“The Brazilian January 6th has begun!” “This is the Trump of the tropics.”
Americans are prodigious creators of clichés that reflect their perception of inhabiting the navel of the world. The championship of baseball, a sport that makes most of the planet nap, is the World Series. And the media that created the world music label was referring, in the words of Rio wise Nelson Motta, to the music of the rest of the world.
But the shock of the anchors, reporters and commentators covering January 8th live in Brasilia was evident. It’s as if Brazil had held up a mirror to the north with the message: this is now its best-known export product —coupism and autocracy. And let’s imitate them very well, look at the terrorist sitting in the mayor’s chair.
One of the sources of bewilderment for Americans watching the depredations in Brasilia, reflected in messages I receive, is how so many in a non-white majority country support white supremacy movements, dubbed white nationalism for marketing and recruitment purposes.
As there was no answer, I called Vitória da Conquista, in the heart of perhaps the least white state in Brazil. Michele Prado is the author of “Ideological Storm” (ed. Lux, 2021) and “Red Pill – Radicalization and Extremism”, which is about to be released in Brazil. She has studied the radical right in Brazil since the rise of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and is not surprised by the fact that non-white militants, possibly targets of racial discrimination, support the far right that preaches white supremacy.
What makes Bolsonarists and children of immigrants like the serial liar George Santos, recently sworn into the US Congress, become mascots for racists?
Prado recalls that the Brazilian alt right is a bacterium whose culture originated online, inspired by American white supremacists, in the last decade. “In the digital ecosystem of the Brazilian ultra-right, we are not talking about an ideology, but an amalgamation of currents. And it is marked by ethnic pluralism that disguises explicit racism with pseudoscientific tests —such as that IQ can be related to ethnic groups— and preaches that every racial group has the right to defend itself against invaders.
Thus, one can explain how white nationalists approach segregationist black movements. And, to complete the haze of hate, recalls Prado, there are masculinist supremacy groups, such as those found in Red Pill communities, which soon start from misogyny to accuse Jews of a globalist plan to emasculate the male population.
It is difficult to associate the hysterical images and illiterate war cries of those arrested for the attack in Brasilia with specific tropes of a movement. But Prado says that Brazilian militants, in the tunnel of extremism, may not realize that it ends abroad. They get even closer to white supremacy by imprisoning themselves in the idea of culturally protecting an imaginary homogeneous community – we are white (even if we are not) middle-class Christians and we have a common enemy.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
