Weekly Blog - 9 January 2023 - Democracy in Crisis in Brazil and Beyond
Brazil riots
Brazil’s democracy experienced a major crisis this past Sunday 8 January when thousands of supporters of the right-wing popularist former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed and vandalised the congress, supreme court and presidential palace. Like former president Trump in the US before him, Bolsonaro has avoided accepting that he lost the recent October 2022 election, and has been using social media to promote baseless claims that the election was fraudulent. Many believe this directly stirred up his supporters and led to the riot. Brazil’s new government has (quite rightly) responded firmly to this major threat to the country’s democracy, arresting and charging over 1,200 rioters.
Democracy under threat?
The events in Brazil were clearly inspired by the storming of the US capitol by former president Donald Trump’s supporters two years earlier on 6 January 2021. Here again, as in Brazil, a right-wing popularist president refused to accept that he lost the election of the previous year, and repeated baseless claims of election fraud, offering no evidence and despite multiple independent investigations and reports by election monitors. Even today, two years on, some 60% of Republicans continue to believe the 2020 election was fraudulently stolen, despite no evidence whatsoever.
And it is not just the US and Brazil, multiple other traditionally moderate and stable democracies in Europe, Latin America and beyond have shown a disturbing drift towards more authoritarian popularist tendencies. Famously Viktor Orbán’s Young Democrats - Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) has systematically undermined the democratic institutions of Hungary since coming to power in 2010. It has passed laws which have given the government more control over independent institutions of the state, including the judiciary, and that severely limit the freedoms and free speech of opposition parties, universities, the media, NGOs and civil society. Even in the UK, the government has passed the Lobby Act and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, and is currently taking the National Security Bill through parliament, all of which significantly restrict fundamental freedoms of protestors and civil society groups to free speech and demonstration.
The importance of democracy
One of the key areas that a major report from Arise, The Arise Manifesto, looks at in detail is what standards for democracy, human rights and good governance countries should have. As Christians, we read in the Bible how God wants all governments, everywhere, to rule well, with justice, fairness, impartiality and integrity (The Arise Manifesto, pg 79 – 85). As Jeremiah the prophet said, “Hear the word of the LORD to you, king of Judah, you who sits on David’s throne – you, your officials and your people who come through these gates. This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jer 2: 2 – 3) In our modern world, democracy has been one of the most effective ways of making sure this Biblical principle is put into practice. Democracies have a much better track-record of governing well and effectively with justice, and good standards of human rights, civil liberties and basic freedoms than autocratic states do (The Arise Manifesto, pg 102 – 108).
The number of healthy democracies in our world had been growing strongly for many years, but that growth has slowed significantly since the mid-2000s. The level of human rights and civil liberties in our world has in fact been declining for almost twenty years, from a high point in the mid 2000s (The Arise Manifesto, pg 92 – 96). These facts should remind us that democracy and human rights can never be taken for granted (even in the most historically democratic and free countries). They must always be protected and strived for. Supporting bottom up Reform Movements, that have historically been the best way of gaining and maintaining democracy in countries all around the world, is one of three key focus campaigns for Arise.
Democratic countries must end this flirtation with far-right popularist parties and figures. They come to power through legitimate elections, but then use that power to entrench themselves, undermine democratic institutions and norms, and even tacitly or openly encourage their supporters to use violent means to keep them in power, as in Brazil and the US. Democracy is too important and precious to throw away. It has served the world well. All of us at every level: politicians, civil servants, public figures, the media, community leaders, churches, individual Christians, and every citizen, should use our actions, our public voice and our votes to protect and strengthen democracy. We will miss it sorely once it is gone.
Find out more
Find out more about how God is at work in the world, and the role we all have to play in that work, in the Arise Manifesto. This report is Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world. It looks at what the Bible says, and what we can learn from the best data and the world’s leading experts on the five major areas of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, development and the environment. It then draws these lessons together into a practical road map for the changes we need to see in our world, which the Arise movement campaigns to achieve.
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