It was no secret that Anitta, the Rio singer who is triumphing on half the planet, is a fan of Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion born during slavery and a priority object of religious intolerance in Brazil. But it has become clear that it is one thing to profess a creed in private and another to honor it in public. The artist has suffered the prejudices that persecute candomblé believers by dedicating a song and a video to it in her latest album Funk Generation. The mere announcement that she would release the clip, precisely titled Aceita (accept), received a furious response on Monday: “Yesterday, when I announced the release of this clip, I lost more than 200,000 followers in less than two hours,” the company revealed on Tuesday. singer, who has 65 million followers on Instagram.
Anitta, 31, has explained that this album is a celebration of her roots. The artist has carved out a career in international music, claiming to be a daughter of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, with multilingual pop, highly sexualized and provocative choreographies that she combines with messages of female empowerment, in defense of the LGTB+ community or strong messages politicians. The most recent, following the floods in southern Brazil, is summarized in a ‘Don’t vote for anti-environmental politicians‘.
In her relief after seeing tens of thousands of followers evaporate, Anitta also said: “I have talked about my religion on countless occasions, but it seems that leaving an artistic work in my catalog forever was too much for someone who does not accept that others think different”. Much of the thousands of response messages are pure bile.
The visceral attack on an artist who is one of the most revered in her native country illustrates the growing religious intolerance in Brazil. During 2023, more than 2,200 complaints of human rights violations for this reason were received in the official anonymous complaints channel, which represents an increase of 80% compared to the previous year. The most serious case was the murder of Mãe Bernadete, a candomblé priestess and leader of a community created by descendants of slaves in Salvador de Bahía, last September.
This month, the star who started in funk in Rio de Janeiro took the stage alongside the great pop queen of recent decades, Madonna, in the free concert she offered for more than a million people on Copacabana beach . Both had already recorded together in 2019.
A footballer from the Brazilian national team, Paulinho, 23, suffered a similar attack – on a smaller scale because he is famous but less famous – for the same reason as Anitta. The Atlético Mineiro player unleashed the fury of the most intolerant last year when he celebrated a goal by imitating the gesture of Odé, the goalkeeper, one of the orixas or spirits of candomblé, a creed he has followed since he was a child. The footballer lost 10,000 followers on social media, but over time he has become a kind of standard-bearer for a faith that is still surrounded by multiple harms.
Paulinho explained at his home to the Associated Press agency last year: “Some players ask me about my religion, they want to know what it is… I always explain to them, they listen. But it is still a small minority in football.” The same thing happens outside of football, Candomblé followers make up 0.3% of the population in this country, which is still majority Catholic although the forecast is that it will cease to be so in a few years. years given the speed at which conversions to evangelical Christianity advance.
The majority of victims of religious intolerance are the followers of religions of African origin, be it Candomblé or Umbanda. The white robes and turbans they use in their ceremonies, their temples, called terreirosor the shells and dances that they use in their ceremonies are considered diabolical by their compatriots, especially as a consequence of the growing power and presence of the evangelical Churches.
The video of Oil It shows Anitta naked receiving purifying water from the hands of a priestess, or dressed in white participating in the candomblé rites. But the clip also includes nods to other beliefs, such as images of a Catholic virgin, the typical gesture of evangelicals to accept Jesus, a man with a Jewish kippah or another, with a Muslim cap. The singer stressed that these attacks strengthen her rather than weakening her: “When I receive messages of religious rejection and intolerance, I don’t feel that divine energy emanates towards me, I feel the opposite energy. “I have faith, I am not afraid.”
The writer Eliana Alves Cruz criticizes in her ICL Notícias column that the contemporary holy war now has “ridiculous, but no less cruel, templars mounted on algorithms” and adds: “Losing hateful people and potential aggressors is not a loss, it is a gain in mental health and liberation. It means gaining quality of life and freedom.”
Religions of African origin have been gaining visibility in recent years in Brazil after centuries of secrecy and ostracism. As the slaves brought by force on slave ships to build Brazil were prohibited from practicing their religions, they gave birth through syncretism with the Catholic faith to the germ of the current Afro-Brazilian Candomblé, especially in the state of Bahia, the main gateway. of the slaves.
![Anitta celebrates her roots and candomblé](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/GEHOCA6ULNBLBKNQNYDW5LMH7Q.jpg?auth=a214c2c2a758a5c894e7291d8a8f9718a7ebb03cce99e64b73c7d981c5a7ea8b&width=414)
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