The gesture of the thumb and the index has for these hours in Brazil of the meanings antagonistic If they show themselves with their fingers up, as many have done at the exit of the polling station, they report their sympathy with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But if they simulate the use of a gun, there is no doubt that the empathy is with Jair Bolsonaro and his adherence to a culture of violence which can be just symbolic or material.
In fact, on the eve of the elections they had the former far-right deputy, Roberto Jefferson, at the center of a shootout. He loosely fired 20 rifle cartridges and two grenades at a police car. Just before the opening of the polls, the Bolsonarist deputy Carla Zambelli also went from gesture to act and chased a Lula supporter at the point of a revolver through a street in the city of São Paulo.
These episodes achieved visibility because the attackers were public figures. However, they are no longer an exception in a country where Bolsonaro willingly made access to weapons more flexible. Over a million guns have been purchased legally in recent years. Part of those who acquired them presented themselves as hunters, shooters and collectors.
Increase in arms imports
According to the magazine ‘Piaui’, between 1997 and 2018, the year in which the retired captain came to power, Brazil imported 120,400 revolvers and pistols. From the far-right government, not only the thumb and index fingers of its leader became a state emblem but also an incitement to acquire supplies: 441,000 imports were registered between January 2019 and August of this year. Starting in July, even a higher growth in purchases. The last month a maximum peak was computed.
As the elections approached, and in the midst of the growing threats from the president to cast doubt on the outcome of the polls, the issue of the use of weapons has undergone a change that puts the Brazilian far-right in greater harmony with the North American. It has gone, in social networks, from a cult of the pistol and not only as a means of defending oneself against a potential criminal but as a concrete possibility of attacking a political opponent.
That is why the messages shared on Telegram by a group with some 180,000 members calling themselves ‘New Right 70 million’ have not drawn attention. They began to discuss how to act to reverse a possible victory for Lula in the second round. “Kill and break urns“, proposed Jackson Villar da Silva, an evangelical who calls himself a businessman and president of the group “Accelera Para Cristo. The recordings were released by the Public Agency.
The ghost of a brazilian version of the Trumpist invasion of the Capitol has been present on the eve of the elections. This connection between the United States and Brazil was also expressed in an unusual shot: the main actors of the saga avengers Marvel, Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Samuel Jackson (Nick Fury), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk) and Benedict Wong (Wong), called on Brazilians to reject Bolsonaro at the polls.