Until just over two years, Lula remained in prison and sentenced, excluded from political life in Brazil. There were people, even from the left, who accepted the accusations against him, considered him outside of Brazilian political life. When he said goodbye to us, at the São Bernardo Metallurgical Union, the majority did not want him to turn himself in to the police. But he had decided to go and prove to Judge Sergio Moro the falsehood of the accusations against him and the Lava Jato farce. He just thought he would be in prison for a few days. He had to get used to the idea that he would stay much longer. We stay awake all the time, waiting to see him come out of those damn Curitiba police facilities. When we visited him, we found him firm and confident that he would come out and firmly return to the fight.
But they were 580 days and 580 endless nights in the solitude of the unjust and cruel cell that he had to endure to prove his truth. That is why his departure, which turns two on November 9, should be celebrated as a victory of truth, tenacity and the character of a man who puts on his skin to demonstrate his convictions.
Life in Brazil seemed to get used to that barbarism. Some openly celebrated it and used the spaces in the media to criminalize Lula as corrupt, to celebrate his exclusion from the life of a country that would be better off without him, in the voice of the executioners. There were also those who, in the left field, accepted the accusations and began to criminalize the PT, not only unjustly but also opportunistically. People who know that, with Lula and the PT, there is little space for them and other possible candidates to occupy a gigantic space that remains free.
That is why Lula’s exit from that dreadful building has to be celebrated as a historic day in the life of Brazil. Because it represents the victory of truth and the personal strength of the greatest leader the country has ever had. Hence the excitement of meeting Lula in the São Bernardo Metalworkers Union, the first place he went to, returning to the place he had left, to say that he had fulfilled half of his promise: he regained his freedom. What was needed was to unmask those who had led him to be arrested and convicted as innocent. Hugging him again confirmed the certainty of everything we had fought for.
But he proved that he had been right by introducing himself. That he didn’t want to go underground and be treated like an outlaw. Don’t leave the country and be treated like a fugitive. That November 9 was also historic because it began to return Lula to Brazilian political history and to rekindle in the hearts of Brazilians the hope that it would be possible to rescue the country from the worst crisis in its history.
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