History repeats itself twice, Hegel wrote: once as a tragedy, once as a farce.
And the third time - in the form of a Brazilian carnival, the great philosopher would add, if he lived to this day.
Indeed, the story of the failed rebellion of supporters of the ex-president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, copies the dramatic events in Washington on January 6, 2021 almost to the smallest detail, but adjusted for national specifics.
As you know, during the so-called storming of the Capitol, a crowd of supporters of the 45th US President Donald Trump, outraged by electoral fraud, broke into the Congress building and hosted it for several hours, after which they were forced out by the police.
Two years and two days later, on January 8, 2023, thousands of supporters of the ex-President of Brazil Bolsonaro, protesting against the rigged, in their opinion, election results, seized the buildings of the National Congress, the Supreme Court and the residence of the President of the country.
For several hours, the rioters, dressed in yellow-green T-shirts - the colors of the country's national football team - smashed the "decision centers", having fun and dancing from the heart, filming themselves on their phones and immediately posting the video on social networks.
Just as in Washington, the police guarding the buildings offered no resistance to the crowd,
passively observing what is happening.
President Lulu da Silva was evacuated to Sao Paulo, from where he addressed the nation, calling the rebels "fanatic fascists" and announcing a special law enforcement operation involving the army and military police.
The rebellion was quickly suppressed: army helicopters appeared over Brazil - and stun grenades fell on the crowd.
Military police units, using tear gas and non-lethal weapons, dispersed the protesters in the Three Powers Square and its surrounding streets.
By evening, all the buildings seized by the Bolsonarists were liberated.
Repression was not long in coming: in hot pursuit, about 400 rebels were detained, and on Monday the number of those arrested reached 1,500. And this is clearly not the end - after the “storming of the Capitol”, arrests and trials continued for many months.
40 people were taken to hospitals with injuries of varying severity - in any case, this figure was called by the Brazilian media on Monday.
And this is also strangely similar to the "storming of the Capitol" - then 50 policemen were injured.
True, Washington was not without human casualties, and it seems that no one died in Brasilia - well, that's why it's a carnival.
The governor of the Federal (Capital) District of the country, Ibaneis Rocha, who is suspected of helping the rioters, was removed from office (temporarily for 90 days so far): he allegedly provided them with buses on which the protesters arrived in the capital from different parts of the country.
Purges are being prepared among other dignitaries close to the ex-president.
Bolsonaro himself was not in the country: before the New Year, without waiting for the inauguration of Lula da Silva, he flew to the United States and settled in Florida next to ex-president Donald Trump, with whom he was repeatedly compared by the media (Bolsonaro was even called "Trump from the jungle" ).
Apparently, the rebels were counting on the support of the army (traditionally sympathetic to Bolsonaro) - and when it turned out that this hope was illusory and the army was on the side of Lula, the fate of the rebellion was a foregone conclusion.
The events in Brazil did not leave indifferent world leaders and politicians of a lower rank.
The first to condemn the Bolsonaro rebellion was American President Joe Biden, who called the situation in Brazil "outrageous."
“I condemn the attack on democracy and the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil.
Brazil's democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined," Biden tweeted.
After Biden's keynote speech, his closest henchmen got involved.
They basically repeated the idea of the boss, but with minor variations.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken wrote that "the use of violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable" and called for an immediate end to the invasion of Brazil's democratic institutions.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US condemns any attempt to undermine democracy in Brazil.
“President Biden is monitoring the situation closely, and we unwaveringly support Brazil's democratic institutions.
Violence will not shake Brazilian democracy,” Sullivan said.
Some Democrats in Congress went even further and demanded the extradition of former Brazilian President Bolsonaro, not missing the opportunity to kick the hated Trump at the same time.
Joaquin Castro, a member of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN that Bolsonaro used "Trump's script to inspire domestic terrorists to try to overthrow the government."
“Now Bolsonaro is in Florida… he should be extradited to Brazil… The United States should not be a safe haven for this authoritarian leader who inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil.”
The leader of the left wing of the Democratic Party, the Trotskyite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, did not stand aside either.
“Two years after the US Capitol was attacked by fascists,” she wrote on Twitter, “we see fascist movements abroad trying to do the same in Brazil.”
Ocasio-Cortez expressed solidarity with Lula da Silva and called on the US to stop providing asylum to Bolsonaro in Florida.
The fact that Democrats in the United States support Lulu da Silva and oppose Bolsonaro is quite understandable.
Bolsonaro for them is a clone of Trump, and his right-wing conservative ideology is deeply hostile to left-wing globalism and progressivism.
But the Bolsonarist rebellion was condemned by many politicians around the world, and not only from the left.
The leaders of Latin American countries reacted especially emotionally.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric called the rebellion "a cowardly and despicable attack on democracy" and offered to send Chilean special forces to Brazil to quell the unrest (however, the Brazilians did a great job themselves).
Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared: "Fascism has decided to stage a coup!"
— and called for the immediate convening of the Organization of American States to discuss the situation in Brazil.
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez tweeted about his country's "unreserved support" for Lula da Silva in the face of an attempted coup.
Even Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who has no particular reason to love the United States and the White House administration, this time stood in solidarity with them.
“We categorically reject the violence generated by Bolsonaro’s neo-fascist groups attacking Brazil’s democratic institutions,” Maduro tweeted.
“Our support for President Lula and the Brazilian people, who will definitely mobilize to protect the world and their president.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called Brazil "a great democratic country" and expressed confidence that "the will of the Brazilian people and the country's institutions" will be respected.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strong condemnation of the actions of "radical-minded representatives of the Brazilian opposition, who on January 8 this year.
organized pogroms in the buildings of state authorities located in the capital of this country.
The official statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry says:
“We proceed from the inadmissibility of attempts to violate the constitutional order.
We express our support to the incumbent on January 1 this year.
Mr. President of Brazil L. Lula.
We are sure that thanks to his authority, confirmed by the results of the people's will, and the experience of public administration, it will be possible, relying on the democratic foundations of the state, to overcome the consequences of what happened.
We are convinced of the importance of maintaining internal political stability in Brazil, which is our strategic partner, an active member of the BRICS, the G20, which is currently a member of the UN Security Council.”
European Council President Charles Michel stated that Lula was "democratically elected by millions of Brazilians in fair and free elections" and condemned "the attack on Brazil's democratic institutions".
French President Emmanuel Macron assured that Lula could count on his country's "unwavering support" and that "the will of the Brazilian people and democratic institutions must be respected."
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also offered his full support to Lula, adding: "We categorically condemn the attack on the Brazilian Congress and call for an immediate return to democratic normality."
Even some of the European right denounced the rebellion, with newly elected Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni stating that the events in Brazil were "incompatible with any form of democratic division."
Thus, world public opinion unequivocally sided with the newly elected President of Brazil, Lula da Silva.
Human Rights Watch blamed the attack on "a years-long campaign by former President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies to undermine democratic principles and spread unfounded allegations of electoral fraud."
In a release published by human rights activists, the assault on the authorities in the Brazilian capital is called "a heinous attack on democratic institutions ... by people who seek to deprive Brazilians of the right to vote and elect leaders of their choice, including calling for military intervention."
Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho said most of the responsibility lay with Bolsonaro and said that "it would be very important if he came forward to condemn the unrest that is currently taking place in Brazil."
Most curiously, Bolsonaro actually issued a denunciation of the insurgency—shortly before he was taken to a Florida hospital with stomach pains (the aftermath of a stab wound he suffered in 2018 during a campaign rally).
“Peaceful demonstrations in forms permitted by law are part of democracy,” he wrote on Twitter.
“However, the looting and invasion of public buildings that is happening today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, do not fall under this rule.”
But this statement had no effect on the left.
They simply ignored it, or at best called it "ambiguous" - especially since the "Trump of the Jungle" dared to recall that in the past (during the presidencies of Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer), the riots in Brazil were organized precisely by their parties and trade unions.
It should be expected that Bolsonaro's enemies will take advantage of the "January 8 rebellion" in the same way that the Democrats in the United States took advantage of the "storming of the Capitol".
It is likely that an analogue of the “January 6 Committee” will be created in the country to identify “secret fascist networks” in the Brazilian establishment.
They will try to deprive the ex-president himself of the last levers of influence on the country's politics, or even put him in prison (in Brazil, this is in the order of things, the current president Lula spent two years behind bars on charges of corruption, however, then the Supreme Court dropped all charges).
On Monday, Brazilian Senator Renan Calleiros asked Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes to request Bolsonaro's possible extradition.
The senator said Bolsonaro "should explain" his alleged "encouraging the rioters" and if he refused to cooperate with the investigation,
Maybe the rebellion in Brazil was not too serious, it was a buffoon, a carnival.
But, as the story of the “storming of the Capitol” shows, dozens of participants in which languished for many months in solitary confinement in the Washington federal prison awaiting trial, and then received real terms, its consequences for all those involved will be quite serious and even tragic.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.