Rioting in Brazil leads to unrest about democracy around the world

The Jan. 8 protests in Brazil have been compared to the Jan. 6 insurrection in the United States. Photo courtesy of Marcos Correa via ZUMAPRESS.com.

By Kiera McLaughlin ’26

Staff Writer

On Jan. 8, 2023, protesters that were camped outside the Brazilian Army Headquarters moved their demonstration, which quickly turned into a riot, to the front of the Brazilian Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential offices. The New York Times reported that “Outnumbered police officers fired what appeared to be pepper spray and tear-gas canisters. The demonstrators persisted for hours, lashing out at what they falsely claim was a stolen election.” While Brazil’s democracy is being questioned, the world has started to compare the similarities and differences between the Brazilian riot and the United States Jan. 6 insurrection.

About 4,000 Bolsonaro supporters arrived on buses and joined others camped outside the army barracks that Saturday and Sunday, the BBC reported. That day, thousands of people took on Brazil’s official government buildings in protest of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s loss, what they claim was a stolen election. Protesters started breaking windows, throwing objects, waving Brazilian flags and marching for their cause. 

“On its face, [the insurrections in Brazil and the U.S.] look very, very similar.”

— Andrew Reiter

In an interview with Scripps News, Andrew Reiter, associate professor of politics and international relations at Mount Holyoke, said “On its face, [the insurrections in Brazil and the U.S.] look very, very similar. You have protesters who are convinced that … the one they support lost the previous election and they’re storming capital buildings and damaging things,” he continued.“But there are really striking differences”. Reiter explained during the interview that the Brazilian president was already inaugurated days before, and the buildings were not occupied by officials at the time of the riot, while the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. was trying to stop the vote from happening to cement the presidency. 

There’s also a great difference between the ways that former President Donald Trump and former President Bolsonaro responded to these demonstrations, but similarities in the ways they handled re-election. While Bolsonaro also created controversy around his re-election during his time in office, unlike Trump, Bolsonaro allowed a peaceful transition of power to Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, the current president of Brazil, until the riot. Bolsonaro also criticized a bomb plot by his supporter, saying it was a “terrorist act,” reported the New York Times. When asked by Scripps about Bolsonaro’s response to this riot, Reiter said “it’s hard for him to say the elections were fraudulent because his party gained seats.” Bolsonaro’s party not only won seats in the legislature, his three sons are also elected officials, which changes the perceptions of the election results in Brazil – especially compared to the 2020 presidential election in the U.S., The New York Times reported in the same article.

Understanding the goals of the demonstrators in Brazil requires recognizing how different Brazil’s relationship with democracy is compared to the United States. In an interview with Vox, Rodrigo Nunes, a Brazilian philosophy scholar, explained the way the military plays such a big role in Brazilian politics, and how the people in power used Bolsonaro. “The fact that the security apparatus is very heavily infiltrated by Bolsonarismo is not a consequence of the fact that Bolsonaro created this support, but the fact that these tendencies were there, and suddenly they have had a leader … that could offer a political outlet for them.” Brazil’s history of being a military dictatorship and as a young democracy has led to protesters believing that with Bolsonaro out of office, a military coup would lead to Bolsonaro’s return, Jerry Dávila, Lemann chair in Brazilian history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said in an interview with Illinois News Bureau. 

Luiz Amaral, a professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, stressed the importance of understanding the riots in Brazil by perceiving the actions of these demonstrators through a historical lens and considering the political structure of Brazil. In an interview with the Mount Holyoke News, he said “You have to look into Brazilian history… Is there a global connection between what’s happening in Brazil and Trump in the U.S. and the dictators all over the world? Yes, there is. But there is an internal dynamic that’s built in its history and the history of its institutions. That’s what really makes the whole process possible.” Throughout the interview, Amaral made sure to clarify that the relationship between the government and the military had a huge role in this riot, and is a big factor in Brazilian politics, which are very different compared to American history. 

Brazil’s Department of Justice’s reaction to the riots differs greatly compared to the slow response by the United States House Select Committee after Jan. 6. Soon after the riot, along with arresting around 1,500 people, of whom 600 were relocated from the police academy where they were initially detained, the Brazilian department of justice has targeted political officials, ordering the arrest of the former commander of the Military Police of the Federal District and former secretary of public safety, reported by the BBC. In addition to public officials, Reiter explained in his interview, “they are looking into who financed this. Somebody has fed and sheltered these protesters for a long time. Somebody paid for the 100 buses to bring them all to the capital. And so already there’s government investigations into well over 100 companies who they suspect might be behind financing these demonstrations.”

Just like the Jan. 6 insurrection, people are also concerned about the lack of trust and total manipulation in strong democracies. In his interview with Scripps News, Reiter discussed the extensive influence of social media on these riots and the spreading of misinformation and controversies. When asked about the global state of democracy, he said “it’s certainly alarming. … It also used to be that if you thought you were going to lose an election, you just boycott the election, you would just say it’s not legitimate. … And now the trend seems to be, let’s do the election. And even if we lose, we’ll just say we won anyway and it was rigged.” 

The Brazilian riot was not directly supported by the former president, like Jan. 6, and the Brazilian Department of Justice acted swiftly to enact consequences for the actions of demonstrators and the people in office associated with the riots. With the context of Brazil’s history of a military dictatorship, this failed coup has left many questions for Brazilians and countries around the world. In the Vox article,Dávila commented, “Brazilian democracy is still being built … The armed forces did not heed the call to take over the government, but they have nonetheless extended their influence. President Lula will face an ongoing challenge in again reducing the political influence of the armed forces.”

Citizens protest against proposed increase of French retirement age

Over a million people took to the streets in France in late January to protest a proposed rise in retirement age. Macron is standing by the proposal. Photo courtesy of Jaroslaw Baranowski via Wikimedia Commons.

By Sophie Glasco ’26

Staff Writer

More than one million protesters flooded the streets of France in late January, protesting against proposed retirement reforms by President Emmanuel Macron. The proposal looks to increase France’s legal retirement age from 62 to 64 in order to maintain the public-funded retirement pensions, a strongly unpopular decision, as polls reflect two-thirds of French people opposing the reform. According to French authorities, 1.2 million people protested on Jan. 31, while labor unions claim the number was closer to 2.5 million. Regardless, over one million people took part in the protest, with eight key unions represented in the strike, affecting schools, public transport and oil refineries. According to the BBC, 11,000 police were deployed to cover demonstrations in over 200 French cities. 

Assistant Professor of International Relations and Politics Christopher Mitchell provided some context for the protests: “[A] long history of state ownership in France means that public protest has generally been a very effective way for labor to make its demands felt, as if the government owns key firms, pressuring elected officials can be as important as pressuring the management of the firm.” 

The New York Times explained the French retirement system as “a pay-as-you-go structure in which workers and employers are assessed mandatory payroll taxes that are used to fund retiree pensions.” With the proposed reforms, the system will still exist, but workers must work until age 64. The reforms would also accelerate a previous change in the minimum number of years one must work in order to pay into the retirement benefits. 

Opponents of the legislation argue that Macron is attacking cherished retirement rights and refusing to look at other options, such as raising taxes on the wealthy. Critics also feel that the reforms target blue-collar workers, who begin careers sooner but have shorter life expectancies compared to white-collar workers, according to The New York Times. 

However, President Macron is firm in backing his proposal, as the bill is heading to Parliament, where Macron’s party has a small majority and therefore a “legislative showdown” is expected. According to the BBC, “[w]ithout a majority in parliament, the government will have to rely on the right-wing Republicans for support as much as the ruling parties’ own [members of parliament].” 

The problem lies with a declining birth rate for the last few decades in France and other Western European countries, and thus fewer working-age people to support a larger generation of retirees in the coming decades. Mitchell explained the implications of the decline, stating, “[t]his means that inevitably either taxes will need to be raised on younger workers to support the existing level of benefits or benefits will need to be cut, or of course some mix of the two that will be popular with nobody.” Beyond the issue of taxes, France also has a notably lower retirement age than other European countries, with Italy, Germany and Spain looking to raise their retirement age to 67, as well as the United Kingdom at 66. “Given that you can qualify for state pensions considerably earlier in France than most other advanced democracies, Macron has proposed raising the pension age as an alternative to either raising taxes or cutting benefits,” Mitchell explained. 

The French government and the French citizens are each stubbornly defending their side, with neither showing signs of backing down. The protesters have history supporting them, though, as Mitchell explained that “France also has a long history of mass mobilization and protest more generally, as can be seen in the First and Second French Revolutions.”

Mount Holyoke students reflect on the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

Photo courtesy of Angel Li ’25.
Students at the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival party hosted by the Chinese Cultural Association in the Great Room in Blanchard Community Center.

By Qingyun Shi ’23

Staff Writer

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Zhongqiu Jie in Chinese, is the second most monumental festival in China after the Chinese new year. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also celebrated by many other Asian countries, such as Korea, under different names. This week, students celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival in different ways, such as making mooncakes by themselves and sharing them with others. 

Jingyi Yuan ’24, a student from China, spoke about how she celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival this year. “During the 2022 Mid-Autumn festival, the celebration was slightly different than the previous years,” Yuan said. “I felt bits and pieces of the holiday atmosphere on campus where I received a red bean yolk mooncake from my colleagues and wished each other a happy Mid-Autumn festival. There were also a variety of fun activities that the [Chinese Cultural Association] organized on Friday night. My friends and I borrowed a projector from [Library, Information and Technology Services] media service and watched a movie on Friday night.”

Astrid Zhao ’24, a student from China involved with the CCA, shared her experience during the party.

“This year’s Mid autumn festival party [was] hosted by the Chinese Cultural Association. The event started at 6 p.m. on Sept. 16. More than 80 people attended the event. During the event, we made lanterns together by using red [packets]. By folding the corner of the red packet and stapling 6 [packets] together, [we] created a lantern,” Zhao said “Lastly, we gave people a red paper slip for them to write their best wishes for the year. During the event, we did a lottery for boba tea. People were really excited when they got the prize. We [also] provided mooncakes and Chinese snacks for people.”

There is no right way to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. As long as you show your sincerity and love to your family and friends, no matter what form that takes, that is the best way for you to spend it.

New Chilean constitution rejected in referendum

Photo courtesy of Jose Pereira via Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
Chilean voters rejected a new constitution that would have written the right to housing, education and lifelong care, among other changes, into law.

By Lauren Cincotta ’25

Staff Writer

In a referendum on Sept. 4, 2022, Chilean voters rejected the adoption of a new constitution, failing to replace the existing constitution from 1980 which was created under the Pinochet dictatorship. 

According to The New York Times, the new constitution “would have enshrined over 100 rights into Chile’s national charter, more than any other constitution in the world, including the right to housing, education, clean air, water, food, sanitation, internet access, retirement benefits, free legal advice and care ‘from birth to death.’” Additionally, the senate would have been abolished, gender parity in government required, autonomy of Indigenous groups expanded and commitments to fight climate change made. 

The decision to draft the new constitution began in 2019, after protests in Chile led the government to give voters the choice to vote on whether a new constitution should be written. According to the same The New York Times article, nearly 4 out of 5 Chileans voted in favor of writing a new constitution. Two years later, 62 percent of voters rejected its proposal.

Associate professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College, Cora Fernandez Anderson, noted that since Chile transitioned to democracy in 1990 after the Pinochet dictatorship, there have been calls for constitutional reform from the left. However, these were stalled by a stance of “moderation.” 

“Both sides, but particularly those on the left, [learned] a hard lesson from the 1973 coup and the dictatorship, so they were willing to moderate their views in order to protect democracy,” Fernandez Anderson explained. “This made a constitutional reform difficult.” She noted that it was difficult for the country to reach a consensus on reform until 2019. “I believe that the 2019 protests were needed to shake politicians from all ideological positions and urge them to commit to give the country a new constitution in line with the new Chile,” she added.

Since 2019, the world has been watching as the new constitution took shape. Its rejection comes as a disappointment to many on the left, including young people. Avni Wadhwani ’23, a student currently studying abroad in Chile, noticed a broader generational divide among voters considering whether or not to adopt the new constitution. “A lot of younger people voted to approve, and a lot of older people voted to reject,” Wadhwani said. Wadhwani also explained that unlike the U.S., voters in Chile could be fined if they didn’t vote on the referendum on the constitution. 

There is debate about the reasoning behind its failure, given the large popular support for reform in 2019. An article from Reuters highlights the emergence of misinformation surrounding the new constitution, which spread online, often faster than fact checkers could keep up with. The article notes that while some statements, like that abortion would be allowed in the ninth month of pregnancy, or that the ownership of private property would be banned, were easy to disprove, fact checkers had a complicated task in correcting legal interpretations. The same article continued, “Fabian Padilla, who founded Fact Check CL, a fact-checking site that started during the 2019 protests, said sites can’t declare legal interpretations false, in contrast to, for example, the kind of patently-false medical claims that circulated during the pandemic. ‘With [COVID-19], misinformation was very consistent, repeating the same patterns, some of it very absurd,’ Padilla said. ‘But with constitutional text it’s very debatable.’ This leads to consultations with legal experts and longer verification times.”

Wadhwani experienced the widespread disinformation campaign firsthand, with people from her host parents to one of her professors sharing false interpretations of the constitution.

Despite the battle against misinformation, Fernandez Anderson believes that other factors were at play in the rejection. “What seems clear from [this] data is that most Chileans do not want the old constitution. However, this doesn’t mean that they will settle on the new one. There are many reports talking about the misinformation and fake news campaign against the constitution. These campaigns probably influenced some of the voters, but I believe that the percentage of rejection was quite large to only adjudicate the loss to the lack of accurate information,” she noted. 

An article in Time highlighted the conflicts that existed within the majority that decided to rewrite the constitution. “Some see the referendum as a symbolic opportunity to move on from the dictatorship or tinker with the existing model. Others want a total transformation.” These disagreements likely were amplified by the extremely left wing constitution that was created. In other words, as voters were disconnected from representatives, extreme voices were amplified that did not necessarily match with the actual voters on several issues. “Chile’s rigid political system, [Claudia Heiss, the head of political science at University of Chile’s Institute of Public Affairs] says, had already led to the deterioration of the party system, with the main center-left and center-right parties becoming ‘very distanced from the citizens.’ It also contributed to a massive drop in political participation in Chile. ‘People vote because they want to change the health system or the pensions system. If you can’t change those things because of the political system, why would you vote?’” the article continued. 

The New York Times also mentioned the controversy surrounding declaring Chile a plurinational state, the cost of implementing the reforms and the fact that the left wing outnumbered conservatives in the convention, creating a document that people felt was out of touch with the voters. 

Wadhwari said that around the time of the referendum, “The political atmosphere [was] also was very tense, because the approval of the new constitution kind of was very linked to approval of the current president who’s very progressive, very leftist and also very young.” After the rejection, according to Wadhwari, the atmosphere was calm, and she wasn’t aware of any widespread protests. 

Despite the rejection, Fernandez Anderson believes that there is a possibility for reform in the future, noting that “political parties agreed on certain rules to call for a new constitutional convention. But it is still too early to know how different a new proposal will be. The issue of plurinationality was one of the most contentious so that will need a larger societal debate.” She also believes that there is a lot to learn from the recent events. “I think the lesson from Chile is one of courage, commitment and respect for democracy. Courage to challenge your government in the 2019 protests and demand a constitutional reform that will finally put an end to the legacies of the military dictatorship and advance the necessary institutional reforms to strengthen democracy.” 

She continued, “Commitment and respect for democracy in the sense that Chileans accepted to channel their demands through a constitutional convention and through electing in the next presidential elections a president more in line with their demands, which they did in 2021. The respect for the results of the Sept. 4 popular vote also show how both those who voted in favor of the constitution and the government that sponsored it accepted their defeat and are ready to work on another draft that will reflect the views of society more broadly.” 

Wadhwari also believes in the possibility for reform, and hopes the world will be watching. “I found … how little U.S. media covered it [really disappointing]. It was literally one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, if not the most progressive, and its rejection barely made a dent in U.S. media. I think that goes to show how little the U.S. considers nuances and changes in Latin American politics even though the region has experienced some of the most progressive changes in the world in the past few decades,” she concluded.