Welcome to the 2022 Antigua Forum hosted by the University of Diodythra and CISCO Marrakeen, a free market university here in Guatemala. Today we are with Marcel Venhatum, a journalist, political scientist and politician. Currently he is a member of the Chamber of Deputies, the Lower House of Congress in Brazil. And he's vice leader of the political party, Partido Nouveau. Welcome Marcel. Thank you for your time. It's a pleasure to be here. Well it's great to be with you. Well Marcel you are first elected to public office as a city council member at the age of 18 years old. Today you serve in Congress in Brazil. Tell us why you first ran for public office and why you continue to serve in public office today. Well my parents thought I was crazy or something because they're not related to politics. My father is a civil engineer, my mother is an architect so and a small entrepreneur. But I sensed at a very young age that it was important to have people who fight the state bureaucracy and so on. So this is why I started early on. I was just 17 when I affiliated myself to a political party which is necessary in Brazil. You have to be affiliated to a political party become a member to run and I run for the city council. And also because I was a journalist at a time so I covered the city council, the gatherings that happened every Monday and I thought that I could maybe also collaborate with my community. And what was the journey from being in city council to being in Congress? Well first I was at the council then I decided to run for the state legislature twice in 2006 and 2010. But I'll change again in 2013. We had protests against the government at the time many friends of mine and previous supporters in my political campaign saying hey Marcel maybe you should give it another shot. And we had a very good result by only 351 votes and in 2018 I ran as a candidate for the federal house. This time at Partido Nouveau so it was a choice also that I made at the eyes of many people difficult choice because I was not in a traditional party, very small party, libertarian party in the positions in favor of free market, the defense of the individual. And yet I got 350,000 votes. I was the most voted candidate in my state, Hilgrange de Sou. Yeah, quite a journey, quite a journey. Well so in addition to that I understand you started your career as a newspaper delivery man and also as a reporter for a Brazilian newspaper. Why did you first get involved in those roles and what do you see as the proper role of the free press? The first job I had outside family jobs was at the newspaper, the local newspaper. I was a paper boy and was really happy with it. Was at the end of the day at the liver of the paper, talked with people and I was like that kind of thing. And in 2000, well when I was actually 16 years I was going to the United States for a robotics competition. And at the time I told the owner of the newspaper that was going to the United States and maybe he would be interested in receiving some text from there, some stories about American way of life what was going on there. So he accepted the idea. I sent some text of course was completely voluntary, well I did voluntarily. But when I returned he said that everybody liked the text so he hired me as a reported local newspaper. And I think free press is completely fundamental for democracy. As a journalist I advocate for free press, I advocate for freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and also that a press could be as more neutral as possible because when we see that there are too much special in stories right not not in op ads because that's a whole different story. But especially in stories or in reporting I think journalists should keep their eyes on the truth, no matter if it will hurt somebody should keep their job always this way. Well speaking of writing you're the author of two books. Can you tell us a little bit about the subject matter of those books and how the message has been received? Sure. Well the first book is actually a collection of some of my speeches I gave in the state legislature. It's a sort of a legacy from my mandate. Let's put it that way. A humble legacy would say but it's very good to have something out that people can read later and see a little bit about my own biography and the authors I like because I cite many times, Mises and Bastia and Friedman and also other classically-broad libertarian thinkers. And my second book just came out now. I wrote in a partnership with Chagwaalbers. He's a theologian. We are both Lutherans and the title of the book is very provocative. Oh by the way the first book's name is almost not as common as us. This is us with one voice so it's like that's why the speeches are connecting to somebody expressing other people's opinion people who I represented during my state legislature term. But the second book has a provocative title which is is politics a devil's thing. And we try to put in perspective how politics is played in biblical times since ancient times since the first books of the Bible and how it developed throughout the Christianity's history and what is the importance of politics in today's Christian's life. Yeah so you alluded before in your books you have some of these speeches that you've given in Congress and the legislature and in a really captivating speech in Brazil. Your answer and perhaps the big line at the end of the speech was I don't want to live in another country. I want to live in another Brazil. What has been happening in Brazil during the course of your lifetime and what are some of the solutions you propose for a free and prosperous Brazil? Well sure. Well this speech was given at the state legislature in Rio Grande de Sous. But I'm sure it got everywhere soon afterwards because it was really a hit. I said something that many people wanted to hear and wanted to express because actually we don't want to live in another country. We want to make our countries a better place to live. So I didn't want to live in in another country. I want to live in another Brazil. That was the bottom line of my speech and is the bottom line of my activities now in the Brazil and Congress. And in order to accomplish that we have to give people more freedom. We have to limit the state. We have to give the example. Well Marcel thank you for being here at the Antigua Forum and we hope to see you back here in the future. I hope to see you too. In the future again Francisco was a pleasure to meet you, a pleasure to meet so many nice people around here. Congratulations for what hit you have done too. Well I hope to see you next year.