theintercept--2020-01-21--Architect of CIA’s Torture Program Testifies Just Yards From Accused 9/11 Plotter He Waterboarded

helped to design and execute the CIA ’ s “ enhanced interrogation techniques ” testified in open court for the first time on Tuesday in connection with the trial of five men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks .
“ I suspected from the beginning that I would end up here , ” James Mitchell told a Guantánamo Bay courtroom .
Dressed in a charcoal suit and bright red tie , Mitchell stated that although he could have testified over a video link , he had chosen to come in person .
“ I did it for the victims and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Connell III , an attorney for Ammar al-Baluchi , one of the accused plotters .
“ Not for you.
” He added : “ You folks have been saying untrue and malicious things about me and Dr. [ Bruce ] Jessen for years.
” Mitchell and his colleague Jessen were previously questioned in videotaped depositions in a civil case , but the proceedings underway at the military court complex in Guantánamo represent the first courtroom appearances by the two psychologists as witnesses .
On Tuesday , the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yards from the men who waterboarded him 183 times in a CIA black site in Poland in March 2003 .
The topic of Tuesday ’ s hearing was a motion to suppress statements made by the 9/11 defendants while they were being held in detention , even after they were brought from the CIA ’ s black sites to Guantánamo .
The defense attorneys allege that the statements the men made at Guantánamo were not voluntary because of the profound impact of their prior torture , which was overseen by Mitchell and Jessen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the George W. Bush administration , were used by the CIA as part of the rendition , detention , and interrogation program from 2002 to 2008 .
These methods , including waterboarding , were designed to “ condition ” prisoners to provide information to interrogators and debriefers .
The CIA renounced the harsh interrogation techniques in 2009 , and the Senate ’ s torture report later found that the program was a violation of U.S. and international law that failed to generate usable information for counterterrorism operations .

A psychologist who helped to design and execute the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” testified in open court for the first time on Tuesday in connection with the trial of five men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks.
“I suspected from the beginning that I would end up here,” James Mitchell told a Guantánamo Bay courtroom. Dressed in a charcoal suit and bright red tie, Mitchell stated that although he could have testified over a video link, he had chosen to come in person. “I did it for the victims and families,” he told James G. Connell III, an attorney for Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the accused plotters. “Not for you.”
He added: “You folks have been saying untrue and malicious things about me and Dr. [Bruce] Jessen for years.”
Mitchell and his colleague Jessen were previously questioned in videotaped depositions in a civil case, but the proceedings underway at the military court complex in Guantánamo represent the first courtroom appearances by the two psychologists as witnesses. On Tuesday, the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, sat just yards from the men who waterboarded him 183 times in a CIA black site in Poland in March 2003.
The topic of Tuesday’s hearing was a motion to suppress statements made by the 9/11 defendants while they were being held in detention, even after they were brought from the CIA’s black sites to Guantánamo. The defense attorneys allege that the statements the men made at Guantánamo were not voluntary because of the profound impact of their prior torture, which was overseen by Mitchell and Jessen.
The torture techniques, approved by the George W. Bush administration, were used by the CIA as part of the rendition, detention, and interrogation program from 2002 to 2008. These methods, including waterboarding, were designed to “condition” prisoners to provide information to interrogators and debriefers.
The CIA renounced the harsh interrogation techniques in 2009, and the Senate’s torture report later found that the program was a violation of U.S. and international law that failed to generate usable information for counterterrorism operations.
Mitchell and Jessen ran a contracting company that provided interrogators and security personnel to the CIA program at a cost of $81 million over several years. During that time, the psychologists personally conducted interrogations, trained interrogators, participated in debriefings, and observed interrogations.
In 2015, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the pair in federal court in Spokane, Washington, on behalf of two former detainees, as well as the family of another prisoner who died in custody at a black site. The two psychologists provided testimony in that case, which was settled out of court in 2017. The terms of the settlement remain confidential. In a joint statement released by the parties, Mitchell and Jessen acknowledged “that they worked with the CIA to develop a program … that contemplated the use of specific coercive methods to interrogate certain detainees,” but asserted that the abuses occurred without their knowledge or involvement and that as a result, they were not responsible.
Mohammed’s co-defendants Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, and Mohammed’s nephew Baluchi also endured torture techniques proposed by Mitchell and Jessen, and they, too, were present in the courtroom on Tuesday. There were no audible reactions from the defendants during the morning testimony, which is expected to continue through next week.
Questioning on Tuesday morning focused on Mitchell’s 2016 book “Enhanced Interrogation,” written with former CIA chief spokesperson Bill Harlow, in which Mitchell vehemently objects to the findings of the Senate’s 2014 torture report. In a bizarre twist, the book contains information that defense attorneys in the 9/11 case may be barred from using under a new “classification guidance” delivered by the government last Thursday and revised Tuesday morning.
The guidance — which is itself classified — contains a restriction on presenting information deemed a threat to national security. For example, although the names of countries where black sites were located are now known from books and European court proceedings, they cannot be mentioned in the courtroom at Guantánamo.
Mitchell proved an antagonistic witness. He confirmed that his book had undergone an intensive pre-publication review by the CIA and the Department of Defense, and said that prior to the new restrictions, no one had suggested that he had disclosed classified information. The book has sold 40,000 to 50,000 copies, Mitchell estimated.
When asked what his reaction would be to the claim that the information in his book could harm national security, he responded, “My reaction would be: Buy the publication rights and take it off the market.”
Separated by a curtain from the press and observers from nongovernmental organizations, relatives of 9/11 victims could be heard voicing their agreement with some of Mitchell’s testy responses.


theintercept--2020-01-21--The Intercept Condemns Brazilian Criminal Complaint Against Glenn Greenwald as an Attack on Free Pre

The Intercept Condemns Brazilian Criminal Complaint Against Glenn Greenwald as an Attack on Free Press

federal prosecutor in Brazil announced a denunciation of American journalist and Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald related to his work on a series of stories published on The Intercept and The Intercept Brasil .
The denunciation is a criminal complaint that would open the door to further judicial proceedings .
It alleges that Greenwald “ directly assisted , encouraged and guided ” individuals who reportedly obtained access to online chats used by prosecutors and others involved in Operation Car Wash , a yearslong , sprawling anti-corruption investigation that roiled Brazilian politics .
The denunciation will now go before a judge who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charges .
The Intercept and Greenwald both released statements Tuesday decrying the federal prosecutor ’ s accusation as an attack on Brazil ’ s free press in line with recent abuses by the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro .
Abuses committed by Justice Minister Sergio Moro when he served as the presiding judge in Operation Car Wash were central to The Intercept ’ s reporting in the Brazil Secret Archive series .
“ The Bolsonaro government has repeatedly made it clear that it does not believe in basic press freedoms .
Today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been filed against Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald is the latest example of journalists facing serious threats in Brazil , ” The Intercept said in its statement , which can be read below in full .
“ We are appalled that Brazil ’ s Public Ministry has decided to file such a blatantly politically motivated charge against Greenwald , in apparent retaliation for The Intercept ’ s critical reporting on abuses committed by Justice Minister Moro and several federal prosecutors.
” “ We at The Intercept see this as an attempt to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that of the dozens of partners who collaborated with our staff in over 95 stories based on the archives , ” The Intercept said .
“ There is no democracy without a free press , and defenders of the press everywhere should be deeply concerned about Bolsonaro ’ s latest authoritarian move.
” Greenwald denied the charges in his statement , citing a previous Brazilian Federal Police investigation that concluded he had committed no crimes and noted his “ careful and distant posture regarding the execution ” of the alleged hacks .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Federal Police , examining all the same evidence cited by the Public Ministry , stated explicitly that not only have I never committed any crime but that I exercised extreme caution as a journalist never even to get close to any participation , ” Greenwald said in the statement , which can be read below in full .
“ Even the Federal Police under Minister Moro ’ s command said what is clear to any rational person : I did nothing more than do my job as a journalist — ethically and within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brought by the same prosecutor who just tried and failed to criminally prosecute the head of the Brazilian Bar Association for criticizing Minister Moro — is an obvious attempt to attack a free press in retaliation for the revelations we reported about Minister Moro and the Bolsonaro government , ” said Greenwald , who also co-founded The Intercept Brasil .
“ We will not be intimidated by these tyrannical attempts to silence journalists .
I am working right now on new reporting and will continue to do so.
” Operation Car Wash prosecuted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Among its most controversial convictions was that of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , whose imprisonment on corruption charges removed him from contention in the 2018 presidential elections , despite leading in the polls .
Instead , Bolsonaro won the office and quickly appointed Moro , the judge who convicted Lula , as his justice minister .
After the Secret Brazil Archive reporting , the Brazilian Supreme Court released Lula on the basis of a procedural argument , a stinging rebuke of Moro ’ s work .
The series of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a trove of previously undisclosed materials and provided an unprecedented insight into the anti-corruption investigation .
The revelations included scheming by purportedly apolitical prosecutors to ensure that Lula ’ s Workers ’ Party did not win the election ; prohibited collaboration between the Car Wash prosecutors and Moro ; and controversial personal enrichment by prosecutors , among many other revelations published in English and Portuguese .
The Brazilian federal prosecutor who filed the criminal complaint , Wellington Divino Marques de Oliveira , who works in Moro ’ s Justice Ministry but has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Greenwald had “ directly assisted , encouraged and guided the criminal group , DURING the criminal practice , acting as guarantor of the group , obtaining financial advantage with the conduct described here.
” Bolsonaro has himself previously suggested that he would like to deport Greenwald and threatened to imprison the journalist for his work .
At the time , The Intercept condemned the threat in a statement and reiterated that Greenwald and The Intercept ’ s other reporters enjoy free-press protections under the Brazilian constitution .
The Bolsonaro government has repeatedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe in basic press freedoms .
Today ’ s announcement that a criminal complaint has been filed against Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald is the latest example of journalists facing serious threats in Brazil .
The evidence cited today by Brazil ’ s Public Ministry is the same that was rigorously analyzed by the country ’ s Federal Police , leading the agency to conclude that Greenwald did not commit any crimes in his contacts with the alleged source of our Secret Brazil Archive stories .
Glenn Greenwald was not formally investigated by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that there was no indication of wrongdoing committed by him .
We are appalled that Brazil ’ s Public Ministry has decided to file such a blatantly politically motivated charge against Greenwald , in apparent retaliation for The Intercept ’ s critical reporting on abuses committed by Justice Minister Moro and several federal prosecutors .
We at The Intercept see this as an attempt to criminalize not only our journalism but also that of the dozens of partners who collaborated with our staff in over 95 stories based on the archives .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and defenders of the press everywhere should be deeply concerned about Bolsonaro ’ s latest authoritarian move .
The Bolsonaro government and the movement that supports it has made repeatedly clear that it does not believe in basic press freedoms — from Bolsonaro ’ s threats against Folha to his attacks on journalists that have incited violence to Sergio Moro ’ s threats from the start to classify us as “ allies of the hackers ” for revealing his corruption .
Less than two months ago , the Federal Police , examining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Public Ministry , stated explicitly that not only have I never committed any crime but that I exercised extreme caution as a journalist never even to get close to any participation .
Even the Federal Police under Minister Moro ’ s command said what is clear to any rational person : I did nothing more than do my job as a journalist — ethically and within the law .
This accusation — brought by the same prosecutor who just tried and failed to criminally prosecute the head of the Brazilian Bar Association for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempt to attack a free press in retaliation for the revelations we reported about Minister Moro and the Bolsonaro government .
It is also on an attack on the Brazilian Supreme Court , which ruled in July that I am entitled to have my press freedom protected in response to other retaliatory attacks from Minister Moro , and even an attack on the findings of the Federal Police , which concluded explicitly after a comprehensive investigation that I committed no crimes and solely acted as a journalist .
We will not be intimidated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I am working right now on new reporting and will continue to do so .
Many courageous Brazilians sacrificed their liberty and even life for Brazilian democracy and against repression , and I feel an obligation to continue their noble work .

On Tuesday, a federal prosecutor in Brazil announced a denunciation of American journalist and Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald related to his work on a series of stories published on The Intercept and The Intercept Brasil. The denunciation is a criminal complaint that would open the door to further judicial proceedings. It alleges that Greenwald “directly assisted, encouraged and guided” individuals who reportedly obtained access to online chats used by prosecutors and others involved in Operation Car Wash, a yearslong, sprawling anti-corruption investigation that roiled Brazilian politics.
The denunciation will now go before a judge who can approve or deny the request for charges.
The Intercept and Greenwald both released statements Tuesday decrying the federal prosecutor’s accusation as an attack on Brazil’s free press in line with recent abuses by the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Abuses committed by Justice Minister Sergio Moro when he served as the presiding judge in Operation Car Wash were central to The Intercept’s reporting in the Brazil Secret Archive series.
“We are appalled that Brazil’s Public Ministry has decided to file such a blatantly politically motivated charge against Greenwald, in apparent retaliation for The Intercept’s critical reporting.”
“The Bolsonaro government has repeatedly made it clear that it does not believe in basic press freedoms. Today’s announcement that a criminal complaint has been filed against Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald is the latest example of journalists facing serious threats in Brazil,” The Intercept said in its statement, which can be read below in full. “We are appalled that Brazil’s Public Ministry has decided to file such a blatantly politically motivated charge against Greenwald, in apparent retaliation for The Intercept’s critical reporting on abuses committed by Justice Minister Moro and several federal prosecutors.”
“We at The Intercept see this as an attempt to criminalize not only our journalism but also that of the dozens of partners who collaborated with our staff in over 95 stories based on the archives,” The Intercept said. “There is no democracy without a free press, and defenders of the press everywhere should be deeply concerned about Bolsonaro’s latest authoritarian move.”
Greenwald denied the charges in his statement, citing a previous Brazilian Federal Police investigation that concluded he had committed no crimes and noted his “careful and distant posture regarding the execution” of the alleged hacks.
“Less than two months ago, the Federal Police, examining all the same evidence cited by the Public Ministry, stated explicitly that not only have I never committed any crime but that I exercised extreme caution as a journalist never even to get close to any participation,” Greenwald said in the statement, which can be read below in full. “Even the Federal Police under Minister Moro’s command said what is clear to any rational person: I did nothing more than do my job as a journalist — ethically and within the law.”
“This accusation — brought by the same prosecutor who just tried and failed to criminally prosecute the head of the Brazilian Bar Association for criticizing Minister Moro — is an obvious attempt to attack a free press in retaliation for the revelations we reported about Minister Moro and the Bolsonaro government,” said Greenwald, who also co-founded The Intercept Brasil. “We will not be intimidated by these tyrannical attempts to silence journalists. I am working right now on new reporting and will continue to do so.”
Operation Car Wash prosecuted major Brazilian construction firms and politicians. Among its most controversial convictions was that of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose imprisonment on corruption charges removed him from contention in the 2018 presidential elections, despite leading in the polls. Instead, Bolsonaro won the office and quickly appointed Moro, the judge who convicted Lula, as his justice minister. After the Secret Brazil Archive reporting, the Brazilian Supreme Court released Lula on the basis of a procedural argument, a stinging rebuke of Moro’s work.
The series of Intercept stories about Operation Car Wash relied on a trove of previously undisclosed materials and provided an unprecedented insight into the anti-corruption investigation. The revelations included scheming by purportedly apolitical prosecutors to ensure that Lula’s Workers’ Party did not win the election; prohibited collaboration between the Car Wash prosecutors and Moro; and controversial personal enrichment by prosecutors, among many other revelations published in English and Portuguese.
The Brazilian federal prosecutor who filed the criminal complaint, Wellington Divino Marques de Oliveira, who works in Moro’s Justice Ministry but has prosecutorial independence, wrote in the complaint that Greenwald had “directly assisted, encouraged and guided the criminal group, DURING the criminal practice, acting as guarantor of the group, obtaining financial advantage with the conduct described here.”
Bolsonaro has himself previously suggested that he would like to deport Greenwald and threatened to imprison the journalist for his work. At the time, The Intercept condemned the threat in a statement and reiterated that Greenwald and The Intercept’s other reporters enjoy free-press protections under the Brazilian constitution.
Read The Intercept’s full statement:
The Bolsonaro government has repeatedly made it clear that it does not believe in basic press freedoms. Today’s announcement that a criminal complaint has been filed against Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald is the latest example of journalists facing serious threats in Brazil. The evidence cited today by Brazil’s Public Ministry is the same that was rigorously analyzed by the country’s Federal Police, leading the agency to conclude that Greenwald did not commit any crimes in his contacts with the alleged source of our Secret Brazil Archive stories. Glenn Greenwald was not formally investigated by the Federal Police, but they concluded that there was no indication of wrongdoing committed by him. We are appalled that Brazil’s Public Ministry has decided to file such a blatantly politically motivated charge against Greenwald, in apparent retaliation for The Intercept’s critical reporting on abuses committed by Justice Minister Moro and several federal prosecutors. We at The Intercept see this as an attempt to criminalize not only our journalism but also that of the dozens of partners who collaborated with our staff in over 95 stories based on the archives. There is no democracy without a free press, and defenders of the press everywhere should be deeply concerned about Bolsonaro’s latest authoritarian move.
Read Glenn Greenwald’s full statement:


theintercept--2020-01-21--A New Book Takes on the Problematic Academic Discipline of “Jihadism”

there have been wars , there have been people volunteering from distant lands to join them .
Over most of the 20th century , the typical volunteer foreign fighter was a left-wing activist fighting for the cause of international socialism .
During the Spanish Civil War , tens of thousands of foreign volunteers took up arms on the side of the republicans , among them a young George Orwell .
A romantic image of the idealistic foreign rebel became a familiar archetype in popular culture , celebrated in literature and film .
By the 1990s , the picture had shifted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left-wing internationalist movements were in terminal decline .
To be sure , the world was still wracked with crises and injustice which were crying out for remedy .
Yet the ideologies people used to mobilize to address them began to change .
Into the void created by the decline of the left stepped a new language of political solidarity : one based on identity and religion .
This change has had the most serious consequences in Muslim-majority countries , many of which are still grappling with the traumas of dictatorship , military occupation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leftist movements in these countries faltered , they were replaced with political movements drawing solidarity from religious identity .
There has also been the emergence of a new type of volunteer foreign fighter : the mujahid , a Muslim fighter engaged in a religious struggle — or militant jihad .
This controversial figure is the focus of a new book , “ The Universal Enemy : Jihad , Empire , and the Challenge of Solidarity , ” by Darryl Li , an assistant professor of anthropology and social sciences at the University of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study of a group of veteran foreign fighters who volunteered in Bosnia in the war of the early 1990s .
Li ’ s research takes him across the world to meet former mujahids : from coffee shops and offices in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom to remote detention centers where many of them found themselves trapped amid the U.S.-led global war on terrorism .
All of them can be said to have been involved in a collective political project — in this case , the defense of Bosnian Muslims facing genocide — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and truck attackers often seen in recent years .
Li reconstructs the motives and experiences of these volunteer fighters with a diligence often missing in other accounts .
But his book also stingingly criticizes the field of “ jihadism ” as an academic discipline connected to the national security state .
“ Jihadism is simply not a useful term for understanding political violence , ” Li told me when we spoke about the book recently .
“ Believers will debate in the terms of their tradition whether something is properly considered a jihad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Muslims use this term for vastly different kinds of struggle they deem religiously justified — which could range from an inner personal struggle to a violent political one .
Even when we ’ re talking about jihad as an armed conflict , there are such different types.
” “ The heart of the problem is the refusal to recognize the participants in these conflicts as political actors , ” Li said .
“ We just suck all the politics out , latch on a word like ‘ jihadism , ’ and then place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside of space and time.
” jihadism generally takes for granted that organizations like Hezbollah , Hamas , the Islamic State , al-Shabab , the Afghan Taliban , and various Iraqi Shia militias should be grouped under one category .
This grand category also happens to include solitary individuals engaged in acts of violence not directed by any organization .
Huge disparities of geography , language , sect , and politics are more or less ignored in favor of a narrative understandable through the single term of “ jihadism.
” “ Consider for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Irish Republican Army , the Republican Party in the United States , and Plato ’ s Republic , ” Li told me , by way of analogy .
“ All of these employ the term ‘ republic , ’ and all of them somehow have a connection with violence .
If you lumped them together and claimed they represent an ideology called ‘ republicanism , ’ that obviously wouldn ’ t make any sense .
Yet that ’ s what the category of ‘ jihadism ’ essentially does.
” The jihadism field has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A massive influx of money and resources in the years after the September 11 attacks helped create a new class of self-styled terrorism expert .
Some of these individuals were driven by strong ideological motives ; many could be frankly described as charlatans .
Over the past decade , however , the quality of the average analyst in this field has notably improved .
Many of those studying militant violence today do so with a level of nuance and academic rigor rarely seen in earlier years .
Generally speaking , it is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be openly racist .
Despite these welcome improvements , some problems remain .
New knowledge inevitably tends to build on what already exists .
Thus , bad ideas carried over from previous generations of experts still exert an influence .
One already-discussed example is the dubious academic category of jihadism itself .
Another is the resilient assumption that militant violence can be understood as a kind of personal pathology , rather than as a political phenomenon .
“ The discourse on jihadism has a misguided focus on individuals , particularly the idea that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be found by getting inside their heads , ” Li said .
“ If you took a random sample of the motivations of U.S. military service members , you would probably find that some believed in their mission , some just needed a job , and some were sadists who wanted to kill people .
But you couldn ’ t go directly from analyzing the mindsets of individual soldiers to understanding the political goals or causes of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
” “ The Universal Enemy ” focuses on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and genocide in Bosnia , when foreign fighters began arriving in the country .
Several hundred volunteers came to fight on the side of the predominantly Muslim Bosniaks , while a comparable number joined the Bosnian Serb forces .
But the biggest contingent of armed foreigners in Bosnia by far came in the form of a large United Nations peacekeeping deployment that arrived early in the conflict .
In a way , the U.N. peacekeepers came to Bosnia for reasons not so different from the foreign volunteers who called their cause a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposed “ international community , ” the peacekeepers bore arms under the banner of values that they proclaimed as universal and applicable to all of humanity .
Many also happened to be Muslims .
Some of the veteran peacekeepers that Li met in Islamabad , years after the Bosnian war , demonstrate that they saw no conflict with upholding two universal ideas at the same time : the defense of liberal values and their duty to aid oppressed coreligionists .
Throughout the book , Li lets his subjects speak for themselves and casts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a morally complex one .
It is clear that some volunteer foreign fighters do act nobly , making great personal sacrifices to relieve the burdens of suffering people .
At the same time , others act like adventure seekers , colonialists , or simply sadists seeking opportunities for violence .
Most mujahid foreign fighters today also happen to be enamored with a retrograde vision of politics and religion .
Their project offers little to non-Muslims , while generally excluding women from meaningful roles .
Some fighters , as Li ’ s book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been accused of sexual exploitation .
Despite this , the perception of foreign fighters as radically evil by default — something like modern equivalents of pirates or highwaymen — tends to exaggerate differences between them and other combatants .
“ People who invoke jihad are not necessarily any less brutal , callous , or hypocritical than other violent actors , and there is no shortage of things they can be condemned for .
But there ’ s a world of difference between criticism and dismissal , ” Li said .
“ Criticism requires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those criteria should apply to others too , including oneself .
Dismissal is a refusal to think , it ’ s condemnation that doesn ’ t submit itself to standards or scrutiny.
” how to judge nonstate armed actors is likely to become more urgent in the coming years .
Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall , the world is entering a period of uncertainty and instability not seen since the era leading up to World War II .
It is now easy to imagine a future in which the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue for millions around the world , of all backgrounds , who lack control over powerful states and access to institutions .
Similar circumstances led Orwell to take up arms in Spain in the 1930s and , in more recent years , have motivated foreigners to join Kurdish militant groups fighting in the Syrian civil war .
In the future , there might be something to learn from movements of all stripes that , despite deep flaws , have succeeded in drawing people into solidarity across racial , linguistic , and geographic boundaries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up arms and risking their lives on others ’ behalf .
“ As we go through this process of a great unraveling , with the massive post-World War II political consensus breaking apart , we are going to have to think more and more about popular forms of self-defense , ” Li said .
“ We are in a stronger position to do that if we ’ re not just isolated and divided into different communities .
We can ’ t assume that because someone is foreign or came from far off to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to develop a meaningful relationship of accountability with them .
”

As long as there have been wars, there have been people volunteering from distant lands to join them. Over most of the 20th century, the typical volunteer foreign fighter was a left-wing activist fighting for the cause of international socialism. During the Spanish Civil War, tens of thousands of foreign volunteers took up arms on the side of the republicans, among them a young George Orwell. A romantic image of the idealistic foreign rebel became a familiar archetype in popular culture, celebrated in literature and film.
By the 1990s, the picture had shifted. The Cold War was over and left-wing internationalist movements were in terminal decline. To be sure, the world was still wracked with crises and injustice which were crying out for remedy. Yet the ideologies people used to mobilize to address them began to change. Into the void created by the decline of the left stepped a new language of political solidarity: one based on identity and religion.
This change has had the most serious consequences in Muslim-majority countries, many of which are still grappling with the traumas of dictatorship, military occupation, and economic injustice. As once-powerful leftist movements in these countries faltered, they were replaced with political movements drawing solidarity from religious identity. There has also been the emergence of a new type of volunteer foreign fighter: the mujahid, a Muslim fighter engaged in a religious struggle — or militant jihad.
Image: Courtesy of Stanford University Press
This controversial figure is the focus of a new book, “ The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity ,” by Darryl Li, an assistant professor of anthropology and social sciences at the University of Chicago. The book is an anthropological study of a group of veteran foreign fighters who volunteered in Bosnia in the war of the early 1990s. Li’s research takes him across the world to meet former mujahids: from coffee shops and offices in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom to remote detention centers where many of them found themselves trapped amid the U.S.-led global war on terrorism.
All of them can be said to have been involved in a collective political project — in this case, the defense of Bosnian Muslims facing genocide — as opposed to the atomized mass shooters and truck attackers often seen in recent years. Li reconstructs the motives and experiences of these volunteer fighters with a diligence often missing in other accounts. But his book also stingingly criticizes the field of “jihadism” as an academic discipline connected to the national security state.
“The heart of the problem is the refusal to recognize the participants in these conflicts as political actors.”
“Jihadism is simply not a useful term for understanding political violence,” Li told me when we spoke about the book recently. “Believers will debate in the terms of their tradition whether something is properly considered a jihad. But separately anyone can see that Muslims use this term for vastly different kinds of struggle they deem religiously justified — which could range from an inner personal struggle to a violent political one. Even when we’re talking about jihad as an armed conflict, there are such different types.”
“The heart of the problem is the refusal to recognize the participants in these conflicts as political actors,” Li said. “We just suck all the politics out, latch on a word like ‘jihadism,’ and then place it into a category of evil existing outside of space and time.”
The study of jihadism generally takes for granted that organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Islamic State, al-Shabab, the Afghan Taliban, and various Iraqi Shia militias should be grouped under one category. This grand category also happens to include solitary individuals engaged in acts of violence not directed by any organization. Huge disparities of geography, language, sect, and politics are more or less ignored in favor of a narrative understandable through the single term of “jihadism.”
“Consider for a moment three different things: the Irish Republican Army, the Republican Party in the United States, and Plato’s Republic,” Li told me, by way of analogy. “All of these employ the term ‘republic,’ and all of them somehow have a connection with violence. If you lumped them together and claimed they represent an ideology called ‘republicanism,’ that obviously wouldn’t make any sense. Yet that’s what the category of ‘jihadism’ essentially does.”
The jihadism field has also suffered from some personnel issues. A massive influx of money and resources in the years after the September 11 attacks helped create a new class of self-styled terrorism expert. Some of these individuals were driven by strong ideological motives; many could be frankly described as charlatans. Over the past decade, however, the quality of the average analyst in this field has notably improved. Many of those studying militant violence today do so with a level of nuance and academic rigor rarely seen in earlier years. Generally speaking, it is no longer widely acceptable for terrorism experts to be openly racist.
Despite these welcome improvements, some problems remain. New knowledge inevitably tends to build on what already exists. Thus, bad ideas carried over from previous generations of experts still exert an influence. One already-discussed example is the dubious academic category of jihadism itself. Another is the resilient assumption that militant violence can be understood as a kind of personal pathology, rather than as a political phenomenon.
“The discourse on jihadism has a misguided focus on individuals, particularly the idea that a meaningful understanding of political violence can be found by getting inside their heads,” Li said. “If you took a random sample of the motivations of U.S. military service members, you would probably find that some believed in their mission, some just needed a job, and some were sadists who wanted to kill people. But you couldn’t go directly from analyzing the mindsets of individual soldiers to understanding the political goals or causes of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Photo: Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images
“The Universal Enemy” focuses on a particular period during the early 1990s war and genocide in Bosnia, when foreign fighters began arriving in the country. Several hundred volunteers came to fight on the side of the predominantly Muslim Bosniaks, while a comparable number joined the Bosnian Serb forces. But the biggest contingent of armed foreigners in Bosnia by far came in the form of a large United Nations peacekeeping deployment that arrived early in the conflict.
In a way, the U.N. peacekeepers came to Bosnia for reasons not so different from the foreign volunteers who called their cause a “jihad.” Acting on behalf of a supposed “international community,” the peacekeepers bore arms under the banner of values that they proclaimed as universal and applicable to all of humanity. Many also happened to be Muslims. Some of the veteran peacekeepers that Li met in Islamabad, years after the Bosnian war, demonstrate that they saw no conflict with upholding two universal ideas at the same time: the defense of liberal values and their duty to aid oppressed coreligionists.
“People who invoke jihad are not necessarily any less brutal, callous, or hypocritical than other violent actors.”
Throughout the book, Li lets his subjects speak for themselves and casts few judgments. The picture that emerges is a morally complex one. It is clear that some volunteer foreign fighters do act nobly, making great personal sacrifices to relieve the burdens of suffering people. At the same time, others act like adventure seekers, colonialists, or simply sadists seeking opportunities for violence. Most mujahid foreign fighters today also happen to be enamored with a retrograde vision of politics and religion. Their project offers little to non-Muslims, while generally excluding women from meaningful roles. Some fighters, as Li’s book documents, have committed war crimes or been accused of sexual exploitation.
Despite this, the perception of foreign fighters as radically evil by default — something like modern equivalents of pirates or highwaymen — tends to exaggerate differences between them and other combatants.
“People who invoke jihad are not necessarily any less brutal, callous, or hypocritical than other violent actors, and there is no shortage of things they can be condemned for. But there’s a world of difference between criticism and dismissal,” Li said. “Criticism requires spelling out some criteria and accepting that those criteria should apply to others too, including oneself. Dismissal is a refusal to think, it’s condemnation that doesn’t submit itself to standards or scrutiny.”
The question of how to judge nonstate armed actors is likely to become more urgent in the coming years. Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world is entering a period of uncertainty and instability not seen since the era leading up to World War II. It is now easy to imagine a future in which the need for collective self-defense becomes a pressing issue for millions around the world, of all backgrounds, who lack control over powerful states and access to institutions. Similar circumstances led Orwell to take up arms in Spain in the 1930s and, in more recent years, have motivated foreigners to join Kurdish militant groups fighting in the Syrian civil war.
In the future, there might be something to learn from movements of all stripes that, despite deep flaws, have succeeded in drawing people into solidarity across racial, linguistic, and geographic boundaries — even to the extent of taking up arms and risking their lives on others’ behalf.
“As we go through this process of a great unraveling, with the massive post-World War II political consensus breaking apart, we are going to have to think more and more about popular forms of self-defense,” Li said. “We are in a stronger position to do that if we’re not just isolated and divided into different communities. We can’t assume that because someone is foreign or came from far off to join a conflict that it is impossible to develop a meaningful relationship of accountability with them.”


theintercept--2020-01-18--Bolsonaro, Under Fire, Dismisses His Culture Minister for Giving a Nazi Speech, but It Is Still Repr

Bolsonaro, Under Fire, Dismisses His Culture Minister for Giving a Nazi Speech, but It Is Still Representative of Brazil’s Governing Ethos

The Nazi content , style , and aesthetics of the six-minute speech , set to the score of a Wagnerian opera , are impossible to overstate or even adequately describe in words .
It has to be seen to be believed .
For that reason , The Intercept has translated the speech into English and is publishing a video of it because it should be seen by everyone : “ The Brazilian art of the next decade will be heroic and national .
It will be endowed with a great capacity for emotional involvement and will be equally imperative , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urgent aspirations of our people , or else it will be nothing ” — Roberto Alvin , Brazil ’ s culture minister , January 15 , 2020 .
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro , under severe pressure from multiple corners , on Friday fired his culture minister , Roberto Alvim , for recording and publishing what can only be described — with no hyperbole — as a Nazi speech about Brazilian art .
Indeed , the speech , published by Alvim on Thursday , plagiarized Adolf Hitler ’ s Minister of Culture and Communications @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and aesthetic when decreeing what Brazilian art must be in the years to come : Brazil ’ s O Globo newspaper featured this surreal headline on its front page : “ Bolsonaro fires Culture Minister after he copies Nazi speech.
” The German paper Deutsche Welle featured the photo of the 1933 speech of Goebbels that Alvim copied next to the one delivered by the Brazilian culture minister to juxtapose how similar it was on all levels , beyond just the words .
But it is difficult to believe that absent those reactions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minister , whom he has repeatedly defended and praised , including in a Facebook Live chat immediately prior to the instantly notorious Nazi speech , hailing him as representative of “ the real culture.
” Sitting with Alvim prior to his speech , the Brazilian president said , “ Beside me , here , Roberto Alvim , our culture secretary .
Now we do have a real culture secretary that serves the interest of the majority of the Brazilian population , conservative and Christian population.
” Notably , Alvim was fired only after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more importantly to Bolsonaro — Israel issued condemnations containing harsh language rare for diplomatic communications .
The Israeli Confederation of Brazil said , “ Such a person can not command the culture of our country and must be removed from office immediately.
” The German Embassy in Brazil said , “ The period of National Socialism is the darkest chapter in German history , bringing infinite suffering to humanity .
…We oppose any attempt to trivialize or even glorify the era of National Socialism.
” The center-right presidents of the Brazilian Senate and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , leaving Bolsonaro with little choice .
When announcing the firing , Bolsonaro called the speech “ an unfortunate pronouncement.
” On social media , he has declared himself fighting a “ cultural war ” in favor of “ conservative artists ” ; denounced one of Brazil ’ s most beloved actresses , the 90-year-old Fernanda Montenegro , as a “ dirty liar ” for whom he harbors “ contempt ” ; and attacked the Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa , whose documentary “ Edge of Democracy ” was just nominated for an Academy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lies .
The content of Thursday ’ s speech was nothing new for Alvim , once a respected theater director who reinvented himself as a far-right religious fanatic .
In his short stint as Bolsonaro ’ s culture minister and in the months leading up to his appointment by the Brazilian president , he has issued a series of similarly shocking comments — just not quite as shocking as blatantly and deliberately mimicking the speech , style , and mannerisms of Hitler ’ s most notorious propagandist .
Bolsonaro , somewhat ironically in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also made unyielding devotion to Israel critical to his political and religious identity ( he has traveled to Israel repeatedly , offered unstinting support for the Netanyahu government against Palestinians , and was baptized in 2016 in the Jordan River while the Brazilian Senate voted to impeach the center-left President Dilma Rousseff ) .
Whatever else is true , Alvim ’ s speech , though more stylistically extreme and indelicate in how crassly it copied pure Nazism , is consistent in content with the posture of the Bolsonaro government toward artistic expression and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ currently on his third wife while still claiming to be devoutly Catholic — has also adopted a form of evangelic fanaticism , a rapidly growing political force in the country , as part of his public identity and ideology ( his current wife is evangelical ) .
While all of this has caused many of Brazil ’ s small Jewish communities in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to support him , it has little to do with affection for Jews .
Like many evangelicals , Bolsonaro appears to believe in some form @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its crudest form , holds that Israel must be united in order for Jesus to return and send all nonbelievers — including Jews — to hell ) , and like many authoritarians , adores Israel ’ s capacity of military and intelligence superiority and its animus toward Muslims , and wants as much of its surveillance technology as he can get for domestic purposes .
As is true of many far-right leaders , Bolsonaro worships Israel but not necessarily Jews .
Aggressive and harsh public morality is a central prong of Bolsonaro ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of his 2018 campaign cultural themes similar to Alvim ’ s speech — including a false but highly effective warning that elementary school teachers were using something he calls “ gay kits ” to convert young children in order to allow homosexuals to recruit them as sex partners — and generally has waged a war on any art or artists who diverge from Bolsonaro ’ s vision of what pure nationalist art is .
One of Alvim ’ s predecessors as culture minister resigned after the Bolsonaro government cut funding specifically to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Academy Award nominations were unveiled and one of the five contenders for Best Documentary was a Netflix film by the Brazilian director Petra Costa called “ Edge of Democracy , ” which warns of the dangers faced by Brazilian democracy .
Though the film principally focuses not on Bolsonaro but on the impeachment of Dilma and imprisonment and election-barring of Lula , it has become a target of contempt by the Brazilian Right .
After it received its Oscar nod , both Alvim and Bolsonaro publicly denounced the film as leftist agitprop “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked , acknowledged he never saw it ) .
A far graver assault on artistic expression occurred on Christmas Eve when a member of the right-wing party to which Bolsonaro belonged until recently threw a Molotov cocktail at the building that houses Porta das Fundos , the production company responsible for a Netflix film that features a gay Jesus with a boyfriend .
Bolsonaro ’ s Congressman-son had inveighed against the film as “ trash.
” Last week , a Bolsonaro-linked right-wing judge stunned the country , and Netflix , by issuing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ film from its streaming platform , a ruling overturned by a Justice of the Supreme Court .
Nazi-style nationalism and crude public assaults have been repeatedly featured by Bolsonaro in his remarks to journalists .
On Thursady , addressing a new book critical of his government by a Brazilian reporter of Japanese descent , Thaís Oyama , Bolsonaro said he does not know what she is doing in Brazil , adding : “ This journalist … In Japan she was going to starve to death.
” Last month , in response to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scandal involving his Senator-son ’ s corruption and the family ’ s links to violent paramilitary militias , the president said “ you have a terribly gay face , ” and told another reporter to “ ask your mother about your father.
” When questioned earlier this week about a scandal involving his Communications Minister who has private contracts with the same television outlets whose public budget he is responsible for determining , the president responded : “ are you talking about your mother ?
” A report issued earlier this week by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is directly responsible for the majority of the attacks on journalists and media outlets .
It cited , among other things , Bolsonaro ’ s repeated public incitements against journalists as well as his public threats that I might be imprisoned for the series of exposés published this year by the Intercept about his Justice Minister and his accusations that my marriage to a Brazilian Congressman and adoption of Brazilian children was a fraud .
Earlier this month , Bolsonaro pronounced that books in schools have too much content and need to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ beginning in 2021 , all the books will be ours , ” proclaiming that they will have the Brazilian flag and national anthem on their cover .
He added that “ they will be made for us .
The country will vibrate… .
There will be the Brazilian flag on the cover , there will be the national anthem there.
” He claimed that the “ idiots ” who have been in charge of Brazilian education have been propagandizing children with the “ gender of ideology ” that “ encourages boys to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that I don ’ t want to talk about here.
” On Thursday , he said leftists “ do not deserve to be treated like normal people.
” In sum , Bolsonaro has spent years spouting classically fascist ideology .
The manifestation of undisguised Nazism by his Culture Minister was just a slightly more crass and naked expression of his ideology and mentality .
Many Brazilian elites who supported Bolsonaro largely because of their admiration for his Chicago-trained , austerity-loving Economics Minister Paulo Gedes and his corrupt law-and-order Justice Minister Sergio Moro ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s exposés ) are now feigning shock and outrage .
But Alvim ’ s speech simply shined a light on the true face of the Bolsonaro movement — one which all to many political and media elites decided to ignore , or pretend was just a game , because they were eager for the parts of Bolsonaro ’ s ideology that served their interests .

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, under severe pressure from multiple corners, on Friday fired his culture minister, Roberto Alvim, for recording and publishing what can only be described — with no hyperbole — as a Nazi speech about Brazilian art. Indeed, the speech, published by Alvim on Thursday, plagiarized Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Culture and Communications Joseph Goebbels and deliberately copied his style and aesthetic when decreeing what Brazilian art must be in the years to come:
“The Brazilian art of the next decade will be heroic and national. It will be endowed with a great capacity for emotional involvement and will be equally imperative, since it is deeply linked to the urgent aspirations of our people, or else it will be nothing” — Roberto Alvin, Brazil’s culture minister, January 15, 2020. “The German art of the next decade will be heroic, romantic, objective, and free of sentimentality, national with great pathos and equally imperative and binding, or nothing” — Joseph Goebbels, Nazi culture minister, October 8, 1933.
The Nazi content, style, and aesthetics of the six-minute speech, set to the score of a Wagnerian opera, are impossible to overstate or even adequately describe in words. It has to be seen to be believed. For that reason, The Intercept has translated the speech into English and is publishing a video of it because it should be seen by everyone:
Brazil’s O Globo newspaper featured this surreal headline on its front page: “Bolsonaro fires Culture Minister after he copies Nazi speech.” The German paper Deutsche Welle featured the photo of the 1933 speech of Goebbels that Alvim copied next to the one delivered by the Brazilian culture minister to juxtapose how similar it was on all levels, beyond just the words.
Deutsche Welle
The content of Thursday’s speech was nothing new for Alvim, once a respected theater director who reinvented himself as a far-right religious fanatic. In his short stint as Bolsonaro’s culture minister and in the months leading up to his appointment by the Brazilian president, he has issued a series of similarly shocking comments — just not quite as shocking as blatantly and deliberately mimicking the speech, style, and mannerisms of Hitler’s most notorious propagandist.
On social media, he has declared himself fighting a “cultural war” in favor of “conservative artists”; denounced one of Brazil’s most beloved actresses, the 90-year-old Fernanda Montenegro, as a “dirty liar” for whom he harbors “contempt”; and attacked the Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa, whose documentary “Edge of Democracy” was just nominated for an Academy Award, as a leftist propagandist disseminating lies.
Notably, Alvim was fired only after the embassies of Germany and — far more importantly to Bolsonaro — Israel issued condemnations containing harsh language rare for diplomatic communications. The Israeli Confederation of Brazil said, “Such a person cannot command the culture of our country and must be removed from office immediately.” The German Embassy in Brazil said, “The period of National Socialism is the darkest chapter in German history, bringing infinite suffering to humanity. …We oppose any attempt to trivialize or even glorify the era of National Socialism.” The center-right presidents of the Brazilian Senate and House also demanded Alvim’s firing, leaving Bolsonaro with little choice. When announcing the firing, Bolsonaro called the speech “an unfortunate pronouncement.”
But it is difficult to believe that absent those reactions, Bolsonaro would have fired his culture minister, whom he has repeatedly defended and praised, including in a Facebook Live chat immediately prior to the instantly notorious Nazi speech, hailing him as representative of “the real culture.” Sitting with Alvim prior to his speech, the Brazilian president said, “Beside me, here, Roberto Alvim, our culture secretary. Now we do have a real culture secretary that serves the interest of the majority of the Brazilian population, conservative and Christian population.”
Whatever else is true, Alvim’s speech, though more stylistically extreme and indelicate in how crassly it copied pure Nazism, is consistent in content with the posture of the Bolsonaro government toward artistic expression and cultural norms generally. Bolsonaro — though currently on his third wife while still claiming to be devoutly Catholic — has also adopted a form of evangelic fanaticism, a rapidly growing political force in the country, as part of his public identity and ideology (his current wife is evangelical).
Bolsonaro, somewhat ironically in light of the current controversy, has also made unyielding devotion to Israel critical to his political and religious identity (he has traveled to Israel repeatedly, offered unstinting support for the Netanyahu government against Palestinians, and was baptized in 2016 in the Jordan River while the Brazilian Senate voted to impeach the center-left President Dilma Rousseff).
While all of this has caused many of Brazil’s small Jewish communities in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to support him, it has little to do with affection for Jews. Like many evangelicals, Bolsonaro appears to believe in some form of the Rapture (which, in its crudest form, holds that Israel must be united in order for Jesus to return and send all nonbelievers — including Jews — to hell), and like many authoritarians, adores Israel’s capacity of military and intelligence superiority and its animus toward Muslims, and wants as much of its surveillance technology as he can get for domestic purposes. As is true of many far-right leaders, Bolsonaro worships Israel but not necessarily Jews.
Aggressive and harsh public morality is a central prong of Bolsonaro’s political appeal. He featured as part of his 2018 campaign cultural themes similar to Alvim’s speech — including a false but highly effective warning that elementary school teachers were using something he calls “gay kits” to convert young children in order to allow homosexuals to recruit them as sex partners — and generally has waged a war on any art or artists who diverge from Bolsonaro’s vision of what pure nationalist art is. One of Alvim’s predecessors as culture minister resigned after the Bolsonaro government cut funding specifically to LGBT-themed art.
Earlier this week, Academy Award nominations were unveiled and one of the five contenders for Best Documentary was a Netflix film by the Brazilian director Petra Costa called “Edge of Democracy,” which warns of the dangers faced by Brazilian democracy. Though the film principally focuses not on Bolsonaro but on the impeachment of Dilma and imprisonment and election-barring of Lula, it has become a target of contempt by the Brazilian Right. After it received its Oscar nod, both Alvim and Bolsonaro publicly denounced the film as leftist agitprop “fiction” (though Bolsonaro, when asked, acknowledged he never saw it).
A far graver assault on artistic expression occurred on Christmas Eve when a member of the right-wing party to which Bolsonaro belonged until recently threw a Molotov cocktail at the building that houses Porta das Fundos, the production company responsible for a Netflix film that features a gay Jesus with a boyfriend. Bolsonaro’s Congressman-son had inveighed against the film as “trash.” Last week, a Bolsonaro-linked right-wing judge stunned the country, and Netflix, by issuing a censorship order forcing Netflix to remove the film from its streaming platform, a ruling overturned by a Justice of the Supreme Court.
Nazi-style nationalism and crude public assaults have been repeatedly featured by Bolsonaro in his remarks to journalists. On Thursady, addressing a new book critical of his government by a Brazilian reporter of Japanese descent, Thaís Oyama, Bolsonaro said he does not know what she is doing in Brazil, adding: “This journalist … In Japan she was going to starve to death.”
Last month, in response to a reporter’s question about the still-unfolding scandal involving his Senator-son’s corruption and the family’s links to violent paramilitary militias, the president said “you have a terribly gay face,” and told another reporter to “ask your mother about your father.” When questioned earlier this week about a scandal involving his Communications Minister who has private contracts with the same television outlets whose public budget he is responsible for determining, the president responded: “are you talking about your mother?”
A report issued earlier this week by a press freedom group documented that Bolsonaro is directly responsible for the majority of the attacks on journalists and media outlets. It cited, among other things, Bolsonaro’s repeated public incitements against journalists as well as his public threats that I might be imprisoned for the series of exposés published this year by the Intercept about his Justice Minister and his accusations that my marriage to a Brazilian Congressman and adoption of Brazilian children was a fraud.
Earlier this month, Bolsonaro pronounced that books in schools have too much content and need to be made “softer” and warned that “beginning in 2021, all the books will be ours,” proclaiming that they will have the Brazilian flag and national anthem on their cover. He added that “they will be made for us. The country will vibrate…. There will be the Brazilian flag on the cover, there will be the national anthem there.” He claimed that the “idiots” who have been in charge of Brazilian education have been propagandizing children with the “gender of ideology” that “encourages boys to wear skirts” and “other things that I don’t want to talk about here.” On Thursday, he said leftists “do not deserve to be treated like normal people.”
In sum, Bolsonaro has spent years spouting classically fascist ideology. The manifestation of undisguised Nazism by his Culture Minister was just a slightly more crass and naked expression of his ideology and mentality. Many Brazilian elites who supported Bolsonaro largely because of their admiration for his Chicago-trained, austerity-loving Economics Minister Paulo Gedes and his corrupt law-and-order Justice Minister Sergio Moro (the subject of the 2019 Intercept’s exposés) are now feigning shock and outrage. But Alvim’s speech simply shined a light on the true face of the Bolsonaro movement — one which all to many political and media elites decided to ignore, or pretend was just a game, because they were eager for the parts of Bolsonaro’s ideology that served their interests.