RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After being fired by President Jair Bolsonaro, Roberto Alvim, former Secretary of Culture, shared a message in WhatsApp groups stating that he suspects a “satanic action” caused him to be exonerated from the Special Secretariat of Culture. Alvim was exonerated by the President in the face of the repercussions of an official statement inspired by Nazism.
“It was all a terrible series of events and coincidences that led to this catastrophe… I’m praying non-stop, and I’m beginning to suspect not a human action, but a satanic action in all of this horrible event”, says the text.
The message was published on social networks by filmmaker Josias Teófilo, director of “O Jardim das Aflições”, a documentary about the ideologist Olavo de Carvalho. On Friday, before the repercussion of Alvim’s video, Teófilo was one of the voices from the right-wing to ask the Secretary to leave the government. In the post, the filmmaker said he does not endorse Alvim’s message.
Read the full text by Roberto Alvim:
“I, Roberto Alvim, affirm to whoever may be interested: I wrote the text of my speech in the video, from various sources and ideas, which came to me from many places.
My advisors Denia Magalhães, Alessandro Loiola, and Alexandre Leuzinger have NOTHING to do with the writing.
I affirm that I didn’t know that sentence had a Nazi origin, because the sentence itself had no trace of Nazism, so I didn’t notice anything wrong there…
But I made a terrible mistake by not carefully researching the origin and associations of some phrases and ideas. And I take responsibility for my mistake. I lost everything because of that terrible mistake.
The Lohengrin opera was posted by my wife just recently on Facebook, by pure chance. I think the opera is beautiful, and I put it up because it was written after Wagner’s conversion to Christianity.
What I mean is, there was NO evil intention on my part. I ask the entire Jewish community, for whom I have deep respect and love, for forgiveness.
I gave my son at the end of last year an ISRAEL T-shirt, which he wore next to me in my Christmas message on social networks.
I say with all my strength that I have total repudiation of Nazism, as well as of any other genocidal regimes.
As a Christian, I would never associate myself with murderers. It was all a terrible series of events and coincidences that led to this catastrophe…
I’m praying non-stop, and I’m beginning to suspect not a human action, but a satanic action in all of this horrible event.
I’m taking care of my family now. That’s my priority right now: my wife and my little son who are devastated.
I ask all those I have disappointed and injured for forgiveness. This was never my intention. Everything I did was aimed at promoting worthy and beautiful art and culture in Brazil.
Be with God.”
Source: O Globo