UNESCO ambassador between 2018 and 2021 and visiting professor at the University of Brasilia, António Sampaio da Nóvoa regrets seeing symbolic sites destroyed and fears that the riots will spread. “This fear is strong and Brasília is an absolutely wonderful city,” he says.
The former president of the Council of Rectors, who received an Honoris Causa degree from the University of Brasilia, admits that this city “was perhaps the place where he most enjoyed living.” A city designed from scratch by Lúcio Costa and with “extraordinary monuments” by the architect Oscar Niemyer, which “must be protected”.
“What we saw yesterday is heartbreaking, to feel that heritage being vandalized,” he laments. However, he adds that what is at stake is “much more than heritage, it is an attack on democracy.”
The former candidate for the Presidency of the Republic admits that Brazilian society is very divided, but assures that it is urgent that the democratic right distance itself from Bolsonaro’s movement and that Lula da Silva have a speech that unites the Brazilian people.
“I have been talking with friends and there is a democratic right, who are educated people, I know many in Brasilia, who are fooled by this Bolsonaro movement,” he says. “Those people have to clearly mark their position and distance themselves from this movement that is causing immense damage in Brazil, Latin America and the world,” he considers.
For Sampaio da Nóvoa, it is also necessary for Lula da Silva to affirm himself as “the president of all Brazilians”, who can “rebuild Brazil from diversity but also from unity”.
“Only in this way can there be a movement for change and a democratic turn,” he stresses. “That is what all the democrats in the world hope for,” she concludes.
Source: TSF
