As Brazil’s political crisis has worsened over the past year, one of
the country’s leading dailies, O Jornal
do Brasil, has repeatedly revealed itself to be determined to support
President Dilma Rousseff in every slant possible.
In an unsigned opinion piece entitled “Unemployment in Brazil and
Europe: Where is the crisis really?”1 the paper takes the rhetorical
approach of erroneously extrapolating global conclusions from a restricted
subset of data. Reporting on recently released figures from the Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de
Geografia e Estatística) that indicate Brazil’s unemployment rate to be 6.9%,
the paper belittles public and political concerns about the economy and the
out-of-work population, referring to European nations with similarly high
unemployment. The article cites specific figures for various countries
representing an assortment of economic conditions:
France: 10.3% in May
United Kingdom: 5.6%
in April
Germany: 4.7% in May
Italy: 12.4% in May
Portugal: 13.2% in
May
Spain: 22.5% in May
and, of course,
Greece: 25.6% in May
The article naively concludes that if no one is alarmed over economic
crisis in France, Germany and the U.K., then Brazilians facing a similar rate
also should not be alarmed. The commentary fails to consider the state of the
respective economies, the role of the European Union as a stabilizing agent,
and the underlying basis for the unemployment. It also glosses over the fact
that both Spain and especially Greece are indeed alarmed about the dire state
of their economies, with the latter facing possible economic collapse, political
upheaval, and wide-spread social turmoil. Furthermore, the public perception of
economic conditions in other countries neither negates nor validates consumer and
voter confidence in Brazil. The newspaper implies that domestic uncertainties
over the Brazilian economy are unfounded, and ignores the on-going political
corruption scandal that has plagued the administrations of both Rousseff and
her predecessor, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.
This line of reasoning falls into the rhetoric of the Rousseff regime
which is branding political opponents as illegal “coup plotters” (golpistas),
especially the masses of protestors who have periodically taken to the streets
calling for her impeachment. Apparently, Rousseff supporters including O Jornal do Brasil disregard the fact
that the impeachment process is defined by the Brazilian constitution and was
successfully implemented to remove democratically-elected president Fernando
Collor de Mello in 1992. Indeed, the very possibility of impeachment was a
significant democratic landmark when the current Brazilian constitution was promulgated
after the demise of the military’s 20-year, undemocratic rule. Almost all other major Brazilian media outlets
and major political parties on both the right and the left of the spectrum are
critical of the president, with founding members of Rousseff’s own Workers’
Party or PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores) publically denouncing the regime.
It remains very unlikely that Rousseff actually will be impeached, but
the on-going revelations about money laundering and influence peddling continue
to undermine domestic and international confidence in an economy that had seemed
robust while many developed nations struggled over the past decade.
Notes:
1. “O desemprego no Brasil e na Europa:
onde mesmo está a crise?” Jornal do Brasil, 27 July 2015:
