Controversial São Paulo monument subject to debate amid wave of statue attacks

As anti-racism protests pop up around the world, demonstrators have started a wave of defacing, toppling, or destroying monuments dedicated to historical figures such as slave traders, Christopher Columbus, or — more specifically in the U.S. — confederate generals. Before the trend reaches Brazil, authorities in the southern São Paulo neighborhood of Santo Amaro employed 24-7 surveillance to protect the statue of Borba Gato, a monument to the “Bandeirantes,” the historic rovers that literally shaped Brazil, but left an untold trail of blood wherever they passed. 

In São Paulo, the Bandeirantes are considered a symbol of the state’s bullishness, which many locals believe led the region to become the country’s cultural, financial, and industrial center. People from São Paulo often like to call the state “Brazil’s engine,” and constantly talk about how they — almost by themselves — were carrying the rest of Brazil on its back.

In an op-ed entitled “Leave Gone With the Wind and the Borba Gato statue alone,” journalist Thaís Oyama — a columnist for news website UOL — wrote that attacking monuments is a way of erasing history. “Tearing down statues and tossing movies on a bonfire does not match the era of tolerance and the end of discrimination [protesters] fight for,” she wrote. 

Many don’t share Ms. Oyama’s point of view. On Twitter, lawyer Thiago Amparo said: “I wonder what would be destroyed with the removal of the Borba Gato statue, besides the self-image of a society that places genocidal men as national heroes.”

As a matter of fact, this is not the first time the statue — often called a monstrosity for its kitsch architectural style and bizarre proportions — has been the subject of debate. In 2016, the monument was defaced in a protest against what the Bandeirantes stood for. At the time, authorities called the act “pure vandalism,” but activists called for the statue’s removal.