Nora Varela

Dr. Mariza Veloso and Dr. Angelica Madeira are professors in the sociology department of Universidade de Brasilia, as well as at the Instituto Rio Branco. They adapted their yearlong course entitled "Leituras Brasileiras" into an intense one-week lecture series on the subject of Brazilian identity. The result was a whirlwind voyage through the history of Brazilian social thought, allowing attendees to experience - through history and literature - Brazil, its culture, and its people. The journey began with a discussion of the colonization of Brazil, and ended with a description of challenges the country will face in the future, as it becomes a more globalized and dynamic force not only in Latin America, but in the world as a whole.

Brazilian identity, Dr. Veloso and Dr. Madeira argued, contains a great deal of ambiguity and duality. To highlight the complexity of the Brazilian cultural evolution, the lecture series coupled literary works with changes in social thought in terms of identity, with the post-colonial era as the point of departure.

The intellectual and cultural movement of the postcolonial era was the eurocentric Futurismo movement, which suffered from a terrible amnesia: its main goal was to forget the slave era and begin anew. Futurismo emphasized the reproduction of European, particularly French, culture in Brazil. The main objective in importing European literature, music, architecture, and even people was to "civilize" Brazil by "whitening" the Brazilian cultural identity. As the whitening process continued, protest arose over the "importation" of culture. The protestors consisted of a group of native writers, artists, philosophers, and other primarily middle class intellectuals whom came to be known as the urban bourgeoisie. It was this urban bourgeoisie that led a cultural revolution. In 1922 the modernist movement came onto the Brazilian scene quite brazenly with what was called "Semana de Arte Moderna" (Week of Modern Art) in São Paulo. The modernists believed that the theoretical framework and the principal axis of a culture, a Brazilian culture, already existed. They embraced what had shamed the Futurists, emphasizing that during colonization a series of socio-historical processes, including slavery, had taken place, which eventually produced the multicultural identity matrix that is the basis of Brazilian identity. In order to "create" Brazil¹s future, modernists argued, one must learn from the past. The unearthing of a Brazilian culture and the fortifying of a unified national identity was aided by the creation of 13 cultural institutions. During this period, literary works that dealt with the definition of Brazilian identity based on the colonial framework were written, including Macunaima by Mario Andrade, Memorias Sentimentais de Joao Miramar by Oswaldo de Andrade, Raizes do Brasil by Sergio Buarque de Holanda, and Casa Grande e Sanzala by Gilbert Freyre. These authors were in dialogue with philosophers around the world in an effort to better understand the Brazilian condition and its possibilities.

In the keeping with the spirit of the modernists, post-modernists continued the dissemination of a Brazilian culture. However, their efforts used a grassroots method rather than a top-down approach to encourage Brazilians themselves to appropriate their history and help define Brazilian identity. This movement sought to make culture consistent with common Brazilian experiences and accessible to all Brazilians. The father of this methodology in Brazil is Paulo Freire; modernist institutions such as Universidade de São Paulo (USP), ISB, and Escola Superior de Guerra (ESG) were at the center of the grassroots movement. The intellectuals at these institutions cemented a Brazilian cultural identity on a national and global level and were among the Latin American theorists who first introduced dependency theory, which challenged mainstream ideas about development. The debate about development, particularly economic development, divided this group, leading the ESG to separate from the USP and ISB and become much more authoritative, ultimately leading the military regime. The opposing groups were transformed into counter-cultural movements and many of their members were persecuted during the regime.

In the relatively short period since the end of the military regime in 1985, Brazilian cultural identity has faced a new challenge and is once again being redefined by forces other than its domestic foundations. Economic globalization has greatly affected Brazil, as the country is one of the largest centers for international investment. The constant flow of money, information, people, and technology has changed Brazil immensely, and put Brazilian identity to the test. A porous border and internal inequalities have allowed subcultures to develop and express themselves more than before. Works like Samuel Rawet's Contos do Immigrante focus on the difficulties that immigrants face when trying to integrate into Brazilian culture and adopt the Brazilian identity. Immigrants are not the only group facing difficulties: the poor and other marginalized people have been disenfranchised on both a political and a cultural level.

The surge of a consumer culture further aggravates the economic and cultural divide in Brazil. Professor Veloso and Professor Madeira see this as the most threatening factor to Brazilian identity, a symptom of living solely in the present. According to the two scholars, Brazilians today seem not to live for the future as was reflected in the Futurismo movement, nor do they base their experiences on the past, as with the modernists, but rather they live in the present, most concerned with immediate needs. Individual realities supersede the intrinsic communal tendencies in Brazilian society. In the long run, this trend may threaten Brazilian identity and further fragment the society. It could also undo the development of an identity, which prior cultural movements held so highly, based on the country's 500-year history. Is this the reality Brazil is moving toward? The past has proven that Brazil and its people have an amazing ability to adapt and supercede challenges, and they will find a way to do this in the future.