On May 10th at the Chicago Thinker’s American Identity Summit, Nikolas Ferreira, a 28-year-old conservative rising star and the most voted-for congressman in Brazilian history, detailed the political persecution he has endured for his beliefs and advocacy, how he leveraged social media to become the voice for tens of millions of people across Latin-America, his fight against socialism and corruption in Brazil, and how his faith in God has guided his political journey. For this interview, Ferreira sat down with Eduardo Ribeiro, first-year undergraduate at UChicago and Chicago Thinker staff writer.
After introducing himself, Ferreira painted a bleak image of the state of free speech in Brazil and claimed that the Brazilian government is ignoring constitutionally enshrined protections of free speech. He additionally emphasized the global implications of these attacks on free speech in Brazil, calling it “very dangerous, not [just] for Brazil, but for the whole world.” Ferreira described that he is facing over 100 lawsuits regarding his speech, and further detailed the use of censorship by the Brazilian Supreme Court to disable his social media accounts which possess over 35 million followers across platforms: “After the 2022 elections [in Brazil], my Instagram, my Twitter, and my Facebook [accounts] were shut down by order of the Minister of the Supreme Court and I don’t know why. My lawyer, that is here, doesn’t know why.”
The Brazilian congressman then described the importance of social media in serving as a public square for political discourse, and when asked how he acquired a global following on social media, with some of his posts even acquiring over 300 million views, he simply claimed: “I only spoke the truth. That’s the success of the video. And everyone shared this video because they didn’t know how to say what they were feeling and the video translated this. So [now], they only needed to share this.”
Ferreira then criticized what he claimed to be a cycle of dependence of Brazilian people on politicians that have continuously failed them: “There’s a promise that [politicians claim they] can keep, they go to government and blame someone [for putting] the people in poverty, and then say ‘oh you’re poor, you need me again’ and then they repeat this.” Ferreira expands what he believes to be a detrimental dependence on government to the consequences of socialist policies in Brazil, proclaiming: “If this state [educates] your son, if the government gives you [a] home, health, [and] security, why [would] you need God? Why [would] you need family? The state provides anything, so the government [has become] God, and the government is not made by [a] mythical figure, but it’s made by people.”
Finally, Ferreira concludes by highlighting that his political journey and his religious faith cannot be separated but are intertwined in what he sees as his life’s mission. In the face of what he claims to be threats to his speech, freedom, and even his life, Ferreira described that his faith in God gives him fortitude in his continued efforts: “Of course I don’t want to lose my life, I don’t want to be in prison. It would be unnatural if I chased this. But I know that my mission has sacrifices, and if they kill me, all they’re going to do is make me meet my savior, so I’m very safe about that.”