Saturday, January 18, 2020

Brazilian top culture official fired after quoting Nazi Goebbels while talking about nationalist art in a video as Hitler’s favorite composer played in the background


Brazilian top culture official fired after quoting Nazi Goebbels while talking about nationalist art in a video as Hitler’s favorite composer played in the background

By Julio Severo
Brazil’s top culture official was fired on January 17, 2020 after using phrases used by Hitler’s right-hand man, Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda.
Roberto Alvim
The outrage was immediate, culminating in calls for the removal of Roberto Alvim, who was appointed, under the influence of Olavo de Carvalho, special secretary of culture by Brazil’s nationalist President Jair Bolsonaro.
“It is an unfortunate pronouncement, even with his apologies, making his tenure unsustainable,” Bolsonaro tweeted. “I reiterate our condemnation of totalitarian ideologies and genocides, like Nazism and Communism, as well as any type of allusion to them.”
Alvim’s scandal was a disappointment for Bolsonaro, who said recently about him: “After decades, we do have a real Culture Secretary.”
Roberto Alvim made the controversial comments while discussing a new art prize in a video distributed by the Bolsonaro administration. Lohengrin by Wagner, Hitler's favorite composer, played in the background.
Alvim acknowledged the similarity between his speech and the speech of Goebbels and he has even disavowed Nazism but said it was merely a “rhetorical coincidence.” When confronted by a journalist that his speech was based on Goebbels’s speech, Alvim admitted that he was aware of the similarity, but he defended its use adding that it was perfect.
The “rhetorical coincidence” of Alvim became an international scandal, with headlines in the U.S. saying:
* Washington Post: “Brazil’s culture secretary fired after appearing to paraphrase Nazi propaganda in speech.”
* New York Times: “Brazil’s Top Culture Official Fired Over Speech Evoking Nazi Propaganda.”
* Time magazine: “Brazil’s Culture Minister Fired After Quoting Joseph Goebbels in a Speech.”
In his speech Alvim said:
“The Brazilian art of the next decade will be heroic and will be national, will be endowed with great capacity for emotional involvement… deeply linked to the urgent aspirations of our people, or else it will be nothing.”
Parts of it are identical to a speech quoted in the book “Joseph Goebbels: A Biography,” by German historian Peter Longerich, who has written several works on the Holocaust:
“The German art of the next decade will be heroic, it will be steely-romantic, it will be factual and completely free of sentimentality, it will be national with great Pathos and committed, or it will be nothing.”
Alvim said in a radio interview that he chose the music himself, because the work is transcendent and stemmed from Wagner’s Catholic faith. Wagner was a Catholic who did not like Jews. This is the main reason Hitler loved him.
Speaking in a separate recorded message, with a wooden cross atop his desk, Alvim said he wants 2020 to mark a historic cultural rebirth to “create a new and thriving Brazilian civilization.”
Following release of his taped video, Brazil’s Israeli confederation Conib said in a statement: “To emulate [Goebbels’] view… is a frightening sign of his vision of culture, which must be combated and contained.” It called for his immediate removal, adding: “Brazil, which sent brave soldiers to combat Nazism on European soil, doesn’t deserve it.”
Germany’s embassy in Brazil condemned the speech in a post on Twitter, saying that it opposed “any attempt to banalize or glorify” an era that “brought infinite suffering for humanity.”
Goebbels led the Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda, designed to brainwash people into obeying the Nazis and idolizing Adolf Hitler and his nationalism. Its methods included censorship of the press and control of radio broadcasts, as well as control of culture and arts.
President Jair Bolsonaro made the decision to fire Alvim after a backlash from Jewish organizations, key lawmakers, political parties, artists and Brazil’s bar association.
U.S. newspapers suggested that the guiding force of Alvim’s radicalism was evangelicalism. The Washington Post said, “Alvim has been one of the most militant cultural warriors in the Bolsonaro government… he converted to evangelicalism after a nearly fatal cancer diagnosis.”
The Associated Press said that Alvim “is a born-again Christian who found renewed faith while recovering from cancer.”
“Born-again” is a term associated with evangelicalism. But Alvim is not an evangelical or even Protestant. In an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Gazeta do Povo, he said he had a tumor in his belly and permanent fever. He was healed after the evangelical babysitter of his son asked to pray for him. But his connection with evangelicalism ended in this point. After this dramatic and miraculous experience, instead of looking for an evangelical church, he got involved with Olavo de Carvalho and his movement that includes syncretic Catholicism. He began to attend the Catholic Church every day.
So the effort of the Washington Post, the Associated Press and other U.S. media to associate Alvim to evangelicalism is not realistic. The radicalism they saw in him does not stem from evangelicalism, but exclusively from Carvalho and his syncretic Catholicism.
On May 11, 2019 Alvim said on his Facebook:
“Given how much Professor Olavo de Carvalho has done for all of us, in view of the magnificent books that he has with so much sacrifice and care bequeathed us, the least we can do is to support him unconditionally.”
And on November 15, 2019, Carvalho, who is a self-exiled Brazilian in the U.S. since 2005, said on his Facebook:
“I repeat the warning: From my courses and books, whoever is smart gets smarter, whoever is stupid goes crazy.”
Bolsonaro had appointed Alvim not because evangelicals recommended him. He appointed by Carvalho’s recommendation.
So how can the Washington Post and the Associated Press suggest that Alvim and his crazy radicalism are evangelical? They are 100 percent Carvalho’s Catholicism.
On Twitter, Alvim regularly uses the hashtag DeusVult, echoing the traditional Catholic battle cry of Middle Ages crusaders. Carvalho has also a fixation on the Middles Ages, especially the Inquisition, which he defends passionately.
If Carvalho and his adherents can defend the Inquisition, which persecuted, tortured and killed multitudes of Jews, why cannot he and his adherents also defend Nazism, which likewise persecuted, tortured and killed of Jews?
If an intelligent man enrolls in Carvalho’s courses, he will easily see Carvalho’s crazy advocacy of the Inquisition against the Jews. If he does not see, Carvalho’s prophecy is fulfilled in him: the idiot ends crazy.
Because of massive backlash, Carvalho disavowed his former pupil Alvim.
Yet, Carvalho, who is considered Bolsonaro’s Rasputin, recommended Alvim to Bolsonaro not because Alvim is an idiot. On the contrary, Carvalho recommends only his best pupils. And his best pupil showed all the crazy culture he learned from his master.
Even though Carvalho disavowed Alvim, the Nazi connections are real. For years, Carvalho was the biggest propagandist in Brazil of the Islamic occultist René Guénon, whose most prominent disciple was Julius Evola, who wrote books advocating occultism and the right-wing ideology. Evola was a guru of the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Evola’s books were also used by Nazis.
Evola and Guénon have been praised by Steven Bannon, a friend of Carvalho. Evola and Guénon have also been praised by Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, an adherent of Carvalho.
Occultism has crazy connections and confusions. How could not Alvim reveal such religious traits?
The case of Alvim is a symptom of what may happen if the Bolsonaro administration fails. Newspapers around the world, ignoring the fact that Rasputin-guided Bolsonaro has filled his administration with inept adherents of Carvalho, will blame innocent evangelicals who voted for Bolsonaro.
With information from DailyMail, Washington Post, BBC, New York Times, Associated Press and Antagonista.
Recommended Reading:
Recommended Reading about the Inquisition:

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