Was Shell Hiding Underneath Brazil’s Imprisonment of Lula and Rousseff’s Impeachment?

Quoting one of the founders of Latin America’s Liberation Theologies, Leonardo Boff, Isabel was clearly incensed as she sat across the table and said: “The process of liberation always brings profound conflict.” Adding that she and other Brazilians still had hope to turn ever back to the struggle in the face of defeats of the oppressed, she wanted the world to know that Brazil’s most popular president, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, was still imprisoned. She also wanted people to realize that Dilma Vana Rousseff was impeached and ousted by a right-wing and corporate-led Shell-backed coup over the “ultra-deep” Pre-Salt Brazilian oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

How Much Solidarity?
Adding the eternal destiny of human beings will be measured by how much solidarity they’ve displayed with the poor and oppressed, she wondered why the foreign press had so quickly dropped, let alone covered, the Shell-backed right-wing coups against Lula and Rousseff. “After all,” she said, “Lula was not only the first full-blooded Indigenous Indian to be democratically elected, but he set about transforming Brazil into a society which practiced equality and economic opportunity.” With minimum wage raised 76 percent, improved healthcare, and a campaign against corporate corruption, women, ordinary laborers, even the lives of the most poor and illiterate were improved.

The Dangerous Imbalance
Despite Lula’s twelve-year imprisonment, which he fights to this day, Rousseff, Lula’s successor, continued reforms. Noting that social justice and equality represented one of the most serious challenges to the conscience of the world, she too supported legislation which narrowed the abyss between those who were within the new global elite and those who were excluded by its widening day by day. In addition to regulating technologies-like Amazon-that made it possible to accumulate wealth in a way that was perverse and unjustly distributed, she tried to undo the dangerous imbalance-giving back to the People resources that were militarily seized by corporations-in the movement of history.

Devoted to More Than God
Isabel, which means “devoted to God,” was moreover devoted to restoring Lula and Rousseff to their democratic legitimacy, despite being politically intimidated by the current right-wing regime under Michel Temer. Having a young daughter, she’s also concerned about his “National Salvation” plan which is undercutting labor laws, senior pension plans, and slashing social uplift programs and public services. In fact, she said, he was bribed by international corporations to dissolve the “Reserva Nacional do Cobre e Associados,” which would have opened the Amazonian reserve in Brazil’s northern reserve to development. Due to mass protests it was fortunately revoked, at least for now.

Who’s Best Interest?
The same cannot be said of Brazil’s Pre-Salt oil reserves which may hold 8 billion barrels of oil. What’s ironic, said Isabel, is that when it came time for a bid there was only one proposal: Shell Oil. Like others, she too suspects bribery. Given that Shell Oil has had a sordid past with its polybutylene pipes, which have corroded in the Amazonian Rain Forest and exposed Indigenous Indians with chlorine, not to mention other crimes against the environment, she’s not that hopeful. Neither is she hopeful that Shell Oil, which she called a “monied corporation that just helped to crush our democracy by jailing Lula and impeaching Rousseff, have the people of Brazil in their best interest-specifically the poor.

Borrowed Time
In the meantime, she was appreciative of what Pope Francis just said about giant oil companies like Shell. Quoting his Encyclical, Laudato Si, he warned Shell, Exxon, Mobil and BP that there was no time to lose. In other words: “We received the Earth as a garden-home from the Creator; let us not pass it on to future generations as a wilderness.” Isabel consequently wonders if Shell Oil will keep in mind the marine life as they drill deep into the Pre-Salt Layer oil field. Given the delicate balance of ecosystems, she also wants to know what Shell Oil plans to do in case of a spill-which is more than likely. But above all, who will get use of the energy. Will it be the poor and oppressed of Brazil?

Go To Hell!
Keeping with her pain of having a democratic society slip away from the People of Brazil, “Maybe Shell should go to hell!” said Isabel. She also warned that some Brazilians, especially the aristocracy, don’t forget about those who try to upset their established order. To be sure, Lula’s crime was wanting the rich to know that the poor do exist, which is an inescapable fact of destiny. As a former Marxist guerilla, Rousseff was charged for exposing how the oppressed of Brazil were the by-product of a system, a highly corporate and marginalized one at that. “Together,” Isabel said, “they were ousted not because of their generous relief but because they tried to build a different social order.

A social order of equality and economic opportunities, that is, which was evidently rejected by the new right-wing regime and Shell Oil.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.