Maria Bernadete Pacífico, 72, was an institution in Salvador de Bahía in northeastern Brazil, where she was known simply as Mãe Bernadete: a respected quilombola leader (a descendant of communities founded by slaves fleeing their masters) and Ialorixá, priestess of Candomblé, one of the religions of African origin present in the country. For years he has fought for the territorial integrity of his quilombo, which lies on the outskirts of Salvador and is coveted by loggers and speculators. A few weeks ago, two armed men entered her terreiro, the sacred place where ceremonies take place, and shot her dead. Six years earlier, his son was killed. Investigators point to the agrarian conflict as the main cause of the murder, but do not rule out a religious factor.
The number of crimes based on religious intolerance has increased in Brazil in recent years. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Human Rights, the number of cases has increased by 45% in the last two years. Last year, 113 complaints were registered, although the government makes it clear that the under-reporting could be enormous, since many of these crimes are still considered neighborhood disputes and especially because they accuse the previous government of Jair Bolsonaro of dismantling the system that it has made these kinds of complaints possible.
Living religion in secret
The criminal offense of religious intolerance ranges from extreme cases such as murder to everyday attacks such as insults, threats and other forms of discrimination on religious grounds. You can face a prison sentence of two to five years. In Brazil, the followers of African religions such as Candomblé, Umbanda and Quimbanda suffer the most. Babalorixá Sidnei Nogueira runs a terreiro on the outskirts of São Paulo and is used to dealing with discrimination from the believers who visit him. The ceremonies use pearl necklaces as well as white clothing and turbans, which are viewed as something demonic depending on the house and neighborhood. He says on the phone that to protect his “Filhos de Santo” he had to build some sinks and a closet so the clothes could stay there. “Some have neo-Pentecostal parents; If they carry these things with them, they will be expelled from the house. They live the religion in secret. On the other hand, they (evangelicals) constantly show their Bible, the crucifix… but we have to hide in the 21st century,” he laments. Nogueira, a doctor of semiotics at the University of São Paulo (USP) and author of the book “Religious Intolerance,” also defends the use of the term “religious racism,” since most attacks are directed against religions that are socially read as black.
Demonstration against police violence against blacks and in memory of Mae Bernadete Pacifico in Sao Paulo on August 17th. CARLA CARNIEL (Portal)
Brazil, an extremely religious country, is still the world’s largest Catholic country with more than 108 million believers, although evangelicals have grown exponentially in recent years and are expected to become the majority in 2032. Although a heterogeneous group, with hundreds of different denominations, there are tensions with Catholics in general (due to their image worship, which they consider paganism) and with Afro-Brazilian religions in particular. One of the theoretical underpinnings of this growing sense of rejection dates back to 1997, when Bishop Edir Macedo of the powerful Universal Church of the Kingdom of God published a book defending that Afro-religions were “demonic sects” and that Africa was also a cursed one Continent. Today this church even has its own political party with 43 congressmen.
Religions of African origin, on the other hand, only make up 0.3 percent of the Brazilian population. It is a minority of predominantly black believers whose houses of worship, so discreet that they often go unnoticed, are mostly located in favelas and outlying areas, exactly where Protestant churches are multiplying at a dizzying pace, opening about 14,000 a year. Living together is usually not easy. In these neighborhoods, posters or graffiti such as the warning that “only Jesus will drive Esu out of the people” are a constant. Exú is a Candomblé deity that many evangelicals mistakenly identify with the devil. It is also common for the sound of atabaques, the sacred drums used in the liturgy, to be prohibited. Many believers end up being driven out of their neighborhoods. The northern periphery of Rio has seen a wave of very violent attacks in recent years, with several terreiros completely destroyed or burned down.
Prosecutor Júlio Araújo, who prosecuted these cases for years, noted on the phone that there were still several religious leaders with police escorts. In his opinion, the attacks are generally explained by “the neo-Pentecostal sectors that foment hatred”, but he goes one step further and believes that the increasing rate in recent years is due above all to the fact that this discourse is strengthening the power structures penetrated. “The big impact I see in the official stigmatizing vision of religious groups of African descent has been the inaction to establish policies to prevent and alleviate these problems,” he says, indirectly referring to Jair Bolsonaro’s government.
The far-right leader, whose motto was “God above all,” always defended Brazil as a “Christian country” and even spoke of “Christophobia” at the United Nations. In the swamp of fake news that flooded the Internet during the last election campaign, Afro-Brazilian cults were also used to associate President Lula da Silva with “Satanism” and his wife Janja with “Macumba,” a derogatory term for these religions . The “holy war” on the networks does not stop. In April, Rio prosecutors asked YouTube to permanently monitor channels like “Geração Jesus Cristo” and “Geração de Mártires” due to “the enormous amount of discriminatory content.” But as attacks increase, religious minorities are also beginning to speak out and stand up. Last August, more than 60,000 people gathered for the first time in central São Paulo for the “March for Exú,” a provocation before the large gatherings that evangelicals hold each year “for Jesus.”
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