Guerras culturais por uma “educação” para a “família”: o “MESP” e o “MMFDH” como fluxos estratégicos do processo de normalização da extrema-direita no Brasil

Abstract

The general objective of this thesis is to investigate how cultural wars that mobilize, in a related way, social representations about “family” and “education” have been used as a strategy for a process of normalization of the extreme right in Brazil. Two initiatives that built these relationships in the form of militancy are analyzed: the Movimento Escola Sem Partido (MESP) and the Ministério da Mulher, da Família e dos Direitos Humanos (MMFDH). The bibliographic review undertaken, as well as the data collected, covers a period that goes from the creation of the MESP (2004) to the year in which the MMFDH held the National Forum to Combat Institutional Violence (2021). The investigation was carried out based on data published on the internet by neoconservative actors, documents produced by the MESP and the MMFDH, participation as a listener in an event organized by the MMFDH, and a set of reports published in newspapers. The analysis of the collected data was carried out mainly through discourse analysis based on theoretical and methodological references such as ideological polarization, imaginary, interdiscursivity, social representations, and political discourse. It is concluded that militancy for content defended by MESP persisted even within the Bolsonaro government after the Supreme Court ruling in 2020 that declared bills linked to the movement unconstitutional. Likewise, digital militancy and cases of censorship in schools persisted. In addition to permanence, looking at MESP and then at MMFDH also helped to perceive changes, among them, clearer support from other types of agents (such as doctors, lawyers, and university professors), discourses that began to emphasize other strategies of control over education (such as control over undergraduate courses and occupation in school management), and a clearer dialogue with a neo-Pentecostal worldview. The research helps us understand how an anti-communism present in the joint growth of right-wing groups in Brazil has led to a process of normalization of the extreme right that threatens the foundations of Brazil's young democracy, such as the rule of law, minority rights, separation of powers, and the secular nature of the state. Much of the strength of this militancy lies in a dynamic of discarding forms and reusing content. A project facilitated by the growth of internet access and organized so that, based on tensions in the cultural field, it is possible to corrode democracy from within.