June 3, 2022

08:06

Marcela Leiros – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The first indigenous federal lawmaker in the country, Joenia Wapichana (Sustainability), author of the bill that changes the nomenclature of the ‘Indian Day’ to ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’, celebrated on April 19, criticized, on Thursday, 2, the veto of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to the matter. In the rostrum of the House of Representatives, Wapichana emphasized that the current designation to the date does not take into consideration the plurality and diversity of the 305 Brazilian native peoples.

In the digital issue of CENARIUM MAGAZINE, last April, the importance and need to change the nomenclature was addressed in a series of reports alluding to the month in which the ‘Indian Day’ is celebrated, a term that has become pejorative in some regions of Brazil.

“Indigenous peoples are a collectivity, they live their own culture and have this cultural difference. For a long time now, indigenous peoples have called themselves ‘indigenous peoples’, because they are not just one people, one ‘Indian’, as they say. We are 305 peoples, with different cultures, different languages. This terminology is not only a political issue, it is the correct terminology, anthropological, and that deserves to be recognized”, emphasized the congresswoman.

Read also: Re-signifying the date: ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ replaces the infamous ‘Indian Day’

In the order that vetoed the change in the nomenclature of the ‘Day of the Indian’, published in the Official Journal of the Union (DOU) on Thursday, 2, Bolsonaro claims that “there is no public interest in the change contained in the legislative proposal, since the Constituent Original Power adopted, in the Constitution, ‘Of Indians’,” details an excerpt from the document.

The president also claims that the current nomenclature is a “term enshrined in the national legal system and culture, and there are no robust grounds for its revision,” concludes Bolsonaro that, finally, submits the document for consideration by Members of the National Congress.

“Bolsonaro argues and justifies it as if it were Brazilian culture, as if he were complying with the Constitution; it is absurd and totally disrespectful to the native peoples of this country. We have to work to overthrow this veto, because it is a step backwards. That’s why I ask that we pay attention when this veto arrives, here, in this House, that we [the deputies] overturn it unanimously”, she asked.

Erasure of diversity

Professor and historian Tamilly Frota Pantoja reinforced to CENARIUM that the date, with its current nomenclature, reinforces the erasure of ethnic and cultural diversity. “The demand is important because April 19 ended up being placed by the State as a date of celebration apart from a generic perspective of what it would be to be Indian. Placing it as ‘Indian Day’ reinforces the erasure of ethnic and cultural diversity,” she explains.

The historian even goes beyond the institution of the ‘Day of the Indigenous Peoples’. For her, it is necessary to create the ‘Day of the Awareness of Indigenous Peoples’, to end the idea that the State has a harmonious relationship with the native peoples and reinforce the political awareness of the date.

“It would be important to put the term ‘Day of Resistance of Indigenous Peoples’, to be remembered as a day of resistance.”

Tamilly Frota Pantoja, teacher and historian.