In Pedra do Sal, the birthplace of samba in Rio de Janeiro, supporters chant “Ole, Ola, Lula” as they sway rhythmically, brandishing flags, T-shirts and caps bearing the likeness of Brazilian presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In a nod to the symbolism of samba’s Afro-Brazilian character in a country of divisive identity politics, the leftist ex-president chose the Portela samba school for one of his final rallies before Sunday’s first round of presidential elections.
“Samba is a way to resist oppression, it is the voice of the people. And Lula represents the people,” says Karen Gama, a 24-year-old black Brazilian who attended the rally last week with stickers of Lula’s Workers Party stuck to her chest and rear.
She was among thousands dressed in red — the color of Lula’s Workers Party — who turned out to listen to the former steelworker who is seeking a third term as president, already having served from 2003 to 2010.
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His main rival is far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, whose government is closely allied to conservative and evangelical movements often hostile to samba and its association with Afro-Brazilian culture and religions.
Pragmatic
“By coming here, he (Lula) returns to his popular base,” says Joao Diamante, who grew up in a Rio favela.
Diamante, a chef, said he was able to study gastronomy thanks to the university scholarships put in place under the Lula presidency for young people from low-income backgrounds.
“We came here to cheer on the only president who valued us, black people and minorities. We were extremely attacked during the Bolsonaro mandate,” says Douglas Williams, a 30-year-old nurse with an LGBTQ flag wrapped around his head.
Samba has not always been associated with left-wing ideas, says Wagner Pralon Mancuso, a professor of political science at the University of Sao Paulo.
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“There are well-known samba schools that exalted Brazil during the military dictatorship (1964-1985),” he says.
More recently, several Rio samba schools supported Marcelo Crivella, a pastor of the evangelical right, in his successful 2016 campaign for the mayorship of the city.
Samba “schools are pragmatic because they depend on public funds,” explains Marco Teixeira, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
And Veiga de Almeida Guilherme Guaral, an academic who studied the links between politics and samba, says that “today, schools remember that the governments of Lula supported cultural events.”
‘Form of resistance’
Earlier this month, the band Samba Independente dos Bons Costumes, believing themselves in friendly territory, were booed off the stage when they played a pro-Lula song at a Rio concert.
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“Art is an essential political tool in our democracy, and samba is political in essence,” the group said in a response on Instagram.
“In other words, much more than a musical genre, samba is an instrument of socio-political change.”
Claudio Cruz, the owner of a samba bar in central Rio, agrees.
“Samba has always been a form of resistance to inequality, so it is more than normal that the world of samba supports Lula today,” says Cruz, who has installed a 10-meter (33-foot) helium-filled figurine of Lula on the sidewalk outside his bar.
The new truce plan in Gaza includes “many demands” from Hamas, according to an Egyptian source
The talks held between delegations from Egypt and Israel in Tel Aviv for a truce in Gaza were “largely positive and successful” and included “many of the demands” of the Islamist movement Hamas, an Egyptian security source familiar with the negotiations and another from Hamas reported to EFE on Sunday.
A delegation from Hamas, headed by the member of the political bureau Khalil al-The Hague, is expected to arrive tomorrow in Cairo, mediator in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group, to deliver its response to the mediators, according to the Egyptian source, which asked not to be identified by the sensitivity of this issue.
This new proposal, on whose content it did not provide details, “overcomes the obstacles that hinder” the declaration of a truce, a ceasefire, the exchange of prisoners and hostages, as well as the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip.
The possible announcement of a truce “will contribute to the approval of a first phase and to the efforts of the entire international community to consolidate this ceasefire and seek to move to a permanent truce instead of a temporary one,” according to the informant.
On the other hand, a source of the Palestinian Islamist movement, which also asked for anonymity, confirmed to EFE that tomorrow a delegation from Hamas will arrive in the Egyptian capital to present its response to the new Israeli proposal.
The informant added that the proposal includes “reducing the minimum number of kidnapped that Hamas will commit to freeing and eliminating divisions in sections of the Gaza Strip.”
Last Friday, an Egyptian mediating delegation traveled to Tel Aviv to discuss this truce with Israel, while the Jewish State has warned that it will not allow the Palestinian group to delay and has once again threatened to invade Rafah, at the southern end of the strip and where more than a million refugees are overcrowded.
Hamas warns the United Kingdom that if it sends soldiers to Gaza they will be a “legitimate” military target
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas warned the United Kingdom on Sunday that if it deploys military personnel in the Gaza Strip, after information that they could help in the distribution of humanitarian aid, they will be “legitimate targets” of its armed wing.
“We alert Britain, or any other country, against the deployment of forces on land or on the coast of the Gaza Strip and affirm that they will be legitimate targets for our people and their resistance,” Hamas said in a statement.
The armed group charged against any initiative in the Palestinian enclave that does not have its approval.
The Islamist group responded to the information released on Saturday by the British network BBC, according to which the British Armed Forces could deploy troops to deliver humanitarian aid on the ground arriving in Gaza through the new floating dock that is being built by Israel and the United States.
The public broadcaster indicated that the United Kingdom could be the intermediary to which the United States referred when it said that it would not be the American soldiers, but others, who would distribute the food packages sent by ship from Cyprus and then transferred to Gaza.
Yesterday, the Israeli Army assured at a press conference with international media that international organizations would be in charge of the distribution of humanitarian aid, but did not indicate which ones would have agreed to collaborate.
Although the British Government has not confirmed the news, the BBC affirms, according to anonymous sources, that the Ministry of Defense is considering getting involved with ‘wet boots’ on the ground.
The possible role of the British forces would involve driving the trucks with the help from the landing boats on the floating runway, hundreds of meters long, and delivering it to a safe distribution area on dry land, the station explained.
The London Ministry of Defense reported on Friday, in turn, that the British Navy auxiliary ship RFA Cardigan Bay set sail from Cyprus to provide support for the construction of the temporary dock, which is led by the United States.
This ship will provide accommodation for hundreds of American sailors and soldiers, about whom Washington has made it clear that they will not set foot in Gaza territory.
Nancy Pelosi says that Netanyahu “could not have made things worse” in Gaza
Former President of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, “could not have made things worse” in the conflict in Gaza, in an interview broadcast this Sunday by the BBC.
Pelosi, who on Thursday participated in an event at the English university of Oxford, told the ‘Laura Kuenssberg Program’ that Netanyahu “was never a peace agent” and admitted that she “is not a great fan of his.”
The congresswoman said that what is happening in the Strip “challenges the conscience of the world” and maintained that the impact of famine on children “is almost unforgivable”, while calling the Hamas attack on Israeli territory on October 7 “barbaric”.
“Israel has the right to defend itself, but the way it is doing it is a challenge because Netanyahu has never been a peace agent,” he said.
“I’m not a great admirer of yours; I couldn’t have done things worse than those tens of thousands, or whatever number it is, of dead people, malnourished children and the uncertainty that exists… and that’s what people are talking about,” he said.
Asked if she understood why young people in the United States used controversial tactics when protesting against the conflict, Pelosi opined that “when they go beyond the campuses and block the Golden Gate Bridge, or something else, for a long time, and people can’t go to the doctor or the hospital or anything urgent in their lives, they don’t get support.”
But he added: “How can demonstrations on (university) campuses be criticized? That’s a way of life in the United States.”
On Thursday, the British police evicted two pro-Palestinian protesters who protested during their speech on populism to students from the University of Oxford, while abroad another group criticized her for her defense of Israel and her position on the movement to support Palestine.
