Gilberto Gil: the Brazilian Minister of Culture

The word politics comes from the Greek word politikos, meaning "relating to citizens or to the state." Gilberto Gil was born a political being.

Of African descent, he was raised by a father who had gone against the tide by becoming a doctor in a country where black people never had the same opportunities as white people. As a result, Gil's music came to express themes relating to citizenship from very early on.

While Brazil was living under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, Gil also started airing his feelings about the State in his songs. For this, he paid a high price.

He was arrested with Caetano Veloso on December 27th 1968 – just after the "Ato Institucional nº 5" [Institutional Act nº 5], which reduced free speech, being decreed.

In July 1969, Caetano and Gil were exiled in England and set base in London, in Chelsea neighbourhood. When Gil went back to Brazil, in 1972, he didn't stop being and sing what he was and thought. 

On January 25th 1984, Gil participated in the first big demonstration of "Diretas Já" [Direct (Elections) Now] at Sé square, in São Paulo, which asked for direct elections for presidency.

Tancredo Neves' victory in the indirect presidential elections on January 15, 1985 marked the end of more than 20 years of military rule in Brazil. With this political opening, artists felt free to be themselves for the first time since 1964.

And Gil was finally able to have another career alongside his music.

Gilberto Gil started flirting with politics in the late 1970s, when on July 1979 he took the position of member of the Council of Culture of Bahia State – in which Maria Bethânia was also part – integrating what was could the "Chamber of Music". 

He was the first black man to be part of this institution. In 1987, he took the presidency of the Fundação Gregório de Mattos, institution under the Municipal Secretary of Culture of Salvador, city where he moved with his family.

He launched his campaign as a pre-candidate for mayor of Salvador on March 2, 1988, but in August he decided to stand for a vacancy on the City Council (Câmara Municipal) as a candidate for the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB).

In the elections on November 15, the singer was elected councillor for the Bahian capital with the largest number of votes.

In 2002, Gilberto Gil made public his support to the presidency candidate Luís Inácio Lula da Silva. When Lula was elected, in December, Gil accepted the invitation from Lula to take up the post of Minister of Culture in 2003. 

The musician oversaw Brazil's cultural sector as minister until 2008, splitting his time between his political and artistic careers.

The policy created by Gilberto Gil when in the Ministry of Culture was based in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which set three strategies:

Symbolic production, with actions to stimulate cultural production; right to citizenship, emphasizing the social dimension of Culture in inclusion projects; and the economy, understanding the economic function of the creative industry.

The objective of this policy was to reverse priorities that had previously been crystallized. The Cultura Viva program, conceived in 2004, was responsible for the Culture Points, "a network of articulation, reception and dissemination of initiatives and creative wills".

A promotion action aimed at strengthening existing cultural groups, contributing to the maintenance and expansion of their actions.

Gil was delighted at the chance to use his image and his real understanding of what it means to live from art to represent Brazilian culture, and to attract international attention and investment within his country. From the start, he made it clear that he would be seeking a diverse and tolerant democracy: 

"The cultural policy of this ministry, and of the Lula government, should from now on—from this very moment—be seen as part of the overall project to build a new hegemony in our country;...

"... as part of the overall project to build a truly democratic, diverse, and tolerant nation; as an integral part of a coherent and creative project of social radicalism; and as an integral part of building a Brazil for everyone."

Brazil is a country with huge cultural diversity. One of the regions that has always lacked investment is the Northeast—the region Gilberto Gil himself left to take up a job. 

Gil frequently returned to the Northeast during his time in office in order to better understand local culture there, and to enable him to choose areas on which to focus. In 2004, the culture minister visited Pernambuco State for an event featuring maracatu performers:

Groups specialised in a musical rhythm, dance, and ritual that is rooted in local religion. Gil was given a rustic bow instrument known as a rabeca, which was a predecessor to the violin.

It was presented to him by Manuel Salustiano Soares—known as Mestre Salu—a Brazilian actor, musician, composer, and artisan who was included on Pernambuco's Registry of Living Heritage in 2007. 

In 2005, the culture minister also visited the Cariri region in Ceará State to learn about the local culture. Three years later, in 2008, Ceará would host its first World Masters Meeting (Encontro de Mestres do Mundo)—a gathering of Mestres de Cultura, or masters of intangible cultural heritage, organized with the national Culture Ministry (MINC) and the state's own Culture Department (Secretaria de Cultura do Estado).

One of the main challenges by Gilberto Gil in the Ministry was to increase your administration budget: he managed to increase it in 130%.

When he took up the post in 2003, investment in culture stood at 0.2% of Federal budget – around R$ 706 million [US$239 million]; it reached 0.6% in 2006 and was kept in this way in 2007 – a leap to over R$ 1.6 billion (around US$840 million).

With this new budget, the Ministry invested in circuses, an artistic sector previously overlooked by the public authorities, creating the Caravana de Circulação de Espetáculos to take theatre and dance companies to over 500 cities. 

He revived the Pixinguinha project—a cultural event that sought to promote Brazilian Popular Music (MPB) throughout the country. 

He also supported the creation of Cultural Points (Pontos de Cultura), which were sociocultural projects for underprivileged communities, run by government and non-government agencies alike with funding from Brazil's Culture Ministry. 

The minister and artist also ensured that samba de roda—music, dance and poetry performed in a circle (roda)—from Bahia's Recôncavo region was included in UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Soon before he left Brazil's Culture Ministry, Gil set up the National Culture Plan (Plano Nacional de Cultura) in May 2008. The aim of the program was to plan and implement public policies to promote cultural, artistic, and ethnic diversity. 

Another positive to emerge from his time in charge of the culture portfolio was that elements of regional culture such as capoeira, frevo (a style of music and dance), samba de roda, and indigenous body painting received recognition as Brazilian Cultural Heritage (Patrimônio Cultural Brasileiro).

The Brazilian Culture Ministry also set up a program targeting the Afro-Brazilian population, with measures for developing traditional communities, including what remained of quilombos (settlements established by fugitive slaves) and terreiros (ritual spaces in the candomblé religion). 

Capoeira performers from all over Brazil were grateful

With these measures, Gilberto Gil lived up to his words in his inauguration speech: "I want the ministry to be present in every corner of our country. I want this to be home to all those who are thinking about and building Brazil...

"... for it to really be the home of Brazilian culture. And what I understand as culture goes far beyond the restricted and restrictive scope of academic concepts or the rites and liturgy of a supposed 'artistic and intellectual class.'" 

The singer always made a point of insisting that he was "the culture minister," in reference to a former member of the administration saying that an artist was in office.

However, no other minister ever did as much to promote Brazilian culture abroad. At the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, in 2003, Gil sang and played guitar alongside the then Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In 2005, Gil was such an effective poster boy for France's Year of Brazil, promoting culture, business, and tourism, that it even became known as the Year of BraGil (with a soft "g").

Gilberto Gil had been in office since 2003—the first year of Lula's administration—and had tried to leave the Ministry more than once. His last attempt had been in late 2007, when he was having problems with his voice, but the president and other artists ended up persuading him to stay.

He finally left office on July 30, 2008. He was replaced by a fellow Bahian Juca Ferreira, who was the Executive Secretary of the Ministry.

When Gil told Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva he was leaving at the president's offices in the Planalto Palace (Palácio do Planalto), Gil admitted that the president had been sad to hear the news. He was replaced by a fellow Bahian Juca Ferreira. 

On leaving office, Gil praised the president using the name of one of his songs, Refazenda, to define your administration: "Lula government means one extraordinary refazenda in the country".