By FÁBIO FONSECA DE CASTRO*
In Pará, a project is underway to empty the territories and identities of traditional populations in the state
A major political event, of ontological dimensions, is taking place in Belém. Today, January 30, 2025, marks the 15th day of occupation of the headquarters of the Education Secretariat of the State of Pará by indigenous leaders. A protest accompanied by dozens of mobilizations, organized by indigenous and traditional peoples spread throughout the state.
The movement demands that the governor of Pará, Hélder Barbalho, revoke Law 10.820/2024, of December 19, a law passed suddenly, in complicity with the state Legislative Assembly, without any public debate. Regulating the Statute of Public Education of Pará, the law revokes provisions that established an education policy in regions of the interior, where there is no regular education, replacing face-to-face classes with classes broadcast on televisions and screens.
In practical terms, the law extinguishes the Indigenous Education Modular Organization System (Somei) – responsible for in-person high school education in the state’s indigenous communities – and the Education Modular Organization System (Some) – dedicated to offering education in other traditional communities –, replacing them with a distance learning model, carried out through a recently created Pará Education Media Center (Cemep). An attack on the rights to education, identity and citizenship of indigenous peoples and other traditional communities.
This probably means that COP 30 has begun in Belém – an event that tends to be marked by protests and the will, if not the power, of countless Amazonian social movements fighting for rights and citizenship. As is known, Belém will host the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in November of this year, organized by the UN and which will bring together, in addition to heads of state, scientists and political leaders from all over the world – more than 50 people will come to the event.
The indigenous protest scenario is reinforced by the beginning of a strike in the state education system, since the same law nullifies the automatic progression of the teaching staff, making it conditional on budget availability and meritocratic devices defined by the government itself and without the participation of the education workers. It also reduces the bonus for special education teachers and removes unions linked to education from the Permanent Education Assessment Commission in the state.
In the case of indigenous education, specifically, what is behind the dismantling of Somei is much more than the end of in-person indigenous education. It is, fundamentally, the project of emptying the territories and identities of traditional populations in Pará. The dismantling of the educational system will inevitably lead to a migration of young indigenous, quilombola and riverside communities, as well as all traditional populations in the state, to the state's medium-sized and large cities, which results in a weakening of territorialities and, consequently, the expansion of agribusiness and mining, including illegal mining.
Even though indigenous education in Pará has been historically precarious, the extinction of Somei and Some represents an unprecedented affront: the replacement of a dialectical education, with a teacher in the classroom, by a television set.
COP 30 in dispute
The occupation of the Education Department is part of a curious context. On the one hand, the extreme political ineptitude of the governor of Pará, who, in his second term and in the middle of the COP30 year, began a process of ultra-liberalization of the state and drastic cuts in social policies. On the other, the intention of Hélder B., the governor, to gain national political prominence in the wake of COP30.
The destruction of educational policies aimed at indigenous and traditional peoples of the Amazon region of Pará is compounded by decrees and laws that are destroying the already not very robust state system of social policies, actions that include, among others, the elimination of state secretariats dedicated to family farming (and their merger with the secretariat dedicated to agribusiness), Women, Racial Equality, Human Rights, Sports and Recreation, and the inspection of river navigation – something fundamental in the Amazon. In other words, compromised policies that are very similar to everything that was seen with Jair Bolsonaro in the Federal Government.
In the same context of ultra-liberalization, in December of last year, Hélder B. backed down, after immense popular mobilization, from an (unconstitutional) project to merge the state's public radio and television stations with the body responsible for publicizing government actions and to extinguish the Pará Cultural Foundation.
And to all this, there is an improbable and unthinkable prohibition on teachers in the state public school system failing students – a verbal rule that caused education in Pará to jump from 26th to 6th place in the national ranking of the Basic Education Development Index (Ideb), between 2021 and 2023.
This dismantling was being done in parallel with Hélder B.'s attempt to become president of COP 30. Until this neoliberal shift, his chances were real – after all, in addition to governing the state that will host the event, his party, the MDB, is a strong supporter of the Lula government. It is worth noting, in this regard, that Pará has 9 of its 45 federal deputies from the MDB, plus a state minister, Jáder Barbalho Filho, Hélder B.'s brother, and a senator, Jáder Barbalho, their father.
Like the Bolsonaro clan, the B family from Pará has deep ties to the institutions and political power in the state. In addition to those mentioned, Hélder B. is the son of federal deputy Elcione Barbalho, cousin of another federal deputy, cousin of the recently elected mayor of Belém, brother of a city councilwoman from Belém, husband of the Councilor of the State Court of Auditors (appointed by himself), cousin of three other councilors of the same Court, relative of six councilors of the Court of Auditors of the Municipalities of the State of Pará, nephew of two advisors of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Accounts of the Municipalities of Pará, cousin of a tax auditor who also holds the position of deputy secretary of the State Treasury, and this in addition to an extensive network of relationships, tiresome to mention here.
The contradictions of his government, however, caused Hélder B. to lose the race. Lula appointed, a few days ago, as is known, ambassador André Correa do Lago to the coveted post.
Ontological dimension of indigenous protest
In addition to losing political space with his neoliberal measures, the governor of Pará may also lose symbolic space in the context of COP 30. The “ontological dimension” of the indigenous protests, which we mentioned above, concerns the courage and intensity of the indigenous movement – and of Amazonian social movements in general – in demanding their fair space in the debate on the Amazon. This is an anti-colonial struggle that flourishes, at the same time, amid the intelligence blackout of the Hélder B. government – or, one should say, amid the unveiling of the deep colonial and colonialist identity of this government, which, in itself, represents a good part of the ethos of the Amazonian elites.
The indigenous protest highlights the superficiality and frivolity with which COP 30 is being organized by the Pará government.
In practice, we are witnessing the beginning of COP 30, an event that is likely to become the COP of protests and the voice of the Amazonian peoples. All the better, because the Pará government's plan for the event does not propose real or realistic debates on climate and environmental issues, contenting itself with a superficial gloss on the noble areas of the city of Belém, the areas that will host the event.
In fact, all the attention of Hélder Barbalho's government is falsely focused on supposedly structural issues, such as endless debates about, for example, the transfer of public buildings to hotels and the dredging of river areas that could eventually accommodate ocean liners and thus alleviate the city's lodging problems. What is on the agenda, according to the state government, is the aforementioned makeover of Belém for the event – while all the policies to defend the state's traditional populations, those primarily responsible for preserving the forest, are being destroyed.
The protest by indigenous peoples has an ontological dimension because it goes to the heart of one of the major issues of Brazilian coloniality: the right to participate in the construction of public policies that concern them. In fact, at no point in the construction of Law 10.820/2024 was there prior consultation with the communities, as required by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), of which Brazil is a signatory.
And this would be necessary because, in truth, what indigenous communities need, and demand, is much more than the repeal of Law 10.820/2024. It is the right to an education that respects them as peoples and in their diversity, and that respects the ontological difference between their traditions and the generalist educational models of Brazilian coloniality.
Furthermore, regarding the reality of indigenous education, it is important to mention that there is a lack of qualified teachers who speak the languages of these populations, that there is a lack of educational infrastructure in many locations, and that there is a lack of digital inclusion – a real obstacle, in fact, for the government of Pará to be able to implement a distance learning system. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that the IBGE ranks Pará as the third Brazilian state with the least access to the internet.
Consequences on the way
On January 17, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) requested the Ministry of Education (MEC) to provide a position on the remote classroom model planned by the Pará government. This occurs in a context in which, through a lawsuit filed in 2018, the MPF and the Pará State Public Prosecutor's Office (MPPA) collectively argue that all traditional peoples and communities in Pará should be consulted before any decision is made by the State on this matter.
The lack of dialogue between the Pará government and traditional communities has already been a source of public protest. In June 2023, the state's Secretary of Education, Rossieli Soares, was confronted by education professionals regarding a bill proposed under his leadership, Bill No. 369/2023, which proposed the end of the mechanism called Democratic Management in the State Education Network. Teachers, parents, and students mobilized and the government withdrew the proposal.
Rossieli Soares is a well-known figure when it comes to dismantling educational systems. As Minister of Education in 2018, he led the implementation of the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) for High School Education, which was criticized by experts and educators from all over the country who rightly demanded that he participate in any dialogue on the issue. Later, as Secretary of Education for the State of São Paulo in 2021, he was criticized for keeping schools open during the worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Later, as Secretary of Education in Amazonas, he was convicted for administrative misconduct in an action brought by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the State of Amazonas, for failure to provide four documents necessary for the investigation process, at the time he held the position. In addition, still in Amazonas, he was prosecuted for illegal waiver of bidding.
This trajectory associated with attempts at dismantling led him to receive the title of “Citizen of Pará”, which was conferred upon him by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Pará, last December, in parallel with the enactment of the ill-fated law, in recognition of “his contribution to education in the State”.
Governor confronted
Dialogues have been established, but the indigenous peoples demand equal conditions and have very clear proposals. The Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, needed 14 days to finally take a position on the issue. She came to Belém and was received by the leaders who occupy the Education Secretariat. She arranged a meeting with Governor Hélder B., which took place on the evening of January 28.
Not much progress was made in this meeting, but a major illocutionary fact deeply affected the governor of Pará. According to local media and the popular communication networks of indigenous movements, Hélder B. became agitated when the leaders said that if he did not meet their demands there would be no COP. The indigenous people are threatening to paralyze Belém and Pará, closing streets, highways and airports.
Yes, COP 30 has already begun. And the fact that it is being held in Belém, a city that epitomizes Amazonian issues, does not mean that it will happen to show the world the beauty or the makeover of the city made for the event. Rather, it must and needs to happen in Belém, to show the world the Amazonian conflicts and their deep ontological issues.
* Fabio Fonseca de Castro He is a sociology professor at the Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos, at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). How Fábio Horácio-Castro published the novel The melancholy reptile (All time lap record).
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