Patriota comunista [English translation]

It's getting late

I think that's what I was thinking about when trying to sleep

to see if at least sleeping I would still dream, but I couldn't sleep

to see if at least sleeping I could still breath

I'm sufocating

I think that's what I was thinking about

while my dream was trying to come

trying to turn off my head, but on a screen somewhere they were showing a movie

It was a bloody movie...

or was it just the news?

It was a gang movie...

or was it the militia?1

It was a historical movie,

and old soap opera

terror in the favela2 and crowded hospitals

a beaten child

a tortured transgender

I was so upset

The scenes were horrible, beyond limits never before tolerated —

Now, more tolerated by human beings now more insensitive

Now more insensitive than the German who treated the Jews like cattle,

marking them with ember — and now in Brazil3, 80 years later, the plot is the same:

fear and manichaeism — and the hatred is normal,

prejudice is accepted and death became trivial.

You're either excommunicated4 or you're like the oxes

This place has always been a corral

A bible, a butt, a ball, a drink and leftover bit of rice and beans

What else could we want?

A gun to each one,

a heck of a joke mocking those who are going to die5?

Could it be that my friend from Belo Horizonte jumped from the window of the fifth floor

because she felt this anguish I feel

for not seeing any beautiful thing when we look at the horizon, and rather seeing a lot of

monsters making toasts with cups of red wine and the most expensive meat in their plates?

The cheapest meat is black meat6. People share condolences

and prints of the pictures of their corpses, but their text in the comments [of the news in the internet] is pre-made:

"if they died on the hills7 and they're black and they're broke — they're probably a criminal, so that's alright".

If Kathlen8 wasn't a pregnant woman, they'd say she was a drug dealer as well

They families may cry, but the authorities will ignore it and the Devil9 may even laugh

Now I'm finally getting sleepy and I'm also smiling

while playing with Henry, the boy10

Acabou chorare11: no more crying

In the dream, I'm composing together with Moraes Moreira12,

but not even up there he forgets the shame:

There goes Brazil, downhill13

And the new guys from Bahia arriving in heaven were executed

because they stole a piece of meat from a supermarket

Then the security guards caught them in the act

At first they asked for money

but soon they called the neighborhood's drug dealers and

told them to deliver the petty thiefs to the gravedigger14

They arrived in heaven

"What's up, Gabriel? You? Here?"

I became concerned: did I die?

But it's just a dream

I'll try and use the opportunity to give my father a hug15

It's too hard to find him

there's too much people coming

in a neverending line

I've seen a couple of angels over there complaining because there was a country rejecting vaccine offerings16

I disguised my nationality

I think I am a patriot

But in heaven God will flicker whoever puts their

flags above everything17 and call them idiots

I think I am a humanist

But the humanity is hard to like now

I ask for a piece of paper and a pen and start writing a lyrics and meet Aldir Blanc18

I mesmerize over a short story by Rubem Fonseca19 and sing a song by Roupa Nova20

While, in a corner, Jesus looks at me disapprovingly21

I think I am a communist

Because I've always kicked with my left foot

I've met Maradona22 shouting "Argentina!", I think he is a patriot

Am I a patriot, am I a communist?23

or just another dead man living in hell

just another dream dying in heaven

just another bill in a suit's pocket24

Am I a communist, am I a patriot?

I'm a cacique attacked in his oca25

I'm a kid asking for food

I'm a seal applauding an orca

I'm a scientist seeking handouts26

I'm a maroon turned into a joke27

I'm a student raped at school*28

I'm a sloth watching the forest burn29

I'm just one more among millions

who are so divided, in death and in life

We're all devotees of criminal saints

When fighting for votes, we look like the Hooligans

Some shout "Legend!", others — "Genocidist!"30

Free lunch with shit on the plate31

All that is true will be twisted32

All the power to the slave-driver33

When I die

I want no crying no candle

I want a yellow ribbon

With her name written on it34

This dream is getting weird

here comes another friend, laughing: Eduardo Galvão35. His eyes still shine

while he sends a message to his daughter:

"Darling, life is meant to be enjoyed, it's not a competition"

My friend, she knows it, so do I

and that's why I overtop hatred with love

and whenever I can, I dream

and I try to inspire tolerance

As I was able to learn from my mistakes, I don't want to bury the hope that, in a time with so many burials, the men may still see the abnormality of arrogance

and grab this chance to find out how to change — ways, attitude, behavior

but it's really hard to find fairer ways when we are all such sons of bitches

doing all we can

to batten on others in every little thing

finding normal what is absurd

pretending we're crazy and blind and deaf only when it's better for us

We're sick

the city councilor and the boy's mother, the governor36 and the murderous minister37, who kills inocent people on the hills or rejects vaccines — where did they come from?

This dream became a nightmare

I even feel shame when I look at us

and I think I am a good citizen38

therefore I expose myself and call myself out as well

As I was able to learn with the voices of the poets, I cannot accept censorship39

My teachers opened my mind, so it means the cure is in education and culture

This dream is already like torture

We'd just talked about culture and look who's showed up

bringing irony and courage

he makes me smile and relieves my stress

In the dream, he's coming with thousands of victims, 500 thousand dead or more40

I wake up startled and Paulo Gustavo's41 smile dissolves in the pain

The only thing I feel is my frozen body, and beside the bed there's a sentence: "Rest in peace"

I rub my eyes and I see I'm a slave tied to stocks

and when the whip bursts my back, I feel powerless

but then I look back

A tear washes my face and, now aware, I get up to dream again

and I break my chains the moment I recognize my face in the face of my slave-driver

When I die

I want no crying no candle

I want a yellow ribbon

With her name written on it

1. Brazilian police militias, in Rio de Janeiro and other cities of Brazil, are criminal, illegal paramilitary groups made up of current and former police (Civil/Military) officers as well as Military Firefighters Corps officers, criminals, politicians, and military officers. Source: Wikipedia.2. A favela is a type of slum in Brazil that has experienced historical governmental neglect and thus became a place favorable for the crime to flourish. The inhabitants of the favelas suffer daily with the abandonment of the government, gang violence and police brutality. 3. There's a pun in the original here: the word "brasa" means ember. The word Brazil cames from pau-brasil, the wood that the Portuguese people first started exploring here and named the country after it. "Pau-brasil" means "ember-colored wood", it was named like that because it was red. Also, "Brasa" is an informal nickname for Brazil, and that's how the singer calls the country in this verse. 4. This adjective has a broad use in Brazilian Portuguese, meaning not only excommunicated from the church, cursed, but also "the devil" and "bad, detestable person". The word is not rare and it's mostly used in this last sense. However, here it is important to preserve all meanings of this term, because people are actually getting cut out from their family circles and their churches if they don't agree with the ones he calls "like the oxes". And there is another pun here: this word, in Portuguese, sounds like "és como um gado", which means "you're like cattle", which brings some ambiguity to this line, going all the way around in the critics, although perhaps it wasn't intentional.5. Possible reference to the day President Bolsonaro immitated a person suffocating to death in his official livestream. It was not the only time he joked around regarding the pandemics, though, so this verse may refer to some other event.6. The word for "meat" and "flesh" is the same in Portuguese, "carne", thus the sentence he is quoting here in this verse is a popular anti-racism slogan, denouncing the de-humanization of Black People.7. A synonym for favela, since many of them are build upon hills. This is due to the fact that the favelas were formed in the major cities, in the first half of the 20st century, when mayors decided to "clean" the best parts of the cities from poor housing (and poor people), and started to demolish the shacks in which the poor people lived. So these people, which still worked in these cities and had to live there, started to move to its outskirts, the "periferia", or to undesirable places where it wasn't comfortable to build, the hills, "morros".8. Kathlen Romeu was a black woman killed by the police in the poor community she lived in Rio de Janeiro in June 8, 2021. She was a 24 y. o. designer expecting her first long-awaited child and was walking in the street with her grandma when she got shot in the torax with a rifle by a police officer. Kathlen had just left the community and moved to a safer place in April 24, 2021 and was visiting her grandma that day. The police wasn't in an operation that day; they explained the shooting saying "some officers were attacked". The circumstances of the case shocked the country that is, unhappily, used to police brutality and often buys the fake news built around the victims to justify the killings.9. Possible reference to president Bolsonaro. He is often called "the Devil" by his critics and he did laugh at the people killed by police in a TV show in April 24, 2021. This is not the only time he's laughed at the dead. But other politicians and anchormen did it, so the singer might be refering broadly to the actual devil as the evil that motivates these people.10. Henry Borel Medeiros was a 4 y. o. boy allegedly beaten to death by his stepfather, Jairo Souza Santos Júnior, a doctor and city councilor of the city Rio de Janeiro, known as Dr. Jairinho, and son of another politician. The councilor and the mother of the boy, Monique Medeiros da Costa e Silva are facing charges of torture and aggravated homicide. The mom was considered an accomplice because she allegedly knew about Jairinho's temper and his mistreatment of Henry. The case shocked the country and was largely explored by media, which called him "o menino Henry", that is, "Henry, the boy" or "the boy Henry".11. Title of a song and an album by the group Novos Baianos. "Novos Baianos" (meaning "new guys from Bahia") was a Brazilian rock and MPB group from Salvador, Bahia. It is considered one of the most important and revolutionary groups in Brazilian music. "Acabou chorare" is a slightly agrammatical way of saying "stop crying", "no more crying", etc."12. Antônio Carlos Moreira Pires, better known as Moraes Moreira, was one of the most prolific and versatile Brazilian singers and songwriters, original member of the group Novos Baianos. He passed away due to COVID in April 13, 2021, aged 72.13. Title of a song by Moraes Moreira: "Lá vem o Brasil, descendo a ladeira" released in 1979. In the song, the sentence has a positive connotation, comparing the country to a hard-working mixed woman from "the hills" that gracefully makes her way through life despite the dificulties. The title is cheerfully and disruptively ironic because this expression, "descer a ladeira", has exactly the same figurative meaning as the English "to go downhill" — and here in Gabriel's song it's used with the original negative meaning.14. Two young black men, Bruno Barros, 29 y. o., and his nephew Yan Barros, 19 y. o., were caught by the security guards of the supermarket Atacadão Atacarejo, in Salvador, Bahia, with four unpaid packages of meat in April 26, 2021. Later on, their bodies were found by the police inside a car, with signs of torture and bullet holes. Later on it was discovered they had called family members and friends asking for money while they were in custody of the safety guards and after, the drug dealers. They said the money was meant to pay for the stolen goods, but it surpassed considerably the price of the meat and the police suposes it was actually meant to pay for their rescue. The killers decided not to wait until the family gathered the demanded amount, though, and executed the two young men.15. Dr. Miguel Contino, Gabriel's father, died April 24, 2020 due to a pulmonary emphysema.16. According to the findings of an investigation carried by the Brazilian Senate, Bolsonaro's government repeatedly refused Pfizer's proposals to test and develop a vaccine here since March 2020, ignoring more than a hundred e-mails by the company. It also rejected at least three proposals from the Butantan Institute, a Brazilian scientific organization that developed the Coronavac in partnership with the Chinese company Sinovac, and decided not to participate in WHO's COVAX initiative, later on contributing with the minimal amount possible. According calculations presented to the investigative comitee, scientists have estimated that at least 375,000 lives could have been saved, hadn't the government rejected the vaccine offerings.17. Allusion to the slogan of Bolsonaro's campaign and government — Brasil above everything, God above everyone — and to the fixation of Bolsonaro's supporters on the Brazilian flag.18. Aldir Blanc Mendes, famous Brazilian songwriter, writer and composer, who composed some of the most iconic lyrics of Brazilian music, such as "O bêbado e a equilibrista", performed by Elis Regina. He died 4 May 2020 at the age of 73, of complications from COVID-19. The Congress passed a bill to support the artists and workers of the cultural sector during the pandemics and the bill became known as Aldir Blanc Law.19. José Rubem Fonseca, renowned Brazilian writer who won the Camões Prize in 2003, the most important prize for a Portuguese-speaking author, among many other important literary prizes. He started a new trend in the Brazilian contemporary literature, in 1975, published 12 romances, a lot of short stories — genre in which he excelled — and some essays. He died of a heart attack in April 15, 2020, aged 94.20. The lead singer of the Brazilian pop band Roupa Nova, Paulo César Santos, better known as Paulinho, died of COVID-19 in December 14, 2020.21. There's a double meaning here. The word "canto" means "corner" but also "I sing". Coloquially, the word "não" (no, don't) may be spoken as "num". So this line can also be heard as "While I don't sing, Jesus looks at me disapprovingly", meaning Jesus disapproved of the fact that he was silent, wasn't speaking up about this whole situation that's going on in his country now.22. Diego Armando Maradona Franco, most prominent soccer player from Argentina, a neighbor country with which Brazil has a historical but playful rivality in soccer, and Maradona played along. He disputed the title of best player in the world with Brazilian player Pelé. He died in November 25, 2020, aged 60, due to heart and breathing malfunctioning.23. Here, as well as in the title, Gabriel plays with the binary worldview of Bolsonaro's supporters, who divide the world between them, the "patriots", and literally everybody else, the "communists", according to them. If someone criticizes the president, they instantly become "a communist", regardless of their actual political views. People also get called "communists" for very meaningless "signs", what explains Gabriel's ironic statement that he thinks he's a communist because "he's always kicked with the left foot". It's worthy noting, though, that he doesn't always use the words "communist" and "patriot" in the song with the distorted meanings given to them by Bolsonaro's supporters. In the title, for example, he presents what would be an oximoron to these people: it's not a question, it's closer to an affirmation, as if he's declaring it's possible to be communist and patriot at the same time. When he questions "am I a patriot? am I a communist?", these questions can be read both as he pondering what he really is and as he pondering what he is in the eyes of the people. As for Maradona, he was definitely a patriot in the most strict sense of this word, he loved Argentina.24. Reference to the scandals of corruption, mainly to the corruption commited during the pandemics, which hampered the fight against the disease.25. An oca is the traditional house of Brazilian native people. This verse refers to the harsh attacks of land grabbers against indigenous people in the Amazon and other places of Brazil, which have increased exponentially since the start of Bolsonaro's government, along with the destruction of the forest. The mistreatment of the native people in this government, including the purposeful lack of protection of the native people against coronavirus, made the International Criminal Court in Hague to accept a complaint against Bolsonaro charging him with the crime of genocide in December 2020. The complaint is still pending analysis and judgement.26. Allusion to the massive cuts in scientific research financing that took and continue taking place during the government of Bolsonaro.27. During a lecture in a Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro in April, 2017, president Bolsonaro, then a congressman, spoke against several ethnic minorities, swore he wouldn’t give an inch of land to the native people and spoke derisively of African descents who live in the quilombo, a Brazilian type of community inhabited by descendants of escaped slaves. Charges of racism were pressed against him, his defense claimed that he was just trying to be funny, and he was considered not guilty of all charges.28. Probable reference to the blind 12 y. o. girl who was raped within the school by two teachers in Osasco, in the state of São Paulo, in November, 2019. It’s worthy noting that this line didn’t make into the music video. There Gabriel sings “I am a life that wasn’t worth one dollar”, referring to a vaccine offering that was allegedly refused because the dealer (who wasn’t authorized to sell that vaccine, by the way) refused to increase the price of the vaccine in U$1.00 (one dollar) per dose, which would serve as a “commission” to the government members that intermediated the buying. This case is currently being investigated by the Senate, which has found evidence that members of the government — mostly from the military — had been negotiating with the alleged seller in suspicious locations and circumstances. Proofs of the “commission” request are yet to be found.29. He’s alluding to the environmental disaster that Bolsonaro’s government has been to Brazil. To name a few: 1) he wanted to extinguish the Ministry of Environment and pass its attributions to the Ministry of Agriculture; 2) giving up, he appointed the extreme neoliberal lawyer Ricardo Aquino Salles, then convicted of administrative misconduct against the environment, as the minister (that's how the State secretaries are called in Brazil); 3) in October 2019, massive fires popped all through the Amazon forest and it was later discovered that those fires were arsons planned by the land owners who supported Bolsonaro; he did nothing against them and barely sent any help to fight the fires; 4) during the pandemics, minister Ricardo Salles was caught in a government meeting saying it was time to seize the opportunity when the eyes of the media were elsewhere to push through a lot of anti-environmental bills that effectively destroyed Brazil’s legislative apparatus of environmental protection; 6) they did just that, managing to appoint allies to the main work groups of the Congress that discuss and vote environmental issues; 7) it was recently discovered that Ricardo Salles was illegally exporting wood, in a massive criminal scheme. He’s now under investigation and has left the government as of June 23, 2021, being replaced by a equally bad scoundrel, Joaquim Leite. In the verse, the sloth, of all animals, was chosen because it represents our lack of action against these crimes.30. These two words, shouted often in Brazil lately, represent the harsh division of the Brazilian people based on what each side thinks of Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro’s supporters call him “Mito”, which means “legend” or “legendary”. This nickname dates back from the days when he was just a congressman with polemical (homophobic, racist, sexist, etc.) opinions that he voiced loudly in substandard TV shows, and it was invented by the teenage boys who adored him. He started being called “Genocida” (Genocidist) by his opponents after his horrible management of the pandemics, especially after a study carried out by Law professors from the Public University of São Paulo (USP) examined all the acts of the government published in the official state edicts and found a pattern showing that the government had acted purposefully with the intent of spreading the virus more quickly and get quickly to what they called “herd immunity by contamination” — even though they knew that this could potentially cause the death of 1 million Brazilians.31. Probable reference to the articles in the media teaching people how to eat garbage food, expired food and food with insects, as a way to “help them” to face the poverty and hunger that came with the economic crisis deepened by political decision of neoliberal orientation taken by this government and the former (Michel Temer’s), and worsened by the mismanagement of the pandemics’ impacts.32. Bolsonaro's election and his government is marked by the spreading of fake news. He poisoned his followers against the traditional media and, through his official channels and his network of allies, he feeds them with a completely twisted version of the facts. There were and there are investigations that showed the action of structures and people inside the government who especialized in spreading fake news about anything that is of interest for the government, including the pandemics, treatments, vaccines. This structure was nicknamed "The Hatred Office" because it is mostly used to discredit the other candidates during the election and spread blatant lies on whoever criticizes Bolsonaro or former allies who turn his back on him, and Bolsonaro's followers don't even notice when the fake news machine makes them say today the contrary of what they said yesterday, in a very Orwellian way.;33. Although the figured most refered to as slave-driver is Sérgio Camargo, the black president of The Palmares Cultural Foundation — a foundation created to preserve the black heritage in Brazil — because of how he betrays every day the rights and the needs of Brazilian blacki people, this verse seems to be refering to Bolsonaro himself. He likes to be called by his military title, Captain (capitão, in Portuguese), and his behavior is that of a slave-driver (capitão-do-mato): violent, rude, enslaving the people below him to please the interests of the slave owners, in this case the richest Brazilians and maybe some foreign interests as well (therer were investigations about it as well). The "all power to" supports this hypothesis, as Sérgio Camargo isn't by far a prominent leader to deserve this salutation.34. The chorus is taken from the song “Fita Amarela” (Yellow Ribbon), released in 1932 by Brazilian singer and songwriter Noel Rosa (1910-1937), one of the greatest names of samba. In the song, Rosa fantasizes about his funeral. It was recorded over and over by several Brazilian artists since its release.35. Eduardo Galvão was a Brazilian actor who played roles in several soap operas and movies. He died of COVID-19 in December 7, 2020, aged 58, leaving behind one adult daughter, Mariana, and a granddaughter, Lara.36. Probable reference to Wilson Witzel, former governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, impeached in the beginning of the pandemics after an investigation of misuse of public money was launched against by the Federal Police, as retaliation because he publicly defied Bolsonaro. Witzel, however, was a former partner of Bolsonaro, campaigned together with him during the 2018 elections, and shared worldviews with him in many aspects, including the handling of internal security issues and the war on crimes, especially the war on drugs. He got famous for going with the police in missions to shoot people in “the hills” (the favelas) from helicopters. In one of such episodes, they shot an evangelical church gathering “by mistake”. In another occasion, he was filmed while he left the helicopter, commemorating the killing of a man who had kidnapped a bus.37. Most likely it refers to the former health minister of Brazil, Gen. Eduardo Pazuello, appointed to the position in May 15, 2020, after Bolsonaro fired the two previous ministers, both doctors, because they refused to promote hydroxychloroquine as the official treatment for COVID-19. Gen. Pazuello had no previous contact with the Brazilian health system at all or any background in health whatsoever, as he was the first to admit. His educational background was in Logistics. He accepted the position and fomented the production and distribution of hydroxychloroquine. This was only one of his many disastrous decisions. Most of the deaths by COVID-19 happened during his period in the ministry, that ended in March 23, 2021, and most of the vaccine offerings were refused or ignored during this time as well. However, this could apply to many of Bolsonaro’s ministers, as the investigation launched by the Senate has discovered that several of them took part in the decision to refuse the vaccine offerings from the big companies, including the current health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, economy minister Paulo Guedes, and others.38. A "cidadão de bem" (good citizen) is how the right-wing Brazilians call themselves. This became a derogatory, dreaded term for the left-wing Brazilians because the people who use it to define themselves are almost always cruel and prejudiced and often hypocritical: many of the crimes that shocked the country lately were commited by self-proclaimed "good citizens" who would advocate death penalty for criminals and other violations of human rights. The character of the "good citizen" is way older than today's political disputes in Brazil. It is depicted, for example, in the song "Senhor cidadão" (1972), by Tom Zé. It is worth listening.39. Funny enough, the music video for this song received threats of censorship in the city of Uberlândia (MG), because some inhabitants of the city didn't like the fact it was filmed in their cemetery. After a little fuzz, the video ended up being released with some cut scenes and some blurred points whenever the tombstones of real people appeared, even if from a distance. Censorship ceased to exist officially in Brazil after the end of the military dictatorship (1964-1985), but Bolsonaro's government has practiced several acts that would configure de facto censorship. A dossier compiled by Brazil Communication Company (EBC) identified 138 cases of Federal interference with the communications within Brazil from January 2019 to July 2020. The National Agency of Cinema (Ancine) and the Secretariat of Culture of Brazil, among other brenches of the government, have boycotted critics of the government and overall tried to enforce some level of ideological control.40. In the day the single was released, July 20, 2021, Brazil already had almost 544,000 (five hundred and forty-four thousand) fatal victims of COVID-19, as per the official numbers. Today, July 24, 2021, this number has increased to 548,000 (five hundred and forty-eight thousand) lives lost to COVID-19. It is by far the greatest tragedy in the history of Brazil. The second greatest mortality we had was during the war against Paraguay in the 1850’s centuries, in which 50,000 (fifty thousand) people died during a period of six years.41. Paulo Gustavo Amaral Monteiro de Barros, better known as Paulo Gustavo, was a Brazilian comedian, actor and director, most famous for his part Dona Hermínia, a character he created inspired in his mother and played in three movies written and produced by him, as well as in a multitude of sketches. He also had many other characters, including some that criticized Brazil’s elite, such as Senhora dos Absurdos (Mrs. Absurd), a white high-society lady who talked the most racist, classist and anti-Brazilian things as if they with not a drop of shame or self-conscience. Paulo Gustavo died of COVID-19 in May 4, 2021, after two months battling the disease in a sequence of ups-and-downs that the whole society followed with compassion. Doctors recurred even to an artificial external lung and other alternative treatments to keep him breathing, but in the end COVID win, and Paulo Gustavo became the face for hundreds of thousands of other nameless victims with not by far as much visibility or as many resources to fight as him, and his death canalized the pain of a country in grief for their own.

• Artist:Gabriel o Pensador
• Album:Single