Portugal and Brazil have many similarities and differences, with the Portuguese language and immigration being some of the main links. Politically, they are totally different, with very different systems and even in their own way of thinking about politics. However, in recent years, both countries have experienced or are beginning to experience phenomena of polarization and disbelief in institutions and politicians.. The greatest similarity is the fight for democracy, restored in Portugal just over 50 years ago and, in Brazil, around 40 years ago, after long periods of dictatorship.
The story of the sister country is told in a series of opinion articles published in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Fascinated by newspapers, politics, Brazil and democracyprofessor Rodrigo Tavares decided to compile some of these historical articles in the book The Word and the Power: A critical journey through 40 years of Brazilian democracywhich has just been launched in Portugal, after a series of presentation events across the ocean. “It was easy to conclude that the average life expectancy of these texts could not just be the 24 hours of the news cycle, it had to be prolonged over time”, he begins by telling DN. In addition to Rodrigo Tavares, the work’s co-organizers are Flávia Lima and Naief Haddad.
The trio had the task of choosing texts from more than 150,000 articles. “A very difficult task”, he summarizes. But not only. The work brings together 80 opinion texts on democracy, organized in 40 pairs, including Jair Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva. “They are always composed, first, of an opinion article published in Folha de São Paulo between 1985 and 2025 and, to counterbalance, analyze, contradict or complement this original article, avoiding it being a mere academic, liturgical or passive text, we selected 40 people who could debate directly with their interlocutor”, explains the political scientist, also author of opinion columns in Folha de São Paulo and no Express.
In addition to choosing the personalities responsible for this “counterbalance”, the curators were careful to ensure plurality. “The opinion space is an elective space without elections, with a lot of power. Most of the opinion articles published in the Brazilian press, and especially in Folha de São Paulo, were very masculine and very white texts”, he highlights. And he adds that, in Portugal, these journalistic opinion spaces are also spaces of power, but with differences: “Here, I would say that opinion texts in the Portuguese press correspond, in around 80% or 90%, to the partisan opinion of various politicians. In Brazil, we have many representatives of civil society and, here, these spaces are not available, not with the same Brazilian qualifications, for Portuguese civil society”, analysis.