The braggart businessman
"Sometimes a lack of response is the best insult"
Paulo Coelho
Elon Musk is a successful entrepreneur, that's a fact. An advocate of the liberal economy - but who uses and abuses public investment in his businesses - he has a lot to add to the business world of technology. And that's about it.
As a public figure, he's a braggart. He's always involved in bizarre situations and is known for spreading false information on social media. He has already been forced to resign as CEO of Tesla for three years thanks to the nonsense he publishes. He has also been widely criticized for his derogatory messages to a diver responsible for rescuing teenagers trapped in a cave in Thailand. An advocate of chloroquine as a treatment for COVID, Musk maintains that it was aliens who built the pyramids in Egypt.
So, as the old saying goes: "With your mouth shut, you're a poet".
Now, it amazes me how this issue has mobilized the country for days. How can a statement by a wealthy South African businessman make Brazilian institutions devote time and brainpower to debating the issue? The three branches of government have officially spoken out vehemently on the subject. They talk of an attack on democracy, disrespect for national sovereignty, a conspiracy by the ultra-right, a coordinated attack on the world's supreme courts, citing Venezuela and Israel. They say he has disrespected Brazilian authorities and treated the country like a banana republic.
In fact, it was the Brazilian authorities who behaved like a small country by reacting so intensely to a contumacious talker. Can anyone imagine the reverse? A large, wealthy Brazilian businessman makes a statement that he will not obey the decisions of the US Supreme Court and this generates public demonstrations by its judges, the US Congress mobilizes, President Biden makes a statement on the subject, US institutions say that the country's sovereignty and democracy are under attack.
This is unimaginable and even laughable.
Why such a reaction? Simply comply with the law. In Brazil's penal code, failure to comply with a court order can fall under several articles, depending on the nature of the order and the specific circumstances. Therefore, the crime of disobedience (art. 330), contempt (art.331), disobedience to a judicial decision (art. 359) can be applied. All carry a prison sentence. So, if Elon Musk's company fails to comply with a court order, its representatives in Brazil will be subject to arrest. And if the arrest order is against a person residing abroad, a red alert is placed on Interpol so that it can be enforced by the international police.
This vituperative and exaggerated behaviour that we tend to engage in when it comes to international issues characterizes us as a second-world country, in which we give too much importance to what foreigners think and too little importance to what they actually do. We are living through a crisis of depth. Everything is very shallow, superficial and worth more for its appearance. A mere post of a few characters has more impact than a doctoral thesis. We need more depth in debates, more content, eloquence, erudition and consequently more education. Anyone who cares about what the braggart businessman says but doesn't do shows their detachment from what matters.
