“Fora Bolsonaro, fora Bolsonaro,” read a huge poster, while another, handwritten, read “Anguillara loves Brazil, but not Bolsonaro.”
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro received honorary citizenship on Monday in Anguilla Veneta, northern Italy, amid the protests against and in favor that have unleashed the decision of the small town of his ancestors.
The ceremony, initially scheduled at the mayor’s office, was transferred to a seventeenth-century residence on the outskirts, where it received the distinction before some 200 guests, including relatives and councilors of the municipality.
“I am excited to be here. I think it shows. This is where my grandparents came from. I am pleased to be among good people, “said Bolsonaro at the beginning of the meeting, according to the Italian agency AGI, because most of the press was denied access.
“God wanted Brazil to be president and I am honoring the family in that country. We have a lot of popular support. However, we are doing a great job, which the people surely recognize, contrary to the media, “added the South American president in the act that lasted about four hours.
The arrival of the president has mobilized both left-wing militants and anti-fascist organizations, contrary to his far-right policies, as well as a sector of the Brazilian community residing in Italy, who waited for hours both to cheer him and to boo him.
Under a persistent drizzle, amid the fog and cold, representatives of several left-wing parties, as well as the CGIL union and the antifascist group ANPI, peacefully demonstrated in the central square with flags and posters for the distinction of the controversial South American president.
“That he visits the city where his family comes from is fair, but not that they present him as a role model, granting him honorary citizenship,” lamented Antonio Spada, opposition councilor, in statements to AFP.
Imposing security service
The mayor of Anguillara Veneta, a town of 4,000 inhabitants in the Veneto region, a stronghold of the far-right Liga, mobilized police and security services to avoid clashes.
“Fora Bolsonaro, fora Bolsonaro,” read a huge poster, while another, handwritten, read “Anguillara loves Brazil, but not Bolsonaro.”
Among the most outraged protesters was the Italian missionary Massimo Ramundo, who lived 20 years in Brazil, 12 of them in Marañón, a northeastern Brazilian state that encompasses the dense Amazon.
“It is a shame. I am furious with the mayor of this city. He does not know what Bolsonaro has done and said, he has not listened to his statements of a racist nature, against the indigenous, the vaccinated, the women. He also wants the Amazon to be a business. He does not respect the values of Pope Francis ”, lamented the religious.
A few meters from the demonstration, organized in the town where his family emigrated more than a century ago, there were also groups of supporters of the president, most of them Brazilians who reside in various regions of the peninsula.
“I am here to say that you are not alone,” said Silvana Kowalsky, an elegant 50-year-old woman who traveled from Vicenza, some 85 kilometers away, to give her support.
“Myth, Myth”
Wearing hats and covered by Brazilian flags, the president’s supporters sang songs and proclaimed him “myth, myth,” at the same time they launched slogans against “Lula thief”, referring to former president Inázio Lula da Silva, his possible greatest rival for the 2022 elections.
“He is a great president and he has the right because he is of Italian descent. Everything that the commission (of the Senate, ed) says about him are lies, ”assured Brazilian Claudio Resende, 65, who has lived in Italy for 17 years.
Bolsonaro’s first visit to Italy, to participate in the G20 over the weekend and receive the distinction, occurs in a delicate context, since it is often strongly criticized at the international level for relativizing the spread of the virus and for its environmental policy.
The president will conclude the day with a visit to the Basilica of San Antonio de Padua, where they have also organized protest demonstrations.
On Tuesday, before his return to Brazil, Bolsonaro will visit in Pistoya, about 200 kilometers south of Anguillara Veneta, the monument erected in honor of some 500 Brazilian soldiers killed in World War II, whose remains were transferred in the decade of the 60 to Brazil. (I)
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