'Reagan & Thatcher Week,' Latest Skirmish In Bolsonaro's Culture Wars of Brazil, 1980s Cons

'Thatcher and Reagan week is latest skirmish in Bolsonaro's culture wars.' A Brazil government-funded research institute is to celebrate the 80s conservative icons – a move denounced as ‘pure propaganda.’ The Guardian, Jan. 26, 2020.

Conservatives and culture warriors in Brazil have expressed delight after one of the country’s most celebrated research institutes announced plans to host a Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan week later this year. But critics view the event as yet another attempt by the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to impose conservative and Christian influences on the country’s top academic and cultural institutions.

(Thatcher sent Pinochet finest scotch during former dictator's UK house arrest. Read more).

In May, the Rui Barbosa House Foundation – a research centre that receives government funding – will host a string of exhibitions and lectures about the rightwing 1980s icons. Letícia Dornelles, a former journalist and telenovela writer, who was chosen to head the foundation in October last year, said the events “will provide an overview” of Thatcher and Reagan’s “influences on current conservative world leaders”.

“Thatcher and Reagan are idols of many Brazilians and current politicians,” she said.



- President Ronald Reagan greets Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Bonn, Germany 1985.

The initiative is in partnership with Brazil’s foreign office, which has swung to the right under Bolsonaro, forming close ties with conservative leaders such Donald Trump and Victor Orbán. The foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo – who believes climate change is a Marxist plot – will participate.

Admiration for Thatcher and Reagan runs deep within the Bolsonaro government.

In a speech in the White House gardens last year, Bolsonaro quoted Reagan and said he was a “great admirer” of the former president and B-movie star. The economy minister, Paulo Guedes, trained in free market fundamentals at the Chicago School of Economics – the seedbed for Reagan and Thatcher’s economic policies – and worked at the University of Chile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 1980s. In an interview with the Financial Times last year, he described Chile’s neoliberal reforms as “a wonderful transformation”, and added: “Thatcher, Reagan, they understood that.”

Bolsonaro’s politician sons meanwhile have been photographed with Thatcher and Reagan memorabilia such as T-shirts, coffee mugs and model figures...

More, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/26/brazil-bolsonaro-thatcher-reagan-week