By LEONARDO KOURY MARTINS*
We cannot lose the dimension that the Brazilian people do not intend to end their actions after the current president takes office.
Hope is perhaps the most significant word to describe what has been happening in the hearts of millions of Brazilian men and women in these first weeks of the year 2023. tomorrow. As sad as the act of vandalism that took place in Brasilia this January is, it served to prove that we are on the right path.
Our minds and hearts are still captured in the images of the street demonstrations that elected Lula. The shades of green, yellow, red, black, lilac and many other colors enlivened in our diversity show the importance of the struggles built by the people. Not by chance, the working class is part of the narrative for not giving up on building a popular project for Brazil.
But it is necessary to point out that for this project, which is configured as an alternative to change the violent, patriarchal, patrimonialist and authoritarian past that the country has found since Portuguese colonization, our fight is not over yet. To stand against the oppression that crosses our centuries as a nation is to realize the potential that social, trade union and popular movements carry as a memory of resistance learning.
In the last decade, after experiencing a coup d'état, the Brazilian people, despite all the neoconservative and neoliberal optics that guided the successor governments of democracy, did not stop fighting against the imposed oppressions. The years 2016 to 2022 were marked by an increase in poverty and hunger, by police violence, by the expansion of racism and femicide. But popular movements and organizations were on the streets denouncing this scenario, without giving up.
The current chapter of the class struggle, written day by day in our country, was the mirror for Fora Temer that stopped several setbacks in the agenda of labor and social security counter-reforms. Again there were the movements in “Ele Não” and Fora Bolsonaro denouncing misinformation and genocide. The organization of popular committees built alternatives for Lula's freedom and also for his electoral victory.
But we cannot lose the dimension that the Brazilian people, through the movements and organizations that make up their struggle fronts, do not intend to end their actions after the current president takes office. The struggle fronts will be the driving force and support to guarantee a government of the people, so that it is the most democratic and hopeful of all times.
As a counterpoint, the dispute of the narrative against fascism, hatred and fake news are still a reality and all people who believe in a popular project for Brazil need to be aware. The popular project that we want goes beyond the election, it aims to organize society in general to create bases for another order of society far from the oppression of the capitalist system.
This project is constituted by the legitimacy of our struggles drawn century after century, between slavery, the absence of civil rights, for freedom of expression and against all authoritarianism and arbitrariness in which we were imprisoned. Capitalism is the engine of social and economic inequality and that is why it is on the agenda of popular struggles.
The project of democracy comprises, in short, the socialization of life. It is not possible to live in a country where there is food in abundance in one corner and in another corner the crowded peripheries of hunger are perpetuated. In the parallel of the few billionaires who live in the opulence of the capital, the misery of the imposed barbarism is sustained.
Society needs citizenship that guarantees a model of expanded social security. It is necessary to strengthen health, social security and social assistance policies, but this security will only be consistent with its protective role when developed through intersectoral potentialities together with education, culture and leisure policies. The country needs another economic model aimed at promoting new work and income structures. Freedom, for us, is a goal!
And for this, people must be attentive and strong. To be part of the day-to-day construction of this project, on the streets, in events, in dialogue with family members and with the people we spend the most time with, whether at work or in the neighborhood. Overcoming the walls of indifference is recognizing that there are still many people to build this project in Brazil with us, because it will not be done alone.
Hope is huge and love is the easiest feeling to be sown than hate. Our planting must be daily in the countryside and in the city, in factories and in alleys. Must be on the bus or at family Sunday lunch. Recognizing yourself as a class works is in the mirror of what unifies us. It is the dream of a just and egalitarian society that allows us to hope for tomorrow.
Once again the people won this arm wrestling match, took to the streets, won the elections and overthrew any intentions of those who did not intend to build a country based on concrete needs. It's time to call more people to continue this construction. It is time to value the movements and organizations that did the groundwork, even when there was a risk of the pandemic, the threat of violence and the reality of hunger. All power to the people! Me, you, them, them and also us: we want it.
*Leonardo Koury Martins he is a social worker, professor, counselor at CRESS-MG and a member of the Frente Brasil Popular.
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