The Special Secretariat of Culture of Brazil has just released a video in which the Secretary of Culture Roberto Alvim announced a funding program for the arts. In a well centred frame and with a piece from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin on the background – the same used in Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator -, a well groomed and brilliantine haired Roberto Alvim, with a picture of president Bolsonaro above him, a Cross of Lorraine on his left and the brazilian flag on his right, describes the Bolsonaro’s government guidelines for the arts: patriotic, linked to family values, connected to god and virtues of faith.
A few minutes into his speech, he delivers a pearl: an almost identical quote from the infamous Nazi Germany Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels:
“The Brazilian art of the next decade will be heroic and it will be national, it’ll be endowed with great capacity for emotional involvement and deeply committed to the urgent aspirations of our people, or it will be nothing.”
The Goebbels quote, probably taken from his biography by Peter Longerich, which was published in Brazil in 2014, reads as follows:
“The German art of the next decade will be heroic, it will be steely-romantic, it will be factual and completely free of sentimentality, it will be national with great Pathos and committed, or it will be nothing.”
The resemblance is too clear to be an accident, or even a mere inspiration. It’s an explicit reference. What Mr. Roberto Alvim means by it, if it’s a tip on the path Brazilian government wants our culture to follow, or just a provocation meant to unsettle the left, it’s unclear. It is, though, undoubtedly, very unsettling.
Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiO23U59CdU
UPDATE: In his facebook account, Secretary Roberto Alvim has denied to have quoted Goebbels, stating it was a “rhetorical coincidence” and that, nevertheless, the sentence is perfect and there’s no problem with it, as it describes precisely what the government wants for Brazilian culture.
UPDATE II: After a huge reaction from society, press and even the congress, Roberto Alvim was already removed from his position as head of the Special Secretariat of Culture.
Sarah
17/01/20 at 8:51
In every speach you will find another 2 words similar to the ones whatever nazi said. You are great in gosip.
Rubinho Martins
17/01/20 at 9:59
Oh really? And why did he choose Hitler’s favourite classic composer as soundtrack and placed every room object exactly in the same way as nazis used to do? Good luck with your argumentative jugglery.
Rodrigo
17/01/20 at 10:20
As someone who frequently reviews academic works to detect plagiarism, yes, this is it.
Selim Albert Harari
17/01/20 at 10:40
E inadmissivel e nao tem desculpas Fora ministro
Flávio
17/01/20 at 10:53
But not in an entire speech, silly nazi girl!
Haras
17/01/20 at 11:00
Two words? There are more than two words that are similar.
Thiago
17/01/20 at 11:05
Stop it, Sarah. You know very well that this was intentional.
João Silva
17/01/20 at 11:23
But not a completely phrase!!!!
Jez Conolly
17/01/20 at 11:23
The Alvim quote contains 39 words. Of these, 19 also feature in the Goebbels quote. That’s a duplication percentage of 48.72%.Plagiarism detection software usually allows around a 30% similarity level of acceptability, so if nothing else if this were a student paper Alvim would fail.
Harry
17/01/20 at 11:45
Sarah, the structure of the sentence is nearly identical. You’re either being purposefully dishonest in not acknowledging how similar they are, or you are really dumb (probably the latter due to not spelling “speech” correctly). Nazi sympathisers can go to hell.
Carlos Figueiredo da Silva
17/01/20 at 13:12
If you cannot see, at the least, the copy of Goebbels speach in what the Brazilian minister said,, you cant see the terrible consequences of It. This blindness has, over and over been the cause of utter suffering to mankind. If you cannot see, at the least, that he is repeating Goebbels speach, you are one of those who where the major cause of that suffering.
Antonio Henrique
18/01/20 at 10:57
Brazilians under a Nazi government. bolsonaro is a nazi cancer.
Carlos F F Neves
18/01/20 at 15:18
Não basta demitir, tem que punir criminalmente!
http://chng.it/PGKGBynM