The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvadenounced in Barcelona the warlike drift led by the United States, with the genocide of Israel in Gazaand the attacks by the US and Israel against Iran that have opened a new war. “For the love of God, fulfill your obligation to guarantee the peace of the world and stop this madness of war, because the world can’t stand it anymore.“claimed Lula, who also defended that “we must restore the credibility of the HIMcorroded by the irresponsibility of its permanent members”.
“The invasion of Iraq was a lie. The destruction of Libya was another lie. And the genocide committed in Gaza is another big lie“, he said before an audience that rose to its feet at the global left-wing forum, the Global Progressive Forum, which is being held this weekend in Barcelona. He warned that the world is experiencing a dangerous drift: “Today we have the largest number of armed conflicts since the Second World War.” And faced with that scenario, he insisted on a fundamental idea: “Defending international politics today is defending a reformed multilateralism. “It is defending that right prevails over force and that peace prevails over war.”
Gaza, war and the geopolitical pulse
In his criticism of Israelto war in Middle East and the deterioration of the international system, Lula appealed to stop the escalation. “I don’t want war. I want peace, love, brotherhood and to see the world progress so that the people live better and with dignity,” he stated. He finished off that idea with an almost programmatic closing phrase: “My weapon is the argument. My weapon is reason.”
He openly pointed out Donald Trump’s US as the creator of successive wars and derived crises, from tariffs to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “We do not want a Cold War between China and the United States. We want freedom and free trade; We do not want protectionism,” he said. And he left another important warning: “This fight has to be global. There is no point in keeping the house in order in a world in disorder.”
Environment in the plenary session of the Global Progressive Mobilization during Lula da Silva’s intervention / Jordi Otix / EPC
Iran, the UN and the global south
Lula put his own personal experience on the table trying to contribute to the resolution of the conflict in the Middle East through diplomacy: “In 2010 I went to Iran, together with Türkiye and India, to negotiate an agreement so that it would not enrich uranium. above certain limits. After two days, we got an agreement“, he recalled. As he explained, that channel was deactivated by the West: “When we published the agreement, I thought they were going to congratulate us. But The European Union and the United States did not accept it“.
He thus exposed the West’s double standard: “Now they are once again trying to construct the idea that Iran was going to make an atomic bomb. We We need to end this habit of lying about people and then destroying them“, he stated. He also denounced that “the on global pays the bill for wars that it did not cause and crises that it did not cause” and that today it is treated “as a hostage of the great powers, suffocated by abusive tariffs and unpayable debts.”
For Lula, part of the problem is in the institutional paralysis of the system born after 1945. “The United Nations was created after the Second World War to protect peace, cordiality and fraternity, but the Security Council has become a permanent blockade“, he assured, which prevents, for example, taking measures against Israel.
Progressive self-criticism and inequality
The president also made a self-criticism of the progressive space and recognized that, although the left advanced in Brazil in favor of rights and improved the lives of workers, women and the black population, it did not manage to break the dominant economic framework. “But progressivism failed to overcome neoliberal economic thought. “That project promised prosperity and delivered crisis, difficulties and suffering,” he said.
At that point he bluntly demanded an internal amendment. “We cannot win an election with a program and then betray the trust of the people“, he pointed out, and defended that, even when part of society does not define itself as progressive, it continues to aspire to a very recognizable horizon: “Although a good part of the population does not see itself as progressive, it wants exactly what we propose: eat well, live well, quality schools, quality hospitals, decent employment, a balanced day and a fair salary.”
Lula also placed the inequality at the center of his political diagnosis. “Our role is to point out the real culprits. A handful of billionaires concentrate most of the world’s wealth,” he said. He then attacked “the fallacy of meritocracy”, because, in his words, those sectors “They kick the ladder so that others do not have the same opportunity to climb“. The conclusion was blunt: “Inequality is not a natural fact: it is a political choice“.
The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, participates in the Global Progressive Forum in Barcelona / JORDI OTIX/ EL PERIÓDICO
Democracy, everyday life and personal closure
In the final section, Lula lowered the focus from geopolitics to daily life: “Democracy is chosen every day“, he stated. And he grounded it with everyday images: “There is no democracy when a mother spends hours on a crowded bus and cannot kiss her son goodnight.” Nor, he added, “when someone is discriminated against because of the color of their skin” or “when a woman dies simply for being a woman.”
Lula called for changing the political climate: “We have to replace discouragement with dreams and hatred with hope.” He framed the Barcelona forum (which he himself promotes together with Pedro Sánchez) in a greater task: to rearm progressivism to project “a better future, with social justice, equality and democracy.”
The closing was more personal. “I am 80 years old. I started doing politics at 30. I left a very poor region of my country so as not to die of hunger,” he shared, adding: “One does not grow old because one is older; he who loses a cause gets older“, something he was not willing to do.”My cause is democracy. My cause is freedom”, he concluded.
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