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Brazilian Integralist Action

Ação Integralista Brasileira

image by António Martins and Tomislav Todorovic, 5 June 2023

About the Flag and the Party
Erroneous Variant Flag

Ação Integralista Brasileira

Brazilian Integralist Action

A Bandeira Integralista was the site [no longer on-line--ed.] of the Acção Integralista Brasileira (Brazilian Integralist Action), a ultra-right nationalist group or party:

In a royal blue field, a white sphere, in the centre of which is an uppercase sigma.
The blue of our flag symbolizes the attitude of the integralist thought. It suggests distances, showing that integralism doesn't accept the political limits that have been underevaluating us (bad translation here), but has a great ideal, that is the integrity of Brazil and the projection of its greatness among the peoples of the Universe.... The white sphere shows the purity of feelings and the honesty of the integralist feelings. The white colour is also the result of the mixture of all the colours, and the sigma means the integralization of all social forces in the supreme expression of Nationhood."

Jorge Candeias, 11 February 1998

I just noted that there's a hidden mathematical meaning on this symbol. Upper case sigma is the symbol for successive addition, while the integral calculus (symbolized by an old styled lower case italic "s") is kind of an "extension" of the very notion of successive adding. Any other flags with mathematical symbols on them?
António Martins, 20 February 1998

According to the Integralist website, http://www.integralismo.com, the sigma on the flag is black. The website says the design is in homage to Ação Integralista Brasileira (1932-37) and the Partido de Representação Popular (1946-64). The party agenda is, according to its site, focused on anti-globalization and repudiating US military presence in the Amazon. Ben Box (ed.), Brazil Handbook (Bath: Footprint Handbooks, 1998) says the AIB was a fascist movement founded in 1932 by Plínio Salgado after the 1930 revolution that brought Getúlio Vargas to power. Vargas banned all parties in 1937 and foiled an Integralist plot to seize power by force during the 1938 elections by declaring a state of siege. The AIB was revived in the guise of the PRP, one of the legal parties permitted after World War II, which were abolished when the armed forces seized power from the elected civilian government in 1964.
Joseph McMillan, 6 July 2001

The contemporary photos of party activities, as well as modern photos of surviving artifacts related to the party, reveal a peculiar form of sigma, with a pointed top serif and a rectangular bottom one; although its shape seems to have varied a lot, these features seem to have been constant.

Sources:
[1] Espírito Santo Public Archive website: https://ape.es.gov.br/Not%C3%ADcia/a-historia-da-acao-integralista-brasileira-no-acervo-do-arquivo-publico
[2] DELFOS website: https://www.pucrs.br/delfos/acervos/historicos/documentos-da-acao-integralista-brasileira/#abaalbum-de-imagens
[3] Toda Matéria website: https://www.todamateria.com.br/acao-integralista-brasileira/
[4] Imago História website: https://imagohistoria.blogspot.com/2009/05/movimento-integralista.html
[5] Folha de S.Paulo newspaper website: https://fotografia.folha.uol.com.br/galerias/1652536001677941-acervo-do-integralismo

Tomislav Todorovic, 5 June 2023

This flag is also presented on reddit.com as "Flag of Sigma males". However in the only comment it's referred to likewise as Brazilian Integralist Action. The Greek letter Sigma stands also for a certain type of personality – male and female.
Martin Karner, 11 January 2024

This drawing was posted to r/vexillologycirclejerk, a sort of forum within Reddit dedicated to creating jokes about flags. The drawing appears to have created an unintentional resemblance to the BIA’s flag, and a user seems to have made a “connection” to it. Guessing the logic behind this “flag” would be something like the fact that the letter is “sigma” and blue for males.
Daniel Rentería, 11 January 2024

Erroneous Variant Flag of the AIB

[Erroneous Flag of Integralist
Party of Brazil]

image by António Martins

Whitney Smith's Flags Through the Ages and Around the World gives a red upper case sigma on a white circle outlined red on a green 2:3 background, to a party called Partido Integralista, which is probably an older name for the same thing. It seems that the integralists "changed their colors."
António Martins, 20 February 1998

Smith's version of this flag seems to derive from a 1970s article by Pierre C. Lux-Wurms in The Flag Bulletin learnedly describing the flag of the Brazilian Integralists as green with a red sigma on a white disk. Lux-Wurms gives no evidence to support this color scheme, which contradicts every Brazilian contemporary or historical source I've found, all of which refer to the blue flags of the AIB. So does the site of the revived AIB. The flag was blue with a black sigma, not green with a red sigma.
Joseph McMillan, 4 November and 11 December 2002