Siria: a maior tragedia humana desde a Segunda GM - book review

Parkinson on Chatty, 'Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State' [review]

by H-Net Reviews

Dawn Chatty. Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. x + 289 pp. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-087606-7.

Reviewed by Sarah Parkinson (Johns Hopkins University) Published on H-Diplo (January, 2019) Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=53041

The Syrian emergency is now broadly known as the largest episode of forced migration since World War II. Over 5.5 million Syrian citizens are currently registered as refugees; more than 6.5 million are displaced within Syria.[1] The Syrian government’s ongoing efforts to alter property-rights laws and prevent returns may render many Syrians permanently displaced.[2] Sustainable return is still practically unattainable for even more, who fear violence and retribution.[3] Dawn Chatty’s new volume Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State helpfully reestablishes Syria’s pre-2011 ethnic and religious diversity and locates Greater Syria as a nexus of historical forced migration, constructively resisting the post-hoc trend of essentializing the Syrian populace as either “Sunni” or “Shi’a.” In this way, Chatty’s Syria will serve as welcome supplementary reading for those trying to understand the current displacement crisis and its roots in the history of forced migration in the Levant, Anatolia, and the Caucasus.

Based on a set of thirty-one narratives drawn from Chatty’s prior oral history work and from ten additional interviews conducted in the post-2011 era, the work pulls from Chatty’s considerable oeuvre on the history of migration in the region, particularly her 2010 volume Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East. Following largely the same outlines as Displacement and Dispossession, Syria provides broad overviews of various forced migrations into Syria. Chatty begins with the Ottoman era and carries her analysis through to more recent urban encounters and, finally, to the contemporary Syrian refugee crisis. Separate chapters illuminate the experiences of Circassians and Chechnyans, Armenians, Kurds, Palestinians, and Iraqis who have all come to call Syria home.

The oral histories help to frame and ground Chatty’s narrative of each population, putting a human and multigenerational face on population-level trajectories. In approaching these communities, Chatty focuses on issues of mobility, identity, and belonging throughout the migrant experience. The chapter on the Damascene quarter of Sha’laan is noteworthy for how it grounds broad histories of forced migration in a tangible urban and social context; this is perhaps the book’s high point. Throughout the historical chapters, Chatty also contextualizes long-standing Russian interests in the Black Sea region and the Levant. This background will prove useful to those interested in the current conflict and Middle Eastern geopolitics in general.

Despite the book’s strong foundation in Ottoman history, Syria contains very limited material on the Syrian state itself during the supremely relevant Ba’athist era (the late 1940s onward). There is little information on the roots of the current conflict and, in particular, the ways that the Bashar al-Assad regime’s policies have both influenced and been influenced by migrant trajectories. Other than the sections on the revocation of Kurdish citizenship rights and the Qamishli riots, Chatty largely avoids overt discussion of politics; she addresses contemporary modes of belonging, integration, and liminality primarily through the chapter on Sha’laan. More thorough engagement with foundational scholarship, for example, via a dialogue with Anaheed al-Hardan’s Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities (2016), Bassam Haddad’s Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (2012), and such classic writers as Hanna Batatu would have produced a richer analysis on this front.

Chatty also makes some unexplained decisions regarding the exclusion of various cases and historical moments. For example, she largely avoids the Syrian government’s long-term engagement with Palestinian resistance organizations (such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, Fatah al-Intifada, and Hamas) and only passingly mentions the Syrian regime’s multiple sieges of the Palestinian district of Yarmouk (which initially housed more than 110,000 people and has now been all but emptied following battles, shelling, near-starvation conditions, and resultant flight). Chatty says relatively little about the regime’s thirty-year occupation of Lebanon, the displacements it fueled, or its role in fostering Syrian labor migration.[4] Likewise, she briefly notes Syria’s repeated status as a haven for refugees from Lebanon in a personal vignette but does not address these important, episodic migration flows in a chapter of their own. On this note, Chatty’s accounts can feel somewhat selective; given her vast experience in the region, it also represents a regrettable set of missed opportunities.

A glaring inaccuracy in the book is worth noting, because it speaks to the book’s broader inattention to detail. Specifically, Chatty devotes several pages to incorrectly recounting an event that occurred at the Danish Research Institute in Damascus on March 17, 2011. Chatty recalls encountering a former student, Chesa Boudin, and quotes Chesa as informing her that “he was accompanying his mother [Professor Bernardine Dohrn] and Professor [Lisa] Wedeen on a speaking tour she was undertaking in Syria sponsored by the US State Department. And he went on to say that Lisa was speaking about civil disobedience” (p. 220). However, neither professor was on a speaking tour and neither was sponsored by the US Department of State (both are critical of the US government). Rather, the event involved a screening of the documentary film The Weather Underground (2002) where Wedeen briefly welcomed Dohrn. While Dohrn introduced the film and answered questions, there was no lecture or presentation on civil disobedience; Dohrn and Boudin were in Syria primarily as tourists.[5] Given the sensitivity of this matter, the deployment of these unverified details is questionable. These errors will hopefully be corrected in future editions.

Other small errors throughout compound concern. For example, Chatty misidentifies the date of the Yarmouk siege’s start as 2015 (p. 169); the first siege of Yarmouk ran 2013-14 following battles in 2012 that reduced its population to approximately eighteen thousand. There were further battles starting in 2015 that lasted into 2018.[6] Despite a smart discussion of the politics of forced migrant statistics, Chatty only intermittently sources her statistics and does not indicate, for example, whether she bases refugee numbers on the United Nations’ official tally of registered Syrian refugees or on larger estimates of total refugee population (studies have demonstrated that over 40 percent of refugees in Lebanon were not officially registered).[7] While the book’s histories of migration are important and useful to the non expert reader, one would be advised to consult complementary sources for more detailed material and recent Syrian history.

Notes

[1]. “Syria Emergency,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), https://www.unhcr.org/syria-emergency.html (accessed November 23, 2018).

[2]. Sara Kayyali, “Protecting Syrian Property Rights,” Human Rights Watch, October 19, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/19/protecting-syrian-property-rights; and “Syria: Residents Blocked from Returning,” Human Rights Watch, October 16, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/16/syria-residents-blocked-returning.

[3]. Jamey Keaten, “UN Official: Syria Has Withdrawn Controversial Property Law,” AP NEWS, October 18, 2018, https://apnews.com/9f7a29ef5e0c4f78b6d27310e607e0fb.

[4]. See John T. Chalcraft, The Invisible Cage: Syrian Migrant Workers in Lebanon (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).

[5]. Lisa Wedeen, correspondence with author, November 25, 2018.

[6]. “The Crisis in Yarmouk Camp,” United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), https://www.unrwa.org/crisis-in-yarmouk (accessed November 26, 2018); and Harriet Sherwood, “Queue for Food in Syria’s Yarmouk Camp Shows Desperation of Refugees” The Guardian, February 26, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/queue-food-syria-yarmouk-camp-desperation-re....

[7]. Caroline Abu Sa’Da and Micaela Serafini, “Humanitarian and Medical Challenges of Assisting New Refugees in Lebanon and Iraq,” Forced Migration Review44 (September 2013): 70–73, esp. 72; and Sarah E. Parkinson and Orkideh Behrouzan, “Negotiating Health and Life: Syrian Refugees and the Politics of Access in Lebanon,” Social Science & Medicine 146 (December 2015): 324–331, esp. 325.

Citation: Sarah Parkinson. Review of Chatty, Dawn, Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. January, 2019. URL:http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53041

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

What History Tells Us about the Prospects for Brazil–U.S. Rapprochement under Bolsonaro - Nick Burns

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/what-history-tells-us-about-the-prospects-for-brazil-us-rapprochement-under-bolsonaro

What History Tells Us about the Prospects for Brazil–U.S. Rapprochement under Bolsonaro

Brazil Institute (Wilson Center), January 4, 2019 By Nick Burns

Hopes are running high for the United States and Brazil. There is the prospect of a personal rapport between the apparent kindred spirits now occupying the presidencies of both countries, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. There is the promise of policy alignment on issues like the location of their embassies in Israel and their economic attitudes towards China. And there is also a rare and widespread optimism — however cautious — among the international business and financial communities regarding the potential opening of Brazil’s historically closed economy. Phrases previously seldom heard regarding the sometimes frosty Brazil-U.S. relationship are now commonplace: many speak of a unique opportunity, a great moment. Ernesto Araújo, the new Brazilian foreign minister, even went so far as to declare, “The sky is the limit” for the United States and Brazil.

The current moment is unusual indeed, as a brief dip into the history of Brazil-U.S. relations illustrates. Since the Second World War, setbacks and disagreements have characterized relations between the two most populous nations in the Americas, despite a handful of opportunities for improvement. Two competing theories aim to explain the estrangement: an older argument points to inevitable and perpetual misunderstanding between the countries as part of an “emergent rivalry”; while a more contemporary one suggests past disagreements were the fault of historical circumstance, personal differences, and bad luck, which need not define the relationship going forward.

Yet which theory best predicts the future of Brazil-U.S. relations? Comparing what the two theories say about a previous moment of hope for the bilateral relationship — namely, Henry Kissinger’s failed 1970s bid for a strategic partnership with Brazil — can help us gauge how much concrete progress to expect from today’s high hopes and declarations of goodwill.

Brazil and the United States: Natural Rivals?

The notion that Brazilian and U.S. interests are hopelessly divergent derives from the work of the leftist Brazilian intellectual Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira. In the late 1980s, Moniz Bandeira provocatively suggested that Brazil-U.S. relations were characterized by a rivalidade emergente, or “emergent rivalry.” He based this on a realist analysis of the relationship, writing, “The material interests of the nation are the principle to which all others in international relations subordinate themselves.”

For the United States and Brazil, this principle boded ill. The material interest of Brazil as a nation lay in industrialization, modernization, and the achievement of an independent policy that would reduce its dependence on commodity exports to the United States and other countries. The material interests of the United States, after the Second World War, lay in maintaining a strong influence over the Americas, which would preclude a robustly independent policy for Brazil. For proponents of this school of thought, it was no surprise that spats plagued the relationship despite both governments’ strong anti-communist stance during the Cold War: ideology could not cover up the problems caused by opposing material interests.

We can see how Moniz Bandeira’s theory applies to moments of potential bilateral breakthrough by examining his treatment of Henry Kissinger’s bid for a Brazil–U.S. strategic partnership during the 1970s. Kissinger, the chief architect of U.S. foreign policy during this period, had conceived of a new strategy to maintain U.S. global influence in the face of its waning ability to project force directly. As Vietnam showed more painfully with each passing year, direct military intervention was costly in terms of blood, treasure, and political capital. The United States needed partners. Brazil was chosen as a potential “key country” that could help the United States maintain stability in the world and prevent the spread of communism. At the same time, Antônio Azeredo da Silveira, Brazil’s foreign minister, hoped for a “special relationship” with the United States to help Brazil gain preeminence in South America on its own terms. It seemed as though there was room for a solid partnership between the United States and Brazil — but it was not to be.

For Moniz Bandeira, the “emergent rivalry” dynamic predetermined this failure to build closer relations with Brazil. All of the Brazilian decisions that helped torpedo the bid over the next few years were direct consequences of Brazil’s international ambition: the decision to work with West Germany to develop a nuclear program, to become the first to recognize left-wing governments of former Portuguese colonies in Africa, to reach out to Arab countries staunchly opposed to the United States. There was never any real chance of a breakthrough, but rather only empty talk of goodwill.

Moniz Bandeira doubted Brazil-U.S. mutual distrust would dissipate going forward. Despite the end of the Cold War and the re-inauguration of democracy in Brazil, the United States preserved an interest in maintaining its hegemony over the world in the face of nations like China and Russia, which seemed to be catching up. Thus, there was still no place for a Brazil that had a truly free hand.

To an extent, this notion may have become a self-fulfilling prophesy. A generation of diplomats in Brazil’s foreign service, beginning in the late 1980s, saw truth in Moniz Bandeira’s notion that the United States and Brazil were inevitably opposed — an influence that is unlikely to have been salutary to bilateral prospects. With the changing of the guard, however, this idea has lost some currency, and perhaps accordingly has become less predictive.

Criticizing 'Emergent Rivalry': A Historical Approach

A more recent theory seeks to overthrow the “emergent rivalry” narrative in favor of an approach that focuses more on historical contingency — things like chance events, personal rapports, and global context. To expound his critique of the “emergent rivalry” theory, Matias Spektor, a professor at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and Wilson Center fellow in 2012, made a case study of Kissinger’s unsuccessful 1970s attempt to improve Brazil–U.S. relations.

The partnership may have failed, Spektor argues, but it was never doomed from the start. A need for Brazil’s help on the part of the United States, and Brazil’s genuine desire for a substantial relationship with the Cold War great power, made the possibility of partnership a real one. “International politics is not predestined,” he writes, describing how the partnership unraveled thanks to personality clashes between Kissinger and Silveira, distrust in the ranks of Itamaraty (Brazil’s foreign ministry), and splits caused by world events that had nothing to do with the internal affairs of the United States or Brazil.

Brazil’s unconsidered decision to become the first country to recognize Angolan independence, for example, angered the United States and contributed to an overall worsening of relations that continued through the end of the decade and beyond, scotching plans for partnership. However, with different figures in government, Brazil’s changed status as a democracy, and a different global context since the end of the Cold War, it is no foregone conclusion that history will repeat itself. We might call this approach to Brazil–U.S. relations the “compatibility and context” approach.

The Lessons of History

The question of whether to take recent declarations that “the sky’s the limit” with enthusiasm or skepticism depends in large measure on whose version of the history of Brazil-U.S. relations you believe. In Moniz Bandeira’s version, Brazil’s desire to reduce its dependence on commodities and consolidate a place on the world stage through industrialization has not changed, and will lead to eventual conflict with the United States despite any personal goodwill on the part of Bolsonaro and his administration. In Spektor’s version, however, personal rapport, ideological common ground, and global context matter much more; and it seems clear that these forces are, at least for the moment, drawing the United States and Brazil together much more than apart. It is important to keep in mind, however, that Donald Trump’s current mandate only lasts another two years, and should he fail to secure reelection in 2020, his replacement would not likely be nearly as friendly to Bolsonaro and his agenda.

Depending on how one is inclined to read history, the last few decades in Brazil-U.S. relations can fit either a Spektor or a Moniz Bandeira approach. The 1990s saw hopes rise again for the United States and Brazil with the development of a rapport between then-presidents Bill Clinton and Fernando Henrique Cardoso. More compatible agendas and temperaments seemed to make a breakthrough possible over U.S. companies’ use of the Brazilian launch center at Alcântara, conveniently located near the Equator. But when the succeeding Brazilian administration took office, the agreement failed to advance through the Brazilian Congress and was quickly forgotten. Was the failure inevitable, a direct consequence of competing national interests, or was it instead just a hard-luck result of the change in administrations?

In some ways, the relationship may have moved beyond both “compatibility and context” and “emergent rivalry.” More collaboration between U.S. and Brazilian companies, such as a new deal signed between aerospace giants Boeing and Embraer; and also between U.S. and Brazilian universities and, crucially, intellectuals — a key part of Bolsonaro’s rise to power — represent just a handful of the ways the bilateral relationship has diversified and gained momentum in recent years. This does not necessarily raise the odds of a breakthrough, but it does provide a higher floor in case bilateral fortunes take a turn for the worse.

The safest approach to gauging the likely success of a Brazil-U.S. rapprochement is most likely a balanced one: while temperamental and contextual factors will do much to cheerlead progress between Brazil and the United States, it is wise to look out for the resurgence of old bugbears. If there are to be woes, they are as likely to be logistical as to be structural: Bolsonaro and his team will likely have little leeway to maneuver, vis-à-vis the United States or otherwise, if they do not manage to secure long-awaited pension reform in the early months of the administration. In other words, the sky may well be the limit, but only so long as the ground remains stable underfoot.

TAGS: Cold War, Diplomatic History, History

NICK BURNS

Nick Burns is an intern at the Brazil Institute.

More posts by Nick Burns

Machado de Assis entra no Itamaraty - Luiz Antonio Simas; Dawisson Lopes

 Um medalhão em Saramandaia

Versos, citações em latim, adjetivos em profusão, citações históricas: a teoria do medalhão, de Machado de Assis, estava toda ali no discurso de posse de Ernesto Araújo. Lembranças também dos professores Aristóbulo Camargo e Astromar Junqueira, de Dias Gomes

Luiz Antonio Simas

Revista Época, 05/01/2019 - 13:47 / Atualizado em 05/01/2019 - 14:22

https://epoca.globo.com/um-medalhao-em-saramandaia-23348861?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=compartilhar

O escritor carioca Machado de Assis publicou o conto Teoria do Medalhão em 1881, no jornal Gazeta de Notícias . A trama é simples: Janjão está completando 21 anos, a maioridade naquela época. Logo depois do jantar de comemoração do aniversário, o jovem é chamado pelo pai para uma daquelas conversas definitivas sobre o futuro.

Em resumo, o pai aconselha o filho a ser o que ele mesmo não conseguira: um medalhão. O que seria isso? Basicamente, o medalhão é “grande e ilustre, ou pelo menos notável”. Para chegar ao auge entre os 45 e os 50 anos, período em que o medalhão geralmente desabrocha, Janjão deveria se preparar desde cedo, aparelhando o espírito para evitar o perigo das ideias próprias.

Dentre diversas dicas para que o status de medalhão seja alcançado, o pai de Janjão ressalta a importância da linguagem. Cito: “podes empregar umas quantas figuras expressivas, a hidra de Lerna, por exemplo, a cabeça de Medusa, o tonel das Danaides, as asas de Ícaro, e outras, que românticos, clássicos e realistas empregam sem desar, quando precisam delas. Sentenças latinas, ditos históricos, versos célebres, brocardos jurídicos, máximas, é de bom aviso trazê-los contigo para os discursos de sobremesa, de felicitação, ou de agradecimento. Caveant consules é um excelente fecho de artigo político; o mesmo direi do Si vis pacem para bellum ”.

Por fim o pai sugere que o medalhão não chegue a nenhuma conclusão que já não tenha sido chegada por outros, mas faça isso de forma aparentemente original, e evite os riscos da ironia, coisa de “céticos e desabusados”.

Ao escrever o conto Machado satirizava uma turma da sociedade aristocrática e bacharelesca que misturava, nas mesmas proporções, mediocridade e pedantismo. Os medalhões difundiam ideias rasteiras recheadas de citações, tentavam impressionar os populares com demonstrações de conhecimento das coisas do povo e, ao mesmo tempo, comover os eruditos com axiomas clássicos, enfiando três ou quatro máximas em outras línguas para arrematar.

A Teoria do Medalhão me veio à memória quando escutei o discurso de posse do novo chanceler brasileiro, Ernesto Araújo. A linguagem do medalhão estava toda ali: citação em grego de versículo do Evangelho de São João, citação da banda Legião Urbana em música com versos de Camões, citação em latim do brasão da Ordem de Rio Branco, referências a Tarcísio Meira, Raul Seixas e José de Alencar, menção a uma série de ficção científica e, para arrematar, a Ave Maria em Tupi, de acordo com a tradução do padre José de Anchieta. No meio do sarapatel, ataques ao globalismo, exortações ao caráter libertador de Bolsonaro e saudações aos governos conservadores de direita da Europa.

Confesso que, até me recordar da Teoria do Medalhão, comecei a considerar o arrazoado do ministro similar aos discursos que dois personagens de Dias Gomes faziam nas novelas Saramandaia e Roque Santeiro : os professores Aristóbulo Camargo e Astromar Junqueira. Versos, citações em latim, adjetivos em profusão, citações históricas eram comuns aos homens das letras, sempre vestidos de preto, criados por Dias. Registre-se que Aristóbulo e Astromar, nos intervalos entre um discurso e outro, viravam lobisomens.

Outro detalhe chama atenção no discurso do chanceler. Em alguma medida, ele parece ir em direção oposta à comunicação do governo. Enquanto o presidente e outros assessores buscam construir imagens populares de pessoas comuns, com sucesso, o chanceler aparece com fumos de erudição, saca do colete dezenas de autores, arremata tudo isso com sentenças bíblicas em línguas clássicas e, dando uma de Policarpo Quaresma, enfia no meio um tupi-guarani suspeito.

O discurso do chanceler, digno de um medalhão bem sucedido, sugere duas possibilidades: uma delas é a da confirmação da atemporalidade da obra de Machado de Assis. O Bruxo do Cosme Velho, ao diagnosticar a sua época, permanece atual. O que escreveu em 1881 continua irretocável em 2019; coisa que só faz afirmar o preto do Morro do Livramento como um gigante das letras. A outra possibilidade é a de que o chanceler de 2019 seja um exemplo bem acabado de brasileiro de 1881.

A minha impressão é a de que elas não se excluem: o escritor do século XIX continua vivendo no século XXI. O chanceler do século XXI continua vivendo no século XIX.

(Leia aqui o conto Teoria do Medalhão e tire sua conclusão sobre as duas possibilidades levantadas por Simas)

Luiz Antonio Simas é historiador, autor de 15 livros, ganhador de dois prêmios Jabuti – entre eles o de Livro do Ano de Não Ficção de 2016, com Nei Lopes

SAIBA MAIS

O Deus de Araújo e o dos outros

A anatomia da foto oficial do governo Jair Bolsonaro

Em e-mail, futuro chanceler afaga colegas de classe por carteira de identidade funcional

A nova onda da internacionalização de Machado de Assis

==============

O GLOBO ONLINE

Deus e o diabo na terra da política externa

Chanceler promete diplomacia que reflita religiosidade popular, mas será que brasileiros são contra o secularismo?

Dawisson Belém Lopes*

O Globo online, 06/01/2019 - 04:30

 Ernesto Araújo faz seu discurso de posse, no qual disse que o Brasil "está perdido fora de si mesmo" Foto: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom/Agência Brasil/2-12-2018 / Agência O Globo

Há algo de farsesco, ainda que bastante engenhoso, no modo como a política externa do governo Bolsonaro vem buscando legitimar-se publicamente. O principal impulso ao processo é dado pelo chanceler Ernesto Araújo, homem de fortes convicções morais, admirador dos nacionalismos românticos e da herança ocidental. Trata-se, ademais, de um fiel devoto de Donald Trump.

Araújo vem se aproximando, nas manifestações feitas em seu blog pessoal e nas peças que publica na imprensa, do apelo popular de Jair Bolsonaro à religiosidade do povo brasileiro. A fórmula da nova política externa, segundo o chanceler, terá de alinhar-se a essas circunstâncias.

Se a gente brasileira é religiosa, logo a política externa, praticada por um presidente com mandato democrático, também deverá sê-lo. O Brasil, entende Bolsonaro, necessita pautar-se nas suas relações internas e internacionais por valores judaico-cristãos, pois é isso que o povo reivindica na atualidade.

Do raciocínio deriva o receituário da política externa bolsonarista: o país precisa rejeitar o “globalismo” e o “marxismo cultural”, tendências emanadas de foros diplomáticos e editoriais internacionais, desprovidas do empuxo popular e, alegadamente, corruptoras da soberania nacional e do patriotismo. Eis o bilhete para a “libertação do Itamaraty” – na expressão carregada de Araújo.

Para tanto, devem-se recusar peremptoriamente as resoluções das entidades multilaterais e juntar-se à liga dos regimes fortes e cultores das tradições ocidentais. Estados Unidos, Itália, Polônia e Hungria, nações cristãs, credenciam-se como parceiras preferenciais. Israel, o Estado judaico, candidata-se a aliado incondicional.

Percebe-se, todavia, que a equivalência “voz do povo, voz de Deus”, proposta pelos bolsonaristas como o verdadeiro elo perdido da autoridade, resulta logicamente falaciosa. Se é bem verdade que a sociedade brasileira preza a dimensão religiosa, não se extrai daí que os cidadãos sejamos refratários ao secularismo como princípio organizador da vida política.

Mero estereótipo

De resto, a experiência religiosa dos brasileiros, como já amplamente difundido pelos antropólogos, é de um tipo sincrético, não acomodando no cotidiano os rigores da ortodoxia. Somos o país dos milhões de cristãos “não praticantes”, das infusões e dos intercâmbios entre as variadas denominações de fé.

Ao substituir as máximas mundanas do realismo político por princípios idealistas e metafísicos, Araújo e colaboradores recriam o ciclo de produção da política externa brasileira. Tira-se o povo da conversa, reduzindo-o a mero estereótipo de uma expressão religiosa. Habilmente, o chanceler e seu grupo promovem jogos filosóficos e de linguagem cujo saldo é a elitização decisória em política externa.

Explica-se: quando o mote da política externa democrática era anteriormente evocado, imaginava-se uma tensão constitutiva entre os aristocráticos homens de Estado e a plebe. A democratização poderia até avançar, lenta e dialeticamente, por meio de choques de interesses. Por um truque retórico, contudo, essa tensão dissipou-se no discurso corrente, dado que os novos mandatários imaginam falar pelo e para o povo, interpretando de maneira peculiar os sentidos da sua fé.

Os diplomatas profissionais, integrantes da comunidade cosmopolita global, tradicionalmente autorizados a pronunciar-se sobre as relações exteriores do Brasil, dão lugar a teocratas e nativistas. Dentro desse esquema de coisas, saber técnico, trajetória institucional e acúmulo acadêmico não se tornam, necessariamente, alavancas de poder. Afinidade ideológica e proximidade com a chefia do Poder Executivo, sim.

Existe, ainda, um inesperado problema empírico com a narrativa diplomática em construção: segundo levantamento do instituto Datafolha, divulgado em 27 de dezembro último, 66% dos brasileiros não querem ver o país associado aos Estados Unidos nos assuntos estrangeiros. É um rechaço popular emitido em alto e bom som aos caminhos vislumbrados pelo novo governo federal.

* Professor de política internacional da UFMG, é o autor de “Política Externa e Democracia no Brasil: Ensaio de Interpretação Histórica” (Ed. Unesp, 2013) e “Política Externa na Nova República: Os Primeiros 30 Anos” (Ed. UFMG, 2017).

https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/artigo-deus-o-diabo-na-terra-da-politica-externa-23348545

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