Since May, the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of São Paulo was. They ripped posters, caused turmoil, filmed all the confusion, and- as some of the January 8 invaders- disclosed their deeds on social networks. The pretext was to denounce the “communists of”. In the last onslaught, a member of a certain “conservative union” bit and twisted a student’s arm. The attacks had the enthusiastic support of a Boconist state deputy and, at least once, with the participation of an intern at the Legislative Assembly allocated in the office of another PL representative.
Last week, the Director of the Legal Sciences Sector of the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), daughter of a STF minister was assaulted with a spit and called “communist waste”.
Although they seem isolated, these wins are one of the faces of the well-known anti-litism of the far-right populist; of their contempt for science, culture and universities where they are cultivated. When in the government, authoritarian populists systematically pursue scientists and intellectuals and try to tame academic institutions.
Examples is left over. Na, Viktor Orbán expelled the renowned Central-Europeia University, created in 1991 by the George Soros philanthropist to renew the social sciences and humanities in the newly sour countries of communism. The autocrat put historian Yuri Dimitiev, creator of the memorial, NGO dedicated to documenting Stalin’s crimes, and pursued sociologist Lev Gudkov and his center taken internationally respected by public opinion studies.
On the side of the world, in Caracas, dictator Hugo Chávez pursued the well -known economist Teodoro Petkoff, director of the magazine “Tal Cual”; Maduro, the successor, repressed the independent voices of the Central University of Venezuela without ceasing. In the US, in the first term, it threatened infectologist Anthony Fauci for defending Vaccination against Covid-19; Now it’s about folding American elite universities and destroying institutions that fund health and environment research.
Thus, by pathetic they seem, the USP invaders and the UFPR aggressor should be taken seriously. They are opening classes of what can come if their block returns to the federal government. They only fit the rigor of the law.
But it is much greater the challenge that USP and other public universities face: to ensure that tolerance, pluralism and civilized debate predominate over sectarian truculence, whatever their political affiliation. For this to be more than a tribute to noble principles, it is possible to give way to the expression of the diversity of ideas – from left to right, from progressivism to conservatism – which certainly exists in any academic environment, in the most varied proportions.
There is no way to isolate the authoritarian far-right that bite and spit-and who in the future can strike and whatever-without recognizing as legitimate right-wing ideas and preferences compatible with democratic coexistence. If this dialogue is not possible at the university, where?
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