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How Brazil’s far-Right ‘active knowledge’ industry supports Jair Bolsonaro
By:   []
Date: None

Recent polls suggest that the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, is the favourite to win the country’s 2022 election. This is the president who, rather than urging his citizens to avoid gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, went for a swim on a crowded beach on New Year’s Day. The president who, in the middle of a pandemic, announced a series of decrees to make owning guns easier. His repeated downplaying of the severity of the pandemic, as well as the changes to gun laws, may have damaged Bolsonaro’s image among some of his voters, but not to the extent that many expected. Why?

One explanation may come from the ‘active knowledge’ industry, which has emerged in support of Bolsonaro's crusade against the Left. Like other politicians committed to a populist radical Right agenda, President Bolsonaro has encouraged people to question the educational materials available at universities and public schools. According to him, Marxist ideas have become dominant in the Brazilian educational system, forming citizens who believe in equal rights, regardless of gender, race, and sexual orientation. As a right-wing Christian politician, he feels these ideas threaten the notion of a ‘traditional family’ and signify the degeneration of society.

In this context, whatever Bolsonaro says or does is justified as an act of patriotism. It is telling that many of his supporters have dubbed him “the Myth”. By doing so, they place him in the position of a saviour, a nearly divine figure who is capable of cleansing Brazil from its most pressing problems, which, in their views, are directly associated with progressive leftist ideas.

It is not surprising, therefore, that many Brazilians have embarked on a patriotic mission to show the public that the Left is responsible for corruption, high crime rates, and the destruction of the traditional Brazilian family. In this construction of the Left as ‘the enemy’, a conspiracy theory known as Cultural Marxism has become instrumental not only in Brazil but also internationally.

The threat posed by the Left: Cultural Marxism

Researchers of far-Right movements in the US and Europe are familiar with Cultural Marxism, which is often used as a tool to blame the Left for progressive thinking and the defence of minorities’ rights, which, in some countries, is equated with the perceived decline of their white population. This hate often acquires anti-Semitic tones as many of the Left-leaning intellectuals who fled Nazi Germany and started teaching progressive ideas in American universities were Jewish. Cultural Marxism, though, varies between regions, and in some Latin American countries, it does not necessarily display anti-Semitic traits. The conspiracy theory is gaining ground in Brazil, where Bolsonaro has accelerated its spread, and championed the fight against it.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-far-right-knowledge-industry-en/