Sunday passed with Brazilian music in the background for not biting my nails —that is to say— awaiting the scrutiny. And it continued like this on All Saints’ Day, with the same soundtrack, crossing his fingers so that the ex-military Jair Bolsonaro do not imitate Trump’s denial trail after the narrow victory of Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva. “Sadness does not end, happiness sim”. Over and over again, relentlessly the same music, especially a beloved double album. “It is better to be happy than to be sad, happiness is the best thing that exists.” As it is not convenient to clutter the house with junk and shipwrecks, I had an ordeal in its day with the triage of the CDs. Now I frequent Spotify, because it’s very convenient, but I wouldn’t have let go of some compact discs, like the one he recorded Vinicius de Moraes at La Fusa, a venue in Buenos Aires, with guitarist Toquinho, Maria Creuza and Maria Bethânia. Poet, diplomat, composer, the blackest white in Brazil. Vinícius de Moraes, one of the fathers of bossa nova.
a polarized country
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When Lula came to power, he redeemed Vinícius, whom the military dictatorship had expelled from the diplomatic corps in 1969. It was a moment of various exaltations in Brazil, but the country to which the resurrected leader of the Workers’ Party returns is not the same: crosses, like the orb, a disheveled crisis. Lula has it rough with a Parliament very tilted to the right; she must mend one society torn in two shreds opposed, confront the lobi of weapons and the Pentecostalists, who consider him the devil revived. Indeed, the dilemmas facing Brazil are universal in scope; the entire planet dances the same samba to the sound of apocalyptic drums: the urgencies imposed by climate change, the fight against misery and inequality, migrations, conspiracies, as well as the rise of authoritarianism and the extreme right, hypnotized by the flute of ‘fake news’.
Moderation
To be victorious Lula must exercise transversal leadership from moderation and pragmatism, govern for the 215 million Brazilians, avoid confrontation and broaden its spectrum in order to deactivate the bomb of hatred and intolerance of Bolsonarism. Like in music. If samba is carnival, strident colours, batucada timpani and spasmodic movements, the times suggest a drift towards quiet bossa nova, more collected and intimate, heavily influenced by jazz. Bossa nova is elegance and balance. The balance. A whispering samba. The sophistication of Brazilian popular rhythms. There is no style that better reconciles joy and melancholic hope. Like Vinicius.