Abílio de Nequete

Abílio de Nequete (Fih-el-Khoura, Lebanon, February 15, 1888 - Porto Alegre, August 7, 1960) was a Lebanese-Brazilian barber, teacher and political activist. Born into a family of Orthodox Christians, he immigrated to Brazil at the age of 14, in 1903, settling in the city of São Feliciano (now Dom Feliciano), a district of Encruzilhada do Sul. There he became a peddler, working together with his father, with whom he had a conflicting relationship, even politically, since his father was a federalist and Abílio joined the Republican Party.

He moved to Porto Alegre between 1907 and 1908, where he worked as a barber. In the Gaucho capital he converted to Spiritism and joined the labor movement. He stood out as one of the main leaders of the great general strikes of 1917 and 1919, besides having founded, in 1918, the Maximalist Union of Porto Alegre (União Maximalista de Porto Alegre), a group that would later be part of the foundation of the Communist Party of Brazil (Partido Comunista Brasileiro - PCB) in 1922, party of which Nequete was General Secretary until 1923.

Away from the PCB, Abílio de Nequete reconnected with republicanism and began to show an interest in technocracy, interpreting it through his own political theory and creating a corresponding religion, Evidentism. He became a professor at the Escola de Comércio and died in August 1960, victim of an illness.