The clandestine

12/12/2024

Authors • History • Books • Social movements

By WALNICE NOGUEIRA GALVÃO*

Afterword to the newly released autobiography of Ana Corbisier

This is a rare book. How many memoirs of clandestinity written by women have already appeared in the country? We have many of them from men, but from women…. To the point of inducing the false notion that there were few in the guerrilla movement, whether urban or rural, and in the resistance to the dictatorship in general.

Author Ana Corbisier not only does not withhold information but also confesses how enriching the experience was, doing everything with joy. A true learning experience, which the reader follows breathlessly, since she laid the foundations for the training in Cuba.

Years of clandestinity within Brazil followed, which required bravery and determination.

Where did this remarkable exception come from? An initial part, narrated with great grace, tells of her family background and social background. Later, she finds herself in the flower of the student movement, entrenched in the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters on Maria Antonia Street, and especially in her Social Sciences course.

In 1968, Ana Corbisier was working as a logistical support for the National Liberation Alliance (ALN), rescuing people who were robbing banks. During a robbery in Susano, the police who were passing by happened to notice, there was a shootout, a comrade was seriously injured, and the doctor who was supposed to treat him was not available. So Ana Corbisier took him to the house of another activist. She stayed in Brazil for only a week after this incident and lost contact with the organization. When she went to Paris, she thought she would stay for a month, while she waited to see how things were going there. She never thought she would be away for 10 years.

From there he went to Cuba, where he underwent guerrilla training. He remained in Cuba for a total of six years.

In her opinion, it was a wonderful experience. She worked as a hairdresser – doing hair, manicures, everything. On the weekends, she did volunteer work, either on construction sites as a bricklayer or in agriculture, harvesting tubers. There was a camp for girls who had previously lived in the favela but were now studying and working in the textile industry: Ana took care of their hair. She also worked in a printing shop and took a photography course.

After six years, she was called to do a job in Bahia – she was in Bahia and José Dirceu was in Paraná. For four years, she lived in hiding in Bahia. She worked as a gift seller throughout the interior of the Northeast. She did very well, she was an exemplary saleswoman – she earned well, even too much, in the opinion of the owners. She then moved to a smaller company, but always selling gifts.

At the end of this period, 1977-1978, without leaving the underground, he got a job at a newspaper in Salvador. He was in charge of the newspaper's archive, Dedoc, or Documentation Department. He had already worked a lot with archives in Cuba, classifying material that arrived from Brazil. Before, it was a mess, nothing could be found, but after he organized it, everyone started using it.

With the opening of 1978 he would eventually come out of hiding, although the newspaper's director told him that the position would remain at his disposal, whenever he wanted to return. How, with another name and another story?

So, he returned to São Paulo in 1979. He began doing translations for Global, writing prefaces, etc. – whatever he could get his hands on to support himself. In 1985, he went to Cesp (Centrais Energéticas do Estado de São Paulo), first to the Socioeconomics department, researching the populations affected by dams. Then he went to the Environment department.

She left Cesp in 1999, seconded to the government of Luiz Erundina, where she remained for the entire four-year term. In the first year, she was an advisor to Vice Mayor Luiz Greenhalgh, overseeing civil society participation in the government: women, black people, young people, environmentalists, people with disabilities…

She then went to the Butantã Regional Administration, now a sub-prefecture, as an advisor to the Administrator: she had an eight-year-old son with whom she wanted to spend more time, help with his homework, take him to school, etc. Her mission was to implement selective garbage collection in the neighborhood, a project by Luiza Erundina. That's how she discovered how the garbage lobby works: an internal employee works for them. Erundina managed to reduce the 15% of the budget allocated to garbage to 9%.

At this point, Ana Corbisier was already living the life of a full citizen, with her work, duties and rights, a path she continues to follow today. But she never abandoned her activism.

*Walnice Nogueira Galvão Professor Emeritus at FFLCH at USP. She is the author, among other books, of Reading and rereading (Sesc\Ouro over Blue). [amzn.to/3ZboOZj]

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