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.
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.
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.
Charles Gomes, a legal scholar and senior researcher with a focus on migration at Rui Barbosa House, cast doubt on the Thatcher and Reagan week’s academic value.
“The event isn’t based on anyone’s academic work, it appears to be pure propaganda,” he said.
Critics have accused Bolsonaro’s government of “ideological interference” in several sectors – often to their detriment – from arts and education to foreign and indigenous policy.
Bolsonaro’s son Carlos was one of the first public figures to show support for Thatcher and Reagan week, along with former volleyball player turned conservative activist Ana Paula Henkel.
The former culture secretary Roberto Alvim also publicly endorsed the event – before he was fired earlier this month after paraphrasing the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Regina Duarte, an actress best known for her roles in Brazilian telenovelas and her outspoken opposition to Brazil’s leftist Workers’ party, is tipped to takeover.
