10 Questions: Lenine - Composer (Brazil)

What is democracy for you?
Well, democracy, if we were talking about the one idealized by the Greeks, is ... it’s a really good opportunity to see people actually deciding humanity's objectives, but if you were talking about the democracy that we are living with, which is a disguised one, in fact it is an economic and financial tyranny. It’s difficult to talk about that one, because each place has its different specificities, and has nothing to do with the one idealized by the Greeks.

Do you think that democracy is good for everyone?
Are we talking about Greeks? If so, yes. That’s the answer.

And what you think is wrong with democracy?
What is wrong with democracy? Everything. Actually it doesn’t have many things related to the one primarily idealized, in old world, there weren’t economic and financial factors connected to "Democracy". It has nothing to do with DEMOcracy, because demo is…the word came from Greeks in fact, which is to say, it’s people’s government, and they used not have elections, no, it used to be like a draw, they get together every nine days in a square called an agora. This square for discussion has become an urgent need at the moment, and ... and it’s imperative now that we re-think what democracy is, because what is now in vigor, this financial and economic imposition, has nothing to do with the origins of democracy.

And why bother to vote?
Why vote? Because it is the only thing left to do ... as a matter of fact, the act of voting is like you are giving power to somebody else and omitting yourself from the duty of rule and contributing to government…But it’s what is left, to pick our candidates. So is it possible to move forward like this? It’s possible but will be always this way, with a few representing several.

And in this process the vote is only a "spring board", the real interests involved have nothing to do with people, the lobby groups in every senate, and each government, have nothing to do with the population that has elected their candidates.

Who would you vote for as president of the world?
President of the world…? Buddha ... Jesus Christ ... Muhammad ... Nowadays it’s hard, man. I don’t have a candidate.

Do you think that is possible to say who is more democratic, men or women?
No ... it's interesting that ... it’s a crucial matter, when we talk about the Greeks, back then, women didn’t have the power to vote... nor foreigners, nor slaves, nor younger people. I mean, I assume that it is part of democracy’s concept that has evolved somehow nowadays. Women can now vote, we don’t have slaves anymore. Those who still don’t have power to vote are underage people.
No, I think democracy is for everyone.

Do you think God is democratic?
God is an invention. Now, if you ask me about the divine, it’s beyond that.

What would make you start a revolution?
I think revolutionary times are over now ...
But now there is the neighborhood revolution, in your condominium, in your building, if we begin to put democracy into practice in these micro-world we are living in it would be the first step to change everything.

Are dictators ever good?
Dictatorship…I believe that it can be good to a few, like everything else is good to some and terrible for others. I didn’t live in the dictatorship period, I got the echoes of it, my father, my brothers, they have seen it and lived it ... But I imagine that it might have been good to a few, you should find someone who had good profits with dictatorship process…

Now, things have changed, maybe? I mean, nowadays in theory we live in the democracy…what kind of democracy?

Can democracy solve climate change?
Yes, because I believe that climate issues are everyone’s concern in general ... but we have to remember that democracy is adaptable for the necessities of a specific group, of an assembly and from the moment we understand the planet as a big country and human being could ... experience a little anarchism, I mean, no boundaries, we are all children from earth, only then could we have a global democracy where the interests of many could rule the planet. In this sense we are living with a crucial question -- that is the ecological question. Ten years ago any celebrity wanted to change the world, today these same celebrities would do anything to not change the world, in ten years you completely change attitudes. So, it’s possible indeed that through democracy we might be able to take a few steps in order to live better, with a bigger possibility of a future.