[News] Occupy, Resist, Produce: The Strategy and Political Vision of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu May 31 11:28:43 EDT 2018
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/31/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/
Occupy, Resist, Produce: The Strategy and Political Vision of Brazil’s
Landless Workers’ Movement
by Ben Dangl <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/bresp5zexefetha/> -
May 31, 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) is one of Latin America’s
largest social movements, with roughly 1.5 million members. For decades
the MST has operated under their slogan “Occupy, Resist, Produce” to
settle landless farmers on unused land in Brazil, where roughly 3% of
the population owns over 2/3 of the vast country’s arable land. In the
midst of Brazil’s current political crisis
<http://www.mstbrazil.org/news/mst-calls-brazilian-people-discuss-ways-out-country%E2%80%99s-crisis>,
the MST continues to work for justice and against the right-wing Michel
Temer government. Most recently, it has mobilized for the release
<http://www.mstbrazil.org/news/lawyers-file-appeals-call-mobilization-free-lula>of
unjustly imprisoned
<https://www.thenation.com/article/lula-may-be-in-jail-but-brazils-occupy-movement-wont-let-hope-die/> former
Brazilian President, recent presidential candidate, and Workers’ Party
leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
<https://www.alternet.org/world/lula-caravan-brazil-populism>. The
following is a brief overview of the history, tactics and political
vision of this powerful movement./
In the early hours of the morning on October 29, 1985, 2,500 landless
families arrived in trucks, buses, and motorcycles to occupy Fazenda
Annoni, a roughly 23,000-acre plot of land in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
The families were forced to occupy the land out of desperation. For many
of these activists, the alternative was grueling, slavery-like labor on
large estates, or crushing poverty in city slums. Darci Bonato, a
participant in the occupation, recalled that the families had only what
they could carry on their backs with them to start their new lives.
We had a [grill] that we could use over an open fire, saucepans,
food and bedclothes. The children had fallen asleep by the time we
arrived and we laid them on a mattress under a tree, covering them
with a blanket. Then we went back to the road to help guard the
camp. That first night, none of the adults slept. There was a full
moon, I remember, and it was quite bright. When dawn came, some
policemen arrived. Strung out along the fence, we were ready to stop
them coming in. There were rumors that we were armed, but we
weren’t. The only weapons we had were our hoes and scythes.[1]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn1>
Police tried to in vain to push them off the land, but the activists had
strength in numbers and successfully resisted the police as they
continued preparing for their new lives. “People began putting up their
tents, collecting water from the river, and lighting a fire for the
cooking,” Bonato recalled.[2]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn2>
The police siege of the camp went on for a year, making it hard for the
families to come and go, and receive food and supplies. The MST
activists eventually opened up a school to teach their children, and
more people joined family members in the camp as it became further
established. The police blockade made it necessary for everyone in the
camp to share supplies, labor, and food. At one point, children
approached the police and gave them flowers, explaining that they
weren’t against the police, but against the government. By 1987, the
government agreed to let the farmers stay on the land. Bonato spoke of
the years she spent at the camp:
I don’t regret it. If hadn’t done that, I would have worked for
thirty years as a farm laborer and ended up without a single
hectare. So for me it was a huge victory. Today my sons are living
on the settlement with me, each with his plot of land. They lived
through it all with me, and now they’re ten times better off than
they would have been if I’d gone on working as a hired hand.[3]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn3>
The MST members who occupied Fazenda Annoni saw the direct rewards of
their hard work, and inspired new landless activists in Brazil.
The tactics of the MST speak to the creativity and resourcefulness of
its members. The ability among participants in this occupation to build
a close-knit community of self-sufficient farmers, raise children, and
resist the police all at once is reflective of the MST’s capacities and
persistence on a national level. Over the course of the MST’s twenty-six
years of work, it has expropriated over thirty-five million acres, and
settled over 400,000 families.[4]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn4> The
settlements, which are often cooperatively organized (with some notable
exceptions), are home to hundreds of MST-built schools, which have
enabled tens of thousands of people to learn to read and write.[5]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn5> As
the movement has grown, it has carved its own autonomous social presence
through direct action and has become a major political force in Brazil.
*Occupy, Resist, Produce*
The MST began in 1984, when for four days in January, approximately one
hundred landless farmers met in the southern state of Paraná. Because
the organizers knew that the movement needed to be broad, landless
leaders from thirteen different states were invited. This gathering was
a break from the traditional land struggles, which had largely been led
by unions. Many in large Brazilian labor unions believed the fight for
agrarian reform should take place within union ranks—but unions didn’t
accept landless farmers as members. João Pedro Stédile, the Rio Grande
do Sul Secretary of Agriculture at the time, along with other
participants in the meeting, saw that the entire family of a landless
farmer is affected by injustice, and therefore should be empowered to
define what an alternative should look like. On that basis, Stédile
believed leaders should incorporate families into the movement. Thus,
all members of the landless families were given rights to participate in
the movement from the beginning of the MST. Besides empowering women
outside of the traditional patriarchal structure, Stédile explained in
1999, “By including all members of the family, the movement acquires a
remarkable potential force. Adolescents, for example, who are used to
being oppressed by their fathers, realize that their votes in an
assembly are as important as their father’s [vote].”[6]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn6> Over
time, this breadth of membership contributed to the movement’s longevity
and strength in numbers when occupying land and creating objectives that
took into account the needs of all family members.
The MST – whose slogan is “Occupy, Resist, Produce” – has been
peacefully occupying unused land since 1985. Typically, when the
activists take over land, they develop cooperative farms and build
houses, schools, and health clinics on it. They manage the land
collectively in a sustainable way, as well as educate children and
advance gender equality.[7]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn7> Since
the founding of the movement, the MST did not just take over land, they
also participated in marches, blockades, and occupations aimed at
acquiring government assistance for their members, including improved
access to credit, education, and healthcare. For decades, the MST has
actively fought against the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO)
and large-scale, industrial farming, while also working within their own
camps to grow healthy food on a small-scale that generates employment
for MST members.[8]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn8> Moving
from its initial focus on land occupations, this diverse set of tactics
and goals has helped the movement remain flexible over time, and able to
adapt to new agricultural practices and changes in the political
landscape of the country.
Among the reforms following the fall of the Brazilian dictatorship in
1985 was a new constitution written in 1988, establishing the right of
the government to redistribute unused land to landless farmers. The land
reform measure established that all land must be used for the good of
society. If land does not fulfill a social function, the constitution
stated, then the government reserves the right to take over and
redistribute that land.[9]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn9> The
institutional tool that carries out this redistribution is the National
Colonization and Agrarian Reform Institute (INCRA). Once INCRA certifies
that land should be redistributed, the government appropriates it by
paying the landowner for the land, and in the case of MST occupations,
gives the title of the property to the landless farmers. The MST has
used this constitutional reform to pressure the government and INCRA to
follow their own legal procedures—first by occupying the unused land,
and then by demanding ownership of that land, or land nearby the
encampment.[10]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn10>
Much of the MST’s success lies in the democratic structures of its
leadership, decision-making, and mobilization. Decisions and activities
of the movement are debated in elected committees at various levels of
the movement, ranging from the encampments to the regional offices.
Within the MST, every member belongs to their own Base Group, a
participatory committee that keeps power among the roots of the
movement. The Base Groups in each encampment or settlement are made up
of ten to twenty families, and each group has both a male and female
coordinator.[11]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn11>
“That’s our democracy,” MST member João Amaral of Rio Grande do Sul,
said of the Base Groups’ process and general operations. Using consensus
to arrive at decisions is an important part of the Base Groups’
functionality, according to Amaral. “Perhaps that’s one of the secrets
of the unity of the MST. That we have not been divided over every issue
where you have to make a decision. That’s just it. We look for
consensus, respecting the positions in the minority, until we arrive at
consensus. There have been cases where positions which were at first in
the minority became majority in the discussion process.”[12]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn12>
This emphasis on a decentralized, bottom-up approach adds to the
movement’s sustainability and popularity among members. It is largely
through the land occupations that MST leaders emerge; their skills are
further developed in classes and meetings. The focus on bringing new
leadership into the fold has spanned generations and undermines moves to
centralize decision-making power in the hands of a few.
The actual occupation of land generates momentum and increases the
number of MST members. Generally, once MST leaders decide on a parcel of
unused land to occupy in a given area, they organize in the communities
surrounding the land, describing the process INCRA goes through, and
recruiting people to participate in the occupation. This community-based
process brings people into the MST, incorporating participants into the
necessary logistical tasks and preparation for the occupation, and then
cementing relations through the solidarity that the occupation itself
requires. After all of the planning is complete and the MST members
decide to occupy the land, everyone is alerted at the last minute to
maintain an element of surprise. Finally, participants enter the land,
setting up their camp before dawn.[13]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn13> While
this is a typical approach, over time MST members have also set up
encampments in which people rotate through the camp during a
two-to-five-year period as people are awarded land.
As Stédile explained in 2002,
On the night [of the occupation], the hired trucks arrive, well
before daybreak, and go around the communities, pick up all they can
carry and then set off for the property. The families have one night
to take possession of the area and build their shelters, so that
early the next morning, when the proprietor realizes what’s
happened, the encampment is already set up. The committee chooses a
family to reconnoiter the place, to find where there are sources of
water, where there are trees for shade.[14]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn14>
The goal is to remain in the fight in spite of any repression from
police or thugs hired by the landowner: “[T]he main thing for a group,
once it’s gathered in an encampment, is to stay united, to keep putting
pressure on the government.”[15]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn15> The
MST’s persistence and technique of direct action has been incredibly
successful over the years and empowers its capacity to build an
autonomous space for survival while pressuring the government at the
same time.
After setting up camp, the group begins to push INCRA, court officials,
and/or politicians for land. The activists often wait two to four years.
In the meantime, landowners, their thugs, and police usually try to push
the people off the land through harassment and assassinations. The
organizational power of the MST, the solidarity of other groups that
support it, and the dedication of settling families is decisive in
whether or not the occupation will be successful.[16]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn16>
For many MST activists, life turns out to be better than what was
suffered through before occupying the new land. Sonia Bergamasco, a
professor of agrarian engineering at Campinas State University and the
author of an MST settlement survey, said, “95 percent of people respond
that they’re better off now [after entering a settlement]. At least they
have housing, they grow food and their kids go to school. Once they’re
settled, one of the first things communities do is start a school.”[17]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn17>
The difficulty of life in the encampments pushes some to leave, but the
adversity also brings MST members together. The living conditions are
often tough in the camps, with plastic homemade tents to live in and
poor water supplies. It is hard to remain healthy and prevent the spread
of illness when an encampment is far from a hospital. To inspire
solidarity, educate the children, and strengthen the will to stay in the
fight, MST committees organize dances, soccer games, and theater
performances.[18]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn18>
Pacote, an MST member, recalled,
We lost what little we had when we went to the encampment. We could
take little even of those few things we owned into the new
encampment, the only thing we took was our [wood-burning] cook
stove. What little savings we had were soon gone, because we were
earning nothing. We had no house or land to return to, no household
goods, hardly any clothing, very few of our tools—everything was
lost. And there was no way to go back and be the same person again
to the old neighbors, the friends on the outside. Everything
depended on the future and on the friends we had made in the
encampment. There was no way back.[19]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn19>
In general, for people living in squalor or essentially enslavement as
farm laborers, in slums, facing fierce poverty, drug addiction, crime,
and lack of education and healthcare for their families, the MST
encampments have been a clear improvement.[20]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn20>
At first, the MST’s main focus was the fight for land. But quickly the
activists discussed the need to educate their children to be able
community members. The MST families wanted an empowering education for
their children, so they could, “fight for their rights, to work
together, to value the healthy life they could live in the country and
to resist the lure of the city.” The movement decided they needed to set
up their own, more liberating education system. In 1990, they developed
their aims for this system, which focused on training new leaders,
showing the reality of society and how it can be changed, in addition to
classes in reading, writing, and analytical skills. Problems arose if
children attending distant schools moved around a lot from camp to camp,
and if the schools were outdoors, children were exposed to the elements.
In response to such difficulties, MST activists set up itinerant schools
in which teachers traveled with all of their supplies, including
blackboards and desks.[21]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn21>
In March of 1998, when the police evicted MST members from a camp in Rio
Grande do Sul, the activists decided to march to the state capital in
protest. The itinerant schools went with them, operating in various
settings along the march. One teacher described this educational experience:
Our desks and seats were the hard, cold ground, the blackboard was a
piece of paper taped to the wall, to the railings, to the trees or
just held in the teacher’s hand. We learned by seeing, living, and
doing. We calculated the kilometers, meters, centimeters of the road
we had to take, the number of days it would take to arrive in the
capital, what was produced in the towns we went through… We saw
cars, horses, carts, trains, planes, a helicopter, boats, ships, so
we studied means of transport. We sang in front of 2,000 people [at
the teachers’ union assembly in Porto Alegre]… When we decided to
write a letter to the governor, we talked about the theme, we wrote
about it, each one giving an idea, then it was read and approved by
the collective school.[22]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn22>
This educational approach is illustrative of the MST’s general focus on
providing an alternative to the state and traditional Brazilian
institutions. In the classroom, the farming fields, and the meetings,
the MST has built its own world without waiting for the right election
results, policy change, or political party backing; it has taken matters
into its own hands to build the society it needs to survive and thrive.
“In whatever society, and even more so in Brazil, social change doesn’t
depend on the government but on the organization and the mobilization of
society. It is the people that make the change,” noted Stédile. “The
people have to realize that it’s useless looking to the government for
everything. The government forms part of society and it’s preferable
that it’s progressive… But the essential changes of society do not come
from the government but from the energies that the working class
succeeds in mobilizing when organizing for its rights.”[23]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_edn23>
/This article is excerpted and adapted from Dancing with Dynamite:
Social Movements and States in Latin America
<https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Dynamite-Social-Movements-America/dp/1849350159> by
Benjamin Dangl, (AK Press, 2010)./
NOTES
[1]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref1> Quoted
in Sue Branford and Jan Rocha, /Cutting the Wire: The Story of the
Landless Movement in Brazil/(London: Latin America Bureau, 2002), 35–36.
Encruzilhada Natalino, located near the Fazena Annoni, was the first MST
encampment: “History of the MST,” MSTBrazil.org,
http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=history.
[2]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref2> Quoted
in Branford and Rocha, /Cutting the Wire/, 35–36.
[3]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref3> Quoted
in Ibid., 37–39.
[4]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref4> Michael
Fox, “Brazil’s Landless Movement Turns 25, Opens ‘New Phase’ of
Struggle,” /Upside Down World/, January 28, 2009,
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ content/view/1688/63/.
[5]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref5> For
example, at Fazenda Annoni some families are organized into coops, while
others are not and farm their own 20 hectares.
[6]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref6> Quoted
in Branford and Rocha, /Cutting the Wire/, 21–23.
[7]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref7> “About
the MST,” MSTBrazil.org, http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=about.
[8]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref8> “History
of the MST.”
[9]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref9> Richard
Plevin, “The World Bank Project Subverts Land Reform in Brazil,” /Global
Exchange/, August 6, 1999, http://www.mstbrazil.org/wbsubverts.html.
[10]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref10> Matthew
Flynn, “Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement,” /Americas Program/, April,
2003, http://americas.irc-online.org/citizen-action/series/06-mst_body.html.
[11]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref11> Sílvia
Leindecker and Michael Fox, /Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in
the Americas/ (Oakland: PM Press/Estreito Meios Productions, 2008),
http://www. beyondelections.com/. Interview from documentary segment at:
http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=dK0IAM-DIaA.
[12]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref12> Quoted
in Ibid.
[13]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref13> Flynn,
“Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement.”
[14]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref14> Joao
Pedro Stédile, “Landless Battalions,” /New Left Review/, May/June 2002,
http://www.newleftreview.org/A2390.
[15]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref15> Ibid.
[16]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref16> Melissa
Moore, “Now It Is Time: The MST and Grassroots Land Reform in Brazil,”
/Food First/, March 8, 2003, http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/49.
[17]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref17> Quoted
in Bill Hinchberger, “The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST),”
/The Nation/, March 2, 1998,
http://www.brazilmax.com/news.cfm/tborigem/fe_society/id/29.
[18]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref18> Angus
Lindsay Wright and Wendy Wolford, /To Inherit the Earth: The Landless
Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil/ (Oakland: Food First Books,
2003), 46–51
[19]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref19> Quoted
in Ibid., 54, 264.
[20]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref20> Ibid.
[21]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref21> Branford
and Rocha, /Cutting the Wire/, 114–118. Also see Michael Fox, “Landless
Women Launch Protests Across Brazil,” /NACLA Report on the Americas/,
March 12, 2009, https://nacla.org/node/5611.
[22]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref22> Quoted
in Branford and Rocha, /Cutting the Wire/, 119.
[23]
<https://towardfreedom.org/archives/americas/occupy-resist-produce-the-strategy-and-political-vision-of-brazils-landless-workers-movement/#_ednref23> Quoted
in Marc Saint-Upéry, /El Sueño de Bolívar: El Desafío de Las Izquierdas
Sudamericanas/(Barcelona: Paidós, 2008), 65–67.
/*Benjamin Dangl <https://twitter.com/bendangl>* has a PhD in history
from McGill University and is the editor of TowardFreedom.com
<https://towardfreedom.com/>, a progressive perspective on world events./
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