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The Independent (London)
October 26, 2006 Thursday
First Edition
FERNANDO GASPARIAN; Publisher and industrialist
by Hugh O'Shaughnessy
The industrialist Fernando Gasparian was a defender of democracy and
the most distinguished publisher Brazil produced in the late 20th
century.
He was born in 1930 to parents of Armenian extraction and to the
considerable prosperity the family textile business ensured. After
studying engineering, he and his friends Rubens Paiva (who became a
federal deputy and was later assassinated by the military), Almino
Afonso and Marcos Pereira took over the periodical Jornal de Debates
in 1953. It pursued a Brazil-centred line opposing much foreign
investment and the privatisation of the state oil company Petrobras.
Early in 1964 Gasparian bought America Textil, a substantial Rio de
Janeiro textile company, which had got into difficulties and was
being supported by the Banco do Brasil. After the US-supported
military putsch against the civilian government of President João
Goulart later that year, he was a target for the new dictatorship as
a founder of the opposition Brazilian Democratic Movement, the MDB.
The military cut off bank funding for his company. After the
dictatorship lurched further to the right in 1969 Gasparian found it
politic to leave Brazil, for exile, eventually finding a teaching
post at St Antony's College, Oxford.
He returned to Brazil in 1972 to found Opinião, a hard-hitting
magazine which upset the dictatorship, also acquiring
thepublishinghousePazeTerra.Overthe years this became a powerhouse of
political and social thought and liberation theology. Alceu Amoroso
Lima, Celso Furtado, Helio Jaguaribe, Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
Octavio Paz, Torcuato di Tella, Alain Touraine, Brian Van Arkadie,
Dudley Seers and Paulo Freire were among the imprint's authors.
Gasparian returned to Oxford for a few months in 1973 before going
home tolaunchthemonthly CadernosdeOpinião. Its second number enraged
the military by carrying the text of a lecture by Hélder Cmara, the
irrepressible archbishop of Olinda and Recife. Gasparian was charged
with offences against "national security" by a regime which was
obsessed by that slippery concept. In the event he was acquitted.
Unabashed, the dictatorship had a bomb placed in his editorial
offices in 1976.
When dictatorship gave way to constitutional government Gasparian
devot-edmoretimetopolitics,in1985becomin g treasurer for the campaign
of his friend Fernando Henrique Cardoso forthemayoralty of São Paulo.
In 1986 he was elected to the constituent assembly framing a new
constitution, on which he served until 1988. There he pushed for a
limit of 12 per cent on bank lending rates, financial support for
agrarian reform, limitationson foreign investment in mining and a ban
on capital punishment.
>From 1993 to 1995 he was active in the Latin American Parliament. He
was increasingly at odds with Cardoso after the
latterwonthepresidencyandin1995publicly criticised what he saw as
Cardoso's excessive reliance on foreign banks attracted to Brazil by
high interest rates.
Talking to Fernando Gasparian last month, I found him as eager for
new projects and ideas as when I first met him in 1970. With his
death, comments Bernardo Kucinski, "it can be said that a generation
of patriotic businessmen committed to a scheme of national
development has become extinct".
Fernando Gasparian, industrialist and publisher: born São Paulo,
Brazil 27 January 1930; married (three sons, one daughter); died São
Paulo 7 October 2006.
October 26, 2006 Thursday
First Edition
FERNANDO GASPARIAN; Publisher and industrialist
by Hugh O'Shaughnessy
The industrialist Fernando Gasparian was a defender of democracy and
the most distinguished publisher Brazil produced in the late 20th
century.
He was born in 1930 to parents of Armenian extraction and to the
considerable prosperity the family textile business ensured. After
studying engineering, he and his friends Rubens Paiva (who became a
federal deputy and was later assassinated by the military), Almino
Afonso and Marcos Pereira took over the periodical Jornal de Debates
in 1953. It pursued a Brazil-centred line opposing much foreign
investment and the privatisation of the state oil company Petrobras.
Early in 1964 Gasparian bought America Textil, a substantial Rio de
Janeiro textile company, which had got into difficulties and was
being supported by the Banco do Brasil. After the US-supported
military putsch against the civilian government of President João
Goulart later that year, he was a target for the new dictatorship as
a founder of the opposition Brazilian Democratic Movement, the MDB.
The military cut off bank funding for his company. After the
dictatorship lurched further to the right in 1969 Gasparian found it
politic to leave Brazil, for exile, eventually finding a teaching
post at St Antony's College, Oxford.
He returned to Brazil in 1972 to found Opinião, a hard-hitting
magazine which upset the dictatorship, also acquiring
thepublishinghousePazeTerra.Overthe years this became a powerhouse of
political and social thought and liberation theology. Alceu Amoroso
Lima, Celso Furtado, Helio Jaguaribe, Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
Octavio Paz, Torcuato di Tella, Alain Touraine, Brian Van Arkadie,
Dudley Seers and Paulo Freire were among the imprint's authors.
Gasparian returned to Oxford for a few months in 1973 before going
home tolaunchthemonthly CadernosdeOpinião. Its second number enraged
the military by carrying the text of a lecture by Hélder Cmara, the
irrepressible archbishop of Olinda and Recife. Gasparian was charged
with offences against "national security" by a regime which was
obsessed by that slippery concept. In the event he was acquitted.
Unabashed, the dictatorship had a bomb placed in his editorial
offices in 1976.
When dictatorship gave way to constitutional government Gasparian
devot-edmoretimetopolitics,in1985becomin g treasurer for the campaign
of his friend Fernando Henrique Cardoso forthemayoralty of São Paulo.
In 1986 he was elected to the constituent assembly framing a new
constitution, on which he served until 1988. There he pushed for a
limit of 12 per cent on bank lending rates, financial support for
agrarian reform, limitationson foreign investment in mining and a ban
on capital punishment.
>From 1993 to 1995 he was active in the Latin American Parliament. He
was increasingly at odds with Cardoso after the
latterwonthepresidencyandin1995publicly criticised what he saw as
Cardoso's excessive reliance on foreign banks attracted to Brazil by
high interest rates.
Talking to Fernando Gasparian last month, I found him as eager for
new projects and ideas as when I first met him in 1970. With his
death, comments Bernardo Kucinski, "it can be said that a generation
of patriotic businessmen committed to a scheme of national
development has become extinct".
Fernando Gasparian, industrialist and publisher: born São Paulo,
Brazil 27 January 1930; married (three sons, one daughter); died São
Paulo 7 October 2006.