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Brazil's Foreign Minister Wants to Save the West from Postmodernism

The Curious Case of Ernesto Araujo

In November 2018, Jair Bolsonaro, then Brazil鈥檚 president-elect, made an explosive announcement: he would be appointing Ernesto Araujo to the position of foreign minister. This would have been a controversial appointment under any circumstances: Araujo, 51, had for most of his career been an undistinguished career diplomat within Brazil鈥檚 foreign service, the Itamaraty, and he had only recently achieved ambassadorial status, a middling rank in the corps. His colleagues described him as competent and bookish, but he was the most junior candidate for the top job in a country with an especially hierarchical diplomatic corps.

These were not normal circumstances. After spending years in Washington diligently promoting the policies of successive presidents from Brazil鈥檚 left-leaning Workers鈥� Party, in 2017 Araujo had shocked his colleagues by publishing a deeply conservative essay titled 鈥淭rump and the West鈥� for the Itamaraty鈥檚 official journal. In the essay, Araujo denounced the United Nations and other so-called globalist forces for attempting to supplant true nationalism, which in his view arises from 鈥済ods and ancestors鈥� rather than appeals to chimerical 鈥渧alues.鈥� The West, Araujo wrote, was united neither by alliances nor by commitments such as human rights; it was a 鈥渃ommunity of nations鈥� bound by 鈥渢he scars of the past,鈥� from the Greeks鈥� victory over the Persians at Salamis to the Allied landing at Omaha Beach.