Rio de Janeiro (AFP)
In the austere half-light of an evangelical temple in Rio de Janeiro, Eleanor Teresa Sousa feels closer to God, but above all as far as possible from the carnal exuberance of the carnival, whose parades begin on Sunday.
This 75-year-old Brazilian is one of the conservative Christians who consider that the country's biggest popular festival is synonymous with sin and that all her religious references are blasphemous.
Eleanor says she is "deeply offended" by the theme chosen for the Mangueira fashion show, samba school reigning champion of the carnival.
Sunday evening at the sambodrome, Mangueira will depict with sumptuous floats and multicolored costumes the return of Jesus to earth, preaching a message of tolerance in a favela, these poor neighborhoods of Rio plagued by violence.
A Jesus embodied by a woman "with a black face and native blood", as described in the song which will be sung in a loop during the parade.
"It is not the Jesus of the Bible, it is blasphemy", is moved by the septuagenarian.
More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition called "Say no to the Mangueira parade", launched by the Plinio Correa de Oliveira Institute, a Catholic conservative group.
Other petitions of this type appeared in December, calling for a boycott of Netflix, which had put online on its platform a fiction showing a gay Jesus.
On Christmas Eve, the headquarters of the collective of comedians who produced this film was attacked with Molotov cocktails.
In a highly polarized Brazil, controversies of this type have multiplied since Jair Bolsonaro came to power a year ago.
Elected among other things thanks to the support of the evangelical communities, the far-right president embarked on a moralizing crusade, a veritable "cultural war", a term used by several members of the government.
- "Cry against fascism" -
The Mangueira samba school, located in the favela of the same name perched on a hill overlooking the legendary Maracana stadium, is a bastion of resistance to the ultra-conservative wave that swept the country.
"Our parade is a cry of freedom against fascism," says Marcus Portugal Feital, a 61-year-old literature teacher, in the middle of a night rehearsal that brings together several hundred people dancing to the frenzied rhythm of samba.
From the top of Mangueira hill, you can see the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer, with open arms over the city.
"Jesus protects the most vulnerable, the populations abandoned by the public authorities, the blacks who live in ghettos. He represents everything that this facho of Bolsonaro does not do," continues Marcus Portugal Feital.
"If Jesus was born today in a favela, he would have been murdered," adds Consuelo Cavalcante, 58, an allusion to the sharp increase in the number of people killed during police operations in the state of Rio l last year.
The lyrics of Mangueira's song are full of political references.
The title "The truth will set you free", is ironically taken from a biblical verse repeatedly cited by Jair Bolsonaro.
One of the verses evokes the obsession of a "Messiah (Messias in Portuguese) with a handgun". Messias is precisely one of the first names of the Brazilian president.
- political themes -
The Rio carnival has always been synonymous with transgression. This is the time when all follies are allowed before the period of abstinence from Lent.
In Rio, the political tensions linked to the carnival are all the more exacerbated as the mayor Marcelo Crivella is an evangelical who has snubbed the festivities since taking office in 2017.
Last year Mangueira won the title thanks to a protest parade highlighting the popular black and indigenous heroes forgotten from history books.
The school also paid a vibrant tribute to Marielle Franco, a black city councilor and lesbian murdered in March 2018.
Other samba schools, such as Portela and Grande Rio, have also chosen political themes this year, notably addressing environmental issues and the rights of the natives in the Amazon, sensitive subjects in Bolsonaro's Brazil.
"Carnival has always had a political tone, but this time it is more explicit, because we are in the presence of a reactionary government", summarizes the historian Luiz Carlos Simas.
© 2020 AFP