I grew up absorbing Belgian creator Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin series. I have all the books in beautiful hard cover and still read them from time to time.
The stories and humour are timeless — in some cases ominously so. At least four of the stories are set in or inspired by South America, describing the Amazon jungle, the lost Inca empire, rivers and, sadly, coups d’etát (often manipulated by outside powers).
The last book of the series, Tintin and the Picaros, describes how Gen Tapioca, despot of the fictional country San Theodoros, concocts the arrest of opera star Bianca Castafiore, long-time friend of Tintin and Captain Haddock, to lure them to the country as part of a bid to get rid of the revolutionary forces of their other friend, Gen Alcazar, who wants to overthrow the Tapioca regime.
They ultimately succeed in deposing Tapioca. Poignantly though, two frames have stuck with me since childhood. They both show the same scene — a slum with military-clad security enforcing law and order. The first one says: Viva Tapioca. The second one says: Viva Alcazar. Nothing has changed, even though the rulers did.
Meanwhile, Tintin in America portrays the Americans as gangsters only interested in making money, if need be by evicting Indians from their ancestral lands to get to the oil underneath and building cities overnight. This is of course all satire, but Hergé certainly understood the world very well.
On February 19 I reached for these two books after the Brazilian supreme court indicted previous Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on a flurry of charges ranging from attempting a coup in 2022 after his election defeat, to plotting to assassinate the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Within hours US President Donald Trump sued Brazilian supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes (who in 2024 blocked X in Brazil due to its failure to remove accounts spreading hatred and misinformation — X ultimately relented) in a Florida court.
Besides the absurdity of suing a foreign judge for exercising his judicial duties, Trump’s allegation is that by ordering the removal of certain accounts on social media, Moraes infringed the freedom of speech of Americans, as guaranteed by the US constitution.
According to the case’s perverted reasoning, the Brazilian court’s order has to be carried out by people based in the US, thereby breaching US laws — never mind that these actions, even though taken on US soil, breach the laws of other countries in those countries.
Even Trump’s lawyers must know their case is flimsy, though it remains to be seen what an American court, with a fair chance that a judge sympathetic to Trump’s reasoning overseeing it, will say about the case.
But that is beside the point. That the case was issued hours after the same judge accepted an indictment against Bolsonaro, who is an avowed Trump fan, is no coincidence. This is a clear attempt by the American president to interfere in the internal affairs of Brazil.
The US has long been suspected by Latin America of interfering in the internal affairs south of its border with Mexico. The US has been accused of facilitating the 1964 military coup in Brazil and propping up that and other military regimes in South America.
This was ostensibly done in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, which allowed the US to keep foreign influences (read: communism) out of the western hemisphere. In practice it was used to warrant any interference in the internal politics of Latin American countries. While this has not been used overtly in recent decades, Trump seems to have revived this policy in all but name.
According to Bolsonaro’s indictment, after his election defeat in 2022 he tried to copy the US Capitol riot of January 6 2021 and inspired his supporters to storm the Brazilian government seats and ransack them. He denies these allegations.
All three seats of power in Brazil — the executive, legislature and supreme court — are situated next to the Square of the Three Powers (of government) in Brasilia. Shocking scenes ensued, but unlike the US the Brazilian judiciary dealt swiftly with the perpetrators.
Many of them were given lengthy prison sentences, while Bolsonaro was subsequently declared ineligible for any government positions until 2030, and his passport was revoked. This means he will not be able to emulate Trump by trying to run as presidential candidate in October 2026 (though, sadly, there are many alternatives who would eagerly carry his mantle).
It remains to be seen what will happen in the 2026 Brazilian elections. Lula remains the only viable candidate against the Brazilian right. He turns 80 this year and has recently fallen twice at home and had to be rushed to hospital, so there are legitimate fears about his health. This could stymie his Workers’ Party’s chances in the elections.
Meanwhile, there is nothing positive one can say about the Brazilian extreme right. Under their influence some cities have started to outlaw giving food to the homeless. Imagine the cruelty of turning pity and compassion into a crime, often while carrying a bible under their arms. Yet these actions are applauded by many extreme right-wing Brazilians. I recall from Sunday school that Jesus gave fish and bread to the hungry — he didn’t chase them away.
Meanwhile, police brutality has spiked, especially in São Paulo, with brutal scenes of the Brazilian military police (an unnecessary remnant of the dictatorship) throwing people off bridges or shooting at suspicious-looking budget cars for not stopping quickly enough when told to do so, ultimately killing innocent people.
The extreme right is also frequently behind brutal attacks against Brazil’s original people over land disputes, created by the land-grabbers and their lobbies in Brasilia themselves, since the issue of indigenous land has long been settled by the Brazilian constitution.
They are vehemently opposed against any protection of the Amazon rainforest, regardless of that Brazil is suffering from record-breaking droughts and high temperatures, worsened by deforestation.
Brazil’s judiciary is the last defence against this cruelty and destruction taking place there, just like the SA judiciary was our saving grace during Jacob Zuma’s assault on our institutions.
The Brazilian federal supreme court has already successfully stood up to Elon Musk. It has shown that it has backbone, but this will clearly be tested more and more under Trump as the 2026 elections approach.
One can only wish the 11 Brazilian supreme court judges strength, because they are going to need it to fend of this foreign interference on Brazilian soil.
• Myburgh is an attorney practising in SA and Brazil.
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