. But grain-producing agricultural systems have wreaked havoc on the environment, and we now face the prospect of once again jumping to bacteria downstream the food chain. Despite our obsession with food so thoroughly, it's hard to imagine that a powder made from dried bacteria is healthy, fresh, and good for the planet. Perhaps the first person to hand out cereal scones to large prey hunters at mammoth and bison steakhouses during the Paleolithic period faced the same problem.
Original link: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/09/22/its-not-easy-being-green-regenesis-monbiot/?lp_txn_id=1376133
Editor-in-Charge: Fan Zhu
Proofreader: Liu Wei