Monday, September 16, 2024

Women’s (LACK OF) rights in Afghanistan: An ongoing battle

This briefing analyses the current situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, taking a long view. Women’s rights have been an intense battleground between different actors for over a century, with periods of promising reforms followed by resistance and often reversals of progress.

By Members' Research Service/ September 16, 2024

Since the Taliban regime overtook the country in mid-August 2021, Afghanistan’s record on women’s rights has been one of the worst, if not the worst, in the world. Despite promises to ‘uphold women’s rights in line with Sharia law’, the Taliban have suppressed the rights of their citizens, with women the main target of restrictions. As well as prohibiting women and girls from travelling without a male relative, the Taliban have denied them post-primary education, banned them from numerous public places, and restricted their employment to healthcare and primary education. In December 2022, women were banned from working for non-governmental organisations in most sectors. In April 2023, the ban was extended to include Afghan women working for the United Nations mission in the country. In August 2024, the Taliban published a law codifying existing norms and introducing new ones, including a prohibition on women’s voices being heard in public.

This crackdown on women’s rights has attracted considerable international condemnation, including from Muslim states. In response to the regressive policies, many international donors have reduced or threatened to halt their humanitarian assistance, upon which the country is strongly reliant. It is feared that women could, unintentionally, be the worst affected by this reduction or suspension of humanitarian aid. The Taliban nevertheless appears inflexible, leaving international actors with a dilemma as to how to proceed.

The European Union (EU) has been engaged in Afghanistan since the mid-1980s and has prioritised the advancement of Afghan women’s rights. While changing its terms of engagement, it has continued to provide humanitarian aid and to support civil society. The European Parliament has followed the situation closely and recommended further action to support Afghan women and girls.

This briefing analyses the current situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, taking a long view. Women’s rights have been an intense battleground between different actors for over a century, with periods of promising reforms followed by resistance and often reversals of progress. This helps to explain how a country where women won voting rights in 1919 – earlier than in most of the Western world – has ended up treating its female population in a manner that possibly amounts to a crime against humanity.

This briefing updates an earlier one written by the same authors in April 2023.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Women’s rights in Afghanistan: An ongoing battle‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Members' Research Service
The central task of the Members Research Service is to ensure that all Members of the European Parliament are provided with analysis of, and research on, policy issues relating to the European Union, in order to assist them in their parliamentary work.

UN Security Council to hold meeting on Afghanistan amid concerns over women’s rights

by Amu TV
Li

The United Nations Security Council has announced a meeting on Wednesday, September 18, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

The session will include briefings from Roza Otunbayeva, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Sima Bahous, executive director of U.N. Women, and a representative from Afghan civil society.

The meeting comes amid growing international concern over the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls. On September 6, in response to the Taliban’s newly announced morality law, members of the Security Council urged the group to swiftly reverse policies that curtail women’s rights in Afghanistan.

The Council expressed deep concern over the ongoing restrictions on women’s education, employment, and freedom of movement, calling on the Taliban to respect the rights of Afghan women and girls. “The Taliban must listen to and respond to the voices of Afghan women and girls by respecting their rights to education and work, as well as their freedoms of expression and movement,” read a joint statement issued by 12 Council members, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

The statement condemned the Taliban’s systemic gender discrimination and warned that the new morality directive would deepen the already severe restrictions imposed on Afghan women. The decree gives inspectors broad powers to enforce policies that limit women’s participation in public life.

“This latest decree deepens the already unacceptable restrictions on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Afghans,” the statement said, adding that these policies will have long-lasting negative effects on Afghanistan’s future.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, the Security Council has repeatedly raised alarms over Afghanistan’s deteriorating humanitarian situation. In April 2023, the Council unanimously passed Resolution 2681, which called for the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghan society. The upcoming session is expected to renew that call, with a focus on reversing policies that threaten Afghanistan’s stability and prosperity.

Rumuwhara community land. Photo provided by The Colonist Report Africa, used with permission.

This story was written by Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi and was originally published by The Colonist Report Africa, with additional reporting by Faith Imbu and Kevin Woke. Ikwere language transcription was done by Kevin Woke. A shortened version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Women in Nigeria’s Rivers State continue to struggle for land despite the Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022, an investigation by The Colonist Report Africa has found.

At the time of the law’s passage, the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) stated that the new law would allow women in Rivers State to fully realise their potential and inherit their entitlements while also paving the way for discrimination to be challenged in court.

The Colonist Report visited three communities in Rivers State to assess whether community leaders were adhering to the law. However, we found that some leaders have yet to comply.

All of the communities we visited were agrarian, with most women relying on farmland to plant crops and support their families by selling produce in markets.

We discovered that, despite being denied farmland, some women had acquired land for farming or building a house by purchasing it from teenagers who had been allocated land but lacked the resources to develop it.

Furthermore, we found that women are hesitant to share their land-related issues for fear of reprisals from in-laws or community leaders.

Existing traditions that suppress women

In Ogoni custom, every female firstborn is traditionally not allowed to marry but is permitted to have children while living in her parents’ house. These children automatically belong to the woman's family, not their biological father — a tradition known as Sirah Syndrome.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana, whose mother, Salome Nwiduumteh Nwinee, was affected by Sirah Syndrome at the age of 15, explains:

“In the end, all of these children belong to her extended family rather than the man or men who impregnated her.”

According to Serekara-Nwikhana, despite her mother being pretty and attracting many suitors, she was not allowed to get married.

“Even though the tradition has deprived the girls of marrying, land is not shared with these women, which they depend on to cater for their immediate family. When family lands are not allocated to them, the women and their children suffer a lot. They have no choice but to buy land for farming,” she said.

Rumuwhara community

Justine Ngozi Orowhu , a farmer in the Rumuwhara community in Obia-Akpor, told us that she inherited 14 plots of land from her father, which she used for farming. However, after he died, community leaders seized the land and sold it to local men because she had no male siblings.

Orowhu had to resort to petty trading to make ends meet. But she later stopped trading after her husband fell ill. In 2014, she sued the community leaders for taking her land, but according to her, justice was never served. She now farms on government land, aware that she will have to leave whenever the government reclaims it.

Her hope lies in a law signed by former Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, granting women the right to inherit their father's land. “If I see an advocate to fight for me, I will reopen the case again in court,” she said.

Chris Wopara, the youth secretary in Rumuwhara. Photo provided by The Colonist Report Africa, used with permission.

Chris Wopara, the youth secretary in Rumuwhara, explained that according to community tradition, women cannot inherit land and men must be over 25 and involved in family activities to qualify. “The sharing of the land with the male usually happens after a year of continuous work for the family,” he said.

“The government doesn’t have the right to force us to give land to our daughters because the daughters will eventually get married,” said another elder, Fineface Wopara.

He added, “If a woman is given property in her father’s house, “it means she will benefit more than the male. The properties of her husband belong to her.”

Omuanwa community

Omuanwa community women. Photo provided by The Colonist Report Africa, used with permission.

In the Omuanwa community, every male child, even a one-year-old, is allocated a plot of land during the annual land distribution. However, women are not given land for building; instead, land can be leased to farmers, which they would have to vacate after harvesting.

We interviewed six women and two male elders at the same time to gain a better understanding of the situation and whether the community had started allocating lands to women since the 2022 law was passed.

According to the women interviewed, in 2023, lands were shared among men, including kids in the Omuanwa community, but no woman, whether, “single, widow, or married, was allocated a land,” said Florence Ejinya, a farmer struggling without access to land. “In the Omuneji community, there is no more land for the women to farm,” she said.

Omuanwa community women. Photo provided by The Colonist Report Africa, used with permission.

When asked if there had been any protests against this discrimination, the women said they had never demonstrated. Elder Gibson Ajoku explained that the practice of not allocating land to women has persisted since his grandfathers’ time and “cannot be changed.” He added that women are expected to rely on their husbands’ land shares. When asked about the new law granting women inheritance rights, he said he was unaware.

Another community member, ThankGod Ejiowhor, acknowledged the existence of the state law but confirmed that women are still prohibited from inheriting or being allocated land, as well as from partaking in bride price distributions.

Rumukurushi community

Unlike Omuanwa, the Rumukurushi community in Obio Akpor Local Government Area, Rivers State, is located in the state's urban metropolis. The Oil Mill market, a major hub, draws people from within and outside the state to trade a wide range of goods. However, women continue to struggle for land, with urbanization worsening the issue.

Blessing Amam recalled that the last land distribution in 2021 excluded women entirely.

Amam said: “As a woman, if you don’t have a male child, no property will be given to you unless you have a good brother-in-law who will give you some portion of his land for you to farm on.”

Government and rights groups’ intervention

Roseline Uranta, Rivers State Commissioner for Women’s Affairs, clarified that the denial of land to women is a cultural tradition, not due to government policies or laws, which do not prohibit women from owning land.

In an interview with us, Uranta urged women who are denied their property to report the issue to the Women’s Affairs Ministry. She noted that some women do come forward, and investigations are conducted to resolve these cases. “If the situation is

Activists demonstrate against female child marriages in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad on July 28, 2024, amid parliamentary discussion over a proposed amendment to the Iraqi Personal Status Law. AFP

Proposals include lowering the legal age of marriage for girls to nine

Sinan Mahmoud

Baghdad

September 16, 2024

Iraq’s parliament moved a step closer on Monday to passing amendments to the country’s Personal Status Law by completing a second reading, the legislature said, despite widespread public fears they will significantly erode the rights of women and girls.

If passed, the amendments would lower the legal age of marriage for girls to nine, a proposal that has led to public outrage. They would also hand religious authorities control over key aspects of life such as marriage, divorce and inheritance.

In the face of widespread rejection by Iraqis, the second reading of the amendments was a key step towards a formal debate in parliament and their adoption as law. Under parliamentary procedure, the second reading presents a draft for formal debate. When the final version is agreed upon it is put to a vote at a third reading.

Critics say the amendments would further cement sectarianism in Iraq as they would allow couples to choose between the provisions of the Personal Status Law or the provisions of specific Islamic schools of jurisprudence. If a married couple are from two different sects, the school followed by the husband’s sect would apply.

The proposed amendments to the legislation, which has long been considered one of the more progressive family laws in the region, have led to widespread demonstrations and heated debate between pro-civil rights Iraqis and religious institutions, which have gained more power over the past two decades.

In an opinion poll conducted by the Iraq Polling Team NGO last month, more than 73 per cent of those surveyed expressed “strong opposition” to the changes to the law, which has been in place since 1959. Only about 24 per cent voiced strong support, while about 3 per cent were indifferent.

Women are still underrepresented in local government, despite a woman running for president

by Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, The Conversation SEPTEMBER 16, 2024

Kamala Harris is at the top of a major party ticket running for president. Some people have celebrated her candidacy, hoping that it will excite voters enough to elect the first woman president.

But the glass ceiling that stymied Hillary Clinton's presidential bid in 2016 is still sturdy at other levels of political office across the country.

My research with Diana Da In Lee, Yamil Velez and Chris Warshaw shows that in cities and counties, women remain underrepresented among local officeholders in nearly every political office.

Like many other characteristics of officeholders, such as occupation or race, the gender of elected officials influences the way they make policy. Research has shown that women, and especially working-class women, elected to state and federal government offices in countries around the world make different spending decisions. Having more women in elected offices might matter especially at the local level, where the details of many of these federal or state spending decisions actually play out.

Congress is infamous for having few women in office. But until now, researchers and the public knew very little about how women and different racial groups were represented outside the federal government.

We gathered data from city, county and school district elections covering the past three decades in any city with a population of at least 50,000 people and any county with a population of at least 75,000 in 2020. Using this data, we calculated the share of winning candidates who were women or men.

Our published research shows that women make up a smaller share of elected officials in county governments and city governments than they represent in the population.

The gap between women's share of the population in counties and women's share of officeholders in counties is especially large. While women make up just over half of the population in counties, they make up only a little over a quarter of legislators who serve on county councils or county commissions. Women serving as county executives, sheriffs and prosecutors are even rarer. The office of sheriff is especially dominated by men, with women serving in less than 5% of these positions.

City government offices look a little better for women's representation. Women are not well represented in the mayor's office—only 24% of mayors are women—and just over a third of elected city councilors are women. The relatively smaller gender gap of elected officials in city government is an improvement over counties, but it is far from gender parity.

School boards are the one exception. On the school boards we studied, women are slightly overrepresented in office relative to men. This may be a result of school boards being what political scientists like us call "stereotype congruent" offices for women, whom voters see as more competent in areas such as education and health.

People learn early in life, through a process researchers call "gendered political socialization," to question women's place in politics. For this reason, women are less likely to express an interest in politics or run for office, and they first show this lack of political ambition early in their childhood. Other research shows that in adulthood, gendered expectations of women to have successful careers alongside motherhood can further limit their interest in running for office. Our research shows the consequences of these ambition gaps between men and women in politics: Women remain underrepresented in nearly every local political office, except for school boards.

As Kamala Harris takes on Donald Trump in the presidential election this fall, many pundits and voters are celebrating the representation of women—and in particular, women of color—in politics. But no matter the outcome in November, the gender gap between city and county residents and their local elected officials will be large. As a result, the important policies that local governments make might not fully represent the wishes of the people.

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Do women candidates have a harder time being elected? A political scientist explains

Kamala Harris’ heritage draws attention to Hinduism’s complex history in Caribbean

For many who claim Indo-Caribbean heritage, Vice President Kamala Harris’ spotlight is the perfect chance to dive into the community’s lesser-known past: where indigenous faiths and cultural traditions found more in common than not.

Indo-Caribbeans in the 19th century celebrating the Indian culture in West Indies through dance and music on an estate in Trinidad and Tobago.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

July 24, 2024
By Richa Karmarkar

(RNS) — A standard feature in any biography of Kamala Harris is the fact her parents — one a Hindu from India, the other a Baptist from Jamaica — met at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were both students in the 1960s.

In this sense the vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee embodies a heritage shared by millions across the Caribbean basin and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, many of whom are now talking about the sudden possibility that the next U.S. president could be of Indian and Jamaican heritage, and a person who claims to “know the lyrics to nearly every Bob Marley song” to this day.

Indians first came in numbers to the Caribbean in the early 19th century, when the British Empire brought them west as indentured servants, mostly to the islands of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, as well as Guyana and Suriname on the northeast shoulder of South America.

Indian Hindus, who at the time would not have defined themselves as Hindus, brought their spiritual practices with them, according to Alexander Rocklin, assistant professor of religious studies at Kenyon College and author of “The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad.” Those practices went on to influence the existing Catholic and Protestant Christians, Muslims and devotees of African spiritualities.

Alexander Rocklin. (Photo courtesy Otterbein University)

“The various groups that were living in a lot of these colonies, which were very cosmopolitan, were interacting with one another,” said Rocklin. “They were exchanging ideas, exchanging culinary traditions, exchanging cultural forms. And so they were also then participating in one another’s religious lives as well.”

In his research on 19th- and 20th-century Trinidad, Rocklin found clear evidence of Hindus worshipping the Virgin Mary as a Hindu goddess, visiting with African Obeah practitioners for their remedies against evil spirits, and celebrating Muharram, a Muslim holiday that for many was seen as simply “Indian.”

Though indentured servants lived in the same barracks that once held slaves, the British occupiers awarded them freedom of religion, as long, said Rocklin, as it resembled something colonizers would recognize. Indo-Caribbean Hindus thus began to fashion worship services with pundits who gave sermons and congregations, dressed in their “Sunday best,” that sang bhajans or Hindu worship songs in place of hymns.

“It was not seen as hypocritical for people to cross over lines, and for communities to come together and celebrate, but also engage in healing and devotion to to deities that were exclusively identified as being Hindu,” said Rocklin. “People were interested in living together in a way that the British colonizers couldn’t really even contextualize.”
RELATED: Why Hinduism’s Holi is more than an explosion of color for the Indo-Caribbean diaspora

Shawn Binda, a Canadian Hindu of Trinidadian origin, launched Hindu Lifestyle, his YouTube channel, in 2017, sensing the need to explain Hinduism’s history in Western society, especially to second-wave immigrants who want to maintain their ties in a “non-Hindu world,” he said. Binda’s research shows that Hinduism even had a part in the foundations of Rastafari, the religion that began in Jamaica and may be considered one of its most indelible cultural exports.

Binda, who lives in Toronto, points to the two faiths’ traditions of vegetarianism, spiritual use of ganja, or marijuana, and a shared philosophy referred to in Rastafarai as “I n I,” and in Hinduism as “oneness with the Divine.” Leonard Howell, known as the first Rasta, was called Gangunguru Maragh, or Gyan Gan Guru Maharaj, by his followers, using the Hindi words for “knowledge,” “teacher” and “king.”

While Binda said it would be “incomplete” to say Hinduism gave birth to Rastafarianism or other existing traditions, these overlaps signify deep interaction, if not direct influence.

Shawn Binda in a video about Hindu and Rastafari beliefs. (Video screen grab)

“Rastafari took that concept of the divinity within everyone, and just kind of made it more tangible,” he told Religion News Service. “It’s one thing to say you recognize the Divine within all. But now you take that, and the language that you use meaning like ‘One Love,’ it actually makes it more simple, more real, and something that that we can all learn from.”

In one video, Binda declares that Marley, the great global champion of Rastafarai, was analogous to a sadhu, a type of Hindu holy man who dons dreadlocks and forgoes material possessions for spiritual enlightenment.

In today’s global community, some people of Caribbean origin are finding their way back to India, where Hinduism began. Beauty influencer Lana Patel said her Trinidadian-Gujurati and Jamaican-Punjabi family is made up of Rastafarians, Hindus, Catholics, Christian converts and Spiritual Baptists, the latter a West Indian religion that draws from African beliefs and American Baptist practices.

When Patel’s parents came to the United States in the 1970s, she said, they found it difficult to find their place within America’s racial lines, which did not exist back home.

“I think being Caribbean is being this beautiful, rich melting pot of culture,” she said. “And I think we aren’t so much caught up in labels and more caught up in just existing and being happy in our existence. Everyone is just Caribbean. It’s not like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re the white man, you’re the Black man, you’re the brown man.’ Everyone is one, and they love each other.”

A variety of Instagram posts by beauty influencer Lana Patel. (Screen grab)

Patel, a trans woman, found herself drawn to her late grandfather’s Hindu traditions as she got older, rejecting the Christian homeschooling, conversion therapy and “fire and brimstone” approach to hell and heaven that so explicitly excluded her. Patel, who now lives in Los Angeles, credits her family with welcoming her Hindu identity, however, with curiosity and open arms.

She feels the same warmth when she visits her parents’ homelands. “Going to a Gujurati mandir (temple) just felt so peaceful and serene,” she said. “I just had this ‘aha’ moment, because I felt like I spent so much time running from myself. My grandfather passing was the wake-up call I needed to return back to myself and get in touch with my roots.”

Binda hopes that more conversations about Hinduism’s global reach will dispel the myth that the faith is limited to one ethnicity or geographical location.

Comparing Hinduism to “an open source architecture,” he said, “Hinduism can be embraced by by any and everyone, whether that means they identify as being Hindu or not.”

Hundreds march in Brazil to support religious freedom as cases of intolerance rise

Practitioners of various religions have marched down Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach

By DIARLEI RODRIGUES

Associated Press
September 15, 2024,

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Practitioners of different religious traditions marched down Rio de Janeiro's iconic Copacabana Beach on Sunday to support religious freedom in Brazil, where cases of intolerance have doubled over the past six years.

Hundreds of men, women and children from more than a dozen faiths participated in the event, known as the March for the Defense of Religious Freedom. Many of the participants were practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions that have recently faced attacks from members of Christian groups. Brazil's recently appointed Minister for Human Rights Macaé Evaristo also joined the march, which was held for the 17th consecutive year.

“The great challenge today in our country is to reduce inequality," Evaristo told the state-run Agencia Brasil news agency. "So for me it is very important to be present in this march, because the people here are also struggling for many things like decent work and a life free from hunger."

In Rio de Janeiro state, which is home to a quarter of the practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions, there’s been a proliferation of evangelical Christianity, particularly neo-Pentecostal churches founded since 1970 that focus on spreading their faith among non-believers.

Experts say that while most neo-Pentecostal proselytizing is peaceful, the spread of the faith has been accompanied by a surge of intolerance for traditional African-influenced religions, ranging from verbal abuse and discrimination to destruction of temples and forced expulsion from neighborhoods.

“Everything that comes from Black people, everything that comes from people of African origin is devalued; if we are not firm in our faith, we will lose strength," said Vania Vieira, a practitioner of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé. “This walk is to show that we are standing, that we will survive.”

While the Brazilian constitution protects the free exercise of religion, cases of disrespect and attacks, especially against groups of African origin, have become increasingly frequent.

Between 2018 and 2023, the Brazilian government’s complaint service recorded an increase of 140% in the number of complaints of religious intolerance in the country.

In Brazil, those who commit crimes of religious intolerance can face up to five years in prison, as well as a fine.

Hundreds protest religious intolerance in Brazil

Juri Berger | U. Groningen Faculty of Law, NL

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024

Hundreds protested religious intolerance in Brazil on Sunday due to a recent rise in discrimination against minority religions, including recently appointed Human Rights Minister Macaé Evaristo.

This year alone, complaints of religious intolerance in Brazil surged by 80% according to a government complaint service cited by local media.

Religious freedom is enshrined in Chapter I Article 5 of the Brazilian Constitution and there are criminal penalties in place for religious intolerance. The law currently provides for prison sentences of up to five years for perpetrators of crimes related to religious intolerance.

While believers of more than a dozen religions participated, there was a focus on practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions which particularly have faced a rise in attacks from members of certain evangelical Christian organizations. According to a paper by Professor Vagner Gonçalves da Silva, Neo-Pentecostal churches in particular pursue a practice of spreading their faith among non-believers which can be accompanied by intolerant acts and crimes towards other religious groups. This can include verbal abuse, discrimination and even the destruction of religious sites and expulsion from neighbourhoods.

Under international law, freedom of religion and belief is enshrined under Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and article 18 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. Brazil has ratified all of these agreements, so the state is bound by international law to protect the religious freedom of its citizens.

Brazilians march for Eshu, an Afro-Brazilian deity, to protest Christian intolerance

A march in honor of the orisha Eshu drew some 150,000 people in São Paulo recently, considered a rebuke to the rise of evangelical Christians’ political power.

People attend the March for Eshu, Aug. 18, 2024, in São Paulo, Brazil. (Video screen grab)

August 27, 2024
By Eduardo Campos Lima

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — A march in honor of an Afro-Brazilian deity drew some 150,000 people in São Paulo on Aug. 18, shocking many in this historically Catholic country that has witnessed the growing numbers and political power of evangelical Christians.

The March for Eshu, honoring a West African Yoruba orisha, was widely interpreted as a rebuke to the evangelicals who are credited by political analysts with securing the presidency for conservative politician Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, much in the way American evangelicals championed Donald Trump. Bolsonaro has cited Trump as a model in the governing style as well.

In the Bolsonaro era and since — Bolsonaro lost his bid for a second term to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022 — signs of evangelical Christians’ ascendancy have been everywhere, from the omnipresence of televangelists on the airwaves to the crucifixes and the Bible displayed in government offices to the 30-year-old March for Jesus, at which millions fill city streets around Brazil.

In marching for Eshu, adherents of Afro-Brazilian religions showed themselves ready to make their voices heard. “My idea was to combat intolerance against my faith. But not through confrontation. I just wanted to show the size of our creed and of our people,” said 32-year-old social media influencer and businessman Jonathan Pires, who organized the march.

Pires said he was disturbed by the way evangelicals have demonized his spirituality. Illegal in colonial times, the faiths brought by enslaved Africans to Brazil before slavery was outlawed in the late 1800s were practiced secretly, and orishas were often venerated after being renamed for Catholic saints. During Bolsonaro’s tenure (2019-2022), verbal and physical aggressions against those people grew exponentially.

Adherents of Afro-Brazilian faiths, which include Candomblé and Umbanda, were historically marginalized — and, many say, unrepresented: Out of fear and shame, many told surveyors they were Catholic.

Eshu has different aspects in Candomblé, which views him as an orisha, and in Umbanda, in which Eshu is an ancestral force, one often associated with bohemians and outcasts.

In either faith, said Maria Elise Rivas, a yalorisha (or priestess) of both Umbanda and Candomblé, “he’s a force with uncontrollable power, something that transforms him into a kind of transgressor, a manipulator and a destroyer.” He is also a messenger who mediates between humans and the gods.

In all this, Rivas pointed out, Eshu is problematic for monotheistic faiths and is often portrayed as a devil by Christians. “Those traditions have rigid rules, but for Eshu everything is flexible,” said Rivas. “There’s no idea of right and wrong, but a conception of building endless possibilities.”

Taking Eshu to the street, like the March for Eshu did, also challenged the racial and economic divisions in Brazilian society. A march made sense, said Rivas, “because the street doesn’t belong to anybody in particular, it belongs to all races and classes, and that’s the essence of Eshu.”

Jonathan Pires, center holding child, participates in the March for Eshu, Aug. 18, 2024, in São Paulo, Brazil. (Photo courtesy of Jonathan Pires)

Social media has allowed followers of Afro-Brazilian traditions to unite against oppression and organize against attacks on them. In the past few years, Pires has become an activist on believers’ behalf. He created a bumper sticker reading: “It has never been luck, it has always been macumba,” a retort to familiar bumper stickers on Christians’ car bearing slogans like: “It has never been luck, it has always been Jesus.” (A macumba is a percussion instrument used in Candomblé rituals and a slur, positively reappropriated in the bumper sticker, for an adherent for an Afro-Brazilian faith.)

“Many people see our religion as one of poverty. I want to show to everybody that we’re also prosperous, given that Eshu opens the way for us,” Pires said.

His work on social media has earned him more than 600,000 followers on Instagram, which he uses not only to talk about religion, but to advertise his charitable work. When floods devastated the state of Rio Grande do Sul earlier this year, Pires managed to collect 120 tons of food and other basic items for those impacted, and he and his family spent more than two weeks in the region helping to distribute aid kits to flooded areas.

“That was also a way of demonstrating that Eshu is not about bad energies, like many people think. He feeds us and elevates us,” Pires said.

He said he paid for the costs of the march and refused when politicians offered their support. “Eshu is not a supporter of (Lula da Silva’s) Workers’ Party nor a supporter of Bolsonaro. My party is Eshu,” Pires said.

On social media, however, many people associated the march with the left wing, in part because Pires asked participants to wear red, one of Eshu’s ceremonial colors, but also the color of the Workers’ Party.

But Caio Fábio, a prominent evangelical pastor who has become a critic of the religious right, pointed out that, given the Brazilian right wing’s close ties to evangelicals and conservative Catholics, the March for Jesus has become regarded as a political rally for rightist politicians such as Bolsonaro. “The March for Jesus has always been ideological and political,” Fábio said.

“It became a perverted event, full of politics. And that phenomenon was accompanied, of course, by the deterioration of the Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches, which also became aggressively politicized.”

Ironically, he said, Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches have long assimilated elements of the Afro-Brazilian religions as they tried to convert their adherents. The frantic circular dance known among evangelicals as the reteté accompanies their speaking in tongues as they feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, a usual component of neo-Pentecostal celebrations many times associated to African-Brazilian religions.

“Many people left their original African Brazilian creeds and began to frequent evangelical churches, which scandalously appropriated some of their ritual forms,” Fabio said.

But many, he added, especially the youth, are returning to Umbanda or Candomblé because of the politicization of the evangelical churches.

Pires said that since the first March for Eshu in 2023, people are becoming more comfortable with outwardly showing their Umbanda or Candomblé faith. “More and more Camdomblé or Umbanda practitioners feel comfortable to wear our traditional bead necklaces on the street. People used to be afraid or ashamed of doing so,” he said.

Ivanir dos Santos, a Candomblé leader in Rio de Janeiro and a longtime opponent of religious intolerance, said the March for Eshu is a natural reaction from a people who can’t stand to be attacked anymore.

“The March for Jesus has a conservative, moralistic, homophobic and intolerant agenda. That segment reacted in order to elevate its own self-esteem,” he told RNS.

Dos Santos has argued for opposing intolerance not through marches of Afro-Brazilian believers alone, but a variety faiths. “That’s why I defend the idea of promoting walks that join people from other creeds and social segments that promote freedom and democracy, instead of marches,” he said.

Pires said that he met a number of Catholic priests and evangelical pastors at his march, but some experts said the opposition had to begin with Eshu.

“The African Brazilian religions have a marvelous ability of resisting,” said Rivas. “And Eshu is a great reference in that process, because he is the one who rebuilds reality for all the people, no matter who they are.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment