Secular State, Cross

Subtitle: Psychopathology of the Brazilian State

1. Opening — Fractal, 17 years old

You enter a public building.

A court.
A city hall.
A classroom.

On the wall, a cross.

It feels normal.

But for those who were here before colonization, that cross may not be only faith.

It may be memory.

Under the cross, millions of Indigenous people across the Americas lost land, language, body, world, and future.

So the question is not against belief.

The question is:

Can a secular State carry, above all, a symbol that does not represent all?

2. Deepening

A secular State is not a State without spirituality.

It is a State that does not impose one spirituality as official.

It must protect the rights of Christians, Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant traditions, atheists, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and all legitimate ways of being.

The problem begins when one religious symbol becomes naturalized as the symbol of the State itself.

The cross, for millions, represents love, sacrifice, and hope.

But historically, it also accompanied colonization.

European expansion into the Americas was justified in part by doctrines that framed non-Christian lands as available for domination. In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated concepts associated with the “Doctrine of Discovery,” recognizing that such ideas did not reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples.

This is not symbolic.

It is institutional recognition of a historical wound.

Colonization of the Americas led to massive population collapse among Indigenous peoples due to disease, violence, displacement, forced labor, and cultural destruction. Demographic studies estimate tens of millions of deaths after 1492.

In Brazil, violence continued for centuries. The Figueiredo Report, rediscovered in 2013, documented severe abuses against Indigenous peoples during the 20th century, including torture, enslavement, and massacres.

So when the cross appears in public space, it does not appear in a vacuum.

It appears over history.

For some, it is faith.
For others, it is memory of imposition.
For others, it is silence about genocide.

Here lies the psychopathology:

the State declares itself secular, but preserves the symbol of the colonizer as if it were neutral.

It is called “tradition.”
It is called “culture.”
It is called “heritage.”

But tradition for whom?
Culture defined by whom?

In 2024, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court allowed religious symbols in public buildings, framing them as part of cultural tradition.

This reveals the tension between secularism, majority culture, and historical memory.

The issue is not to erase Christianity.

It is to stop erasing others.

Because beneath the cross also remain:

Indigenous nations,
languages suppressed,
rituals delegitimized,
territories taken,
bodies converted,
histories silenced.

A truly secular State does not need to attack the cross.

But it must ask:

If the cross is present, where are Indigenous symbols?
Where are Afro-descendant symbols?
Where is the memory of those who died?
Where is recognition?

Without that, the cross becomes more than faith.

It becomes power.

3. Metacognition

Now bring this inward.

When you see a cross in a public building, what do you feel?

Peace?
Habit?
Indifference?
Protection?

Now shift perspective.

If your people had been invaded, converted, displaced, and declared inferior under that same symbol—

would your body feel the same?

This is the metacognitive turn.

It is not about destroying belief.

It is about recognizing that symbols carry memory.

The question becomes:

Does my symbolic comfort depend on someone else’s silenced pain?

If yes, this is not a secular State.

It is a colonial State with legal language.

True secularism begins when the State stops presenting one symbol as if it represented all.

Because “we” does not emerge when one tradition fills the wall.

“We” emerges when all can breathe in the same space.

References (Didactic Order)

Books

1. Ailton Krenak — Ideas to Postpone the End of the World
   Shows that territory, memory, and existence cannot be reduced to colonial logic.

2. Davi Kopenawa & Bruce Albert — The Falling Sky
   Describes the forest as a living world and denounces spiritual and territorial violence against Indigenous peoples.

3. Bartolomé de las Casas — A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
   One of the earliest accounts documenting colonial violence in the Americas.

4. Aníbal Quijano — Coloniality of Power
   Explains how colonial domination persists as a structure of knowledge, race, economy, and symbols.

5. Boaventura de Sousa Santos — If God Were a Human Rights Activist
   Explores how religion can relate to justice without becoming a tool of domination.

6. David Graeber & David Wengrow — The Dawn of Everything
   Reinforces that human societies do not need to be organized around domination, hierarchy, or a single official belief system.

Post-2021 Publications and Documents

1. Vatican — Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery (2023)
   Recognizes that concepts used to justify land seizure violated the dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples.

2. National Congress of American Indians — Statement on Doctrine of Discovery (2023)
   Frames the doctrine as a historical basis for dehumanization and dispossession.

3. Associated Press (2025) — Vatican and Indigenous Reconciliation Coverage
   Discusses advances and limitations in Catholic reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples.

4. Brazilian Supreme Federal Court — Debate on Religious Symbols in Public Spaces (2024)
   Highlights the tension between secularism, tradition, and pluralism in Brazil.

5. Demographic Studies on Indigenous Population Collapse in the Americas
   Quantify the massive population decline due to colonization, including disease and violence.

6. Figueiredo Report Documentation (Brazil)
   Documents systemic violence against Indigenous peoples in the 20th century, showing colonial patterns persisting into modern State structures.