Tuesday, September 27, 2005
A Failure to Communicate
A few years after Brazilian independence in 1888, the transition from a monarchy to a republic by military coup--thanks in large part to positivist intellectuals associated with the military school in Rio de Janeiro--was followed by a rebellion in the Bahia state by peasants opposed to the progressive agenda.
Three military expeditions to subdue the insurrection failed; modern-thinking Brazilians could not understand the rebellion by the poor against social justice.
Intellectuals developed a theory that the rebels were being fueled by monarchists and landowners, or maybe English agents. Republican journalists played up these angles in the press; rumors of shipments of British explosives being discovered were widely commented on. After a fourth military expedition massacred some forty thousand rebels who refused to surrender, all the peasants' homes were destroyed.
But a journalist by the name of Euclides da Cunha sarted asking questions about the non-existent British and un-used explosives and rebels who fought the army shouting "Life to Jesus." In his subsequent book, Os sertoes, da Cunha wrote about the dangers of importing institutions, ideas, and values from Europe to Latin America, and how the fanatical Catholic, rural poor who'd recently been slaughtered by the army of the republic had been led by a cult figure Antonio Conselheiro who believed the republic was the antichrist--a view reinforced by the church missionaries.
A century later, the people of the region still spoke of this civil war as the most important event in their lives, having heard stories and songs from the time by grandparents and parents. Priests in the area today blame modern corruptions on the republicans winning the war.
Newspaper stories from the time of the rebellion reveal how the media inflamed the divisiveness by contributing to this vast misunderstanding--a discord dependent on the opposing combatants' inability to communicate.
Three military expeditions to subdue the insurrection failed; modern-thinking Brazilians could not understand the rebellion by the poor against social justice.
Intellectuals developed a theory that the rebels were being fueled by monarchists and landowners, or maybe English agents. Republican journalists played up these angles in the press; rumors of shipments of British explosives being discovered were widely commented on. After a fourth military expedition massacred some forty thousand rebels who refused to surrender, all the peasants' homes were destroyed.
But a journalist by the name of Euclides da Cunha sarted asking questions about the non-existent British and un-used explosives and rebels who fought the army shouting "Life to Jesus." In his subsequent book, Os sertoes, da Cunha wrote about the dangers of importing institutions, ideas, and values from Europe to Latin America, and how the fanatical Catholic, rural poor who'd recently been slaughtered by the army of the republic had been led by a cult figure Antonio Conselheiro who believed the republic was the antichrist--a view reinforced by the church missionaries.
A century later, the people of the region still spoke of this civil war as the most important event in their lives, having heard stories and songs from the time by grandparents and parents. Priests in the area today blame modern corruptions on the republicans winning the war.
Newspaper stories from the time of the rebellion reveal how the media inflamed the divisiveness by contributing to this vast misunderstanding--a discord dependent on the opposing combatants' inability to communicate.
