Themes
Identities Politics, Race and Religion in Brazil: reality imitating art? Michael Asbury
I was shocked, if not entirely surprised, to hear that domestic workers in Brazil have only gained the right to hourly pay in April this year.1 Traditionally a live-in occupation, these workers are often ‘housed’ in cramped servant quarters, located behind the service area, which to this day are still incorporated within the floor plans of even the most modest apartments. Having previously been paid on a monthly basis, usually the minimum salary, they have hitherto been denied the right to overtime and the possibility of organizing family contact, leisure and so forth. Clearly a progressive – albeit very late – legislative move towards the eradication of the vestiges of slavery, the law was nevertheless widely con sidered as an affront to the Brazilian middle class way of life. The surprise that one might feel towards such a reaction to the new legisla tion fades however in light of another event that took place this year, namely, the appointment of Minister Marcos Feliciano as chair of Brazil’s House of Representatives’ Human Rights and Minorities Commission. The appointment was highly controversial, leading to mass protests and manifestations, given that Minister Feliciano happens to be an evangelical pastor whose views on minorities are grotesque to say the least. Describing hunger, disease and war in Africa as a consequence of Noah’s curse on Canaan, and HIV-Aids as a gay cancer, he has defended his ‘impartiality’ towards minorities by claiming that: ‘I don’t place different groups in the same heap; for example, to be gay is a choice whilst to be black is just bad luck.’ The appointment of such an openly racist, misogynistic and homophobic chair of the human rights committee beggars belief, but the
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very absurdity of the fact brings to light how deeply rooted discrimination is concealed in Brazil by the myth of a racial democracy. In fact, the ideal of racial democracy is at the very root of such a problematic conjunction of politics, race and religion, since the premise has its origin in the foundations of the Brazilian Republic. It would seem pointless to seek to under stand the logic of a racist (or any other form of prejudice), but the fact that Feliciano’s mother happens to be black and that this does not seem to interfere with his discourse can perhaps be analysed through an art historical reference. Let us consider a painting from the late 19th century by the celebrated academic artist Modesto Brocos’s, entitled the Redemption of Canaan (1895). Like Feliciano, the painter associates the curse of Canaan with the black ness of skin.2 Brocos’ painting depicts a black grandmother, thanking God for her white grandchild. Her mixed-race daughter holds the baby whilst her white son-in-law looks on at the scene with an air of pride which might simply stem from fatherhood but perhaps, more accurately in line with the painting’s ‘message’, could be invoked by the satisfaction brought on by the acknowledgement of being the carrier of the redemptive blood that would cleanse the nation of its dark, or quite literally black, past. Given the date of the painting (1895), it is fair to assume that the grandmother would have only recently been freed from slavery (abolished in 1888). The presence of the father, the poor European migrant rural worker, is significant in associating the nation’s redemption with the policy of whitening the population through miscegenation. This had been one of the key debates of the time, connecting the abolitionist movement with both the foundation of the Republic and the political struggle exercised by the oligarchic land-owning families in order to 2
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The news was whispered into my ear while listening to Dr Rafael Cardoso’s lecture on ‘The problem of race in 19th century Brazilian Painting’ at the Courtauld Institute (30 April 2013). I thank Isobel Whitelegg for the interruption which led me to write this short text.
Genesis 9:25 describes the curse on Canaan as that of being condemned to be the ‘servant of servants’, leading to the original assumption that the passage justified the subjection of the Canaanites to the Israelites. Later interpretations, with the intention of justifying slavery, have identified the curse with the blackness of skin.