By ACTION GROUP*
Manifest Letter and Call for Public Act on October 10
The history of the Brazilian armed forces has all too often been the history of the use of arms and repression against the people. It is the story of an undeclared but ever-present civil war. In Brazil, this armed wing repeatedly fulfilled the role of repressing popular revolts, persecuting the poorest, and all those who stood up against the abysmal Brazilian social inequality. Let us remember the massacres of Canudos (1896, BA), of Caldeirão de Santa Cruz do Deserto (CE, 1937). Of the dead of Eldorado de Carajás (1996). Of the dead and disappeared during the dictatorship (1964-1985). The daily death of young people in the periphery, mostly black and brown, by military police.
Once again, the ghost of a de facto military government looms over our heads. Today as yesterday, he is a partner in the liberal project and a guarantor of authoritarianism. The armed forces and police are part of the problem. They support excesses, legitimize inequalities and try to manage chaos.
In addition to a captain nostalgic for the dictatorship in the presidency, another 6.157 active and reserve military occupy government positions. The most exalted ones preach pathetic conspiracy theories, stir up prejudices of all kinds and, as if that weren't enough, are incompetent in public management. When you don't intervene, things get better.
Therefore, the catastrophe of the thousands of dead from the pandemic also enters the account of the generals. Again they apply a death policy. They disappear with the bodies by preventing mourning. They feed indifference, they naturalize a form of government based on a deadly policy. Social solidarity implodes and the economic program they support destroys rights and does away with social protections.
As in the 1970s, deforestation and fires are on the rise. They suffer, but they also resist, the people of the forest. Biodiversity and climate are threatened. The Amazon is once again the “green hell”, as it was called by the military during the dictatorship. Our environmental wealth, in the logic of capital, is just an asset, an input, a source of profit.
Against these practices, there has always been resistance and organization. Let us remember the images of the insubmission of Canudos, the countless popular revolts, the indigenous resistance, those who fought against the dictatorship, those who fight against the destruction of lives and nature.
The friendly hand (of capital) and the strong arm (against the people) as they exist today cannot have a place in the free and fair society we deserve.
ACT – 10/10/2020 – 16 pm – Carlos Gardel Square
*Action Group is a non-partisan and spontaneous group of activists, artists, lawyers, teachers, health professionals, students, publishers and communicators.
