Who is Chico Buarque, what is the Camões award and why Bolsonaro is breaking protocol.
For non-Brazilians: an explanation of all our posts about poet and song-writer Chico Buarque de Holanda, who received the highest literary award in Portuguese language poetry, the Camões Award. Because he was an important anti-dictatorship voice, fascist president Bolsonaro is breaking protocol and refusing to sign his award.
We think this just shows how the right wing is internationally united in its anti-intellectual, anti-culture, anti-science and anti-Civilization stand. Chico doesn’t really care: he replied that it was actually a second honor to be rejected by Bolsonaro. He’s right.
This is a thread explaining who Chico is and what is the Camões award.
Enjoy.
1/ “President Jair Bolsonaro signaled on Tuesday that he would not sign Chico Buarque’s Camões Prize diploma — the leading literary award of the Portuguese language.”
2/ Chico Buarque de Holanda, a Brazilian poet and song-writer, considered one of the best poets in the Portuguese language, won the 2019 Camoes Award.
3/ The Camões Award, named after XVIth century Luis de Camões, the greatest poet in the Portuguese language, is awarded since 1989 to Portuguese writers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam%C3%B5…
4/ Chico Buarque de Holanda has been an anti-fascist activist since an early age. His first songs were protest songs against the far-right Brazilian military dictatorship.
5/ Far-right president Bolsonaro, coherent with his campaign promises to confront civil rights and bring Brazil as close as possible to the ideals of the 1964 Military Coup, which established the dictatorship, refused to sign Chico Buarque’s Camões Award diploma.
6/ Given the importance of the award, the president’s signature is a tradition that Bolsonaro is breaking. His anti-culture, anti-science and anti-education government, which has been defunding science and attacking culture, is determined to insult Culture and Civilization.