In trying to translate the term “Tchutchuca do Centrão” and the gestures of President Jair Bolsonaro, the international press only reflected a new reality: the world’s desperation in trying to understand a country that has lost its place in the world.
As the Folha de S. Paulo column illustrates, different newspapers around the world have brought in unconventional and creative versions to report the conflict between president and influencer Wilker Leão, who accused Bolsonaro of being “Chutchuca do Centrão”. The term used in France was “Putain” or simply prostitute. In Argentina, the press translated it as “Centrão’s little dog,” while others were more diplomatic in their statements.
The truth is, over the past few years, I’ve been called into radio and television interviews to explain the president’s crimes against the First Lady of France, the environmental denial of Bolsonarism, his obsession with communism, the vulgarity of a chief. A state that does not understand the extent of its position, neither in Brazil nor in the world.
Confused, strangers often repeated the same question: “Is this serious?”
Foreign governments and diplomats have asked dozens of times how they should interpret certain foreign policy actions and subordination to Donald Trump’s interests. But nothing compares to Bolsonaro’s negligence in the face of the covid-19 pandemic and his cynicism in the face of the deaths of thousands of Brazilians.
On a very tense night at WHO, one of the leaders of the agency approached me and in desperation repeated the word “crazy” to describe the behavior of the Brazilian president.
Any Brazilian abroad knows that we are questioned dozens of times by foreigners with pity, anger and confusion: “What’s going on in Brazil?”.
The truth is that in less than four years the government of Jair Bolsonaro has had decades of success building solid diplomacy that has served as a weapon for the country’s development.
The drama of seeking a translation of an insult is, in essence, a portrait of a country’s external collapse. It was marked by the cries of foreign newspaper headlines, Bolsonaro’s isolation from other democracies, and a collapse in a country that had lost its place in the world.
source: Noticias
