I recently came back to Brazil after six and a half years living abroad. It isn’t the first time I stay away for a while and have a reality shock coming back. This time, however, the shock is much worse, as everyday I see signs of a country that is progressively losing many of the important conquests of the last 30 years in terms of human rights and democracy. In this context, the on-going impeachment process of president Dilma Rousseff is just the culmination of a much more complex process that touches fundamental changes in our society and the way we relate to democracy and to each other.

In this post I do not want to pick sides and focus on the question that has been at the centre of the current political debate — is there a coup taking place or not? This is obviously important, but there is…