With the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro as President of Brazil, one of the darkest periods in the country’s history has begun. We don’t know if it will last only the four years of Bolsonaro’s term, or if it signals a whole new era of repressive dictatorship.

Bolsonaro’s election represents a serious political rupture, unlike any other in Brazil’s chaotic history. Supported by the Brazilian military and evangelicals (particularly the neo-pentecostal crowd), and protected by the legal system and media, the election of Bolsonaro is a severe threat to democracy. It is, in effect, the institutionalization of barbarism. It will see the repeal of important social rights introduced during the administrations of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), especially for Afro-descendants and indigenous Brazilians.

In Brazil, poor, black and illiterate were and are to an extent attributes that are synonymous. As a result, there was little distinction between economic plunder, racial discrimination and socially imposed ignorance. The Constitution of 1988 affirmed a precarious social pact that slowly permitted fundamental land rights to these populations, previously trapped in terrible living conditions and social misery.

The Lula and Dilma governments expanded on this and brought dignity to tens of millions of poor Brazilians, including the majority of Afro-descendants. This was done by increasing the minimum wage and spending on social programs such as the “Bolsa Família” (a basic income grant) and “Minha Casa Minha Vida” (a housing program aimed at low-income Brazilians).

However, actions aimed at the African descendant majority would have political repercussions. The PT governments, despite their many mistakes in governance, affirmed basic human rights through myriad legislation and programs, including the Constitutional Amendment Project (PEC) of domestic employees (mostly black), granting them the same rights as other workers; The National Pact to Combat Violence against Women, the Women Living Without Violence Program and the Maria da Penha Law (to combat domestic violence against women). All were historical milestones in the struggle of mainly black Brazilian women against violence and employment inequities. The Racial Equality Statute, passed by the PT, imposed restrictions on Brazil’s culture of racial slurs and apologia for racism. Fundamental reforms were also implemented in education, such as the compulsory education of African Brazilian and African history and culture in basic education. The “Juventude Viva” program, for example, sought to address the genocide of black youth in Brazil. According to UN figures for November 2017, 23,000 young black men are killed each year in Brazil. Finally, one of the most important advances was the Quotas Law, which ensured that the university network and federal institutes filled half their vacancies with students from public schools, with differentiated access for low-income, black and indigenous students. The quotas and funding programs increased access to higher education for black Brazilians by 268 percent.

The governments of Lula and Rousseff awakened a “sleeping giant” in the heart of the Brazilian elite, which in turn roused the ghost of Brazil’s history of slavery and colonialism.