By GIOVANNI MESQUITA*
Mr. President, is there not a single officer in the entire Brazilian Navy who is not nostalgic for the slave empire, a cover-up for coup plotters, to put in command of this Armed Forces?
One day, I was strolling through the streets of Porto Alegre, watching its slow sunset. Lost in my thoughts, I crossed Praça Itália, admiring its sandstone columns that held nothing up. At the forefront of all of them, a Lion of Saint Mark, with a serpent's tail, held his gospel. Immersed in this architecture, I stopped on the sidewalk at the edge of the busy avenue. On the other side of the park, a black man with harsh features, who had a green branch as a fringe, was looking at me. Half hidden in the foliage, there he was: the Black Admiral.
Taking care with that one-way avenue, I crossed the road to greet him. I stood erect, with the proper posture of respect that his rank demands. In that silent and short dialogue, we understood each other's times and meanings and said goodbye.
I continued on my way, remembering another Admiral, Saldanha da Gama, who, in 1893, raised the Navy for the restoration of the monarchy. After visiting Isabel, Pedro's daughter, Saldanha da Gama returned to Brazil without a single offspring of the Braganza line to display as the banner of the monarchical reaction. Frustrated but not defeated, he joined the Maragata troops on the border of Rio Grande do Sul.
Since sheep are not for the bush, being a mature sailor, he was easily pierced by a republican lance. Saldanha da Gama lay down eternally in the green mantle of the pampas, carrying the longing for slavery in his mind and the monarchy in his heart.
I walked 650 meters to where the symbols of the pantheon honoring the Brazilian Navy are. I then remembered why the bust of the Black Admiral had not been placed there, but had been banished to the front of a square that honors ancestors who are not his. In those days in the year 2000, I learned the reasons why the bust had been placed in such a deserted place, far from the Navy Monument. It turns out that the Navy did not allow the legendary black sailor, the one who settled the score with the slave-owning whip, to share the space reserved for the fleet's memory.
The horror of the top brass of the Brazilian naval force towards João Cândido Felisberto from Rio Grande do Sul was promptly renewed in April 2024. At the time, the current Commander of the Navy, Admiral Marcos Sampaio Olsen, sent a message to the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. The purpose of his office was to try to prevent the Black Admiral from being included in the Book of Heroes and Heroines of the Nation.
In the letter, Admiral Marcos Sampaio Olsen says that honoring Cândido or “any other participant in that deplorable page of national history” as heroes would be an incentive for those who seek to “resort to the weapons entrusted to them to claim supposed individual or class rights.” And that episode was “a disgrace in history, whose trigger was given by the violent actions of abject sailors who, breaking hierarchy and discipline, used military equipment to blackmail the nation[…].”
Even recognizing, now in this distant time, that it was “just to demand the repeal of the repulsive practice of flogging […]” the text insinuates that, deep down, the movement aimed “deliberately at illegitimate corporate advantages.” And what would they be? The exclusion of torturing officers? A reduction in the workload? Or a salary increase?
He ends the letter with the following analysis of the current situation: “In the present day, to praise passages infamous for subversion, breach of constitutional precepts” [and the] “excessive use of violence by military personnel against the lives of Brazilian civilians is to extol moral and professional attributes, which will not contribute to the full establishment and maintenance of a true democratic state under the rule of law.” It is important to remember that this manifesto of “civic and democratic” concern can still be found on the official website of the Brazilian Navy.
Did the opinionated admiral write a letter or statement repudiating the “subversion and breach of constitutional precepts” by the Armed Forces? Did he publicly speak out against the planned “excessive use of violence by military personnel against the lives of Brazilian civilians,” as we saw advocated by his predecessor, Admiral Almir Garnier? It is common knowledge that Almir Garnier, with the utmost promptness, volunteered to put Navy tanks on the streets to prevent Lula from assuming the presidency. I am not aware of any initiative by the military activist in this regard. Does Marcos Sampaio Olsen’s silence in this episode mean that he has learned the lesson that military personnel should keep their mouths shut and not interfere in the Brazilian political scene…?
In November, the Lula government, pressured by the god “market”, sent a spending cut bill to Congress. The bill includes a paltry increase in social security contributions for all members of the Armed Forces. Social security contributions for military personnel would increase from the current 1,5% to 3,5%, in the Health Fund. However, contributions for all other workers would increase from 5% to 20%. In addition, military personnel would retire at 55 instead of 50, while civilians retire at 65.
The proposal would also revoke fictitious death. This type of death, a curious tradition in our barracks, occurs whenever a soldier is expelled from the Force after committing acts of banditry. In this process, his “symbolic death” is decreed in his sentence. From then on, his full salary is passed on to his wife… Spirit observers say that it is possible to see several of these souls wandering along the Copacabana boardwalk in the late afternoon.
And how did our “hero” behave when he learned that these privileges would be changed? In resigned silence? No! He threw himself into the front line without hesitation. He ordered the production of a sophisticated audiovisual, obviously paid for with public money, to express his dissatisfaction. Taking advantage of the “celebration” of Seafarer’s Day, he published the video entitled “Privilégios?” on the Navy’s official YouTube channel. In it, the sailors demonstrated all their energy in their seafaring activities in the air, at sea and on land. And each frame of their exploits was followed by a counterpoint to the notorious “good life” of all other Brazilian workers.
In translation, he called the citizens who were not in uniform “bums”! Many of us would certainly love to live in the magical world of Marcos Sampaio Olsen. But, unfortunately, he is just the product of an authoritarian, hypocritical and cynical mind. As we have seen, Olsen does not only despise civilians. He also finds sailors, the subordinates, of course, abject. So, based on Olsen’s own criteria, what can we say about this gentleman who, by “destroying the hierarchy”, in a public and blatant manner, attacked the determinations of his Supreme Commander, the President of the Country, defending a “supposed individual or class right” [and] “corporate and illegitimate advantages?”
Mr. President, is there not a single officer in the entire Brazilian Navy who is not nostalgic for the slave empire, a cover-up for coup plotters, to put in command of this Armed Forces?
* Giovanni Mesquita He is a historian and museologist. Book author Bento Gonçalves: from birth to revolution (Suzano).
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