Juca Ferreira: “Gil founded the Ministry of Culture 20 years later”

I met Gil at the time he wanted to be mayor of Salvador. I went with friends to his house to offer to work for free, since it would be a luxury for Salvador to have a mayor like him. Of course, I knew him from afar, I was a fan.

The very gesture of working for free already signaled this relationship of enormous admiration.

I was born in 1949 and was a fan of Tropicalism. I followed him since I was 16 or 17, when Gil, Caetano, Bethânia, Gal sang at the Vila Velha Theatre, before going to São Paulo to really start the movement.

I was already a fan of that music they presented in concerts like Nós, for instance (promoted in 1964 to open the Vila Velha Theater, in Salvador, with Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia, Gilberto Gil, and Gal Costa). It was a new song that translated a bit of the spirit of times.

I was into the revolution, it was a different path. But these two paths weren’t as distant as they seemed.

I’ve talked to Gil and Caetano about this. They were the expression in music; we were the expression in politics, an update, a universalization of Brazil. We were facing the sore spots.

But our thing was politics, and in a very rough time for Brazil, with Médici, torture, prisons. So, the same authoritarianism that came down on us violently also came down on these artists that were coming up as contesting spirits.

So you can see that there was a huge identification, at least from our part: some people preferred Chico Buarque.

There was this thing at the time, Chico Buarque was a bit more square, traditional, but also with quality poetry. It was a music of the time, with a firm root in tradition, more so than the guys from Bahia.

I had come back from exile and there was this idea of Gil as a mayor. It was with Antônio Risério, who was my friend since I was 16. We rang the doorbell and, when it opened, it was Flora: “Gil, your poor friends are here!” She said that to mess with us, of course!

Years later, Gil was elected councilman. I didn’t really like the idea. I remember the conversation until today: “If it were a mayoral election, you would organize the scene, but, as a councilman, it will be you in the middle of a collectiveness with a high level of mediocrity.”

But Gil was up for that and got the highest number of votes. Later, he wanted to become a member of the Green Party (PV, in the Portuguese acronym), and I organized the affiliation.

Fernando Gabeira, Alfredo Sirkis, and other people who were activists for the Green Party came to Bahia. It was good for Gil, because he left MDB, which wasn’t at all his scene and had kept him from running.

Gil invited me to work at the OndAzul NGO. It was a group that followed Gil for a long time. They were smart, prepared people, but OndAzul was a bit left to its own devices. And we started to activate it. Gil was very involved.

I remember we articulated, for instance, the defense of the Almada River, in the Ilhéus area. We gathered the land workers and had a beautiful meeting in defense of the river. Gil charmed people and always found a way. His symbolic strength was impressive.

We did a lot of environmental activism stuff. We started to talk a lot about culture, it was a central theme. We had to choose between difficult choices.

Petrobras spilled oil in the Guanabara Bay. The accident was a scandal in Brazil. They came to propose that Gil go to the front line of OndAzul to cover it up.

Gil refused to play that role. The role he could fulfil was to publicly demand that Petrobras take responsibility as a state company.

The guy jumped out of his chair: “Enemies? Adversaries, Gil!” And he said: “Enemies. Let’s talk about strategic issues here.”

I was scared because I had never seen anyone start a conversation like that. Gil is usually delicate, but once in a while he expresses himself in a very enthusiastic way.

The representative made the offer: “We will finance OndAzul for ten years.” And he suggested we’d have to defend the company in return. “No way! Like I said, we’re enemies,” Gil replied. The guy recoiled and left. What a memorable day, that one!

When Lula invited him to become minister, Gil proposed: “Juca, I want you to go with me.” I was scared, I had never thought about living in Brasília.

I lived ten years outside Bahia between prisoner, clandestine, and exiled. I came back needy for Bahia, for the sea, the food, the mess of Bahia, I have an absolute affinity with Salvador. I resisted for almost a month.

He had a good personal team prepared, but he wanted me by his side, because of intellectual, political, and ethical trust as well.

So he used a clever trick: “You go with me to negotiate a position, because they will pressure me, and I will give in. I know you're tough and have more experience.” I said: “All right, let's go!”

Gil argued: “I don't want to be the Pelé of the Lula administration.” “What would that be?,” asked Lula. “A symbolic figure who doesn't rule anything. I came here to do a job for Brazilian culture and I'm throwing myself into it.” Lula was fascinated, his eyes were shining.

Back when we were with OndAzul, Fernando Henrique Cardoso had invited him to be minister. “FHC will want to take me on. I’ll lay my conditions down on the table right away,” Gil warned, still on the flight to Brasília.

At the Alvorada Palace, the president joked with Gil: “Juca, you don’t know the shame Gil put me through during the Independence Day celebrations! We organized a dinner, Gil was by my side, he opened his pocket, got a little aluminum package full of macrobiotic rice…

I’m telling this to get back to the Lula administration negotiations. I ended up fascinated and proposed:

Only Riserio (Gil’s special advisor and pal) knew me. Every single thing we did was a gigantic debate. As executive secretary, I had the power not to involve Gil in things that would not be good for him.

I’ll give you an example. They wrote a line for Gil in which he was going to be really hard on the black movement.

Most of the issues and problems [in the movement] are real, but there is the specificity that it is an articulated social movement to face one of the biggest problems of Brazilian society, inequality. There is no problem in criticizing it, as long as there is an appreciation.

“Gil, you don’t say you’re black, you don’t say you’re proud to be black, do you understand yourself as black?” With that laugh of him which makes you turn your neck, he provoked back:

Waly didn't know me, but he came to my side: “I started by supporting others, but I became aware that politics has to be dealt with so that Gil can portray his greatness in the work that will be done.”

This sedimented a great friendship with Waly, a person who is exaggerated in everything. I had the greatest fascination for that exaggeration. He was surprising all the time. At his funeral, the widow, Marta, remembered that Waly had enormous admiration for my positions.

I told her it was generous of Waly. “You're wrong, my son,” she said back. “Waly wasn't generous, he was a little beast who spoke ill of everyone, just not about you.”

When the Ministry turned 20, there was a celebration for which all the former ministers came, and one of them summed it up: “Gil is founding the Ministry of Culture, 20 years later.”

Gil had the role of leading this process of formulation, articulation, not only of cultural policies, but also of structuring the ministry. We had to reformulate everything. There were some people who argued that everything should be reformulated and then we should consult society.

The winning proposal, which I supported, was to fix the plane during the flight. We would restructure the ministry and build policies with the participation of society, of artists. We were aware that we had come to revolutionize an instance of government.

One day, Gil saw me talking about public policy and asked: “What is public policy?” There weren’t two people with the same notion in that place, and we did a poll.

Few people knew that it was the main way for the State to serve society in certain organized areas, such as the ministry. So he suggested we have a debate.

It was very good because we unified that diverse universe. There were those who came with Gil, those nominated by the party, artists with great services rendered for Brazilian culture, but they all needed to be in sync.

I would divide the tasks into three territories: things I didn’t have to ask him; things I had to consult him before doing; and things that I did myself and talked when needed. Gil is quick in his leadership, that’s the experience of music.

We were building the Ministry of Culture, we didn’t have time for a plan, but we got the methodology right, the main objectives, the spirit of taking risks. Two different ministers asked: “Juca, can’t you run this thing with less noise?”

I argued no, because the day culture is silent is a day to be suspicious. There has to be debate, confrontation.

When we started working and implementing policies, which later came to consecrate us as the great cultural management of the Brazilian State, at each step we had a million ideas. And the method was permanent participation and debate. Gil delegated.

But there comes a time when you have to make the decision. Gil showed himself capable of letting the ball roll, but every now and then, either taking for himself or delegating and sharing decisions.

“... You have to find people who know things you don’t and create a system of work that you can assimilate.” I’d say I had more talent to enable processes. Gil had a huge leadership capacity.

He’s not just a songwriter, musician, singer, he’s a thinker too. And he has always stood out for his positions on Brazilian culture, and we count on that as an accumulated strength in his trajectory. Lula respected him, his little eyes sparkled when Gil gave speeches.

We went from R$ 287 million in the FHC administration’s budget to R$1,3 billion. Once, Lula was speaking to ministers, with their teams behind, and joked: “I wanted to take this opportunity to ask Gil and his executive secretary not to ask me for money publicly.”

And Gil, back there: “Then give it to us.” And it caused a general laugh. That issue was vital. You couldn’t do anything with R$287 million because 70% of the budget was spent on permanent expenses.

After Gil asked to leave, when Lula invited me (to take over the Ministry, in 2008), I only had one demand: to keep asking for money publicly. Lula joked: “I thought I was getting rid of Gilberto Gil and you come with the same demand!” I retorted:

“We have to reach the level of at least 1% of the budget.” And we’ve conquered this number with Gil’s symbolic strength in society. It was amazing, when we went to the interior of Brazil or to big cities, what Gil’s charisma awakened.

Thanks to our tenacity, to Gil’s leadership, to the participative work method, we built something in a territory where the Lula government advanced the most.