Manifesting Democracy?. Группа авторов
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the city-countryside; education system; and community identities, including churches and the media. For Hardman, 2013 was a moment in which Brazilians came together to try to overcome such inequalities, and he sees the failure of the protests to do precisely that as revealing the darker side of Brazil, which has never experienced full democracy. Hardman notes that this has been extremely evident in recent times, with the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the imprisonment of Lula, and the election of the authoritarian Bolsonaro. Hardman’s chapter thus goes beyond focusing only on 2013, as it seeks to account for and understand the continuation of Brazil’s political past in its political present. Many of the chapters echo this historical assessment. Indeed while this volume harks back to a more hopeful time when people were visibly expressing, and materializing, that is, when they were openly manifesting for democracy in the streets of Brazilian cities, it also assesses from different viewpoints why this was not successful. This should not be taken as a negation or dismissal of Brazil’s June Days. Indeed, as the chapters show, 2013 is testimony to the potential of political possibilities, possibilities that can be (re)opened. The manifestações and their staging of protesting as a political event and activity were about much more than about the right to express individual indignations and frustrations; they were about the right to visibly express and materialize in the streets, thereby (re)claiming public space that in a democracy pertains to the people.
The chapters, then, point to 2013 as revealing key shifts in Brazilian society, particularly in terms of urban subjectivities, mobilities, and political enactment, although as 2015 and the present conjuncture show, these have been problematically limited. All of these issues prompt a reassessment of Brazilian democracy, notably in urban space. So whilst this volume focuses on a single event that took place in 2013, it raises and explores in different ways, and from different disciplinary concerns, a number of questions relating to Brazilian politics and society: questions of political mediation and representation, the uneven and hierarchical politics of the country, class concerns, social media, the politics of urban space, and political agency. In doing so it demonstrates that exploring Brazil’s manifestações of 2013 entails more than thinking about one moment in the country’s history; it entails considering how democracy has been, is, and can be, manifested in the country, something that given current threats to the country’s democratic system is urgent. In this regard, it is worthwhile foregrounding the wave of protests taking place right now in numerous Brazilian cities, calling for the impeachment of Bolsonaro whose popularity has fallen amidst claims that his government has sought to profit from the Covid vaccines. These protests against continued political corruption and Bolsonaro’s inadequate response to the Coronavirus suggests that the political frustrations and anger present in the initial 2013 manifestações have not subsided and that the underlying ideals of Brazil’s June Days have by no means dissipated. As Szaniecki says in her chapter, ‘June 2013 is far from over.’
Notes
1 1 See The Intercept, 6 September 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-car-wash-prosecutors-workers-party-lula (accessed 18 October 2021).
2 2 Euronews, 6 April 2020. https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/06/a-little-flu-brazil-s-bolsonaro-playing-down-coronavirus-crisis (accessed 18 October 2021).
3 3 See Folha de São Paulo, 1 June 2020. https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2020/06/supreme-court-justice-compares-brazil-to-hitlers-germany-and-says-bolsonaro-supporters-want-abject-dictatorship.shtml (accessed 18 October 2021).
4 4 See The Economist, 11 June 2020. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/06/11/does-jair-bolsonaro-threaten-brazilian-democracy (accessed 18 October 2021).
5 5 For more on the legal construction of the right to the city in Brazil see Fernandes (2007).
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