It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
The name of R.H. Tawney still evokes the heroic phase of socialism. His work is associated with the belief in equality and fellowship, with the commitment to strive for the creation of a just social order to replace capitalism, and with the obligation of the educated and the privileged to put their talents at the service of the working class. (It is, of course, one sign that the heroic phase of socialism is over that few of the terms in this sentence can now be used confidently and without qualification.) Within the international history of socialism, and still more within the history of the labor movement in Britain, Tawney has a secure place in the pantheon of influential thinkers. Moreover, he was revered for his personality and example as much as for his writings, above all for his unaffected manner, his unworldly asceticism, and his deep sympathy with the efforts of working people to improve their lot, especially through adult education, to which he devoted a great deal of his own time and energy. He remained a cherished figure in English radical and working-class circles long after his death in 1962 at the age of eighty-two. He is one of the few secular figures to whom the label “saint” gets applied unironically.
Generation Z joins George Floyd demonstrations
Many of those protesting against police brutality and racism in front of the White House and all over the United States are less than 25 years old. For them, giving up is not an option.
These schoolboys are taking part in a "big movement," as Noel puts it, for the first time. Noel adds: "The last time we were just a bit too young. But now that we're old enough to understand what's happening, we're out here just doing what we can for the community." Sammy says: "We want to make America a better place for black people." 1234567
Westen is wearing a "Black Lives Matter" T-shirt and a protective face mask embroidered with the words "I can't breathe." The 12-year-old has accompanied his father, who is among those protesting against racism near the White House. For several days, thousands of people have been gathering here to take a stand against police violence and to remember George Floyd, a black man who was killed in Minneapolis on May 25 by a white police officer. He came here "to represent George Floyd, my country and my culture," Westen says. What happened to Floyd "wasn't cool."
The schoolboy is one of the youngest protesters near the White House. But many of the people vociferously demanding change here today belong to Generation Z — young women and men who were born in the mid-1990s or later. Many of them are participating in a huge protest rally for the first time. Westen, 12, took part in protests near the White House. "I can't breathe" were George Floyd's last words
"This is sort of the first big movement that we've been a part of. The last time there was one of these marches we were just a bit too young to really understand the message behind it," says 18-year-old Noel, who has joined the rally accompanied by his little brother and a couple of friends. "But now that we're old enough to understand what's happening, we're out here just doing what we can for the community."
Obama: Young people's commitment 'makes me feel optimistic'
Discussing police brutality during a virtual town hall event on Wednesday, former US President Barack Obama praised the commitment of young Americans.
"When sometimes I feel despair, I just see what's happening with young people all across the country, and the talent and the voice and the sophistication that they're displaying," Obama said, adding that Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X "were young when they got involved in their causes."
He said young people standing up made him feel optimistic: "It makes me feel as if, you know, this country's gonna get better."
Mya, 21, is also among the young people for whom protesting in the wake of George Floyd's death marks their first participation in a social movement. "We were tired when Trayvon Martin happened, when Eric Garner happened," she says, alluding to African Americans killed by police in recent years. "I'm finally at the age where I can get involved. I've got to make it count."
And it seems as if the young demonstrators' steady protests and demands for justice are making an impact. The charge against Derek Chauvin, the police officer who pressed his knee against Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes before he died, has been upgraded from third-degree murder to second-degree murder, which means the officer is now facing a prison sentence of up to 40 instead of up to 25 years. And on Wednesday, it was announced that three police officers who were at the scene during Floyd's arrest and death will be charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
'You're powerful'
Commitment, however, must involve more than just taking part in the protests, says 25-year-old Bryan, who has joined a rally in Washington although his job at the House of Representatives actually bars him from participating. But he's no longer able to just remain on the sidelines. "Initially, we must vote Trump out," Bryan says. "Afterwards, police reforms have to be implemented."
He, too, has been stopped by police officers over trifles numerous times, he says. "I've been pulled over for going five miles over the speed limit. They tried to ask me do I have drugs on me when I just got out of the military." Bryan says he is "tired of seeing my people die." The young man's eyes are now filled with tears of anger over injustice. Deborah, 18, took part in protests near the White House
Earlier this week, Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the global Black Lives Matter movement, directly addressed Generation Z protesters: "What folks in the streets, especially young people, need to hear right now is that you're powerful," the Los Angeles-based activist told online magazine Teen Vogue.
Deborah, 18, isn't just hopeful that she and the other protesters will actually be able to bring about change. "We have to," she says, sitting on the ground while facing a row of uniformed police officers. "We have no other choice."
The killing of George Floyd: US firms take a stand
Following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, many US companies have declared their solidarity with protesters. But how serious is their support? Sabrina Kessler reports from New York
Protests in the wake of the death of 46-year-old black man George Floyd are in full swing across the United States. Thousands of Americans have taken to the streets to condemn police violence and racism. It's not just private individuals raising their voices for more justice. They've increasingly been supported by US companies.
"Racism continues to be at the root of so much pain and ugliness in our society — from the streets of Minneapolis to the disparities inflicted by COVID-19," said Citigroup CFO Mark Mason in a corporate blog.
The 50-year-old is among the few black Americans who've made it to the top of a global enterprise. African-Americans head just three of the 500 largest US companies, according to Boston Consulting. One of them is Kenneth Frazier, who's been at the helm of pharmaceuticals giant Merck for nine years.
"Our society is more divided than it's ever been," he said in an interview for CNBC. Mason and Frazier are not the only US entrepreneurs taking a clear stance on what happened to George Floyd.
No lack of response
The list of those commenting on the incident is long. Besides Starbucks, BlackRock, Nike and JPMorgan, the conservative Disney empire has also come out in support of the protests.
"We stand with our fellow black employees, storytellers, creators and the entire black community. We must unite and speak out," the company said.
Reebok, Twitter and Netflix have also taken sides with the protesters. Twitter changed the color of its logo from blue to black adding the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, while Netflix commented: "To be silent is to be complicit." Reebok for its part had this to say to its customers: "We are not asking you to buy our shoes. We are asking you to walk in someone else's."
In response to Floyd's killing, dating app Grindr deleted its "skin color" search filter. Carmaker General Motors pledged to create more inclusive workplaces and enhance in-house diversity. In a similar vein, Universal Music is setting up a task force to remove obstacles standing in the way of more diversity in the company.
Polishing corporate image
Wendy Melillo, a full-time professor of journalism at Washington's American University, says there's a reason why so many US companies have joined the debate about police violence and racism. Taking a stance improves your corporate image, she argues, as more and more customers expect firms to show a sense of social responsibility.
Protests have erupted all across the US in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Sadly, some didn't stop short of looting
"This is an important change that's happened in American society," Melillo said. "Many companies actually have a strategy about how to approach these needs." Companies such as Kellogg's or Apple have actually been releasing special social responsibility reports for years now in addition to their regular earnings reports.
But sometimes corporate attempts to display solidarity backfire. Take Louis Vuitton chief Virgil Abloh, who donated the meager sum of $50 (€45) to an anti-racism organization and soon saw himself confronted with a major backlash.
Melillo believes that retail chain Nordstrom, itself a victim of recent lootings, has also put its foot in its mouth. "Nordstrom put out a vague message in which they said 'we are continuing having conversations about racial injustice.'"
"Where is the action message, the will to change something," the professor asked, adding that debates about racism had yielded little, with society at large not really changing. Rhetoric had to be turned into action finally, Melillo urged.
Will money do the trick?
The Bank of America announced earlier this week it will allocate $1 billion over the next four years to help black people become self-employed or find better jobs and accommodation. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged $10 million for organizations fighting racial discrimination. Sephora donated over $1 million to civil rights organization NAACP.
"This money, these campaigns, this sympathy won't change society," he warned, adding that racism had been around for hundreds of years in the US, and no money had ever been able to make it go away. "And suddenly, everybody is pretending to care about us black people."
Back in 2017, Nordstrom parted with Ivanka Trump's fashion line, causing quite a stir 'Just a PR stunt'
Thacker said a brief look at global boardrooms revealed how hypocritical the whole debate was. Instead of pursuing a proactive policy, US firms always reacted to something bad happening, Thacker noted. And now, he added, they wanted to make headlines with generous donations. "That's just a PR stunt."
Wendy Melillo concedes, though, that some companies are more serious about fighting racism than others. She cited Nike as a positive example, saying the company had long been known for its unambiguous stance and just changed its slogan "Just do it" to "For once, don't do it!"
Just like retailer Target, Nike has become the target of massive lootings in recent days.
"Standing strong although stores are being targeted — that's a way to respond in an authentic way," Melillo concluded.
Watch video https://p.dw.com/p/3dFzy US historian Edna Bonhomme on the response in Germany to George Floyd's death
Europe must step up anti-racism efforts, rights agency says
Racist harassment, violence and discriminatory ethnic profiling are "commonplace" in Europe, the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency has said. The agency called on governments to do more to fight racism and discrimination. European Union governments need to step up their efforts to combat racism and discrimination, the bloc's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) said on Friday. The agency said in a statement that "racist harassment, violence and discriminatory ethnic profiling are commonplace in Europe."
According to a survey of roughly 6,000 people of African descent the agency conducted: 30% of black people in the EU said they had been harassed; 5% said they had been attacked; and a quarter of respondents said they had been stopped by police in the previous five years.
The FRA pointed out that the EU has enacted legislation to combat racial harassment and race-related crime. However, people of African descent still face "widespread and entrenched prejudice and exclusion."
"No one should be targeted because of the color of their skin. No one should be afraid of a police stop just because they are black," said FRA Director Michael O'Flaherty.
Rates of racial harassment toward black people varied by EU member state, according to the FRA survey. In the UK, 21% of respondents said they experienced racial harassment, while in Finland the rate was 63%. In Germany, 48% of respondents said they had experienced racial harassment.
The most common form of racial harassment involved offensive non-verbal cues (22%), followed by offensive or threatening comments (21%) and threats of violence (8%). The survey found that only 14% of the most recent incidents of racial harassment were reported to police, meaning a majority of racist incidents went unreported.
When it comes to racial profiling by police, 24% of respondents said they were stopped by police in the last five years, including 11% in the last 12 months. Of those stopped within the last year, 44% believe the last time they were stopped by police was racially motivated. That belief was most prominent among respondents in Italy (70%) and Austria (63%) and lowest in Finland (18%).
SHOULD BOOKS WITH RACIST CONTENT BE REVISED? 'The Little Witch' (1957) This classic of children's literature, by Otfried Preussler, was made into a film that came out earlier this year. In a 2013 revision of the book, children getting dressed up as a "Neger" — a derogatory word that can either be translated as "negro" or "nigger" — or a "Zigeuner" (gypsy) simply picked other costumes. The publisher's decision to change some words led to a heated debate in Germany. PHOTOS 123456789
China wants to emphasize that clashes between police and protesters in US cities mean Washington has no right to criticize crackdowns in Hong Kong. But the two protests are very different, says DW's Rodion Ebbighausen.
There is no question that the images of unrest and demonstrations in the United States and Hong Kong are similar.
We see streets packed with protesters as tear gas and rubber bullets fly. Policemen press demonstrators to the ground with their knees, and flaming barricades burn through the night.
In decrying the demonstrators, US President Donald Trump uses rhetoric similar to what Beijing says about Hong Kong.
DW's Rodion Ebbighausen
The demonstrators are "thugs." If there is looting, shooting is allowed. Trump even threatened US governors with a likely illegal internal deployment of the US armed forces. Beijing has repeatedly threatened to unleash the People's Liberation Army in Hong Kong to intimidate protesters.
After all, the US government has been supporting the protests in Hong Kong, but is now condemning supposedly similar protests at home.
On May 30, Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for China's Foreign Ministry, tweeted George Floyd's last words, "I can't breathe," along with a screenshot of a tweet from US State Department spokeswoman, Morgan Ortegus, criticizing China's new Hong Kong security law.
Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25 sparked unrest in dozens of US cities.
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the English-language Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times, compared the protests in the US with those in Hong Kong in a video on Twitter.
"There are of course different reasons for the riots, but their similarities are overwhelming: they all defy the law, subvert order and are destructive," he said. "Violence in Hong Kong is justified and the violence in the US is unjust. This kind of thinking is intolerable."
While accusing the US of double standards, China's propaganda apparatus also heaps praise on the Chinese government.
China's pundits say that Beijing — unlike Washington — would not interfere in the internal affairs of the US and fuel the demonstrations by supporting protesters.
Even Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam is using the unrest in the US as a political opportunity.
"We have recently seen double standards most clearly with the riots in the United States," Lam said. "We can see how local authorities have reacted. But last year when we had similar riots in Hong Kong, what was the US' position?" Lam said Tuesday
Civil society and free press matter most
However, even if Beijing and its loyalists in Hong Kong try to emphasize the parallels and blur the differences between the protests, it is precisely the differences that matter most.
While holding police responsible for excessive force continues to be a problem the US, the four police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd have been fired. The officer who kneeled on Floyd's neck has been charged with third degree murder and manslaughter. This shows that power in the US is subject to accountability.
The situation was quite different in Hong Kong, where police widely applied disproportionate force against demonstrators. The pro-democracy movement has been tirelessly demanding accountability from the police, but Beijing will never allow Hong Kong's executive to admit culpability.
And in contrast to the Chinese media's reporting on Hong Kong in mainland China, protests in the US are reported nationwide, and different points of view are mirrored critically.
The opinion that demonstrators are left-wing agitators is represented, as is the conviction that the protests are a fight for equality and against racism. This is all thanks to the free press in the US.
In mainland China, the protests in Hong Kong were also reported, but only one perspective was given: Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrators are foreign-controlled terrorists.
Even if Beijing insists otherwise, the similar images from Hong Kong and the US belie very important social differences.
In Hong Kong, the social divisions are ordered from the top down by a ruling class that acts as the long arm of power from Beijing. The protests that began exactly one year ago, with millions of people on the streets, were an expression of the people versus the party.
In the US, the current tension is inter-social and plays out across social milieus along the lines of the country's historical struggle with racism and the political rift between the left and right.
In the US, people are fighting for recognition in a battered democracy. In China, and its authoritarian system, which is increasingly being imposed on Hong Kong, people only know the forced peace of a dictatorship.
IN PICTURES: US PROTESTS OVER GEORGE FLOYD, POLICE KILLINGS RAGE IN DOZENS OF CITIES 'I can't breathe'
Tense protests over decades of police brutality against black people have quickly spread from Minneapolis to cities across the US. The protests began in the Midwestern city earlier this week, after a police officer handcuffed and pressed a knee on the neck of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, until he stopped breathing and died.
Just before the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, a new struggle for freedom is raging in Hong Kong. Writers and journalists fear censorship by the Chinese security law.
"Debasement is the password of the base / Nobility the epitaph of the noble."
Bei Dao's poem "Huida" (The Answer) became the anthem of resistance of the democracy movement as early as the first demonstrations in Beijing in 1976, as well as during the protests in 1989.
Bei Dao (Zhao Zhenkai's pen name, literally: 'Northern Island') during a reading tour in China in 2016
The now 70-year-old Chinese poet and essayist, who has been nominated several times as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, has been living in forced exile in Hong Kong since 2007.
Bei Dao does not consider himself a political poet, but his verses have taken on a life of their own.
Now, the opening lines of his poem have once again become the credo of the unruly. They spread across China's social media after the death of the physician Li Wenliang, who became a world-famous whistle-blower by reporting on the mysterious new virus in Wuhan in January.
REMEMBERING TIANANMEN SQUARE, 1989 Goddess of Democracy As the sun rises at Tiananmen Square, protesters build a 10-meter (33-foot) Goddess of Democracy statue out of foam and paper-mache over a metal armature. In the early morning of June 4, soldiers backed by tanks and armored cars toppled the statue, which had stood directly facing the Mao portrait at the Forbidden City. PHOTOS 123456789101112
The end of civil liberties
"The biggest health care crisis in the history of the People's Republic of China has exposed considerable weaknesses in the regime," Chinese-American political scientist Minxin Pei wrote in an article on China's authoritarian leadership under Xi Jinping. The position of the Chinese Communist Party ruler has become fragile as a result of the coronavirus crisis, the article states, the German version of which was published in the magazine Cicero on April 30. To strengthen the regime's power base again, the Communist Party would have to resort to even more social control and political repression. "It would have little difficulty in suppressing internal criticism of its rule thanks to its large, effective security apparatus," writes Pei.
In order to reinforce control even in the troubled peripheral regions of the country, the party has resorted to tough sanctions. For Hong Kong, the former British colony, the Security Law approved by China's National People's Congress on April 28 marks the end of a system of government that largely allowed civil liberties even after the 1997 handover.
Ahead of debate on the bill that would criminalize abuse of the Chinese national anthem in the semi-autonomous city, riot police guard detain a protester
Restrictions and control as in China
"There has been a very vibrant media and publishing scene in Hong Kong up until now," explains Tienchi Martin-Liao, chairman of the independent Chinese branch of PEN, "even though print media, authors and publishers have been under increasing pressure for years."
When five staff members of the critical publisher Causeway Bay Books disappeared in 2015, it was was vehemently denied by the Hong Kong government that they had actually been kidnapped by Chinese agents, because such actions by the Chinese police would have violated the constitution of the special zone. Now, with the introduction of the new security law, this autonomy will be over. Beijing will then be allowed to run Hong Kong's police force without restriction.
"Writers and journalists in Hong Kong have not yet practiced self-censorship," Martin-Liao reflects. "The passing of the security law now poses a great danger to them. They can be attacked for any unwelcome comment in an article, a book, on a blog or in social media. At worst, they could be charged with compromising national security." Hong Kong journalists and writers would then be subject to the same controls and restrictions as in China. Anti-Chinese government protesters showed solidarity with the kidnapped booksellers in 2016 Anger at the threat of a security law
The author Cai Yongmei (in Cantonese: Tsoi Wing-Mui) has been one of the first to vent her anger about the foreseeable premature end to freedom of expression in Hong Kong. Writers and journalists would be gagged by this law, wrote the former editor-in-chief of the critical magazine Open Magazine (Kaifang zazhi), which has been published since the 1990s. Books like her biography of former Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, in which she also wrote about his secret loves, could then no longer be published.
The journalist Verna Yu, who has been awarded many prizes for her reporting on human rights violations, is also committed to opposing the threat of Chinese control over Hong Kong. She is currently reporting from the Special Administrative Region for Britain's The Guardian. Protests in Hong Kong for the release of Gui Minhai
Taiwan as a place of refuge
Gui Minhai, one of the five publishers abducted in 2015 — in his case from Thailand — is the only one still in prison in China. Before his mysterious arrest, he had written nearly 200 popular books about Chinese politicians: They were not very thoroughly researched stories, but were scandalous tales about the intrigues and secrets of Chinese leaders. Gui, who was born in China, is a Swedish citizen. In February this year he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "illegally passing on secret information to foreign countries."
Another of the five book publishers, Lam Wing Kee, fled to Taiwan when a law threatening to allow the extradition of suspects to China was looming on the horizon in 2019. He opened a new bookstore in Taipei last autumn. "It is a great and very important thing that Taiwan is hosting writers and other intellectuals from Hong Kong," says Tienchi Martin-Liao.
Yet they can't feel completely safe there either. After all, quite a few members of the opposition think that the concern that China will increasingly assert its influence on Taiwan is quite legitimate.
Hong Kong no longer a safe haven
For writers like Bei Dao, who has been allowed to travel to China again since 2006 and who, as someone born in Beijing could theoretically live there again, Hong Kong has been a comparatively safe haven in recent decades.
Writers exiled from China, such as Ma Jian, who lives in London, traveled to the Chinese mainland incognito; film crews organized their undercover research trips there. But in the future, the safety of critical voices in Hong Kong is likely to be at risk.
Arms manufacturer SIG Sauer says it will close its German branch late this year, blaming German strictures on sports guns. Its thriving US armoury based in New Hampshire delivers arms to the US military.
SIG Sauer, long the target of disarmament campaigners in Germany, announced Thursday it intended by year's end to close its factory at Eckernförde near Kiel, capital of Germany's northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein.
It blamed "locational handicaps" hindering its diverse pistol and sports guns sales, claiming a "few other local producers" were preferred in government purchases for Germany's police forces and Bundeswehr military.
Public broadcaster NDR quoted manager Tim Castagne as saying the workers' council at the Eckernförde site, established in 1951, had been briefed about some 125 job losses as well plans to fulfil purchase orders.
"Due to its international orientation, SIG Sauer is systematically excluded from tenders [in Germany], said Castagne, intimating, said NDR, that most of its weapons were developed in the United States. Origins in Switzerland
SIG Sauer, with interlinked ownerships, and origins going to 1864 in Switzerland, relocated within the USA in 1990, establishing at Newington, New Hampshire, an arms factory and "state-of-the-art" training academy, now with 1,200 employees.
SIG Sauer Inc.'s products include its P-series handguns for "the law enforcement market," rifles, including sports versions, and machine guns for the US military.
On Monday, its US branch said it was "proud" to announce delivery of lightweight "Next Generation" machine guns and "greater penetration" ammunition to the US Army.
In April, German public broadcaster SWR reported that Kiel prosecutors were examining fresh claims that SIG Sauer's US branch was implicated in the export of weapons to Colombia and Mexicowithout a German government export permit.
Last month, when Germany published its arms export data for 2019, opposition Left Party disarmament expert Sevim Dagdelen slammed SIG Sauer, along with Heckler & Koch and Carl Walther, and federal authorities in Berlin.
"It doesn't seem to bother the Federal Government that every 14 minutes around the world a person is killed by a German weapon," exclaimed Dagdelen.
After the shooting massacre of nine persons in Hanau, Germany, last February, and suicide-death of the 43-year-old assailant, police reportedly found three weapons: a borrowed Ceska, his own Walther and a SIG Sauer pistol.
The German parliament's interior committee was told that the gunman fired 52 shots and police found 350 cartridges inside his rucksack at home.
GERMANY SHOOTINGS: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE HANAU ATTACKS Two shootings The first attack took place at a hookah bar in the downtown area and the second at a cafe about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) away in neighborhood of Kesselstadt. PHOTOS 12345678
Brazil: Bolsonaro orders security forces to intervene in pro-democracy protests
Anti-government protesters are "outcasts, delinquents, and addicts," according to the Brazilian president. Jair Bolsonaro has threatened to call on security forces for an upcoming pro-democracy protest over the weekend.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday called pro-democracy protesters "delinquents" and said he had requested special security forces to intervene if scheduled demonstrations on Sunday exceed his government limits.
Speaking during the inauguration of a temporary hospital to treat coronavirus patients near the capital Brasilia, Bolsonaro appealed to his supporters to avoid the protests.
"People in green and yellow [colors of the Brazilian flag], who have God in their hearts, who think of their country, who are conservative, do not attend this movement. These people have nothing to offer. Bunch of outcasts. Many of them are addicts … they are not the majority of Brazilian society. They want turmoil, confrontation," he said in his weekly Facebook broadcast.
He also called the anti-fascist Antifa movement the "third wave" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, right behind the health emergency and the economic crisis.
Watch video https://p.dw.com/p/3dJWk Brazil new coronavirus epicenter in South America Weekend protests
Anti-government protests organized by a Brazilian civil society group are scheduled to take place Sunday on the Avenida Paulista, one of Brazil's most popular avenues in the center of Sao Paulo. More than 37,000 people have already registered their interest to attend the protests on Facebook.
"Next Sunday we will go to Avenida Paulista in the name of democracy. We will all be wearing masks and ensuring distance so as to not spread the virus. For life and against fascism. Here are the people without any fear of fighting!" posted the group Mais Democracia (More Democracy). The group added that they would "not let fascism grow in Brazil."
Bolsonaro appealed to parents not to let their children participate in the protests. According to the president, anti-fascist activism does not coincide with democracy.
"It is not because 'democracy' is written on a placard that the people behind it are defending democracy. They are there playing the role of a terrorist. Unfortunately, it's not classified as terrorism," Bolsonaro said.
"If you take 100 [young protesters] and put them on an ENEM [higher education entrance exam] test, most of them don't even get a five [grade]. They don't know how to interpret a text, they don't know anything, they're idiots who are useless," Bolsonaro added.
