Choose to be good

The victory yesterday of far right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election shows a worrying power shift in communication ushered in by social media.

Bolsonaro is described in Al Jazeera as an “authoritarian populist” – brash, polarizing, and brazen – who suddenly rose from an obscure political position by tapping into the grievances of the disillusioned middle class and by benefitting from trolls and fake news in social media. To this extent Bolsonaro has a similarity with President Donald Trump of the US and President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.

The similarity is further emphasized by comparing both the Philippines and Brazil’s situation. Political analyst Richard Heydarian described both countries as “fledgling democracies with weak institutional checks on executive excesses.” With this, Heydarian predicts that Bolsonaro will likely also enjoy a similar level of democratic impunity like Duterte.

Just like Duterte, the analyst says, Bolsonaro is expected to govern under a platform of “iron-fisted” leadership. Both leaders also share a tough stance against criminals, to say the least, and have shocked the traditional establishment with their misogynistic statements and fondness for discredited dictators.

Still, we wish for Brazil the best in the coming years under Bolsonaro. He won 55% of the votes in a run-off between him and Fernando Haddad of the leftist Worker’s Party. For sure, people have their own reasons for choosing him. And in Brazil just like in the Philippines, two commonly identified reasons are the people’s disenchantment with mainstream politics and their being sidelined in the economic growth.

But while that is the case, that should not stop us from pushing for what we think is right. Power earned by electoral mandate, for example, is not something that can be left to the whims of the misguided or self-interested agenda of some of our leaders and the officials under them. Citizens must continue to engage with their elected officials, and when needed, must take a critical stance on important issues.

Whenever I am confronted by the temptation to yield to a seemingly popular sentiment (like on the extra-judicial killings of drug suspects), in a choice between what is morally right and what is satisfying to the darker side of one’s unembellished sentiment, I try to seek refuge with my favorite passage in the Bible. Psalms 33:12-17 instructs about a nation blessed by God for choosing to do what is right under him. And under no circumstance, it says, should we seek strength from worldly force alone.

That’s hard to understand when many people are experiencing economic hardship and the most urgent thing to do is to survive. It’s harder to understand when we see seemingly successful people flouting the law and flaunting their power.

Well, we just have to examine the history of the rise and fall of great nations. In prosperous societies, “good men are counted great men, virtue confers true rank, and grace is more esteemed than gold.” And in the words of one American pundit named William Bennett: “National prosperity, as it happens, is largely dependent on lots of good private character.”

Now going back to social media as it affects the nation’s course, just because it provides a platform for freewheeling exchange of thoughts and ideas does not mean we can lose the ability to be polite, objective and rational in the quick speed and relative anonymity it offers. Communication’s vitality, in whatever form, still depends on the moral sense and good character we choose to live by. Otherwise, we risk shifting its power to the demagogues among us.

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