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Support the fight against coronavirus in Jardim da União (Brazil)

Posted on17 de June de 202017 de June de 2020Authoradmin1 Comment

Brazil is currently the epicenter of the novel coronavirus pandemic. São Paulo, its largest city, houses more than 12 million people and has already surpassed Read More …

9 young people dead: police violence and the growth of repression in Brazil

Posted on6 de December de 20196 de December de 2019AuthoradminLeave a comment

Last Sunday, December 1st, a police attack during the party known as “Baile da 17” in Paraisópolis, the second largest favela in the south of Read More …

Notes on prisons in Brazil

Posted on15 de September de 201914 de June de 2020AuthoradminLeave a comment

First published at the Genfangenen Info magazine #424 The origins of prisons in Brazil The context of the beginning of prisons in Brasil was the Read More …

Self-Fulfillment and Self Destruction, A Hunger Artist by Kafka and the Subject in Contemporary Capitalism

Posted on9 de August de 201923 de October de 2019AuthoradminLeave a comment

A Hunger Artist is a short story by Franz Kafka (1922) whose protagonist is a young circus performer who lives of the income of fasting Read More …

Support the fight against coronavirus in Jardim da União (Brazil)

Brazil is currently the epicenter of the novel coronavirus pandemic. São Paulo, its largest city, houses more than 12 million people and has already surpassed China in the number of fatal victims of COVID-19. In the southern outskirts of this huge metropolis is a community in dire need of help to face this crisis: the Jardim da União occupation. Jardim da União was born out of the struggle for adequate and affordable housing and it is now facing probably its biggest challenge since its foundation. The occupation harbors over 500 families and most of them are headed by single mothers. They are domestic workers, subcontracted cleaning crew members, manicurists and independent vendors working on the city’s streets, many of whom have lost their jobs due to the social distancing measures implemented during the pandemic. The support offered by the government is scarce and insufficient and this is why we ask for international help to buy food, cleaning supplies and protective equipment so this community can safely face the coronavirus crisis. Solidarity plays a central role in the struggle against the pandemic, so please consider donating or sharing this campaign! Due to the current currency exchange, even a small amount of euros, dollars or pounds can make a huge difference in the life of those who live in the occupation. LINKS FOR DONATION: PayPal – https://www.paypal.me/ocupacaojdu Abacashi – https://abacashi.com/p/jd-da-uniao Brief history of the occupation The skyrocketing rent prices, result of the brutal real estate speculation, and the lack of public policies that provide adequate, affordable places to live made the housing movement one of the main social movements in Brazil. Jardim da União is part of that movement and has its origins in the huge protests that took over Brazil in June 2013. They organize themselves through assemblies to make decisions about the neighbourhood`s structure, how to support the families and how to organize to demand their right to adequate housing. In its history, the Jardim da União occupation was in the frontlines of struggles that went beyond housing, such as the demand for public transportation, health and education in the region. It also played an important role in mobilizing many general strikes we had in Brazil in the recent years. Beyond that, they have had many experiences in self-organization within the community, like a daycare, library, community garden, recycling co-op, children and women’s football teams, as well as organizing debates and art workshops. It is an important hub of resistance for the black, poor people that live in the edges of São Paulo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm89ugv2nJI&feature=youtu.be Documentary JDU – The right to be (en subs) Links: Facebook page Interview with Sandra that tells the history of Jardim da União (pt-br) A collection of videos about Jardim da União
Fighting to Survive: Black & Indigenous Liberation Struggles 08/10/2019

Good evening, my name is Gabriel Silva, I live in São Paulo, I’m currently militant from Quilombo Invisível and work at Banco do Brasil, the mainly national public bank. I’m going to tell you very very briefly about the formation of Brasil from the perspective of black and indigenous peoples and about the current struggles. The black and indigenous resistance started with the 15 century colonization. In the first period with the enslavement of indigenous, who suffered an intense genocidal process. It is estimated that there was a population of 2,5 millions of indigenous in the territory that today integrates Brasil. This population was reduced in 90% just in the first century of colonization. It’s estimated that 240 indigenous peoples have survived – approximately 900 thousand people. In the next period, the trade of enslaved African people was introduced, making them, for more than 3 centuries, the main labor force to build the brazilian economy, which constantly kept being predatory, colonial and marked by monoculture and extractivism. Even the name Brasil is the name of the native tree that was extracted and imported to produce red dye. This period was marked by big uprisings by the slaves like the Males revolt and the farroupilhas war among others. Enslaved people were the main actors in all the main revolts against the colonial order. The main organizative form of resistance dks. It existed between 1590 and 1694 – 100 years – and reached a markrk oNf eveloped by blacks during this period were the quilombos. that united runaway black slaves, indigenous, and even poor whites. The greatest and most famous quilombo was known as quilombo dos palmares – Angola Janga, “little angola”, as it was called the blacks. It existed between 1590 and 1694 – 100 years – and reached a markrk oNf 30.00NN0 residents. They were the main experience of self government made in opposition to the colonial regime in the Brazilian history. NNowadays, there are between 3500 and 5000 communities remaining from quilombos, that still fight for their lands and minimal life conditions. In 1888, slavery in Brasil was officially abolished, but this didn’t come with any reparation or assistance to the blacks, like there was in the USA. On the opposite, the genocide and invisibilization of black people continued without interruptions. In the beginning of the 20th century, the industrialization process begun in Brasil. The Brazilian government adopted eugenic politics that attributed all the backwardness of the country to the black and indigenous people and started a whitening policy, encouraging the european migratory process to form the free labor force in Brasil. This whitening policy excluded black and indigenous people from the main formal jobs. Nowadays, the most common profession among black women is housework and among black men is street vendor. Afro-indigenous people are the majority in unemployment, informal jobs, illiteracy, violent death and incarceration statistics. Now I’ll talk a bit about the current situation of the struggles in Brasil. In June 2013, the Movimento Passe Livre called for big demonstrations against the increase in the public transport fare in São Paulo. The movement is an autonomous organization composed of young people for free fare in public transports – part of the landscape of new social movements in Brasil. The repression against them started the greatest street mobilizations in Brazilian history, with millions of people demonstrating in the main capitals of the country. The workers party class conciliation policy saw its end in 2013, they were in power since 2003. Together with the demonstrations, it was the year with the biggest number of strikes since the 80s, bringing a strong return of the conflicts between capital and work at different spheres of the society. At the same time that 2013 is the beginning of a new cycle of struggles, it’s also the deepening of a rupture process among the left, divided between a big bureaucracy that thinks the only solution in winning the elections and the masses that are everyday more disappointed with the institutions with small groups organized with a perspective of struggle that goes beyond the elections. The right, which has never been a minority in Brazil, also came back to the centrality of power, trying to dispute the street movements. In 2016, they captained, with the support of corporate media, the mass mobilizations that led to the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Those new right-wing movements were the same ones that helped elect neo-Nazi President Jair Bolsonaro. Therefore, there is today in Brazil a rise of both the far right and the far left, in a process that a new turn of the class struggle. There is a widespread attack on social and labor rights, an increase in repression and political assassination. Constitutivas 88 é Marielle Franco. On the other hand, there is the creation of new collectives and struggles are exploding beyond the control of the old bureaucracies. For example, the okupa movements for housing, struggles for public transport, general strikes from 2017 onwards, some savage strikes and new trade union organizations, and a new student and education movement, marked by waves of school okupas in 2015 and 2016. In Brazil, in the poor communities, mostly of Afro-Indigenous origin, such as Grajaú, the neighborhood of the extreme south of São Paulo where I was raised and lived most of my life, this scenario has been sadly presented with the rise of misery, unemployment and police violence – they’re is constant fear of arbitrary arrest or murder by the police, hunger once again haunts families and meat disappears from the dishes. On the other hand there is a huge advance of black collectives. literature and the struggle of education in the peripheries. For example, events where writers from poor communities do public readings, that are producing a whole new generation of writers and intellectuals – of which I am a part myself – and creating a unique scene of readings, study groups, publications, literary fairs, etc. In addition, there are popular schools organized by …
9 young people dead: police violence and the growth of repression in Brazil

Last Sunday, December 1st, a police attack during the party known as “Baile da 17” in Paraisópolis, the second largest favela in the south of São Paulo, Brazil, left 9 young people dead: Luara Victoria de Oliveira (18 years old), Marcos Paulo Oliveira dos Santos (16 years old), Bruno Gabriel dos Santos (22 years old), Eduardo Silva (21), Denys Henrique Quirino da Silva (16), Mateus dos Santos Costa (23), Gabriel Rogério de Moraes (20), Dennys Guilherme dos Santos Franca (16) and Gustavo Cruz Xavier (14) plus at least 20 more people injured. Residents from Paraisópolis protesting against police violence – 01/Dec/2019 These young people died amid a premeditated siege by the Military Police, which closed the two ends of the street where about 5,000 people gathered to listen to music, dance and have fun. Dozens of police officers began to crack down on the group that was forced to flee police violence on two only two meters wide narrow lanes or take refuge in bars and houses. Videos showing what really happened on the night of the massacre Through videos recorded with cell phones by the population, it is possible to see police officers beating boys and girls, throwing bombs indiscriminately and shooting rubber bullets at people that are trying desperately to escape the massacre. Residents reported that the police themselves forbade them to provide aid to the injured through verbal threats and beatings. In addition, police also blocked an ambulance that was called to the scene. The government declared that the cause of the deaths of the teenagers and young adults was the trampling during the attempt to escape. However, the first medical reports indicate beating and asphyxiation, and the clothes of the victims do not have footprints. Also in contrast to the official version told by the Military Police spokesman – according to which the police were chasing two suspects on a motorcycle who shot at police officers and fled into the party – such scenes reiterate what we have long denounced: the Brazilian state, is opposed to ensuring the lives and safety of the poor and black population, discards lives and bodies, treating them as the target of explicit mutilation and torture, without the need of any justification. According to the people present, there was no persecution of suspects on a motorcycle and the only reason for the police presence and their violent attitude was to suppress the crowd. The Civil Police preliminary report itself does not mention any persecution of suspicious bikers, conflicting with the version supported by the Military Police and strongly indicating the possibility of falsification of information – a common practice by the police to cover up their daily violence. Funk balls are events that concentrate young people on public spaces, especially in favelas and poor neighborhoods, where private cars are parked and their sound systems are turned on, playing the Brazilian rhythm that has been a success in the global cultural industry for almost a decade. Born and historically identified as a musical style linked to poor and black people, funk is the target of constant criminalization and social prejudice, considered by local elites as a “lower” cultural manifestation. The “Baile da 17” gathers crowds of thousands from different regions of São Paulo, as happened last December 1st. Although culturally rich and diverse, Brazil lacks leisure options for those unable to afford private clubs. And because they occur in public spaces, with loud sound and informal selling of alcohol, funk balls are systematically repressed by the State. The excessive and widespread repression promoted by the São Paulo State Military Police to funk balls is very common. Of course in wealthy areas of the city and when events are attended by young people from higher social classes, this kind of massacres do not happen. “The comunities demand justice!!! Paraisópolis call for help!!!” – Protest in Paraisópolis demanding justice from the government – 04/Dec/2019 Cases of violence to prevent the start or force the end of these events are common and have little prominence in local media. A little over 2 weeks ago, we witnessed the violent police attack at another funk ball, this one in the east side of São Paulo. At the time, with a gun purposely aimed in the face, military police blinded 16-year-old Gabriela, denied help and even laughed at the injuries she suffered. Among the countless cases of torture and murder that the police have committed this year in Brazil are the 80 gunfire shots excecuted by army soldiers against a car in which a black family was on their way to a baby shower, where two people died; the murder of an 8-year-old black girl named Agatha Felix, shot by the police with a rifle; the viralization of a video of a homeless black boy being tortured by security guards in a supermarket; and now, more recently, the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old black boy named Lucas, last seen getting into a police car. His mother was arrested on charges of drug trafficking without evidence, after pressuring the government to investigate the case. Residents from Paraisópolis demand Justice This escalation of police violence is encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro, his ministers and several governors of the country, among them Wilson Witzel and João Doria, governors of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, respectively. During their speeches, these politicians elected just over a year ago say that the order for their police is to “shoot to kill” anyone who looks suspicious. To put matters into practice, Justice Minister Sergio Moro proposed a package of measures that includes the so-called “illicit exclusion”, an article that allows police officers to kill anyone without justifying their actions or going through any process of ascertaining the events – as long as the officers claim to have acted under the influence of “strong emotion”. The situation in Brazil is increasingly one of an open dictatorship, where the laws are not respected by the rulers and police forces, who murder, torture and arrest …
Notes on prisons in Brazil

First published at the Genfangenen Info magazine #424 The origins of prisons in Brazil The context of the beginning of prisons in Brasil was the colonial exploitation based on slavery by the portuguese, mainly of enslaved workers from Africa, but also of the native population (indigenous). Therefore, until today it’s impossible to separate the structure and meanings of prisons in Brazil from the legacy of the slave economic system based on the institution of racism and colonial predatory exploitation. According to the black historian Suzane Jardim, the first institution of state, which deeply affected the characteristics of the Brazilian prisons, was the so-called “Calabouço” (Dungeon). Created in the sixteenth century, slaveholders could take their slaves there to be punished for whatever reason. It was commonly used against fugitive or disobedient slaves, but the enslaver didn’t need to prove any crime was committed to submit them. It was a kind of outsourcing service where, at a certain value, the enslaver farmer could condemn the slave to a certain number of whips or a certain type of confinement. The extreme brutality of the punishment would frequently kill them. The Calabouço was part of a tradition of torture and social control that had the Catholic inquisition as a founding model. Torture was defended by the Brazilian ruling classes as a necessary means to maintain the slave-owning social order. In 1824, in Brazil’s first constitution, torture was officially abolished for free men, and continued to be indiscriminately used against slaves. In 1837, the process of deactivating the old Calabouço was initiated, and the “Correction House of the Kingdom” was created, the first institution in Brazil exclusively for the fulfillment of penalties for crimes. Between 1857 and 1858, more than 65% of the slaves who were permanently detained in the Correctional House were in these conditions because they were capoeira practitioners, fugitives, or taken to punishment. Our intention is not to detail the history of prisons in Brazil, but only to show how, in its own origin, there are elements that show that mass incarceration is the fruit of a slaveholding legacy. Confinement, torture, overexploitation and destruction of the black or indigenous body are phenomena with deep roots in the practices of the local ruling classes and in the ideology prevailing in Brazilian society, both of which came from colonization. The beginning of the organization and struggle against prisons in Brazil: the Unified Black Movement in the Brazilian business-military dictatorship. On July 7, 1978, in the midst of a business-military dictatorship, the Unified Black Movement (MNU, in portuguese) was founded in a demonstration in front of the São Paulo municipal theater. This protest confronted the dictatorship as they took to the streets calling for an end to violence and racial discrimination, the spark was the death of Robson Silveira da Luz, a tradesman living on the outskirts of São Paulo. Robson was accused of stealing fruit on duty and taken by police to the Guaianazes police station. Trapped, Robson was tortured to death. We know that this type of situation is not new in the Brazilian police stations at that time and until today but, precisely because of this, the mobilization of the MNU around the case is so emblematic. At the time, there was a broad movement of the Brazilian left for liberation, against torture and the assassination of the so-called “political prisoners”. Political repression had already killed journalist Vladimir Herzog in 1975, as well as hundreds of other students, workers, political activists and so many others persecuted on the basis of the dictatorship’s National Security Law. It turns out that Robson was not considered a “political prisoner”, but a common prisoner. Allied to the MNU, there was an incarcerated organization called the Zumbi’s Grandchildren Fight Center. It was made up of Carandiru detainees who, in a letter read at the founding act of the MNU, denounced the inhuman and unhealthy conditions in which the prisoners lived, the torture and the murder to which they were subjected as well as the structural racism of the judicial system and prison. With this analysis they denounced that ordinary prisoners were also political prisoners and that, in order for the mobilization of the left for political rights to be effective, it had to be a struggle against the whole system of justice. It is important to note the MNU militant position, which at no time raised the false moralist question, wanting to judge whether or not Robson deserved to be tortured and killed for allegedly being a criminal. The discussion of Robson’s innocence was not even raised in the MNU debate. Having stolen fruit or not, Robson could not have been tortured and killed while being arrested. No property crime is worth more than a life, and yet, the immense majority of the Brazilian left maintained a differentiation between the common prisoners, who supposedly deserved such treatment, and the “political prisoners”, who were being persecuted for nobler reasons, which would characterize the injustice of their situation. Intellectuals from the MNU, such as Lélia Gonzalez and Clóvis Moura, have shown how the criminal system and the practices of torture and murder it generates have a direct link with the slave practices of class domination. Thus, imprisonment only serves to perpetuate this class domination and racial discrimination, failing to fulfill any positive social function for blacks and workers, being falses the discourses that the prison would increase security, or would rehabilitate the prisoner for life in society, or that would bring reparation to those harmed by the crime. On the contrary, the penal system only continues to increase violence, destroy lives and strengthen crime. Today, MNU’s banner that “every prisoner is a political prisoner” remains extremely current, gaining even greater importance at this historic moment when the military regains control of the federal government in Brazil through the electoral victory of intended neo-fascist president, Jair Bolsonaro. The redemocratization and mass incarceration Mass incarceration is the policy that characterizes Brazilian democracy. The so called democratic freedoms were only accepted …
Self-Fulfillment and Self Destruction, A Hunger Artist by Kafka and the Subject in Contemporary Capitalism

A Hunger Artist is a short story by Franz Kafka (1922) whose protagonist is a young circus performer who lives of the income of fasting performance. The spectacle consists of watching the artist trapped in a cage where he’s deprived of food for several days. The audience expects, on each exhibition, that the artist can defeat in days his previous achievement. His manager, however, does not allow the fasting to exceed 40 days, the maximum period to maintain the public’s attention according to his opinion. The artist, however, thinks he can fast for much longer. The struggle for survival requires routine death from this short story’s protagonist. Weakened, by the end of each performance, the artist is still dissatisfied, always wanting to stay fasting for longer. He even feels misunderstood and dislikes when the audience gets sensitive to what they see as his great suffering, since fasting for him is no sacrifice at all. This short story is an interesting metaphor for thinking about contemporary capitalism’s subject. A Hunger Artist shows us an individual hostage to his work, and for whom, self fulfillment implies self-destruction of his vital forces. This short story is an interesting metaphor for thinking about contemporary capitalism’s subject. A Hunger Artist shows us an individual hostage to his work, and for whom, self fulfillment implies self-destruction of his vital forces. The culture of performance and productivity as a form of self fulfillment has never been more widespread than in the present time, communicated not only by corporate advertising, it often appears through the cultural industry as well as through institutional discourses promoting health and well being. But what does this self fulfillment consists of? In modern societies, it means employment. Just like the artist of hunger, who doesn’t have a name in the short story and whose only activity is fasting, the subjects in contemporary capitalism have their actions and identity reduced to the sphere of work, since professional activity captures all aspects of life. For the poor workers who travels long distances to their workplace, everyday life is about spending 9 hours working plus at least 3 to 4 hours on the way. The hours left are summed up in complete exhaustion when not absorbed by the constant hunt for education focused on the labor market, since it’s not enough work take from us half a day producing profit, we must constantly refine the technique of producing that profit, under the threat of being exchanged for a desperate individual among the mass of unemployed workers. At the end of each spectacle, the starving artist wished he could have spent more time fasting, just as the modern individual constantly lives with the feeling of guilt that, although exhausted, has not done enough. We often reproduce the term procrastinating, which means the postponement of a task, and we are taught all the time through tutorials and motivational messages how to avoid being a procrastinator and how to produce more and more. Never reaching the resting point, we are competing against ourselves, and if we do not change this culture of destructive self fulfillment we will remain in this affliction until the collapse. In this society we are successful when properly educated for work and introduced to the market to sell our flesh, exhausting our strengths producing a profit that is not, and will not, be ours, since as black and poor subjects, this is the only social inclusion we should wish for. We are hostages to the irrationality of the capitalist production mode, where the production of unlimited profit is possible only from the destruction, not only of our bodies but of nature, both perishable and modernly titled human resources and natural resources respectively. Human resources, the theme this text has addressed, has become homogenized around the figure of enterprise and profession, an unprecedented violence against the plural forms of subjectivity and human freedom. The Artist of Hunger, used as a metaphor, might help us to better illustrate our terrible condition. By Thaís Fernandes – Social scientist, peripheric, grew at Grajaú, extreme south of São Paulo, Brasil and militant at Quilombo Invisível.