In African-origin religions Ipadê is a ceremony to greet ancestors and ritualize their importance for the community. The name comes from the Yoruba word Ìpàdé, meaning meeting or encounter. The principles of this ritual were also the essence of the “Ipadê Inter-institutional Agenda” – a meeting to strengthen respect for Afro-Brazilian culture and the ancestry of peoples from African-origin religions.
With the strapline “Building strategies to confront religious racism in Maranhão” the activity provided an arena for listening, reflection and the proposition of joint initiatives to mobilize support to protect the rights of people from African-origin worship houses in the state. The activity was run by the Dan Eji Collective and received funding from CESE through its Small Projects Programme.
“We drafted the Ipadê proposal because the growing religious racism in Maranhão is really significant and the trend is for it to worsen, because we are in a very symbolic political context,” explained the Iyalorixá Jô Brandão, the Collective’s General Coordinator. “We have many cases of religious racism and the legal neglect of these communities. We have played a role to mobilize in order to guarantee access to justice for these groups, particularly for women, who are the most affected by this violence.”
Collective outcomes to confront prejudice
The religious racism data in Brazil is alarming. According to the Human Rights Ministry, in 2022 alone there were 1,201 attacks motivated by religion, an increase of 45% on the two previous years. Under these circumstances, the Dan Eji Collective sought out partnerships with institutions in the justice system, such as the Maranhão State Public Defender’s Office (Defensoria Pública Estadual: DPE-MA) and the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Maranhão (Defensoria Pública da União: DPU-MA), and support from CESE to run the project, “so that we could build pathways with these bodies, the African-origin worship houses and governmental organizations, to draw up strategies for a network of protection for these communities,” she explained.
The event, held in São Luís (Maranhão) in November last year, was attended by 100 people, including representatives of traditional peoples and organizations, and offered a broad and diverse 3-day programme. This included panels to debate themes such as institutional initiatives for the promotion of the rights of peoples from the African-origin worship houses, identity, communications and collective memories, the meeting also provided space for a fair for Afro-enterprises and cultural activities. The debates generated 14 inter-institutional proposals for implementation by judicial bodies and for the construction of a protective front to centralize these referrals. The front also hopes to produce a publication containing an analytical report about racism cases in Maranhão to draw the attention of national bodies to the theme.
Black people’s protagonism
In Jô Brandão’s opinion, the success of the project is not only seen in these developments but also because peoples from the African-origin worship houses were protagonists in its construction. “This challenges the practices of judicial institutions and their racist view of traditional communities,” she noted.
“Our role to reassert an African-origin vision of the world also means dealing with ready-made models and methodologies that do not always recognize our realities. So, our aim to bring this worldview into political proposals, into our work methodologies, has also provoked the external reflection that the institutions need to renew their view of the worship houses, to reframe their view within this work with traditional communities, which I think are models of organization and sustainability for the world. We need other groups to see that we have such great potential. This poses great challenges for us, requires a great investment of energy, because society is used to seeing us as subordinate. So proposing, building, presenting, telling is always a challenge for us,” she declared.
The Iyalorixá also underlined the importance of CESE’s support in this construction. “Despite being a small project, we were able to run a large event, mobilize great partners and obtain great visibility, with important and strategic institutions for this relationship. For us, it was very important that CESE also believes in our work as a small, very new, institution, one with a huge desire for cooperation. We are sure this will generate new relationships, new partnerships and visibility for us, creating the possibilities to build pathways with other institutions,” she said.