The last example of an attack on freedom of expression was the incident that the Minister of Education of Brazil, Abraham Weintraub, was protagonist to only last night, a minister famous for his attacks on freedom within universities and for his disdain towards ordinary people.
Weintraub was dining with his family yesterday on the terrace of a restaurant in Alter do Chão in the state of Pará when a small group of activists from the organisation Engajamundo carried out an act of protest.
The act consisted of delivering him a ‘kafta’, a popular Turkish dish. It was a satire that refers to the Czech writer Franz Kafka, who among many other books authored works literary masterpieces The Metamorphosis and The Trial, works which any minister of education should be familiar with.
The protest was accompanied by cardboard signs that alluded to the controversial measures of the minister took against public universities or budget cuts for public schools. Memorably, he tried to make pedagogy of this cuts through presenting bars of chocolate in a Facebook live show recently, where he was separating 4 bars from a pile of 100 to show his cuts only affected 3.4% of the total budget.
What’s more, for the demonstration to be more representative of 3.4%, he needed three and a half bars and not four, so one of the bars had to be cut in two. However, as the minister was incapable of doing so, president Bolsonaro bit into the bar and ate the spare half without remorse. It’s hardly surprising that such a trivial way of dealing with such a delicate subject as education budget cuts is highly offensive to the citizens of Brazil, and has done little to foster good feelings towards Weintraub.
Comments
We encourage anyone to comment, please consult the oD commenting guidelines if you have any questions.