Thinking about Lula, Brazil and cancer
Two years ago, we broadcast Channel 4 News live from Brazil. We traversed this vast and thriving country from south to north, from east to west. From the sugar cane estates in the south, beyond Sao Paulo, to vast sprawling city itself, to the Amazon basin, we had that sense of a country in bustling transition. Somehow this whole disparate entity that is Brazil was coming of age.
The president at the time was Lula da Silva, known both at home and abroad simply as Lula. Meeting him, talking with him in a high building overlooking the Amazon, was the high spot of our trip.
I had first met him on platform ten at St Pancras International station in London. He had come in from Paris to attend the London G20 Summit. For some reason there were no other press about. I was able to ask him then, if we travelled to Brazil, would he see us. He promised he would.
The meeting above the river basin in Manaus represented his promise fulfilled. Entering the room for our interview, Lula was surprisingly small of stature, but huge of charisma. He smiled broadly and was warmly welcoming. Bearded, gravelly voiced, energetic and engaged; we got a great interview from him.
Afterwards as we went out onto the balcony, he gave me a great bear hug and then fished into his breast pocket. He extracted a small plastic bag of organic Brazil nuts, which someone had given him earlier. “Have one”, he said. I took the nut and put it straight into my own pocket. “Why haven’t you eaten it,” he asked. “What, me?” I responded, “How could I eat a Brazil nut given to me by the president of Brazil?! I’m going to frame it!”. We both laughed.
This week we learned that Lula has throat cancer. He entered hospital for treatment yesterday. Some had thought he might return after the current President, Dilma Rousseff has served her term. Others speculated that he might serve in some international capacity.
In an age where there is a paucity of global leaders, Lula is someone the world can ill afford to lose. We should wish him well as he goes under the knife later today.
Follow Jon on Twitter @JonSnowC4
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- Finally interviewing Brazilian President Lula da Silva
- Booming Brazil – a well-kept secret
- I leave Brazil an optimist
- Brazil: Pay us to keep our trees up to sustain the world's lungs?
- Boos from Brazil: Sao Paulo by night
There are 5 comments on this post
Gosh it doesn’t seem like two years since I was awaiting an audio boo , to see what it was all about out there in Brazil.It doesn’t feel like two years of news items have flashed at the screen since the opulence of the green rain forests came into my living room.
Now have we actually got anywhere as far as greeness is concerned , maybe, but a drop in the oceon will not stop all this flooding and extreme weather events.
The protesters outside St Pauls are typical of the growing movement against greed , overusage of earths resources and focus on money pure as opposed to LIFE as the thing.
No doubt President Lula will be really thinking about life now. Good luck to him
I would not wish anyone such an illness, and would reiterate your feelings for his recovery.
Obviously from your comments da Silva is charismatic, but does that make a great leader?
Both Blair and Clinton were charismatic.Some even say Cameron is ,yet all three were lying cheating personalities who said anything to get into and stay in office.The pity is so many are taken in by charisma.
Since jon hasn’t blogged and no others draw me in the same as Jon and Krish do, then I will answer you Adrian.
There are two main definitions of charisma and I think the one which you refer to is ‘ a gift of grace’
The other is used to describe a divinley imparted gift which others also believe in and tend to follow. Hitler was a charismatic, religious evangelists claim to be charismatic( and I suppose they are , but I am unwilling to put ‘divine’ into the equation)
A question is do charismatic followers follow almost unaware of the whipped up emotion and ‘electricity generated’ by dynamism or do they stand back and think about it.
I agree it can be dangerous, but who has it?
I actually think you are right saying TB had it , but I remember the days when his so called charisma was being manufactured.
I hear how those who have been turned round and a line follows them physically( not mentally , psychologically etc) are harassed and jibed to produce anger = energy then watched by the money makers as they are followed into buying goods, then turned around again to be victimised brought down, only to be abused. Most are now wise to this, which was unspoken before.
Could Lula, a man who would argue putting ‘wealth’ into the hands of a nations’ poor was good for its economy, succeed in our well-developed democracy? The answer is surely no, just as it would be impossible for Nye Bevan today. And isn’t this precisely why we see occupations springing up all over the place? We are thoroughly tied into the one (neo-liberal) way of proceeding on the economy. We’re trapped by the ignorance that besets our elites which spawns any number of self defeating, demoralising social failures.
I don’t buy the lack of grammar schools being the cause. Time now for mainstream broadcasters to grow up, wise up, and find a way of unambiguously respecting and reflecting all view points; it’s the only way if we’re going to get out of the mire at a cost which doesn’t include democracy IMHO.
my uncle/mate/godfather died of throat cancer, so Lula best of luck mate