By S. Williams
A right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, was inaugurated on Jan. 1 in Brazil, the fourth largest democracy in the world.
A right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, was inaugurated on Jan. 1 in Brazil, the fourth largest democracy in the world.
This divisive figure, considered by many to be
misogynistic, racist and homophobic, garnered support through promises to deal
with high-level corruption and a surge in violent crime. His election has
sparked widespread trepidation internationally, but it has also created a strong
determination to resist his bigoted attitude toward people of African descent
and marginalized communities.
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| African art in Brazil. |
The forum, organised by the Brazil Africa Institute, brought together some 200 representatives from 38 countries for talks on "new strategies" between Brazil and African countries "to promote youth empowerment and sustainable
development”, according to the organizers.
The participants included students, academics, businesspeople, artists and diplomats from both sides of the Atlantic, who countered political extremist views.
The participants included students, academics, businesspeople, artists and diplomats from both sides of the Atlantic, who countered political extremist views.
The event also served to celebrate the ties that bind both sides of the Atlantic. During the closing session, Paulo Gomes, president of the
Consultative Council of the Africa-Southeast Asian Chamber of Commerce,
mentioned a project by Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo called “The Year of
Return”.
“The president of Ghana wants to make 2019 ‘The Year of
Return’,” Gomes said. “We are going to ask all Afro-descendants to return to
Africa so that we can do business.”
Reports by the site This
Is Africa said that “Ghana is launching a series of programmes that seek to
encourage people of African ancestry to make the ‘birthright journey home’ as
part of ‘the global African family’”.
The site added that “in the 1820s and 1830s, the Tabon
people, a group of African slaves in Brazil, returned to Accra after a popular
slave rebellion. Their descendants have been fully assimilated into Ghanaian
social and political life.”
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| A member of Ilê Aiyê. |
Performing at the forum was the music and
dance ensemble Ilê Aiyê, one of Salvador’s most popular bands and a group
working to highlight Brazil’s African heritage.
The group was targeted by the police and the media during
its early years (it was founded in 1974 by Antônio Carlos “Vovô” and Apolônio
de Jesus in Liberdade, the largest black neighborhood in Salvador), but it now
includes hundreds when it performs during Bahia’s carnival - with spectators
singing along to songs that emphasize African cultural heritage.
(An estimated 60 percent of Brazilians have African
heritage as more than four million people enslaved by Europeans, primarily the
Portuguese, were transported to the South American country to work on sugar
plantations and in mines.)
As the forum took place, African culture was also brought
into focus by an exhibition of the Claudio Masella African Art Collection,
which occupies three rooms at Salvador’s well-known Solar Ferrão Cultural
Center.
The exhibition consists of about 160 pieces from across
Africa that was collected over 30 years by the Italian architect and
businessman. Masella married a Brazilian woman, and three years before his
death in 2007 the collection was donated to Bahia.
Other art venues that cast a light on the heritage of
African-descended peoples in Brazil include the Museu Afro-Brasileiro, with
exhibitions that inform visitors about traditions such as capoeira and
Candomblé, the Afro-Brazilian martial art and religious tradition respectively.
Despite political rhetoric, the role of African cultural
heritage in Brazil is undeniable, and a range of groups are resisting any
attempt to belittle this presence.
S. Williams is a traveling journalist. He contributed this
article and photos as a “Letter from Brazil”.
