Anguillara Vêneta woke up shielded on Monday (1), as the city located in the Veneto region, in northern Italy, which for a week has been experiencing the controversy caused by the granting of the title of honorary citizen to Jair Bolsonaro, was the scene of acts against and in favor of the homage to the Brazilian president.
For this reason, the center of the municipality was closed, and the street where the Brazilian leader received the title from the hands of mayor Alessandra Buoso, linked to the far-right Liga Norte party, was blocked. Outside, dozens of police, some of them sent from Rovigo, guarded the protests.
Bolsonaro arrived in the city around 12:00, local time, and went straight to Villa Arco del Santo, a 1660 building where the mayor was waiting for him. According to the presidential agenda, the delivery of the title should have been made at the city hall, but, for security reasons, the plans were changed. Bolsonaro, according to the schedule, would also walk through the streets of the city and then go to Villa Arco for lunch.
During the ceremony, the Brazilian president said he was moved. “My grandparents started from here. I’m happy to be among the good people. I’m honored to represent our family in Brazil,” he told the guests. “We are doing a great job. God wanted me to become President of Brazil, and I am honoring our family in Brazil. Despite everything, we are doing a great job, which is certainly recognized by the people and not recognized by the media of dough.”
Although Bolsonaro has said he has “a lot of popular support” and that the work carried out in front of the Planalto is “recognized by the people”, the most recent Datafolha poll shows that more than half (53%) of Brazilians disapprove of him, the highest rate since who took office in 2019.
Some of the president’s family, such as Franco Bolzonaro, also attended the ceremony. THE sheet, days before the event, he said by phone that “it is only fair that Bolsonaro receive the title”. “He is the president of Brazil, it is not known if he committed all the crimes for which he is accused and, even if he was convicted, he has the right to be honored because he has Venetian roots.”
The honor was approved at the top of the box by Mayor Buoso, who justified it by stating that “it was a tribute to the Italians who had left for Brazil, a tribute to the Venetian origins”, since it was in Anguillara Vêneta, a city of 4,000 inhabitants , that Bolsonaro’s great-grandfather was born.
Antônio Spada, opposition councilor, one of the first to take action against Bolsonaro, opposed the tribute. He told journalists that the mayor contradicts herself, “because she would grant citizenship because the president promotes Venetian history.” “But Bolsonaro never even talked about Anguillara.”
The protesters against the Brazilian leader began to gather around 9:00 am, local time, in Matteotti Square, a space authorized by the police to carry out the protest. Even under a light rain, Italian Gilberta Zanon, 78, insisted on participating in the act. “What the mayor did is something obscene. How is it possible to give recognition to a person who destroys the rights of others?” she said.
Another group, of about 20 pro-Bolsonaro people, also arrived early and, without realizing it, joined the opposing demonstration. Diene Matias, 58, who came from Oderzo, 130 km from Anguillara, was among them.
While saying that Bolsonaro is “the only clean and non-corrupt politician”, an old man passed by and told him to return to Brazil, “since he loved the president so much”. Matias called the police, who warned him that this was not the demonstration she wanted to participate in.
Across the square, Communist Refoundation Party militants chanted phrases such as “Silly Salvini, Bolsonaro is a murderer,” in reference to Matteo Salvini, a symbol senator of the Italian ultra-right and a supporter of the Brazilian president’s family in the country. Salvini should meet Bolsonaro this Tuesday (2), during a tribute in Pistoia to the little soldiers who fought in World War II.
For an hour, the social movements and the parties that organized the act —Democratic Party, Communist Refoundation, CGIL, Italy’s largest labor union, ANPI, which brings together members of the Italian resistance to fascism, as well as non-governmental organizations— divided the indignation.
Supporters of the president began arriving around 11:00. Singing the national anthem and dressed in Brazilian national team shirts, they spread throughout the city. They met in front of the city hall and then moved to Villa Arca del Santo. After pushing and shoving between protesters and media professionals, the president quickly left the venue to greet supporters, who were shouting “myth”. Amidst the confusion, a voice rang out: a woman screamed “genocide.”
The demonstrations against the mayor’s decision started on Friday, (29), when some protesters linked to the environmental group Rise Up 4 Climate Justice threw manure at the entrance to the city hall and spray-painted the façade with “Fora Bolsonaro”. For the group, “the president represents the capitalist, predatory, destructive and colonialist model” against which its members struggle.
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