Publisher: Some air, please!

 

The English writer, George Orwell, died at a very young age, at the age of 47, after producing an extensive - and equally important - literary work. His most emblematic texts are framed within the scope of what is conventionally called 'dystopian literature', mainly due to books such as "The Animal Revolution" and "1984", today a recurrent text to understand the dynamics and working gears of authoritarian political regimes, also known as "dictatorships of a new kind". It is curious to observe how the categories established by George Orwell, in "1984", fit perfectly into these new dictatorships, as already observed by the French philosopher Michel Onfrey, who produced an exquisite essay dealing with this subject. During the period of the Trump Administration, in the United States, "1984" sold like water, which means that not only the academy, but the common citizen also observed there, in the pages of the book, elements to better understand what was going on at that political moment.

But, as I said, the work of the British writer is extensive and there are other important books, possibly inserted within the same conformation of dystopian literature, such as the one that gives title to this editorial: "A little air, please". Orwell also went through great financial difficulties, trying to survive as a writer, which resulted in the text: "At worst in Paris and London". Although someone has already said that getting lost in Paris would not be the worst of punishments. Anyway, like every human being who goes through this plane, Orwell suffered some disappointments, including one of a political nature: the experience of real socialism in the former Soviet Union, especially the Stalinist period. Orwell fought the Franco dictatorship in Spain and flirted with socialism. From the disappointment with the direction taken by the 1917 Revolution, resulted the fable: "The Animal Revolution", where oppressed animals, after overthrowing the oppressor capitalist, owner of the farm, end up becoming equally oppressors.

This long introduction comes in connection with the delicate moment that the country is going through, which simultaneously brings together a political/institutional crisis, a disheartening social situation and a bankrupt economy, with double-digit inflation, fiscal irresponsibility, a significant increase in the cost of living , aggravated by high unemployment rates and concrete prospects of little pigs ahead. Worst impossible scenario, which led journalist Josias de Souza to make some conjectures about the upcoming presidential elections, concluding that the next president needs to have an agenda not only oriented by the anti-government, but one that offers some encouragement, a ray of hope, a little of air for this mass of disinherited, with self-esteem in limbo. To paraphrase George Orwell, we do need some air, please! If the tragedy of more than 600,000 people killed by the corona virus pandemic were not enough, today we have to accompany people "robbering" garbage cars in search of food scraps on the streets on the outskirts of Fortaleza; the lines of bones in the butchers; like the chicken's feet, carcasses and necks sold in supermarkets and butchers to our smug, bigoted, cocky, rich middle class, the first-time ally of our disgusting elite.