President Jair Bolsonaro fired his culture minister after using the words of a Nazi leader in a video.
(Photo : Reuters)

Roberto Alvim, Brazil's cultural secretary, was fired after he used and paraphrased the words of Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels to promote a national art prize in an online video. 

Alvim said: "Brazilian art in the next decade will be heroic and national," to Wagner's Lohengrin music which is said to be Hitler's favorite opera. Unfortunately, it outraged the Brazilians because the background of the video has a picture of Brazilian President Jair Bolosonaro and a Brazilian flag.

Alvim added, "It will be endowed with a great capacity for emotional involvement and will be equally imperative, since it is deeply linked to the urgent aspirations of our people, or else it will be nothing," The words used by the culture minister was said similar to Hitler's minister who told the group of theatre managers and directors in 1933: "German art in the next decade will be heroic, steely but romantic, factual without sentimentality; it will be nationalistic with a great depth of feeling; it will be binding and it will unite, or it will cease to exist." 

However, on a Facebook post by Alvim, he said that what happened was a "rhetorical coincidence," Meanwhile, Bolsonaro has been criticized by the opponents since he has taken the office last year for pushing a more conservative cultural Christian agenda and cutting funds for arts and cinema projects.

President Bolsonaro's cultural war allies have said that they have lashed out what they called "cultural Marxism" and they also condemned everything from climate change to feminism. 

Alvim made mention in his video that a $4.8 million prize fund will be set aside for theatre, opera, art, music exhibitions, and prioritizing conservative and religious themes. 

Alvim said in a video "Virtues of faith, loyalty, self-sacrifice and the fight against evil will be raised to the sacred territory of works of art." 

The video released by the culture minister provoked and outraged Brazilians that led him to the dismissal from his office. The culture minister said that when people become sick, the culture becomes sick too. 

Moreover, the statement also caught the attention of Rodrigo Maia who is third in line to the presidency and is the speaker of the lower house of the leftwing Democrat party. He wrote on his twitter account, "The secretary of culture has crossed the line. It is unacceptable. The Brazilian government should urgently remove him from office." 

President Jair Bolsonaro also posted on his Tweeter account about the dismissal of the culture minister. He wrote, "An unfortunate statement, though apologetic, made it untenable for him to stay on," Moreover, it was found out that the night when Alvim recorded the video, the president said to the culture minister "Now we have a real secretary of culture." 

Alvim had been criticized for suggesting rock music encourages Satanism and abortion. Meanwhile, Alvim is a born-again Christian and took the office as the culture minister since November last year.