Two world events have just sent signals that the world is beginning to tire of extremes and is seeking a democratic refuge in the centre-left. First, the French elections, where the extremist right lost against all odds. Second, the seemingly impossible victory in Iran of the moderate and reformist Masud Pezeshkian, who defeated the far-right Sabed Jalili.
And in a lesser and almost pathetic version, the extravagance of the Argentine president, Milei, in attending the far-right coven held in Brazil in the conservative Santa Catarina, on the occasion of the CPAC meeting. Against all diplomatic norms, the Argentine leader attended without meeting President Lula, whom he called a thief and came to consecrate the discredited former president Jair Bolsonaro. Milei’s presence in Brazil outside of all protocols went unnoticed by public opinion.
Right-wing populism is undoubtedly on the rise in search of legitimate popular demands for security, family protection and diversity in the education of children, but with each passing day it is becoming increasingly clear that the extremes are crumbling: neither the clenched communist fist nor the outstretched Nazi arm. Extremism is beginning to founder, giving way to a democracy of possible coexistence between different people, without bloodshed and without the temptation of new civil wars.
Today, people, from those most excluded from the banquets of the rich to the sacrificed middle classes, are looking for a balance that allows them to live without the tremors of economic and political insecurity. They no longer want extremist earthquakes that put their security in jeopardy. Nor are they enthusiastic about the old extremist ideologies that a handful of exacerbated pseudo-politicians are trying to resurrect.
After the French surprise, the spectre of being able to be occupied by the forces of a crude right without even being an ideology is now receding from the European Union. Europeans, and apparently the British world of Brexit, are beginning to turn their eyes towards the European Community that has ensured peace and a certain economic well-being since the world conflicts until today.
In Brazil, despite the efforts of a populist far right, the same right, not crude, seeks, even with certain misgivings, to come to power without appearing to be legitimate children of Bolosonarism with troglodyte manners, in order to appear as a conservative but not fascist right more inclined to the center.
The most obvious example today is the leadership of Tarcísio de Freitas, the current governor of the Spanish-sized state of São Paulo, the nerve centre of economic power where presidential elections are usually held. Freitas is a tough military man whom Bolsonaro had made a minister and who today presents himself simply as a conservative and a good administrator, already considered the most likely candidate for the 2026 presidential elections, perhaps in defiance of Lula, who despite his age continues to dream of being a candidate for the fourth time in his long political life.
It is true that any vigilance in defending democracy to prevent the arrival of new Nazi hordes is insufficient. It is enough to remember that both Mussolini and Hitler came to power by constitutional means. Today, this may be more difficult, although there still appear to be extremist temptations, as in Brazil, Argentina and the United States, that could lead to the danger of violent civil conflicts.
If today we were to analyse the state of consciousness of millions of citizens of the world, we would see, as is happening in Israel with the barbaric war in Gaza, that there is a rejection of the new holocausts, that people want peace, well-being, peaceful coexistence, fair distribution of wealth and positive personal relationships as an antidote to the epidemic of psychiatric problems caused by violence, loneliness and the destruction of peaceful relationships.
With all the concerns that social networks and new global communication technologies cause us, there is no doubt that people are also looking for a new form of personal communication, friendship, and long-distance coexistence in them. These are relationships of peace, not war. In the end, a climate of embrace, a desire to share the best of ourselves, and to anathematize the extremisms that try to take over the digital era, seems to prevail, and is beginning to prevail in politics as well.
A small example of how the smallest seeds give birth to large leafy trees is the success of the work in Rio The aviator poet by Rayane Rocha, which has awakened unexpected feelings of friendship and affection: “That piece has been a hug” and adds that “affection is revolutionary.”
The attempts of the extreme right to resurrect the skeletons of old ideological and even bloody wars of the past with all their burden of obscurantism in a world that opens up to horizons of new humanist conquests, seem to begin to founder in the face of the open or subterranean anxiety of society that begins to prefer arms, affection and friendship to the dismal explosions of physical or ideological wars.
An idealistic dream that seems impossible today? Perhaps, but if humanity is still standing and yearning for embraces rather than for cannons of war, it means that the deepest desires for peaceful encounter, justice and peace between different people have not died. Does that seem like too little to you?
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