By JOÃO PEDRO STEDILE*
Speech at the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul upon receiving the Farroupilha Medal
Fellow members of Congress, parliamentarians, and fellow members of the Judiciary, here I can call you my comrades. Fellow members who work in the municipal, state, and federal executive branches of government, whom I have been able to recognize and embrace. Many fellow members, we are all here celebrating agrarian reform. As has already been said, and I am simply acknowledging this, the medal is not for me, nor for my merits. If there was a medal, it is for the MST. I simply had to lend my heart, just as at other times we have had to carry a coffin or, in times of joy, help to receive agrarian reform titles.
The MST is the heir to the historic struggles of our people. Nor should MST activists boast about themselves, because we are the heirs only of what has touched us in this historic time. And I would like to take this opportunity to bring to your consideration some reflections on the meaning of this historic struggle to see the land divided. From time immemorial until 1756 – thousands of years – the Guaranis, the Charrua, the Xokleng, the Kaigang lived in our territory, and they held the land as a common good. There was no private property, no fences, no exploitation.
But the European metropolis of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies, blessed by the Vatican, invaded this territory and promoted the so-called Guarani War, massacring those people. In exchange for the Colonia de Sacramento, which belonged to the Portuguese and became Spanish, there in Uruguay, thousands of people were murdered. Others migrated to Misiones and Paraguay. And their leader, Sepe Tirajuo, our patron saint to this day, died in combat on February 7, 1756. And so, under the force of cannon fire, the agro-pastoral latifundium was born in this territory, which subsequently established private property and introduced slave labor in many activities, especially in the meat-packing plants.
From 1835 to 1845, many enslaved black workers were involved in the Farroupilha War with the promise of freedom and land. However, the Farroupilha leaders betrayed them. The main battalion of blacks, the Black Lancers, was handed over to the imperial forces and all of them were massacred. Later, from 1864 to 1870, our people were once again involved in the Paraguayan War, which only interested the English empire. Many poor, landless black workers were involved, deceived by the Duke of Caxias's promise of land and freedom. Once again, they were betrayed.
With the unsustainability of slavery caused by capitalism, not by ideals, the government of Emperor Dom Pedro I then motivated thousands of poor peasants to come from Europe to replace slave labor and produce food. My great-grandfather was there and certainly the great-grandfather of so many others that I see here, the Brizolas, the Estivals and half of our Rio Grande. It is known that there were countless revolts by the settlers in defense of their rights and because of unfulfilled promises by the Emperor. Unfortunately, official history did not record them.
The revolt in the German colony, led by a religious woman who gave it the name of the Muckers' Revolt, here in the region of Sebastião do Caí, was recorded. However, there were many other revolts, including in the land of my great-grandfather, there in Antônio Prado, who had to march here to Palácio Piratini to obtain the right to the title. And a prosecutor at the time assured the priest who led the settlers that there would be the land title, and so, illusorily, the settlers named their territory Antônio Prado, in honor of this citizen, who for the first time kept his promise.
In 1924, back in the Missions, it was just me and Porta Nova (laughs). In 1924, once again, soldiers from Rio Grande do Sul, led by Lieutenant Portela and Captain Prestes, took up arms and set off for Rio de Janeiro. There were hundreds of them, and history hides this, right, Porta Nova? 80 female fighters left on the move. What were they fighting for? For freedom, for equality, and for the right to vote, which was equal at that time. They traveled 27.000 km in an epic journey that was recorded.
They fought many battles against the rural oligarchies that were gathering, their militias of that time, and were victorious until, due to those political conditions, they all sought asylum in Bolivia. But the example of the Prestes Column remains, and this year we celebrate 100 years since its departure from Santo Ângelo and São Luiz Gonzaga. Many people who wear the uniform and who consider themselves nationalists should reread what the Prestes Column meant to Rio Grande do Sul and to Brazil. They wouldn't say as many stupid things as they are saying, nor would they commit as many outrages as they have tried to do in recent times.
Industrialization began in the 1930s with the famous Revolution of 30, from which an industrial bourgeoisie emerged. However, unlike the industrial bourgeoisie of the United States and Europe, which carried out classic agrarian reform in their countries, here the industrial bourgeoisie did not carry out agrarian reform. It preferred to subordinate the peasants in the model that to this day we call integration into agribusiness.
The 20th century, then, in the absence of even a classic agrarian reform, was dominated by agricultural latifundia on the southern border, which condemned us to the worst human development indices to date. And the industrialized north, but with a peasantry subordinated to the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie.
It was then that the first crisis of industrial capitalism broke out in the 1960s, and in the wake of that crisis came the mass struggles that produced the first popular and left-wing government in Rio Grande do Sul, led by our comrade Leonel Brizola. In my humble opinion, to this day it has been the most popular and left-wing government we have had in the state, because when Olívio Dutra was in power, the conditions in the country were different. Leonel Brizola then revived the idea of the need for a classic agrarian reform.
He created the Rio Grande do Sul Institute for Agrarian Reform, which was unprecedented. He created a land law in the state and put it into practice by expropriating the first farms. One of the most historic farms, which some MST activists like my colleague Vedovato are from, was the Sarandi Farm, which had 24.000 hectares owned by a Uruguayan capitalist named Mailios and which was dedicated exclusively to timber and yerba mate.
Well, old Brizola went there and expropriated and handed over to the peasants of the time in the 60s. At the time, Brizola had as an advisor in the Civil House, secretary of the Civil House, a great comrade – unfortunately the left quickly forgets its icons – who was Paulo Schilling, a stubborn, knowledgeable, studious German. Paulo was an intellectual in the Brizola government who designed these classic agrarian reform measures of that time. And I mention him as a way of paying homage to him, because we don't always remember those who fought heroically to make the agrarian reform come to fruition.
Brizola and the PTB at the time had a correct view of the class struggle and knew that agrarian reform could not be just an instrument of the state, of the government, and for this reason, in some way, they encouraged the organization of poor peasants throughout that period, which materialized in Master (Movimento dos Agricultores Sem Terra Gaúchos), who are our ancestors.
Many leaders emerged from the Master. Some paid with their lives and others had to go into exile and hide, such as Jair Calixto, João Sem Terra and the Muller family from Encruzilhada do Sul. Unfortunately, not even the MST knows how to value these who were our predecessors. Without them, we would not be here. Poor João Sem Terra from Rolante marked the 20 years of persecution with another name; he became a butcher in Goiás until the winds of democratization brought him back.
Well, then came the dictatorship, a corporate-military regime sponsored by the United States government and its capitalists. By the way, in keeping with the current situation, a very wise article: the January coup only failed because it was not in the interests of the United States capitalists at that time. Otherwise, they would have financed much more than just the agribusiness money. We were saved.
Well, then, during that military regime, there was a concentration of industrial capitalism, the concentration of land, the modernization of the countryside in a conservative way, as many later studied in academia. But the main thing here was to understand that, during the 20 years of dictatorship, there were only two ways out: export them to the Amazon in colonization projects or send them to be cheap workers in factories. That was the fate that befell us for 20 years.
However, as dialectics teaches us, in the 1980s a new crisis broke out in the industrial capitalist system, which weakened the process of capital accumulation and development, and led to the outbreak of new mass struggles. Strikes and workers' movements emerged. This is where Lula's leadership came from, as he himself acknowledges. Without the mass struggles, there would be no Lula, nor Olívio Dutra here among the bank workers. And it was with these popular mobilizations that we were able to defeat the dictatorship.
Meanwhile, in this process of transition from the fragility of the dictatorship and the outbreak of struggles also in rural areas, here in Rio Grande we had the resumption of land occupations and the famous Encruzilhada Natalina encampment, which many here participated in and must remember. The dictatorship, already in its final breaths, ordered Colonel Curió to intervene in the encampment with full military force. But our group resisted for 45 days and, in the end, as the saying goes, he tucked his tail between his legs and had to return to Bico do Papagaio. And a cry echoed through the encampment: “In the land of lapwings, Curió does not chirp!”
That was how we defeated the dictatorship. The peasants lost their fear and the spark of renewed land occupations spread throughout the country. This is not a show, it is a tribute to those who did it. In these 40 years, we have occupied 4.556 large estates.
Of course, as dialectics once again explains, the forces of capital, backwardness, and oligarchy also regrouped. That's when the UDR emerged. That's when many conservative state governments, committed to the oligarchies that financed them, used public force to repress, and sometimes, with the blessing of the robes. And we lost many comrades, we had many people arrested, there were many evictions, in addition to the CPIs.
In these 40 years of so many struggles, we also want to pay tribute with this medal to so many comrades we have lost. Some were murdered, others were taken by life, but they fought their entire lives for agrarian reform. I would like to mention just a few, such as comrade Roseli Nunes, who was the first to be murdered there in Sarandi, practically with a baby of a few months in her arms, who was saved and today bears the name of Sepe Tirajuo. Thanks to the solidarity of the Cuban people, he graduated as a doctor there at ELAM (Latin American School of Medicine) in Cuba and should be serving there.
I pay this tribute to Cuba because, in these 40 years, 1.080 poor Brazilians have graduated there, 580 from the MST. And we went to study in Cuba not because we wanted to learn Spanish, some of us even failed several times in Spanish, but we went to study in Cuba because, to this day, medical schools in Brazil are only for the elite. That one day we will overcome the quotas so that it will not be that 10%, but for the Brazilian people in public universities, and the rich kids who go to private schools, which is what they created them for.
Well, besides Roseli, I remember others that we lost over time, not because they were murdered, but because they fought their entire lives for agrarian reform, like our friend Zecão from Palmeiras. I couldn't help but mention our friend Enid Backes, who was part of the sociologists' association and helped us. Can you imagine, an atomic ant? That was her. She died last year when she was just 90 years old and was still making popular feminist speeches. Great Enid. I hope that her legacy, as a great fighter for the causes of the people of Rio Grande do Sul, will be an example for this new generation of feminists who cannot disconnect from the causes of the people, just like our dear Adão Preto.
It was in this hall that we held our wake for comrade Adão Preto, in a way that could not be more symbolic than this tribute in this space of the people's house. I would also like to remember Toninho, from Nonoai, a great figure of the mass front, who died recently and I was unable to go and say goodbye, just as I was unable to be present at the death of comrade Itamar Siqueira.
So, the medal is for all of them, from Sepe Tirajuo to Itamar. While the ceremony was going on, I was looking at what the metal looked like. I think I'll play Chinese and we'll reproduce it for the centenarians and give one of these to each of you and to the families of those who passed away. I don't know if it will be considered an affront to parliament, but I understand that it is a way of paying tribute that parliament wanted to pay to all the fighters for agrarian reform.
Well, capitalism does not solve the people's problems; it only makes them worse. That is why the concentration of property, large estates, and environmental crimes are part of the logic of the capitalist system, because capital, in the countryside, also feeds on the private appropriation of natural resources that should belong to everyone. That is how we learned from Rosa Luxemburg, when she explained how primitive accumulation works, in which capitalists appropriate natural resources that are not the result of human labor, but that, when transformed into merchandise, generate a fantastic extraordinary income that no factory could guarantee for them.
But more than the success of capitalism in the countryside, our territory is suffering the consequences of this movement of capital that has transformed our agriculture into a desert of soybeans, corn, cotton, sugarcane (further north) and cattle ranching. These are commodities, not food for the domestic market, but to feed this greed of capital. Here in Rio Grande, we also had tobacco and eucalyptus, which contribute to this monoculture.
On the other hand, look at the good times of Conab: Conab bought 367 different types of food produced by family farmers, which are now on the tables of the Brazilian people. This is the contrast. How long will we put up with the fact that capital will only produce commodities, will only exhaust nature to the detriment of the use of these goods to produce food for our people?
Here in Rio Grande do Sul, how many Gauchos have died from cancer or other illnesses caused by pesticides? Our professor Pinheiro Machado, from UFRGS, rebelled because he found in his research that tobacco was the main cause of suicide. And even today, the tobacco region of Rio Grande do Sul is the region in the world with the highest suicide rates among farmers. Why? Because pesticides have neurological consequences, cause depression and kill. Has anyone done any research? Has anyone asked Bayer and Abas to fix the SUS (Brazilian Unified Health System) for treating poisoned people?
I think, Porta Nova, now that you are freer from the shackles of the toga, that we should start a movement from Rio Grande to condemn Bayer, because it was the company that made the poisons during the Second World War that killed our dear Olga Benário in the concentration camp.
Because we say: they pay homage to Olga Benário, we have several settlements, we made posters and no one says who ordered the killing. Oh, it was Hitler. And with what gas and with what force? No, we have to hold accountable the capitalists who use, as we are seeing now, the ideas of the extreme right to maintain their power without limits.
Well, this exploitative model has imposed serious changes on us here in Rio Grande do Sul that no one wants to talk about. Why do droughts and floods occur so frequently? Ask Leonaldo, who is out there, and ask the environmentalists. Monoculture is the root cause of this, because monoculture is not agriculture; it destroys all biodiversity. And the consequence was that the rains washed the land into the streams and rivers, and began to silt up. And our rivers, which used to have valleys of 20 and 30 meters, now have valleys of 2 meters. Even ships are running aground here in Lagoa dos Patos and no one can explain why. The main cause is the changes in legislation that reduced the margin for planting trees on the banks of streams and rivers and is the monoculture, which leaves the land free for part of the year and any little rain turns into a storm.
Well, how many people from Rio Grande do Sul were affected by these floods? And you saw that only in the last flood. And in the last droughts, the agricultural losses were 50 billion. Wouldn't it have been better to invest it in food? The federal government brought in 70 billion to help with the floods, we applauded. Any preventive measures? This is not a criticism of the Lula government, before some friend pulls my ear. "João Pedro, stop talking badly about Lula."
I told her: it's not a personal problem or a government problem, it's just that the role of the popular movement, if it wants to have moral authority, needs to point out and have the autonomy to point out mistakes so that the government can fix them, because the government is ours. And if the government keeps making mistakes, mistakes, mistakes, we'll get it at the polls.
So, I would like to draw your attention: look, 70 billion of public resources from the Brazilian people were invested here in Rio Grande, which were necessary, but how much was actually invested in preventive measures to plant trees, to protect rivers from silting up, to change environmental legislation?
Finally, almost comrades, I am encouraged that you are paying attention. We have also had changes in the agrarian reform in our program. The classic agrarian reform, which was the dream of Celso Furtado, which was the dream of Brizola, of Paulo Schilling, is no longer viable. It is unviable because, in the classic agrarian reform, there was a need for the industrial bourgeoisie to be a partner, and they did not want to. So, now we have evolved to another programmatic formulation that we call popular agrarian reform.
In other words, it is an agrarian form that necessarily has to serve the interests of all the people. It is no longer a peasant agrarian reform; that is truly a thing of the past. The popular agrarian reform that we advocate changes paradigms and our worldview. We often say to the campers and settlers now: you have to be a good farmer to produce food, but that is not enough. You now also need to be a caretaker of nature. Society needs to give you land so that you can take care of nature and prevent climate change.
That is why we have incorporated the defense of nature as one of our paradigms, but it cannot be just rhetoric. It has to be transformed into a plan, a concrete program of zero deforestation, a large reforestation program, the installation of nurseries, in short, recovery. The scientist Carlos Nobre has nothing to do with us on the left, he is a member of the PSDB, but he is the scientist who participates with the UN in the analyses of Brazil. He said: there is no way to avoid climate change in Brazil if we do not recover 50 million hectares degraded by capital. And what does capital offer for climate change? Carbon credits.
Do you know what carbon credits are? They take existing forests, issue a title just like the one you gave me, register it at a notary's office, and a capitalist from here goes to Europe and sells it to another capitalist. A capitalist's fight. And what has changed in nature? Nothing. The forest remains the same and European industry continues to pollute the same. This is the capitalists' solution to climate change. Good grief. After so many years, the capitalists, in addition to being plunderers, have become ignorant. After World War II, they were progressive, now they have become ignorant. That is why they continue to finance the extreme right in several countries around the world.
So, we incorporated the debate on nature, we incorporated the need to produce food for all people in the form of agroecology. Without agroecology, it is not possible to produce food without pesticides on a large scale. And for you to develop agroecology on a large scale, as our deputy Marcão was whispering to me there, I want to know how I can put a factory like that in my municipality.
So you're dreaming of being mayor, right? To develop agroecology on a massive scale, we have to solve the problem of seeds. Farmers without seeds will not produce agroecology. We have to solve the problem of organic fertilizer. We have to solve the problem of agricultural machinery for farmers. In Brazil, there are eight machinery factories belonging to five multinationals. The only one that wasn't really a multinational, but used German technology, was Agrale, owned by my relatives in Caxias. It's bankrupt. Only the other five multinationals are left. Who do they make machinery for? For agribusiness, in their eight factories.
We went to China, taken by President Lula. In China, there are 8.000 machine factories. Practically every municipality has a machine factory. Here we have a church. It's not worth comparing, right? OK, let's continue with the eight machine factories in Brazil. So, the MST is making an effort to bring this Chinese technology of manufacturing small machines to the peasants, in order to solve the problem of scale, of increasing the productivity of human labor without sacrificing the areas.
And agribusiness, because without agribusiness it is not possible to develop the country, generate jobs, generate income. We have been saying it almost like a mantra, in honor of the feminists I see here: if we do not guarantee income for settled women, there is no way to combat sexism. It becomes rhetoric. And where are you going to guarantee income for your fellow women? In agribusiness.
We are not crazy, none of them dream of getting a hoe on Christmas Day, do you understand? But the agribusiness offers opportunities for decent work, for other professions without having to work under the scorching sun, and they will have an income equal to that of their husbands. With this, they will have autonomy at home and sovereignty over their ideas and projects. So, the agribusiness is an emancipator of human actions for young people and their companions.
Now, I'm going to finish. As you saw, I tried to argue the whole time that this medal is neither mine nor the MST's. This medal was given to us by Parliament, and then I was surprised because our judge there kept reading the civil society organizations. So, I think that we were also, the parliamentarians were also approved by the civil society organizations that recognize the importance of this cause.
So, the medal is for all those who fought for land and rights, from Sepe Tirajuo to Itamar Siqueira, who left us last week. All of them deserve this medal, because what we are celebrating here is the struggle, and the struggle is social, it is mass. No one fights alone.
I want to appeal, I saw that the judges also appealed, to two friends of the MST. The first, Antonio Cândido. Antonio Cândido wrote a letter to the MST in April 2011 and left it on his desk. It was only after he died that it was delivered by his granddaughter. He wrote on a Lettera 44 typewriter and at the end of the letter he says the following, which I want to share with you: “In the bravery of the MST in its historic struggle, the heart of Brazil beats.” Isn’t that beautiful?
For those who are following us abroad, consider the commitment that Antonio Candido, our greatest literary critic, gave us: we must fight so that the hearts of the Brazilian people beat and do not lose heart. And I will end by appealing to another friend and supporter of the MST, who we consider an activist for agrarian reform, in addition to Marcos Palmeira, who yesterday on Fantástico paid a special tribute, especially because he is an agroecological producer on the 40 hectares he has there in Rio de Janeiro. But the closest friend we have is Chico Buarque.
And as it was said here, during that Terra exhibition, we asked Chico: “Chico, write a song for the MST.” It was Sebastião Salgado’s idea, Saramago wrote the text for the photos and he also wanted to add music, he wanted to add culture. So I went over to talk to Chico. “Chico, could you write a song, like in the book?” And he wrote two fantastic songs. One of them is called “Assentamento,” and he ends the song with this phrase: “When I die tired of so many wars, I will die in peace with my land.” Thank you very much.
*João Pedro Stedile is a member of the national leadership of the Landless Workers Movement (MST). Originally published on the website VioMundo.
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