Festival of Resistance

March 10th, 2025. The last bloco danced through São Paulo on Sunday. The street cleaners have just about managed to clear up all the debris, and even the party faithful have decided that for this year at least, carnival is over. It is difficult if you have never experienced it to understand the passion, obsession and all-consuming audio-visual sensuality of carnival in Brasil. For many Brasilians it is the highlight of the year, far more important than marriage, death, or even a football world cup final. I spent two nights, dusk till dawn, in the Santos sambódromo, the designated avenue for samba parades, followed by three days at street parties, which at my age is no mean feat. I am still recovering. Carnival is a life affirming event which in dark times, when racism, misogyny and outright fascism have cockroach crept out of the gloom, gives me reason to hope. For the writer Conceição Evaristo, carnival is nothing less than a utopia, a festival of democracy in which we overcome our social differences. It might only be for a carefully demarcated few days, but for those few days, anything seems possible. Overt sexuality, the struggles against discrimination, and the reclamation of marginalised histories, were again popular plot lines, enredos, of the different schools. Not surprisingly the far right and evangelical church have a real problem with what they see as the proto-revolutionary pagan celebrations of African, indigenous and gay culture. Carnival makes them feel deeply uncomfortable as if the devil waving a  hammer and sickle is stalking the streets of the Brasilian city stealing souls. In a country where seventy percent of the population have indigenous or African roots, the denial of such history is anachronistic and sad. In response to complaints about the preponderance of African themes on the samba school floats, Evaristo commented that it’s a shame that some Brasilians simply do not understand the effervescence and celebration of human life that carnival represents. The reason she suggests is political, in that  carnival isn’t just about partying for partying’s sake, but about the creation of a space of resistance.