What is in fact a pro-religious-liberty song triggered hate reactions by enemies of Brazilian African religions.
by Massimo Introvigne
Anitta, whose real name is Larissa de Macedo Machado, is Brazil’s most internationally well-known pop singer. She is also a lifelong follower of Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, the faith of her father, while her mother was an active Roman Catholic. She attends the terreiro, or Candomblé place of worship, of the pai de santo (priest) Sérgio Pina, in Nova Iguaçu, in the Baixada Fluminense.
On May 14, she launched a videoclip called “Aceita” (Accept), in which she pays homage to Candomblé. In fact, the leading São Paulo daily “Folha de São Paulo” called the song “a hymn to religious liberty.” Anitta represents herself in a terreiro and with symbols of Candomblé, but also includes images from other religions, including an Evangelical preacher and a Jew with tefillin. The message, reflected in the title, is that all religions should be accepted.
They weren’t. In fact, Anitta received hate comments on social media and lost some 250,000 followers in a few days, with Evangelicals calling her religion Satanic (while it has nothing to do with Satanism).
Here, precisely, lies the problem. Why did Anitta release the video? She certainly has a penchant for provocation, which never hurt the business of a performer, and for example likes to advertise that she is bisexual and changes her partners frequently. She included some nudity to make the video even more provocative. However, she has a point when she claims that followers of Afro Brazilian religions have a problem of religious liberty in Brazil and she wanted to do something about it.
“Bitter Winter” has repeatedly reported about acts of discrimination and violence, including vandalism and murder, against followers of Candomblé and other African Brazilian religions in Brazil. They have increased, together with the tendency of certain Evangelical preachers to claim that practitioners of African Brazilian religions worship Satan in their rituals. The claim is factually false but may generate very real violence.
Anitta’s reaction is thus both understandable and justified. That provocation and even the hate campaign against her may end up enhancing her fame and ultimately promoting her business may not be false. But there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of her Candomblé faith. And whatever one may think of Anitta, she called the attention on a serious problem of freedom of religion or belief, which in Brazil is in fact not getting better but worse.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
