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The Secretary of Social Communication of the Presidency of the Republic (Secom) of Brazil defended himself this Sunday from a controversy started due to a slogan used in an institutional video of the government, compared to a Nazi motto.
An institutional video is at stake to publicize the main actions taken by the Brazilian government to combat the health crisis caused by the new coronavirus, in which the phrase “Work, union and truth will liberate Brazil” is used. .
For many critics, the phrase evokes the inscription at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp, “Work frees”.
On the Twitter social network, the Presidency’s media chief, Fabio Wajngartena, accused the critics of “functional illiteracy” and of misinterpreting “to associate the government with Nazism”, adding that he himself is Jewish.
“I abhor this kind of scoundrel, especially in the difficult times we are going through. They forget the Jewish teachings received by me and a good part of my team, and the tradition of the Jewish people working to fight for their economic freedom,” wrote Fabio. Wajngarten on the social network.
The Secom chief also argued that the comparison trivializes history, considering that “unfairly accusing Nazifascism removes the weight of the term.”
“If everyone is a nazifascist, nobody is, which is of great interest to criminals, who come to be seen as ordinary people,” he said.
“This is what some politicians and the media are looking for in search of reflectors at any cost,” he accused.
The video, which was shared on social networks by the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, begins with the phrase “part of the press insists on turning its back on the facts, on Brazil and on Brazilians”, showing various titles published in the Brazilian press on management The Bolsonaro government since the beginning of the pandemic, to then list some of the actions of the Executive in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The video ends with the phrases “Work, unity and truth will liberate Brazil. Together, we will continue to make this country a great nation.”
This is not the first time that members of the Brazilian government have been accused of using Nazi references.
In January, the then Secretary of Culture, Roberto Alvim, was exonerated by Bolsonaro, after giving a speech in which he quoted Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister of Nazi Germany.
At that time, the former secretary defended that it was a “rhetorical coincidence” between the speeches.
More recently, a few weeks ago, the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Ernesto Araújo, was urged to apologize to the Jewish community in the country for comparing the social distance measures imposed by the Brazilian governors to combat the covid-19 with fields. Nazi concentration.
Globally, according to a report by the France-Presse news agency (AFP), the Covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 280,000 deaths and infected more than four million people in 195 countries and territories.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
To combat the pandemic, governments sent 4.5 billion people home (more than half the world’s population), ended non-essential trade and dramatically reduced air traffic, paralyzing entire sectors of the world economy.
With a decline in new patients in intensive care and contagion, several countries have begun to develop plans to reduce confinement and, in some cases, to alleviate various measures.
READ HERE ALL ABOUT THE NEW CORONAVIRUS
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