Working Group to Combat Hate Speech and Extremism: An Epidemic of Nazism? The new grammar of the extreme right in Brazil
Michel Gherman is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where he coordinates the Interdisciplinary Center for Jewish Studies. He is a researcher at the Center for Zionism and Israel Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he recently completed his postdoctoral studies, and at the Far Right Observatory. He also holds a PhD in History from UFRJ and a Master's in Anthropology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he was a visiting professor. Michel is a member of the Working Group to Combat Hate Speech and Extremism within the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship of the Brazilian Government, a professor in the Graduate Program in Social History at UFRJ, and an associate researcher at the WBO. This text was originally written for issue 74 of the WBO Newsletter, published on July 7, 2023. Fill in the form at the bottom of the text to access and subscribe to the WBO weekly newsletter in English.
On July 3, 2022, the working group to combat hate speech and extremism was launched in the auditorium of the Ministry of Citizenship and Human Rights. This process included the participation of intellectuals, members of civil society and political leaders who, over six months, produced a document assessing the polarization and political extremism found in Brazilian society today.
Led by former congresswoman and vice-presidential candidate Manuela D’Avila and law professor Camilo Onoda Caldas, the group met weekly for debates and discussions that, under the guidance and inspiration of Minister Silvio Almeida, aimed to understand what had happened in Brazil in recent years as far right forces grew and gained strength, eventually culminating in the election of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a relatively obscure and unremarkable member of Congress who had previously been an army captain.
Bolsonaro served in the legislature for a long time, a kind of extremist carnival barker. A caricature of national politics. Grating and rude, he was never treated as a threat by the Brazilian political center, but his election in 2018 produced unprecedented levels of democratic erosion. As Ricardo Lewandovski, a retired judge of the Federal Supreme Court put it, under Bolsonaro, Brazil found itself on a path of an "effective risk of rupture".
“The report shows that Brazil’s democratic crisis did not begin with Bolsonaro’s election and did not end with his defeat. ”
The report shows that Brazil's democratic crisis did not begin with Bolsonaro’s election and did not end with his defeat. The spirit of a violent, anti-democratic far right already animated national politics in the years prior to the captain's election and remained active after his electoral defeat in 2022. Bolsonarismo continues to exist after Bolsonaro lost the election and was ruled ineligible to seek public office until at least 2030.
As an example of this dynamic, Minister Silvio Almeida noted comments made by Pastor André Valadão during a service at the Lagoinha Church in Orlando, Florida. In an enthusiastic and emotive speech, the pastor stated that, given the impossibility of God “killing” homosexuals and “starting everything from scratch,” the faithful should be the ones to take on this task: “Now it's up to you. I’ll say it again, now it’s with you,” implying that they are the ones who should effectively murder members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Such conspiratorial and violent rhetoric is not new and draws attention to the fact that it persists after Bolsonaro left power.
It is important that the minister illustrated the working group’s mission by presenting a case like this at the opening of the event. The task remains urgent.
It also draws attention to the fact that behind the pastor in question, on the church altar, are faces of far-right world leaders next to a map of Israel covered with the Israeli flag. This too is not new in terms of the performance of the Brazilian extreme right.
In April 2017, Bolsonaro, then a pre-candidate for president, spoke at the Jewish club Hebraica do Rio de Janeiro. The audience applauded and reacted enthusiastically to what he had to say. Outside, protesters called Bolsonaro a Nazi. Inside and outside, good and evil, us and them, enemies and allies, what happened in Hebraica in Rio de Janeiro was a microcosm of what would happen in Brazil. In several groups, Bolsonarismo would produce a poignant division. Following a new political grammar, it would become necessary to produce a “Brazil of good men” that could finally combat the Brazil of moral degeneration.
Bolsonaro founded an extreme right-wing project at the Hebraica club, symbolically a place frequented by historical victims of Nazism. The move was symbolic and strategic. There, Bolsonaro used an “anti-Semitic grammar” to attack indigenous peoples and quilombolas, a conspiracist perception to praise the world he imagined was possible.
When the report speaks of an “epidemic of Nazism” we must look to 2017 to understand how it was possible for a candidate frankly linked to the extreme right to reach the highest office in the Republic.
What happened at Hebraica that night was more than just a speech. Bolsonaro, with several speeches praising Nazism, Hitler, and Holocaust denialism on his resume, ceased to be a “joking and boorish” candidate and founded an extreme right-wing project.
One of the functions of the report now released by the Ministry of Citizenship and Human Rights is to set its origins before the 2018 elections and combat the epidemic of neo-Nazism that hit Brazil after he left power. For this, it is necessary to understand their strategies and their symbols.
