Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wears a Palestinian kaffiyeh in the West Bank city of Ramallah on 17 March 2010. Photo: AFP/File photo.
By Emir Sader – Mar 5, 2024
They asked me to comment on the diplomatic crisis. I ask: What crisis?
This is a crisis manufactured by the media. Lula once again condemned the genocide of Palestinians by “Israel.” The statement that is now widely accepted by the vast majority of opinion makers.
Who can remain insensitive to the genocide of the Palestinians, mainly of Palestinian children and women? The most horrifying images of this century are those of Palestinian children.
I wonder how Israelis can look at these photographs, praised by their government minister, and not feel deep guilt for what they are doing, every day, with dozens or hundreds of deaths.
Any human being who is not scandalized by this genocide, who does not accept calling it genocide, has already lost sensitivity and humanity. Lula did the obvious and expressed our outrage for all of this. He represents us.
However, suddenly the media began promoting outrage in the opposite direction. Lula allegedly disrespected Jews and all their victims, a wrong and unfounded interpretation that serves to mobilize the right and the extreme right in what they enjoy most: finding Lula’s possible errors.
Some have already found the basis of the alleged errors: Lula’s improvisation. In an irresponsible attitude, according to this interpretation, Lula started talking about the most serious global conflict in the contemporary world to equate different phenomena, offend the victims, and absolve the guilty.
Another reason for the errors would be that Lula was supposedly unaware of the suffering of the Jews, which would justify the genocide unleashed by “Israel.”
None of this is justified in light of what the Brazilian president actually said. When analyzing what he said, we realize that Lula did not even mention the word “holocaust.”
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After the initial media offensive, when the effects in Brazil and other countries around the world reveal their true effects, everything is positive for Lula.
The artificially manufactured nature of this crisis that never existed is clear. However, the media thrives on this. Lula’s success, as president of Brazil and as a world leader, is unbearable for the right. Lula’s success is the failure of the right and its media.
The media thrives by searching for some alleged mistake by Lula, seeking to erode his public image, and, if successful, affect his governability, his ability to lead the country, his prestige, and his popular support.
The media thrives by generating crises; then, they begin to interview people about this crisis, which they try to wish into existence, as if it were a real phenomenon. The headlines are starting to mention this alleged crisis. Well, does the crisis exist? Is the country in crisis? Is the government in crisis? What kind of crisis is it?
The first thing to do, then, is to unmask the supposed crisis and dismantle it.
Most importantly, what news outlets are doing this? What role do they have? To inform people? To form people’s conscience and create an axis of opposition to the government?
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
Emir Sader
Emir Simão Sader is a Brazilian sociologist and political scientist of Lebanese origin. He received all his higher education credentials from the University of São Paulo. He did his bachelor’s degree in philosophy, his master’s degree in political philosophy and his doctoral degree in political science.
