A Reactionary Threat

 Linneker Gonçalves

October 7, 2022

ESL 100

         

A Reactionary Threat

No projects for better education, no new ideas to improve the public health system, and no proposals to help the nation’s economy get better. Only hate speech and projects to make it easier for ordinary citizens to get guns. This was how the current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, won the election in 2018. Since the coup that led to the impeachment of the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, in 2016, Brazil has been going through serious problems. A conservative and reactionary wave was spreading all over the country, threatening democracy with fake news and hate speech. I remember when the victory of the current president was announced. Fear could be seen in the eyes of people that were part of the minority. My family, friends, and other people I know felt the consequences of the bad administration of this government, which made the lives of poor people and minorities even harder than before.

The first effect to be noticed in the country was the rise in inflation. As a person with a modest income, I noticed that the prices were out of control everywhere. From food to gasoline, people started to stock all kinds of products at home because nobody knew how much the cost would be the following day. I remember growing up and my grandmother saying that when she was younger, inflation was horrible, but I never thought that a similar situation would ever happen again. One day my sister and I went to a grocery store to buy some food and were terrified when we saw the prices. The same chicken we used to purchase weeks before was now almost six times more expensive. I was also able to notice how the purchasing power had gone down. Money lost its value because the government started to print more expecting to control inflation, but it did not work well. Paying my rent and other bills was becoming more and more difficult, so my siblings and I had to move to a cheaper place where we could afford to live. 

 

Additionally, the unemployment rate also went up. Many people lost their jobs during this period, and many small businesses could not stay open. I used to work in a small shop selling products for people to make birthday parties. This place was a family business where everyone, except for me, was part of the same family. When the economy got bad, the owners had to cut costs, and since I was the only one that was not part of their family, I was let go. After I lost my job, things got worse because, without a job, I had to rely on my siblings to pay the bills. I tried to find a new job immediately, but the situation was the same everywhere. People were being let go every day from small businesses, and the big corporations were not accepting résumés. My sister was working for a big corporation, and I remember her saying the work conditions had become worse than ever. She said the employers in those big corporations were taking advantage of the alarming situation in the country. Bosses were burdening the employees with more work and paying the same salary since they knew their employees would do everything to keep their jobs. 

Moreover, the worst thing I saw happening right after the elections was the increase in LGBTphobia. Brazil already had a bad reputation in terms of LGBTphobia, and Jair Bolsonaro, the current president, said in his speeches that he was totally against the rights of minorities. His hate speeches were the trigger that people needed to go out and start hurting minorities. One day, I was at the bus station sitting on the bench waiting for my bus to get home. I was wearing a red shirt and listening to some music on my AirPods, and for some reason, this triggered a group of three men to come to me and start to insult me. At first, I decided to ignore them, expecting they would leave me alone. When they realized I was not going to pay attention to them, they pushed me off the bench, and right after that, two of the guys held me by my arms while the other punched me in the face. I could not believe that something like that was happening to me, and when I saw the blood running out of my nose, I could not hold my tears. They laughed when they saw me crying and told me the president would clean up the country, exterminating people like me. In addition, I realized that LGBT people were in danger when the president announced he wanted to change the law that guaranteed trans people a new social name a few days later. 

Nowadays, when I think about my home country, I only think about a new president, a president that has more human values and would at least try to fix the whole mess Brazil has become; a president who would look for a way to control inflation and make the unemployment rate goes down again, or a president with more human values that would guarantee the rights of minorities. I hope that in the next elections, people think deeply about the candidate they are going to put in charge of the country, as well as about how their decision could affect someone’s life.