‘I hate Hitler’, says MS deputy – 08/03/2023 – Mônica Bergamo

State deputy João Henrique Catan (PL) claims to be the target of “an orchestrated action from the left” and malicious publications after gaining notoriety for showing a copy of “Mein Kampf” (“My Struggle”), a book of memoirs by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), while speaking in the plenary of the Legislative Assembly of Mato Grosso do Sul.

The episode took place on Tuesday (7). Of the nine minutes in which he spoke before the tribune, the parliamentarian used most of them to complain about a request for information that demanded transparency, on the part of the state government, regarding hiring in commissioned positions. The petition, proposed by him, did not have the support of the other deputies.

The Bolsonarist then turned to German history to exemplify how the local Parliament was rebuilt after the Nazi offensive and inspired other countries. At the end of the speech, Catan held up the book “Mein Kampf”.

“Here I bring you, Mr. President, a book that this parliamentarian was afraid of on his return trip to Brazil, Mr. President. I was afraid to bring that book into Brazil because, at the time, a judge — perhaps more dictator than Adolf Hitler— suspended the entry and sales of ‘Mein Kampf’, ‘My Struggle’, ‘My Story’, ‘My Life’, by Adolf Hitler, which here portrays his strategies to annihilate, shoot, Parliament and the rights of popular representation”, said the PL deputy, in the excerpt that went viral on the networks.

“Mr President, it is with the presentation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf that I ask for this Parliament to be strengthened, reconstructed, reorganized in the direction of what the European Parliament of Germany was”, he amended.

Accused of exalting Hitler’s work and making an apology for Nazism, João Henrique Catan says that criticism distorts his speech and promotes a lying campaign.

“It is so illogical, ignoble, surreal, disgusting, disgusting and disgusting that I lack adjectives here. How could I use such an imbecile argument to convince someone?”, he says to the column, in his first interview after the episode.

The state deputy also claims that he does not regret having shown the book, which he acquired in 2015, during an exchange made to England. Otherwise, he argues, he would not have called attention to an alleged weakening of his state’s legislature.

Do you regret making that statement and taking the book to the plenary? For me, the lines inside that book are repugnant. What I said was the exact opposite of what you’re saying.

I said: “Look, Hitler, before setting fire to the German Parliament, was putting an end to the importance of Parliament. He was reducing it until he ended its representativeness.”

In the case of Mato Grosso do Sul, I made this request and I have been speaking for days in the Assembly, on the tribune, in the media, denouncing that a deputy cannot ask for information on how many people are hired by the State without public tender to supply electoral corrals. Can you imagine, 2,500 people in 30 days!

Is fake news more important, an orchestrated action by the left to suddenly take away my credibility, or is it more important for a parliamentarian to show, independently and intelligently, that Parliament is self-deprecating, favoring the government?

But don’t you think that you may have been unfortunate in your citation and that you have given room for another interpretation? I spoke there for nine minutes on the platform. What is happening today is that the person gets a cut. Before, I had told a whole story that led to Parliament becoming less important, to relinquishing its prerogatives, the attack on Parliament. I told the story. He spoke about the importance that the German Parliament has today. All this is in that context.

I’m presenting this bad, dirty, ugly book so that you [deputados] vote against it, because today you are burning your institutional and supervisory functions.

Now, you take the end of my speech… It’s so illogical, ignoble, surreal, disgusting, disgusting and disgusting that I’m short of adjectives here. How was I going to use such a stupid argument to convince someone?

It has a context in which things were said. There are sites out there that already have more than a hundred and so many thousand likes saying that I became a follower of a person for whom I have a grudge.

Did you need to use “Mein Kampf” to illustrate? Couldn’t it be a history book about the horrors of Nazism? If I hadn’t used it, I wouldn’t be talking to you today. People wouldn’t know, they wouldn’t care. I have been saying this in the Assembly since the first session [deste ano].

hatches [usar o Mein Kampf]? Hatches. But, you see, telling the story of Jesus Christ, telling biblical passages, sometimes even to a child, is a way for us to teach what happened in history and how to fight.

Another passage that opened up room for criticism is the one in which you say you were afraid to bring the book to Brazil and question a judge who forbade its publication by a publisher. I went abroad to study in 2015 and 2016 to take a course in political philosophy. I read philosophies from the left, from the right, from the center, progressives. We want to improve the study.

My concern, like every citizen, is to walk within the legality. So, you suddenly imagine [tem na] my bag something that is an object of study, of what is not to be repeated in the history of any country, and turns against you. In fact, the concern was the jurisprudence of Brazil.

It’s the same thing as you banning the Bible. [O “Mein Kampf”] is the Nazi Bible? Yeah, but there are horror stories there. People look and say: “Man, I never want this history to repeat itself”. Like other books too. And you have leftist books that instituted regimes, that tell the story of [Josef] Stalin, who killed many more people.

But “Mein Kampf” was written by Hitler himself. It’s not a history book that has a context. If you have an autobiography, it’s history. There, he is describing step by step what he did and how he did it. This is a warning, an alert that I used to get the attention of my state’s Parliament. And on that point, I think I was successful.

Now, saying “did you provoke this to get media attention?” No. When I was small, I never thought this would reach such important media. My big concern is how it arrives. Arriving at a lie, that, yes, bothers.

Do you fear being impeached for this episode? I always fight for democracy, I always respect the system of checks and balances. I know how far I can go. And I think that our mandate has to serve as a support, a shield so that people feel free to say what they think and things progress. This is the role of Parliament, to encourage discussion.

What I do, what I say, resonates with a significant portion of society that wants to see things debated, that wants to see things happen.

If the rule of the game is that I suffer some kind of reprisal, I’m not going to tell you that’s cool. This is dangerous for democracy. What I can say is that I will be prepared.

If you don’t allow the promotion of ideas, we won’t make progress. What I am discussing within my Legislative House is exactly that. There’s a base there that doesn’t inspect, doesn’t charge, doesn’t do anything.

I did it because it was a way of showing that the German Parliament, which took center stage in Germany, did it because it was massacred. But what the state government is doing with my state’s Parliament, in basic functions, is the same thing Hitler did without having to set fire.

You are comparing the management of Governor Eduardo Riedel [do PSDB] like Hitler’s? It was exactly this comparison that I made. [Ele está] neutralizing the activity of parliamentarians.

There is no need for the governor to set Parliament on fire, because neutralizing it will make it less effective. We’re going to be collapsing like a Parliament where somebody went there and set it on fire. In other words, it is time for Parliament to resume its role.

OTHER SIDE

The government of Mato Grosso do Sul states, in a note, that the state deputy’s demand did not come to the attention of the Executive and that “the data so vehemently requested” can be consulted on the state transparency portal. “It is impossible not to regret the histrionics of the political scene, in which an abject book, with such a tragic memory, is used as an instrument to claim what is already in the public domain.”

_{with BIANKA VIEIRA, KARINA MATIAS It is MANOELLA SMITH}