[A year after a mob stormed Brazil’s capital, January 8 is now a
date to commemorate democracy’s survival.]
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IN BRAZIL, ANOTHER WAY TO REMEMBER AN ATTEMPTED COUP  
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Isabela Dias Isabela Dias
January 8, 2024
Mother Jones
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_ A year after a mob stormed Brazil’s capital, January 8 is now a
date to commemorate democracy’s survival. _

Supporters of Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro invade
Planalto Presidential Palace while clashing with security forces in
Brasilia on January 8, 2023., Sergio Lima/Getty

 

On January 8, 2023, a week after Brazil’s former president (turned
president again) Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office following the
closest presidential election since the end of the country’s over
20-year military dictatorship—begun in 1964 by a coup partially
supported [[link removed]] by
the United States—a mob of supporters of defeated far-right
President Jair Bolsonaro stormed
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and vandalized, the center of the nation’s main constitutional
powers. 

At the time, Bolsonaro was in Orlando, Florida
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He was not present as those loyal to his cause descended upon the
capital’s Three Powers square ready to ransack the buildings of
Congress, presidential offices, and the Supreme Court in an open
assault on Brazil’s 40-year-old democracy. Dressed in the yellow,
green, and blue shades of the national flag—an embattled symbol that
had, over the previous four years, come to signify regression for some
and pride for others—the insurrectionists shouted “God, nation,
family and, freedom.”

Some called for military intervention. They hoped members of the armed
forces aligned with Bolsonaro, an avowed apologist for the
dictatorship, would “restore the order.” If not, rioters were
ready to take the matter into their own hands. Here they were to do
just that. And not unlike their American counterparts, those who
invaded and defaced the public buildings proudly filmed themselves as
they attempted a coup against their government, producing indelible
evidence of the many crimes committed.

Today, on the first anniversary of January 8, Brazil is attempting to
remember. At the time, there were many comparisons to America’s
attempted coup.  “Brazil Just Had Its January 6,” read the
headline
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of a piece I wrote then. They were inevitable. As media reports
would later
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Brazilian and US authorities shared concerns—and intelligence—that
a copycat antidemocratic act had been in the making. But the
aftermath has been radically different.

One year on, Brazil is remembering its coup as a moment to celebrate
its democracy, and what was saved when protesters failed on January 8,
instead of as a warning that could it once more happen.

Today, Brasília will host an official event initially titled
“Democracy Restored,” but since changed to “Unshaken
Democracy” (the title of a book and a 57-minute documentary
[[link removed]] released by the Supreme
Court about January 8). Lula summoned his ministers to attend and
president of the Superior Electoral Court Alexandre de Moraes and
others are expected to give speeches. There will be a symbolic
ceremony to restitute some of the since-restored invaluable works of
art and historical documents damaged by the insurrectionists to their
rightful places.

Much of this is possible because Bolsonaro, for all the comparison,
has not been Trump. He has largely stayed out of the spotlight and
has not been as dogged in defense of election lies. As Brazilian
Defense Minister José Múcio Monteiro put it recently in an interview
[[link removed]], the will for a coup was
there, but there was no leader. “The institutions didn’t want the
coup,” he said.

It also is a product of compromise. In the immediate wake of the
failed coup attempt, disparate political leaderships came together in
forceful condemnation of the attacks and in the days after, a show of
unity was embodied in the image of Lula walking hand in hand with
state governors as they moved down the ramp of the damaged Planalto
presidential offices. “We won’t allow democracy to slip out of our
hands,” Lula said then. Perhaps because of the nation’s still
recent history of a military coup, there was little room for
hesitation in understanding and calling what had happened as a failed
attempt to throw away the Constitution. Across the country, Brazilians
took to the streets in pro-democracy protests calling for the rioters
and their instigators to be held accountable.

Still, as with the American experience, the full picture of the
violence, destruction, and insurgent intent—and of a close call it
was—would not be fully known without further investigation and an
ongoing public reckoning. In October 2023, a 1,300-page congressional
report released to the public pointed
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to Bolsonaro as the “intellectual author” of the attacks and
called for his indictment—as well as that of 60 others—for crimes
including criminal association, violent abolition of the democratic
rule of law, and coup d’état. “Brazilian democracy was attacked
and masses were manipulated by hate speech,” the final report
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states, adding that “January 8 is the work of Bolsonarismo.”
Included in the evidence was the testimony of a former ally of
Bolsonaro to
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investigators about a supposed coup plot to subvert the election
results that the president would have been made privy to.

More than 2,000
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people were arrested for their involvement in the attacks, 30 have
been since convicted, and some sentenced to as many as 17 years in
prison. In a recent interview
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with the _O Glogo _newspaper, Supreme Court justice and president of
the Superior Electoral Court Alexandre de Moraes, who is the
rapporteur of the criminal inquiry into the actions of January 8, said
there was a plan in place to publicly hang him on the plaza in
Brasília. Moraes and the Supreme Court, two of Bolsonaro’s
supporter’s biggest foes, played a critical—albeit controversial
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in shielding the cogs of the institutional machine and ultimately
helping guarantee the transfer of power.  

It may be too soon to tell whether the coup’s memory will come back
to haunt Brazil, or if the Brazilian far-right’s anti-democratic
delusions have been put to rest for good. It is often said, somewhat
jokingly, that Brazilians suffer from short memory and, with time,
tend to overlook even the worst kinds of transgressions or offenses
committed against them—including by their leaders. But one year
after a dreadful episode in the country’s history, there’s a
movement to memorialize what a now-retired Supreme Court justice
dubbed
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the “day of infamy.” 

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* Jan. 8 in Brazil; Jair Bolsonaro; Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva;
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