MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil: Lula visits ailing linguist Noam Chomsky and other “Over 90s”

Lula spent 40 minutes with Chomsky

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva paid a visit Monday to renowned linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky who is recovering from heart surgery at his home in Sao Paulo. The 95-year-old US thinker has resided in South America's largest city since marrying Brazilian national and fellow linguist Valeria Wasserman.

Chomsky, who visited Lula da Silva in 2018 while he was incarcerated amid the Lava Jato scandal, was discharged from the local Hospital Beneficencia Portuguesa last week. While in Sao Paulo, Lula also met with former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso now aged 93 (1995-2002), to mark the 30th anniversary of the Real Plan through which the country's currency was changed as part of an inflation-curbing strategy implemented during Itamar Franco's government (1992-1995). The president also met with two intellectual friends on Monday in Sao Paulo, the writer Raduan Nassar and the Italian-Brazilian journalist Mino Carta. Last Thursday, Lula had been in the northeastern State of Maranhao with former President José Sarney (1985-1990), aged 94.

“Today I visited in Sao Paulo four people for whom I have great affection: former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, linguist Noam Chomsky, journalist Mino Carta, and writer Raduan Nassar. Last Friday, I had already visited, in Maranhão, former president José Sarney”, Lula wrote on X.

According to Folha de Sao Paulo, Lula spent 40 minutes with Chomsky with whom he discussed plans for a meeting of democratic heads of state to discuss ways to stop the advance of the ultra-right in the world.

A former professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other universities, Chomsky is known for his activism against the White House's foreign policy. It was at Harvard University, where he worked as a research assistant between 1951 and 1955, and produced most of his studies on linguistics. He gained activist notoriety in 1964 with his protests against the Vietnam War.