Brazil: Truth, Belief, and the Unintended Consequences of Not Knowing the Difference

• Author: Paulo Simões
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221118051
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Introduction

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221118051

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 246, Vol. 49 No. 5, September 2022, 3–13

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221118051

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

3

Introduction

Brazil: Truth, Belief, and the Unintended Consequences of

Not Knowing the Difference

by

Paulo Simões

I begin the introduction to this issue with the acknowledgment of a profound

sense of loss. It is a tragic reality of life that if one is privileged enough to live

beyond a certain age one sees all the members of the previous generations dis-

appear. In the past two years I have lost six members of my extended family,

just a few of the tens of millions of individuals this world has lost because of a

once-in-a-century pandemic, despite the vaccines and scientific therapies

developed with a speed unprecedented in the history of medical research. For

me their passing is emblematic of the passing of a connection with my Brazilian

childhood. Every one of the relatives I knew in Rio de Janeiro as a child is now

gone, along with the familial ties of affection I once maintained with my city

and country. Because of travel restrictions and quarantining during the COVID-

19 pandemic, I was not able to say goodbye to any of them. This has added to

my grief. At the same time I have felt growing indignation at this unnecessary

tragedy. So many of these deaths could have been prevented if it had not been

for the parallel pandemic of misinformation and political polarization spread

not only through the social media but even through mainstream channels, in

many cases by government officials themselves deflecting blame for their

incompetent handling of the crisis, minimizing the dangers, and encouraging

false and ineffective miracle cures. Ironically, the most technologically advanced

nation on earth, the United States, has seen over a million deaths as a result. The

nation with the second-largest number of dead is Brazil, with over 660,000 at

this writing, whose current president (though charged with crimes against

humanity for purposely ignoring his responsibilities in addressing the disaster)

has in fact followed the lead of his mentor to the north and like a Tropical

Trump has politicized the crisis by actively promoting false narratives and divi-

sive rhetoric and false cures for the disease. His zealous followers, much like

the blind devotees of a religious cult, have embraced hydroxychloroquine and

ivermectin with much the same enthusiasm as medieval Europeans sought

remedies for the plague in the fingernail clippings of St. James or the knuckles

of St. Matthew. The results have been devastating. Painfully, several of my own

deceased relatives themselves refused to be vaccinated and instead trusted the

advice of “their president” and his magical medicines.

Paulo Simões holds a doctorate from the University of California, Irvine. He teaches history at

California State University, Fullerton.

1118051LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221118051Latin American PerspectivesSimões/Introduction

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