The female side of the fight has just lost a powerful member. At some point, the near future really, the roster was supposed to read US- female, Germany-female, Brazil-female.
Angela Merkel. Hillary Clinton. Dilma Rousseff. A powerful trio of female leaders guiding some of the world largest economies.
Their ideological differences would matter later.
However the paths of politics are never drawn (by whoever has the messy role) with such sub-plots of self-actualization in mind. They are just tangled intercourses that give birth to the rare; the mundane and the strange.
So as Hillary Clinton salivates for a Wall Street coated entrance into power, Dilma Rousseff, the leftist Brazilian president has just been chucked out of power, suspended in the interim for budget tampering. Some have described it as shady accounting practices.
“It’s legal but not legitimate”, moaned one pro-Rousseff supporter recently.
At the end of 180 days when the investigation is supposed to have finalised things it’s nearly foregone she won’t be returning, leaving Michel Temer, formerly the Vice president to take over the reins and steer the country in a whole new direction.
Already conspiracy theorists are shouting themselves hoarse describing shadows abounding all around. An article in RT detailed key personnel whose presence in Brazil and around the case hint at a larger covert plot that involves Washington.
The details include aspersions of Michel Temer having been a US informant some time ago leaked info from Wikileaks, though he was mere federal employee and not government employee then.
Noam Chomsky says it’s an American engineered coup to bring back into the capitalistic fold, a Brazil which was going socialists-soft with Rousseff’s leftist thinking.
With US being a large tentacle-d mammal with fangs, claws, Jurassic- jaws and all the carnivorous choppers of death, you can almost find it having a political chomp anywhere in the world at any given time.
Those however can be wider explanations as some bony facts on the ground speak of something else. According to The Economist the BRIC member despite having the 6th largest economy in the world is at a dangerous point.
“Brazil is suffering its worst recession since the 1930s. The economy will probably shrink by a total of 7.5% in 2015 and 2016; the unemployment and inflation rates both stand at around 10%. The budget deficit is more than a tenth of GDP”, it says.
The atmosphere is getting more heated in the large South American country even as the Olympics draw near. It’s like an invoked atmosphere from the 2014 FIFA World Cup that was played under the smoky cloud of teargas and burning cars due to riots.
Whether they achieved their objective is debatable, but one light hearted and immediate effect apparent was the 7-1 drubbing of the national soccer team by the Germany juggernaut of Merkel in the semi-finals.
This whole affair can spring up un-savoury results at the Olympics too.
However whichever the reason for the ousting of Rousseff the fact is a female warrior has just lost out in the ever widening battle for female emancipation.
To rub more salt to the wound Temer has an all-male cast prepared for his Cabinet.
There is simply no room for female roll-on in the new government. It’s no bras and revolutions for Temer.
Hillary Clinton in April 2012 gave a statement at the Time 100 gala in New York City.
“I want to give a shout-out to Angela Merkel and Dilma Rousseff and Portia Miller, Christine Lagarde, who are also on the list and prove once again that you actually can run the world in heels and pantsuits, because the day is over when women leaders could only aspire to a supporting role” she said.
It seems the more things are changing the more they are remaining the same.
It gets more even peculiar in Temer’s new government. It’s all-white too.
In a country littered with all versions and types of people-colours having a single colour government isn’t the best PR style.
Coming in the aftermath of Hollywood’s Spike Lee and the #OscarSoWhite campaign it’s a lazy-afternoon fun having Temer and America in an embrace.
So if Hillary Clinton does ascend to Capitol Hill she will now only have the female company of Germany’s Merkel who is reportedly set to run for a fourth term. The consolation is the continued presence of others around the world such Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Croatia’s Kolinda Grabr-Kitarovic and South Korea’s Park Geun-hye.
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