The Cultivation of Brazil: Lula Between Castro and Obama

Brazil has been seeking to re-make its place within the Hemispheric pecking order since the ascension of Lula to the Brazilian Presidency.  Brazil, rightly, sees itself as arriving at a point in its development that it might assume some of the role traditionally exercised solely by the United States in Latin America.  It seeks to assert its hegemony in concert with or opposition to that traditionally exercised by the United States.  The recent efforts at exclusionary clubbiness with the construciton of the  Comunidad de estados de América Latina y el Caribe.  The almost successful efforts to dominate the settlement in Honduras in the wake of the removal of Mr. Zelaya all attest to Brazil's self conscious willingness to chart a new courser and finds a new place in the hierarchy of states within the Western Hemisphere. 

These efforts have put Brazil and the United States on opposite sides of a number of issues.   See, e.g., Larry Catá Backer, Brazil and the Washington Consensus, Law at the End of the Day, Nov. 10,  2008. From the efforts to export carrier technology to the Chinese, to the opposition ot Hemispheric trade on terms originally conceived by the United States, to intrusion into everything from climate change to the Jewish-Muslim war in the Middle East, Brazil has sought to have its influence felt more acutely in international affairs.  That effort was unimpeded during the Presidency of George Bush, whose ideological foundations were irreconcilable with those of Mr. Lula.  It has been a bit more difficult,  but not impossible, with the Administration of Mr. Obama, who some in the Lula Administration might have thought would be easier to manage with respect to Latin American affairs.   

Yet razil does not mean to step into the role of opponent, in the style of Cuba.  Instead, Lula has meant to serve as a bridge and mediator between the interests of Latin America, which it seeks to dominate, and those of the English speaking peoples of the Western Hemisphere, which it cannot.  Critical to that role has been the relationship between Lula and Fidel Castro.  It joins Castro, the Sandinistas, and the ideological consequences of Liberation theology as a political ideology with continuing relevance in Brazil and the Caribbean region.  I have suggested some of the contours of that relationship in the past.  See, Larry Catá Backer, Cuba and Brazil, Part I: Castro Lectures Lula da Silva, Law at the End of the Day, Jan. 26, 2008; Larry Catá Backer, Cuba and Brazil Part II: Castro Continues His Wooing of Lula, Law at the End of the Day, Feb. 10, 2008; Larry Catá Backer, Cuba and Brazil Part III: Cuba and Brazil in Parallel Strokes, Law at the End of the Day,  Feb. 24, 2008; Larry Catá Backer, Cuba and Brazil Part IV: Bringing Lula Into the Cuban Orbit; Bringing Cuba Into the Brazilian Orbit?, Law at the End of the Day, March 7, 2008.

One was recently reminded of the strength and importance of that relationship in a recent essay posted to Fidel Castro's blog:  Fidel Castro Ruz, El Último encuentro con Lula, Relexiones del compañero Fidel, Grandma, March 1, 2010. 

Después que enfermé he tenido el privilegio de ser visitado por Lula cuantas veces ha viajado a nuestra Patria y de conversar ampliamente con él. No diré que siempre coincidí con toda su política. Soy, por principio, opuesto a la producción de biocombustible a partir de productos que puedan ser utilizados como alimentos, consciente de que el hambre es y podrá ser cada vez más una gran tragedia para la humanidad. [After I fell ill, I have had the privilege of receiving the visit of Lula every time he has traveled to our homeland; and we have talked at length. I will not say that I always coincided with all of his policies. I oppose by principle the production of biofuels using crops that can serve as food since I am aware that hunger already is, and can increasingly become, a major tragedy for humanity.]

Fidel Castro Ruz, El Último encuentro con Lula, supra.  ; ther English translations are from the official web site translation, Fidel Castro Ruz, Reflections by comrade Fidel,MY RECENT MEETING WITH LULA.  For Castro, Lula is the class and ideological embodiment of a reconciliation between Cuba and Brazil,.  The emphasis on Lula's class origins and loyalties is critical to Castro's approach to both Lula and Brazil.  "Se trataba de un humilde obrero de la industria metalúrgica que se destacaba por su inteligencia y prestigio entre los sindicatos, en la gran nación que emergía de las tinieblas de la dictadura militar impuesta por el imperio yanki, en la década del 60." Id.  [He was a humble worker from the metal industry, a man of remarkable talent and of prestige among the trade unions in that great nation that was leaving behind the dark days of the military dictatorship imposed by the Yankee imperialism in the 1960s.] Nor is this approach unique to Lula, Castro dismissed Mr. Obama for the same reasons--Obama was more loyal to his class than to his "race."  See, e.g., discussion in Larry Catá Backer,  Fidel Castro on the American Elections: Obama's Partiality and the Perceptions of the Developing World, Law at the End of the Day, November 4, 2008.  Castro goes to great lengths to paint a great socialist realist canvas featuring the heroic and humble worker, Mr. Lula, undertaking the defense of the nation. 

Una vez tuve el honor de visitarlo en su casa, situada en un modesto barrio de Sao Paulo, donde residía con su familia. Fue para mí un emotivo encuentro con él, su esposa y sus hijos. No olvidaré nunca la atmósfera familiar y sana de aquel hogar, y el sincero afecto con que lo abordaban sus vecinos, cuando Lula era ya un prestigioso líder obrero y político. Nadie sabía entonces si llegaría o no a la Presidencia de Brasil, pues los intereses y fuerzas que se le oponían eran muy grandes, pero me agradaba hablar con él. A Lula tampoco le importaba mucho el cargo; le satisfacía, sobre todo, el placer de luchar y lo hacía con intachable modestia; que demostró sobradamente cuando, habiendo sido vencido tres veces por sus poderosos adversarios, sólo accedió a permitir la postulación del Partido de los Trabajadores en una cuarta ocasión por fuerte presión de sus más sinceros amigos. [I once had the honor of visiting him in his house located in a modest neighborhood in Sao Paulo where he lived with his family. It was very moving for me to meet with him, his wife and children. I will never forget the fraternal and healthy family atmosphere in that home and the sincere affection showed by the neighbors who approached Lula when he was already a prestigious worker and political leader. No one knew then whether or not he would become the President of Brazil since major interests and forces opposed him: but I enjoyed talking with him. On the other hand, Lula did not care much about that position; he took pleasure in fighting and he did so with irreproachable modesty. This he showed extensively when after being defeated three times by his adversaries he only accepted to run for the Workers Party on a fourth occasion due to the strong pressure of his most sincere friends.]

Fidel Castro Ruz, El Último encuentro con Lula, supra.    This melding of social, political and ideological purity is an important device in the construciton of ideologically compelling imagery.  Just as the conflation of sexual and political corruption has played such a great role in the politics of developing states, so it appears does the conflation of class , sexual and political purity.  See, Larry Catá Backer, Emasculated Men, Effeminate Law in the United States, Zimbabwe and Malaysia. Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2005.

Cuban-Brazilian friendship and ideological fellow traveling had been interrupted after the 1959 Cuba Revolution by the Brazilian dictatorship and its ideological subservience to American interests.   "Las relaciones de Brasil con Cuba habían sido excelentes hasta que el poder dominante en el hemisferio, las hizo sucumbir. Pasaron décadas desde entonces hasta que volviesen lentamente a ser lo que son hoy."  [Brazil’s relations with Cuba had been excellent until the dominating power in the hemisphere brought them to an end. Several decades would pass before those relations could slowly recover to what they are today.] Fidel Castro Ruz, El Último encuentro con Lula, supra.    But now the tables have been turned, thanks in part to Lula's identification with both his ethnicity--derived from the Southern rather then the Northern European imperium, and it is the United States, rather than Cuba that stands isolated within the Hemisphere--at least ideologically.  Its transcendant manifestation appears in the form of that exclusionary community of Hemispheric states other than the United States and Canada.  "Por ello, tiene para nosotros una enorme trascendencia la reunión que se acaba de efectuar en Cancún y la decisión de crear una Comunidad de Estados de América Latina y el Caribe. Ningún otro hecho institucional de nuestro hemisferio durante el último siglo refleja similar trascendencia." Id. [Hence the enormous significance we attach to the recent meeting in Cancun and to its decision to establish a Community Latin American and Caribbean States. No other institutional event of the past century in our hemisphere is so transcendental.]

Fact and symbol blend to  enhance the vision of a Cuba and Brazil united ideologically and by common ethically and cultural union in oppostion to a common enemy--the United States.  "Deseo dejar constancia escrita de la importancia y el simbolismo que para mí tuvo la visita y el último encuentro con Lula, desde el punto de vista personal y revolucionario. Él dijo que, próximo ya a finalizar su mandato, deseaba visitar a su amigo Fidel; calificativo honroso que recibí de su parte. Creo conocerlo bien. No pocas veces conversamos fraternalmente dentro y fuera de Cuba."  [I want to place on record the significance and symbolism I attach to Lula’s recent visit and my meeting with him, both personally and as a revolutionary. He had said that as he was nearing the end of his term as president, he wanted to visit his friend Fidel; he honored me with that description. I think I know him well. We often had fraternal conversations both in Cuba and abroad.] Castro seeks here to overdraw these commonalities and symbols as he positions Brazil further from the United States--as something alien, cold. . .English, against the common and warm embrace of socialism, proletariat. . . .Latin. . .  enhancing social justice agendas that Castro assumes for himself and Mr. Lula.  This parallelism is then emphasized, not in the body of Mr. Lula. but in its effect on the body of the Brazilian nation:

Brasil, por su parte, en los últimos ocho años bajo la dirección de Lula, vencía obstáculos, incrementaba su desarrollo tecnológico, y potenciaba el peso de la economía brasileña. La parte más difícil fue su primer período, pero tuvo éxito y ganó experiencia. Con su incansable batallar, serenidad, sangre fría y creciente consagración a la tarea, en condiciones internacionales tan difíciles, Brasil alcanzó un PIB que se aproxima a los dos millones de millones de dólares. Los datos varían según las fuentes, pero todas lo sitúan entre las 10 mayores economías del mundo. A pesar de eso, con una superficie de 8 millones 524 mil kilómetros cuadrados, frente a Estados Unidos, que apenas posee algo más de territorio, Brasil sólo alcanza aproximadamente el 12% del Producto Interno Bruto de ese país imperialista que saquea al mundo y despliega sus fuerzas armadas en más de mil bases militares de todo el planeta. [On the other hand, in the past eight years, with Lula at the head of the nation Brazil kept overcoming obstacles, increasing its technological development and expanding the weight of the Brazilian economy. The most difficult part was his first term, but he succeeded and gained experience. With his restless struggle, his calmness and composure as well as his growing devotion to his work, under such challenging international conditions, BrazilUnited States with barely a larger territory, Brazil only has about 12% of the GDP of that imperialist country that plunders the world and deploys its armed forces in over one thousand military bases worldwide. attained a GDP close to two trillion dollars. The data vary depending on the sources but they all agree to place it among the 10 largest economies in the world. In spite of this, with an area of 5,327,500 square miles, compared to the ]

Id. That unity survives even Castro¡s quibble with Brazil's aggressive program in biofuels, a subject of intense Cuban criticism over the last several years.  And why not--even that is not the fault of the hapless Brazilians--now characterized as a passive and weak player in a larger stage.  Rather even biofuels can be blamed on the United States and its orchestration of its global intangible economic empire effectuated through its construciton of private global economic systems. 

Este sin embargo —lo expreso con toda franqueza— no es un problema creado por Brasil y mucho menos por Lula. Forma parte inseparable de la economía mundial impuesta por el imperialismo y sus aliados ricos que, subsidiando sus producciones agrícolas, protegen sus mercados internos y compiten en el mercado mundial con las exportaciones alimentarias de los países del Tercer Mundo, obligados a importar en cambio los artículos industriales producidos con las materias primas y los recursos energéticos de ellos mismos que heredaron la pobreza de siglos de colonialismo. Comprendo perfectamente que Brasil no tenía otra alternativa, frente a la competencia desleal y los subsidios de Estados Unidos y Europa, que incrementar la producción de etanol.[However, I must honestly say that this is not a problem created by Brazil, least of all by Lula. It is an essential part of the world economy imposed by imperialism and its rich allies that subsidize their farm productions to protect their domestic markets and compete in the world market with the food exports of the Third World nations, which are forced to import the industrial items produced with the raw materials and energy resources of these same countries that inherited poverty from centuries of colonialism. I perfectly understand that given the unfair competition and subsidies of Europe and the United States, Brazil had no choice but to produce ethanol. ]

Id.  This is an old political trope of Castro,  which he has used effectively in other contexts.  See, e.g., discussion in Larry Catá Backer,   Ideologies of Globalization and Sovereign Debt: Cuba and the IMF. Pennsylvania State International Law Review, Vol. 24, 2006. 

Yet for all that, Castro pronounces Lula a worthy disciple, a son of his class now able to influence the course of international affairs in the service of his class. "Una cosa es indiscutible: el obrero metalúrgico se ha convertido actualmente en un estadista destacado y prestigioso cuya voz se escucha con respeto en todas las reuniones internacionales." Id.  [One thing is clear: the metal worker has become an outstanding and prestigious statesman whose voice is respectfully heard in every international meeting.]  And this puts Lula squarely on the side of Cuba and against the United States

 Algunos envidiosos de su prestigio y de su gloria, y peor aún, los que están al servicio del imperio, lo criticaron por visitar Cuba. Utilizaron para ello las viles calumnias que desde hace medio siglo se usan contra Cuba. Lula conoce desde hace muchos años que en nuestro país jamás se torturó a nadie, jamás se ordenó el asesinato de un adversario, jamás se mintió al pueblo. Tiene la seguridad de que la verdad es compañera inseparable de sus amigos cubanos. [Some of those who envy his prestige and his glory, and worse still, those at the service of the empire, criticized him for coming to Cuba. To that end, they have resorted to the vile slanders used against Cuba for half a century. Lula has known for many years that in our country no one has ever been tortured; that we have never ordered the assassination of an adversary, and that we have never lied to the people. He does know that truth is the inseparable companion of his Cuban friends.]

Id. 

Having spent the greater part of the first year of the Obama Administraiton testing the Americans for weakness or a willingness to cede power within Latin America, and finding that the current Administration is perhaps more adept at continuing the policies of its predecessor, the Lula government is currently contemplating improving relations with the United States.  Improvement along those lines is to be applauded.  It will be interesting to see how that happens when according to Castro's reckening, the leading representative of class privilege over race (Mr. Obama) seeks to find common ground with the great advocate of class fidelity over race (Mr. Lula).  If Mr. Castro has its way, or better put, if his read of both men is right, the conversaiton will be short and unsatisfactory--to the great benefit of the Cuban state.