Gilberto Gil has left the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. He says that music has called him back.

A quick look at reactions surfacing this week in the headlines of the Brazilian mainstream media tell of a singer-minister who did a passable job in using his social capital to boost the ministry’s actions into international channels. Gil’s assignment was almost passed off as just one more of Lula’s ‘populist tricks’ to hold qualified support for himself.

The seemingly condescending tone of Brazilian media comments and analyses about Gil’s performance as a minister are definitely not a surprise. During his term, the mainstream outlets basically ignored or ridiculed some major international coverage such as 2004 Wired magazine article, telling about Gil’s ahead-of-the-curve awareness of the importance of openness among the principles of the digital revolution.

He was ridiculed, indeed, when during an inauguration class at the University of Sao Paulo (USP) in August 2004 he declared:

“I, Gilberto Gil, Brazilian citizen, world citizen and Minister of Culture of Brazil, develop my work in music, in the ministry and in all the dimensions of my existence under the inspiration of hacker ethics; I am concerned about the issues that my world and my time pose to me, such as the issue of the digital divide, of free software and also the issue of regulation and development of audiovisual content production and distribution, by any media, for any purpose”.

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Varjão do Torto is a low income settlement area on the outskirts of Brasília, Brazil’s political capital. It neighbors the land where my community is located, and it is full of young people eager to make things happen. This is where I am collaborating in a workshop for the local ‘Ponto de Cultura’ (Cultural Hotspot), a government program sponsored by the Ministry of Culture:

“The cultural hotspot, a program with a budget of R$ 37 millions (£ 9.2 millions), is about democratization, permitting ideas of different places, from rich to poor cities, be exchanged. “The main goal is to plant seeds” says Claudio. A hotspot is established with a broadband connection, infrastructure made with recycled equipments and, most of all, technical workshops of open-source software, allowing anyone to digitalize their creativity. The workshops aim to create independency, leaving on the hands of each community the ownership of their individual process, decentralizing the system. Technology has always been a tool for social inclusion, but here the main objective is not only to make possible the incorporation of labor to the market, but to give people voice, power over their expression, to give them citizenship.”
Cultural Hotspots - Brazilian open-source and copyleft - Mazine.ws

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