‘Beloved’ Mao: New history text in Brazil raises eyebrows

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Political analyst Ali Kamel writes in O Globo that a textbook distributed to some 750,000 public school students ‘is an attempt to make students believe that capitalism is bad and the solution to all problems is socialism.’

About the Cuban Revolution, the text cites ‘an undeniable public support’ for ‘the confiscation of North American companies and the execution by firing squad of the torturers of the army of Fulgencio Batista,’’ the Cuban dictator overthrown by Fidel Castro’s guerrillas.

Mao Tse-tung is described as ‘a great statesman and military leader.... He loved numerous women and they loved him back.’ While calling Mao a ‘great hero’ to many Chinese, it also allows that he was a ‘dictator’ to others.

Kamel asks: ‘How will our kids know that Mao was a cold-blooded assassin of multitudes?’

-- Posted by Patrick J. McDonnellin Buenos Aires and Marcelo Soares in São Paulo.