On Sunday Brazil voted to make Jair Bolsonaro their next president. He’s what the media euphemistically call a ‘controversial’ figure, who many fear could become a fascistic leader.
There have been various compilations of his quotes circulating online during the week, some of which I’ve compiled onto the infographic above. As most of the quotes were taken from Brazilian publications, most of these aren’t links to the primary source, but links to source more reputable than my little blog, in case anyone wants to look into the stories in more detail.
“It’s a mess. The next steps are the adoption of children and the legalization of paedophilia.”
Bolsonaro was quoted in Jornal do Brasil on May 5th 2011.
“A policeman who doesn’t kill isn’t a policeman.”
This was at an event hosted by Brazilian news magazine Veja on 27 November 2017.
“She doesn’t deserve it [to be raped] because she’s very bad, because she’s very ugly. She’s not my type, I’d never rape her. I’m not a rapist, but if I was, I wouldn’t rape her because she doesn’t deserve it.”
Bolsonaro was speaking in an interview with Zero Hora newspaper on December 10th 2014, discussing federal deputy Maria do Rosario. This was the third of three similar quotes from 2014 which could have been included on the infographic.
Earlier that year do Rosario had spoken in support of a report condemning violence by the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil until 1985, describing the military dictatorship as a source of “absolute shame” for Brazil. This prompted Bolsonaro to demand that do Rosario not leave the chamber, and told her that “I would not rape you. You don’t merit that.”
He had also aggressively confronted do Rosario in a hallway, captured on camera.
“Pinochet should have killed more people.”
General Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. His regime is estimated to have arranged for the death of between 10,000 and 30,000 Chilean dissidents. Bolsonaro was quoted by Veja on December 2nd, 1998.
“The scum of the world is arriving in Brazil, as if we didn’t have enough problems to solve.”
This statement is quoted without much context as an incidental aside in a New York Times profile from May 2016. Originating from an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Opcao on September 18th 2015, the statement seems to have originated as part of a criticism of military spending cuts. A Google-translate version of his quote reads as “I do not know what the commanders are, but if they reduce the number of [the Armed Forces], there are fewer people on the streets to deal with the fringes of the MST, the Haitians, the Senegalese, the Bolivians and all the scum that, now the Syrians are coming too. The scum of the world is coming to Brazil as if we did not have too much trouble to solve.”
“To not like is not the same as to hate. You don’t like the Taliban, do you? We Brazilian people don’t like homosexuals, but we don’t persecute and hunt homosexuals.”
In 2013 Bolsonaro was interviewed by Stephen Fry for ‘Out There’, a programme on homosexuality around the world. The five minute interview, dubbed in Portuguese and English, is worth watching in full.
“These red outlaws will be banished from our homeland. It will be a cleanup the likes of which has never been seen in Brazilian history.”
Bolsonaro was speaking in a recent video speech, quoted in the UK’s Guardian newspaper on October 22nd.
“The situation of the country would be better today if the dictatorship had killed more people.”
This quote is taken from the Brazilian daily newspaper Folha de São Paulo on June 30th 1999.
“My advice and I do it: I cheat on my taxes as much as possible. If I don’t need to pay anything, I don’t pay.”
I can’t find a context to this quote, but several sources list it as originating from Programa Câmera Aberta, Band RJ, May 23, 1999. Of course this isn’t as repulsive as many of the other quotes listed here, but it gives an insight into his mentality nonetheless. Most politicians will at least pay lip service to the principle of contributing towards the communal spending of the state, but Bolsonaro doesn’t. There are rumours that Bolsonaro plans to merge Brazil’s Environment and Agriculture departments into one, and has several policies to advance corporate interests at the expense of the environment.
While a president who openly wishes that military dictators had killed more people is a horrific novelty in a major democracy, the tax dodging, pro-corporate strain to his thinking is familiar, if nothing else.
“Let’s shoot all the PT members here in Acre.”
This quote was delivered during an electoral meeting of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) on September 1st this year. His communications department responded to this scandal by putting out a statement saying “it was a joke, as always.”
Happy Sisyphus 