• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • ENG
  • POR
  • ESP
  • Around the world
    • Sexuality & Art
  • Library
    • SPW Books & Reports
    • Monthly announcements
    • SPW Multimedia
    • Working Papers
    • Newsletters
    • We recommend
      • Papers and articles
      • Publications and resources
      • Relevant links
  • Strategic Analysis
  • Research & Politics
  • SPW Activities

Around the world

Judith Butler attacked in Brazil: a briefing

11 Jan 2018


Captura de tela 2017-11-02 18.07.07

In the third week of October 2017, an array of openly right-wing formations comprised by the Catholic hierarchy, evangelical Christians, conservative psychologists and the Schools without Party movement initiated a petition (hosted at Citizen Go the Spanish based right wing web platform) to contest the visit of Judith Butler to  Brazil. A poster against her presence was also circulated on social media by the Jewish right wing.

The feminist philospoher was scheduled to be in São Paulo in the first week of November to attend the International Colloquium on the Ends of Democracy, an event counting with the participation of other renowned intellectuals including Butler’s partner  Wendy Brown.  A day before she would launch the translation of two of her books: Parting Ways: Jewishness and a critique of Zionism and Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism — Caminhos Divergentes — judaicidade e crítica ao sionismo (Boitempo Editorial The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection — A vida psíquica do poder — teorias da sujeição (Autêntica).  Subsequently, she would attend a close academic seminar in Rio de Janeiro.

In  few days, 370,000 signatures were collected to protest against her visit as a threat to “the natural order of gender, sexuality and the family” even when Butler would not speak on gender in any of these events. The  responses in support to Butler´s visit  were also quite immediate. The website of SESC, where the colloquium was to take place, received a barrage of positive evaluations. Six academic and civil society organizations have issued official statements of support.   Local progressive groups from São Paulo planned to embrace the SESC building where the Colloquium would take place and measures were taken to ensure Butler´s safety.

No problems were registered at the November 6th book launching in the premises of the Federal University of São Paulo. But the next day, meanwhile  the Colloquium  evolved,  protesters and supporters assembled in the street.   Jointly,  the two demontrations — against and pro Butler —  gathered around 200 people. The  anti-Butler burned  an  effigy  portrayin the philosopher as  a witch, a  gesture evoking the Portuguese colonial and inquisitorial practice of auto- da fé (act of faith) in which  witches,  Jews, heretics,  protestants and  “sodomites”   were publicly executed in bonfires.  The aggressions did not stop there, however. Few days later right wing group — screaming against  pedophiles —  assaulted Judith Butler and Wendy Brown in the São Paulo airport when they were boarding their  flight to Rio.

In  targeting Butler, these forces aimed at feminisms, queer theory, LGBT rights but also the left more  broadly speaking.  The  virulence  and scale of the attack contrasted with the very small protest organized against the philosopher when she visited the country in 2015,  bluntly illustrating  how   these  forces have become exponentially aggressive in the course of the last two years.  As insightfully  noted by Isabela Oliveira in an  article   published by the web portal NEXO,  this  vicious assault against Butler must be situated in relation to dynamics  leading towards  the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, to be more fully aprehended.   In  November, 2017,  this electoral disputed was predicted by opinion polls  to sharply oppose  the  figures ex- president Lula and ex- Army captain and extreme right candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

Oliveira and her team  observed the demonstrations and a did  a survey with both  protetesters and supporters of Butler. This on spot study informs that seventy percent of those supporting Butler defined themselves as belonging to left,  while sixty percent of those protesting against her presence declared to be right wingers.  Silva correctly observes, however,   that  this sharp left –rights rift is typical of organized groups and does not necessarily reflect broader societal ideological views that tend to be  much more blurred.   Readers from outside Brazil will  be surprised to learn that two other effigies of persons considered despicable by right wingers were also burn on November 7th. One of them was George Soros, whose specter in the protest must be read  as  a strong symptom of connections between Brazilian conservatives and similar  forces in the US, Eastern Europe and Israel (where the magnate is also under open attack). But, quite unexpectedly, a puppet representing the ex- president Fernando Henrique Cardoso was also  put  to the bonfire. His  awkward inclusion in this scene may be explained by Cardoso´s connections with Open Society Foundation initiatives in relation to drug legalization, but most principally – as insightfully analyzed by Silva – can also be interpreted as a bait launched by right wingers to capture the adherence of those who historically opposed Cardoso and his political party.To summarize:  the attack on Butler has revealed how deeply  Brazilian  politics is polarized today. It also demonstrates  that conservatives are transnationallly   connected and, most principally, that gender and sexual politics are now squarely placed in the eye of the storm of electoral dynamics.

But it is  is  also vital  to mention that Butler has neither retreated from planned events nor refused to engage in the harsh debates triggered by her visit to the country. She gave  video interview to the Boitempo Editorial House site that rapidly became viral in which, amongst other reflections, she finely y examines the effigy burning episode through her gender theoretical frame:

I understand that the puppet/poster representing me included both a witch’s hat and a bright pink bra, signifying gay or trans life in some way. I am not sure they thought about what it meant to accuse me of being both a witch and trans. If I am trans, then I would presumably be a man, but if I am a witch, I am presumably a woman. It seems they were engaged in a bit of gender trouble of their own.

Few weeks later, in the article  The Phantom of Gender: Reflections on Freedom and Violence  published in  the special supplement Ilustríssima of Folha de São Paulo she scrutinizes  the ´gender fantasy” created around her trip to Brazil, insightfully explores  the difference between gender theory and “gender ideology” and examines connections between gender based violence, the history of witches, Church politics and democracy.  We cite its concluding paragraphs as an inspiration for the ongoing  struggles around gender underway in many other other places worldwide:

When violence and hatred become the instruments of religious morality and politics, then democracy is threatened by those who would tear apart the social fabric, punish difference, and undermine the social bonds required to support our co-existence here on earth.

I will remember Brazil for all the generous and thoughtful people, whether secular or religious, who sought to block the blows and stop the hatred.

They are the ones who seem to know that the “end” of democracy is to keep alive hope for a non-violent common life and commitment to equality and to freedom, where intolerance does not become simple tolerance, but is rather overcome by the courageous affirmation of our differences.

Then we all begin to live and breathe and move with greater ease and joy -the ultimate goal of the courageous democratic struggle to which I am proud to belong: to become free, to be treated as an equal, and to live together without violence.

To read more about the episode: Brazilian conservatives attack Judith Butler

Related

Categoria: Around the world

Sharing

Tag Cloud

abortion abortion laws Africa asia Brazil BRICS china contraception criminalization discrimination Egypt feminisms gender gender equality gender identity HIV HIV&AIDS homosexuality HR defenders HR regional systems human rights india intersex rights Islamic societies latin america LGBTQ rights marriage laws political economy political repression race religious discourses religious extremism reproductive rights sexual identity sexuality sexual politics sexual rights sexual violence sex work SOGI trans rights uganda UN US violence

Sexuality Policy Watch

admin@sxpolitics.org
Rio de Janeiro | Brasil

Connect with me

Link to my Facebook Page
Link to my Rss Page
Link to my Twitter Page
Link to my Youtube Page
FW2 Agência Digital
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.