#oh gosh I have to make something for Poll's birthday at some point. They turn 1 year old in February.

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Wow I just put my blog's theme back on its normal one and. I forgot how nice it looked. Also Don't worry, I won't subject you all to full blown Christmas time.. yet.

That will start december 1st kkkkkk

[idadayalla-blog]

Brazil’s emotional election period got me emotional ...

So it has already been two weeks since the elections and the news about Bolsonaro have spread globally meanwhile. On the night of that election Sunday, I had actually been very calm. I picked up the result at the counter of a bakery as a cashier quietly updated another cashier and it was just my turn to pay my bill. I was on my way home by bike from a little hike with friends. Some cars honking had been passing me and I heard noises of firecrackers justifying me that Bolsonaro had won. This behavior of victory celebration, like after soccer games, personally matched my notion of Bolsonaro voters.

The week before the second ballot I had become very emotionally touched because of all the news considering street violence linked to the elections, conversations with friends about politics and experiencing the effort at my university to demonstrate resistance against an anticipated far right shift for the country. I became extremely worried about what is actually going on in the world right now. Right-wing populism isn’t just a phenomenon in Brazil; it is gaining more and more popularity in many countries of the world right now and has already settled within positions of power. If I am thinking of going back to Germany, I would certainly not return to a soil not being infected by that cancer yet having the AfD as the third strongest party right now within the Bundestag (German parliament).

Well, I literally felt that major bricks regarding democracy are breaking right now. Usually I used to not take myself and the world I am living in too serious, however these days something just felt so profoundly serious about this planet leaving me literally unable to focus on stuff I wanted to do during the day like writing this text.

The internet totally consumed my mind shortly after the election Sunday.

- The Pittsburgh shooting (to me: a brutal evidence of anti-Semitism and basically hate)

- Angela Merkel’s (Germany’s chancellor) speech to announce her retirement after the current election period (although I am not an elector of her party, her speech left me impressed on her rhetoric capability and honest attitude regarding the current government’s work. But the intention of her speech also left me sad.)

- chatting with my mom and my former host dad from the states regarding politics, as my host dad writes that they would “joke (for now, at least) about civil war between far right and the left, problem is, the far right has all the guns!” (right after that message, I saw and read a then recently posted vice article with the headline “A new American Civil War feels closer than ever after Pittsburgh”)

- youtube documentaries on Brazilian politics

- the usual random madness within the facebook feed: Seeing the latest news on post elections violence in Brazil: A kid being killed by a gun during Bolsonaro victory celebrations, vandalism in indigenous communities, people wearing T-Shirts with the number “64” which dates the initial year of the past military dictatorship in Brazil (comparable to Neonazis wearing shirts with the number “88”.). But then also videos plopping up about positive thinking vibes, a kitten drinking milk “to brighten your day”, some holiday pics from long forgotten classmates, a video about an American motel trying to give shelter for people which are basically totally lost in their life, a video collecting all homophobe statements of Bolsonaro and so on… within the mess theres had also been a call to sign a petition to attack the plan of a pro Bolsonaro student deputy (as far as I understood the news) who wants to led professors be videotaped while holding lessons. The student deputy says: ‘what do they say which society is not allowed to hear as well?’

By the time I saw news that the “Nigerian army is using Trump’s words to defend gunning down dozens of protesters” (vice), I’ve luckily already made my way out of this depression trap called internet. However, when I was walking along my street for instance and passing neighbors I just felt so little trust in the faces I saw. Like I was thinking meanwhile: “Oh she/he probably voted for Bolsonaro as well”. And many of them did so for fact, as there is apparently a lot of arguing going on in my street’s groupchat on WhatsApp, which is what my hairdresser neighbor told me the other day while giving me a new look. Gosh, am I glad that I am not in that group. I am hating group chats in general. But anyway she voted for him as well, as she didn’t really answer to my concerns and criticism on Bolsonaro except “He might had been kidding a lot” and “Well let’s see”, in Portuguese ‘vamos ver’, also belonging to one of the most outspoken sentences over here and expressing the uncertainty within the Brazilian mentality pretty much on point. Well, she might had voted for a radical candidate but during my appointment she had been a bit afraid and hesitating in giving me, as she said, a ‘radical haircut’. I was asking her to do me a very straight-lined hair. “Do many people have that haircut in Europe?” Me: 🙄. Well, back to the group chat misery:

A guy I met at a friend’s birthday said that the group chat of his apartment complex is full with pro Bolsonaro content and he wouldn’t dare to text something contra. Most of the people he is sharing the building with are apparently evangelic. “I’d be probably screwed leaving a red scarf or so on my door handle”, he was joking. Because the Pro Bolsonaro side argues/d that the left-wing would want to turn the country communist.  

So now, post elections, many people are very afraid, especially the ones belonging to minorities or being activist. Uruguay is a considered country among those and professors and artists and maybe other people as well to emigrate to. Some of them have already left the country prior to the elections because the victory of Bolsonaro had been a pretty save prediction. A friend of mine told me that he basically doesn’t see a future for him. On election day he held a specific meditation, to mentally prepare himself for a new era. Within the WhatsApp group of my university, ‘UDESC against fascism’, a five screen long guide with security advise in fascist times had been dropped immediately after the result was final. And last week in my ceramics class I could definitely feel a despondent mood capturing the studio.

But how am I feeling eventually? First of all, the major voting motivations seemed very ridiculous. At the second ballot, the majority of people would vote for one of the two candidates to not let the other win. I mean, voting for a party based on being supportive on their political plan is totally left out in this sort of voting scheme. In general, many people voted for Bolsonaro as a matter of protest against the past year’s corruptive politics by the PT. On the other hand, had many Haddad voters (in the second ballot) not been convinced by him or his party, but basically voted for him to save democratic values in their country. A fact that made me very angry is that many people of my social environment haven’t gone vote because they didn’t transfer their voting region in advance. They moved to Florianópolis within the past years, e.g. to go to university here, but they didn’t officially change their location of residency to then be able to vote at the polls here. They are all against Bolsonaro and saying that his voters are ignorant but to me this way of letting the election just happen is ignorant as well and letting shine through a pretty lazy attitude on top. Some people drove back home over the weekend to go vote but many whose parental residency are farer away, like outside of Santa Catarina or its bordered states, didn’t due to the travelling effort and expenses.

Postal vote isn’t possible in Brazil which is what I am usually doing in Germany. Thus I suppose all the Brazilians living in the exterior, which certainly aren’t just a few, didn’t influence this election at all. So, I guess there could have been a chance on flipping the result if left orientated people would have made use of their right to vote having been more urgent than ever to make use of, and if the voting conditions for people living outside the country would be sorted out in some way. I mean, ultimately the voting difference had only been 10% and something between the two candidates.

Above all it is kind of crazy to already feel that this election will very likely divide the country’s society in two sides, as already happening in the United States. Over here, the two mindsets clash with each other even within inner family circles. In many families the older generations, parents and grandparents, are pro Bolsonaro and the children contra.  And so it is in the family of my former flat mate, thus he decided to not travel back home for Christmas this year.

In general, it is very disillusioning to see another success of an election campaigning targeting to create fear and anger within the people and doing this mainly via social media platforms. It feels nasty that there is a specific agency supporting Trump, AfD, Bolsonaro and surely many more right-winged politicians and parties in other countries besides USA, Germany and Brazil, and thus supporting that antidemocratic and inhuman behavior becomes accepted again. It is kind of ridiculous to see that people turn very nationalist again while everybody is making use of a globalized world on a daily basis. And yes, here you can receive a “Go back to your country” as well, as this sentence became very common to hear in public in Germany after its refugee wave in 2015.

Well, but Ida come to a point: I realized that living in a democracy had been something very unquestionable for me. I guess people of my generation take it very much for granted. And so far, my political interest had been very low or not there at all. But I can feel that the circumstances over here and the emotions I am absorbing are making me aware to become more involved. We, the generation Y and close by generations, are spending so much time by dealing with ourselves. We are so busy in discovering ourselves, finding the sense and fulfillment for our lives. But meanwhile, the shelter to do so, to develop our personalities freely, is losing its power. And that is frightening me. I surely do not want to live in an environment where repression is ruling, where being oneself, being authentic in public, is in danger.