By LUIZ MARQUES*
PT in renewal: between socialist mystique and the challenges of the present, the party seeks to rekindle its revolutionary flame to face the inequalities of the 21st century
The largest left-wing party in Brazil, the Workers' Party (PT), is intensely experiencing the process of renewing its leadership at the municipal, state and national levels. The internal debate involving thousands of members ultimately concerns the best strategy in the current situation to achieve a more just, pluralistic and egalitarian society, with public policies to eliminate the serious socioeconomic and cultural inequities that have afflicted the population for ages.
The process activates the PT's “mystique” with social solidarity as the protagonist in the constitution of a collective spirit on the various fronts of mobilization. It gives meaning to existence and objectives to transcend reality in search of a world without oppression or exploitation.
On January 10, 1980, in São Paulo, the phenomenon was present in the founding of the party and nuclei for the spread of socialist ideals from North to South, in the countryside and in the cities, among students and workers. It can still be seen in the star that illuminates the exit from the labyrinths. Religiosity is not a requirement for epiphany. The manifestation of the divine in everyday life is also felt by agnostics and atheists who are moved by paving the way for emancipation, surrounded by disputes and utopias.
Mysticism may be in the poem Song by Antonio Machado and in the love song Back to the 17th by Violeta Parra. In the greeting Comrade! from the story by Máksim Górki and in the photographs by Sebastião Salgado in the exhibition Exodus. In a seminar with Marilena Chaui at the Perseu Abramo Foundation and in memory of environmentalist Chico Mendes, anti-racist Lélia González, feminist Nalu Faria and the LGBT Pride Parade.
The times when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked up the ramp of the Planalto Palace and when Dilma Rousseff wore the sash of the Presidency of the Republic. It synthesizes the poignant emotions of humanism, dignity, perseverance. At the moment, it provides an opportunity for the political resumption of the original revolutionary aura. Without fear of being happy, in the morning.
Popular participation
The emergence of the PT coincides with an anti-civilizational turn: the hyper-individualist political-ideological hegemony based on the totalitarianism of the commodity. The feeling of liberation when navigating in distant geographies, Online, simulates the illusory decolonization and lends a positive connotation to speculative neoliberal globalization. Castellsian dazzlements endorse the deceptive promise of digital democracy in the websphere, covering up with a veneer the change in the pattern of accumulation.
On the other hand, left-wing experiences in Porto Alegre and Santo André revived an authentic “sense of community”. The PT way of governing (1992), under the coordination of Jorge Bittar, already highlighted “the theme of popular participation, due to its importance for the PT’s political project”. The elites of the regression fear the democratic vocation of the party and dismantle the structures and the sociability agenda of the OP (Participatory Budget). Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did the same with Liberation Theology and the CEBs (Base Ecclesial Communities), which operate in the outskirts of the city. Prejudice is the sin that corrupts the Vatican.
A close bond binds class consciousness and community consciousness together in the configuration of political identities. Historians of the heroic workers’ strikes in the ABC region of São Paulo (1978-1981) agree on the logistics of the “movement against high prices” in neighborhoods and favelas, with the indomitable courage of women, to support the activities of the strikers who challenged the civil-military dictatorship. With a “programmatic intuition,” alchemist leaders built a mass party and a trade union center, applying the historical formulas of resilience and self-improvement to advance.
The community and the class
In the chapter “Community and Class”, in Paris, Capital of Modernity (2003), British geographer David Harvey notes: “Marxists who refuse to recognize the relevance of community for the formation of solidarity are mistaken, just as blind are those who claim that community solidarity has nothing to do with social class. Class signs and class consciousness are as important in the living space as they are in the workplace.
Class positioning can be expressed both through consumption patterns and through relations with production.” The work of change promoters has an integrative dynamic, encompassing everything from places of residence to places of study and work. Electoral surveys show the connection; votes tend to preserve coherence.
Reactionary mayors interrupt the flow of empathy between the community and the working class in a bureaucratic manner. Measures to exempt the government from its obligations to take care of the squares never aim at co-managing the space with peripheral associations. Businesses and commercial stores are the priority.
Communitarianism is emptied in favor of the “rich club” which, in the lexicon of the brave Pepe Mujica, refers to the rastaqueras who fill the emptiness of their souls by showing off their luxury goods. Fetishes serve to overshadow mediocre personalities, whose contribution is limited to Forbes.
Hiring artists who suffer with exorbitant fees, compared to the revenues of the municipalities, is explained. In addition to enabling “kickbacks”, they signal a symbol of entrepreneurship by the winners in the war of all against all. The power of money is consecrated in the spectacle, with the subliminal praise of domination.
Active citizens with rights become passive, self-absorbed consumers. The motto is “I suffer, therefore I exist.” The moral is “I am addicted to drugs”; namely, to transportation and food apps, outsourcing and low wages. Commercial country music translates the privatization of social misfortunes into the subjectivity of losers who bleed to live. As if the State did not count; only individuals and their emotional wanderings counted.
Develop the cutting edge
Necropolitics sums up the saga of the far right. The freedom that matters is the freedom of circulation of unproductive capital. The value of equality is treated as a social hindrance. For finance and big techs (plutocracy), inequalities, fake news and post-truth are welcome. Competition is the prescribed conduct for the people.
Above, the monopolization of wealth and information reigns; of power and privileges; of well-being and knowledge. Institutional fraternity is abjured by conservative governments that exalt fiscal adjustments of austerity. Really existing capitalism needs the action of modern “captains of the woods” for gentrification and financialization.
Even kindness does not survive in the cities. Impatience with old cars and beggars on public roads is a symptom of aporophobia against the poor. Thieves of the public treasury are still at large. The corporate media hides them from society because it supports the monetarism of the Washington Consensus, the autonomy of the Central Bank, financial agencies, agribusiness, extractivism and mega-retail.. Although the lion's strength has weakened, the fox with cunning launches the lawfare to the resistance of the commons. The alliance of the proto-fascist press with neoliberalism maintains the old order. But we are here.
President Lula is committed to unlocking multipolarity and giving a counter-hegemonic direction to clashes at the international level. The country must be a lever in the fight against the climate crisis. COP-30 (Conference of the Parties, 30th edition) is a line of containment against predatory folly, except for the US Executive, the Brazilian Congress and the arch-billionaires who double down on destruction to protect their apocalyptic privileges. The proliferation of Data Centers voracious consumption of energy (drinking water, electricity) brings immense ecological risks to life.
Progressives are responsible for stopping the social and environmental catastrophe of the 99st century. What is new is that the new subject of history is not limited to one class; it now comprises XNUMX% of humanity. The reorganized WSF (World Social Forum) is capable of developing the vanguard. “The rose is already becoming a flame / at the edge of the heart,” warns the poet from Amazonas in Song of Clarity.
* Luiz Marques is a professor of political science at UFRGS. He was Rio Grande do Sul's state secretary of culture in the Olívio Dutra government.
