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Nabuco and crimes against humanity

In an interview with The Washington Post, the president-elect Rousseff criticized Brazil's abstention in the vote on UN resolution condemning Iran for human rights violations . 125 years ago, during the campaign abolitionist, Joaquim Nabuco, the centenary of whose death we celebrate this year, has faced similar problem and gave him a pioneer and clear answer.

Given the difficulties faced in the country by advocates of abolition, Nabuco decided to expand the arena of struggle and seek support public opinion in Europe, especially Britain. He traveled to London where he asked for and received strong support from the British and Foreign Society for the Abolition of Slavery. The decision cost him dearly. According denounced in a speech in the British capital in 1881, the Brazilian slave began to accuse him of encouraging a moral intervention of Europe in our domestic affairs, revealing to the world a disgrace that should be carefully concealed. Accused him, in other words, lack of patriotism, if not treason. Pecha similar, let us remember, was attributed to that during the military governments abroad denounced the crimes of the dictatorship. It was said then that the muckrakers were denigrating the name of the country. The prosecution struck Nabuco her deeply and tried to defend himself on several occasions.

Slavery, he claimed, was a crime condemned by civilization. We would say today, a crime against humanity. Combat it, raise Brazil to the level of civilization already reached by other people, could not be unpatriotic act. Convene international opinion to help us in this struggle was, rather, a patriotic service rendered to the Brazilian nation. In "abolitionism" denounced as one of the evils of slavery just to have it corrupted our patriotism by putting it in the service of a crime. Admitted no contradiction between naçãoe civilization. The nation was performed to incorporate the values of civilization. It was, in other words, the same argument of Jose Bonifacio in 1823. Slavery, said the Andrada, attacked the values of Christianity and civilization. With it you could not build a liberal nor a nation.

Nabuco it was also a pioneer. The idea of crimes against humanity, crimes that go beyond borders and national interests, is increasingly gaining acceptance. One of the good consequences of globalization is certainly the increasingly wide diffusion of the concept of human rights. The abolitionist certainly feel vindicated by the victory of his views. Even as a diplomat, he would brook no tolerance or indulgence in such crimes under any justification, ideological, political, pragmatic, or in defense of national sovereignty.

Joaquim Nabuco certainly agree with the terms of declarations of human rights Rousseff made to the reporter from the Washington Post.

José Murilo de Carvalho is a historian.

Originally published in O Globo newspaper on December 12, 2010.