Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

 Haddad-Siegesfeier auf der Avenida Paulista:  http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2012/10/29/brasilien-siegesfeier-mit-gewahltem-burgermeister-fernando-haddadmensalao-partei-pt-auf-sao-paulos-avenida-paulista-der-city/

Fahren in Nahverkehrsbussen in Brasilien: 

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2013/06/13/brasilien-heftige-proteste-gegen-fahrpreiserhohungen-in-starker-teuerungsphase-bushaltestelle-in-sao-paulo-was-alles-fehlt-kein-fahrplan-kein-routenplan-keine-stadt-oder-stadtbezirkskarte-ni/

„Sowohl im wirtschaftlichen als auch im sozialen Bereich ist das größte Land Südamerikas zu einem Vorbild in der Region geworden. “ WeltTrends, Potsdam 2012

DEMONSTRATIONS AND THE IVORY TOWER

The recent street demonstrations in Brazil surprised the governments – municipal, state and federal. Authorities, perplexed, ask themselves: how is this possible? Who is behind this? Who is monitoring it? And they respond with the only, unfortunate lesson learned in 21 years of dictatorship: police repression.

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2013/07/02/brasilien-systemkritikerproteste-2013karikaturist-angeli-zu-frage-der-extrem-hohen-gewaltrate-in-brasilien-den-entsprechenden-protesten/

Our authorities lock themselves in an ivory tower. As though Brazil were a planet far from this terrestrial orb where street demonstrations pop up at every corner, from Occupy Wall Street to Tahrir Square in Cairo, from the periphery of Paris to Taskim Square in Istanbul.

The question “what’s behind this?” could be answered if the government were to listen to what is evident before their eyes: the dissatisfaction of youth. The same dissatisfaction which led the generation who now hold power to participate in student demonstrations during the 1960s and in urban guerrilla during the 1970s decade.

The same dissatisfaction which mobilised workers to strike at the turn of 1970-80 and to found the Workers’ Party (PT) which has been running the country for 10 years.

The difference is that in those days the police infiltrated their agents into student groups and unions, political parties and clandestine groups and, once they received information, acted preventively. Now the mobilisation occurs through social networks which are more difficult to control (but not impossible, as Edward Snowden, the young American who revealed to the world that the American ASN invades the computers of millions of people).

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2013/06/28/edward-snowden-everybodoy-under-control-brasiliens-wichtigster-befreiungstheologe-frei-bettothe-documents-prove-that-the-nsa-became-the-true-big-brother-described-in-george-orwell%E2%80%99s-c/

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2013/07/03/kalter-krieg-und-snowden-affare-der-fall-des-bolivianischen-staatschefs-evo-morales/

What is obvious is that our authorities castrated all lines of interlocution with social movements which they tolerate but never valorise. Where are the political councils which include popular leaders? And steering committees? And the National Secretariat for Youth? Where is the UNE (National Student Union)? And the channels for dialogue with youth?

Installed in its ivory tower, the government is surprised by each new demonstration: by the landless, the indigenous people, by public transport users, the discontent with inflation and even the booing of president Dilma at the opening of the Confederations Cup.

Those who don’t dialogue end up in isolation, appealing to repression just like someone who feels cornered.

It is time for our authorities to leave their ivory tower, drop their binoculars centred on the elections of 2014 and enter reality. The head thinks where the feet step. And the reality is economic stability which is threatened, agrarian reform which is stuck, indigenous lands which are invaded (by agro business and by magnificent government works), exemptions for the automobile industry which predominate over public investment in public transport and the authorities’ guilty conscience regarding “gratuities” for private businesses etc.

Therefore what is obvious is the lack of hope in these young people who lack utopias and, when they do not take refuge in drugs, do not yet know how to transform their indignation and revolt into proposals and political programmes.

*Frei Betto is a writer, author of “A mosca azul – reflexão sobre o poder” (The Blue Fly – a reflection on power) (Rocco).

ABOUT FREI BETTO

He is a Brazilian Dominican with an international reputation as a liberation theologian.
Within Brazil he is equally famous as a writer, with over 56 books to his name.  In 1985 he won Brazil’s most important literary prize, the Jabuti, and was elected Intellectual of the Year by the members of the Brazilian Writers’ Union.

Frei Betto has always been active in Brazilian social movements, and has been an adviser to the Church’s ministry to workers in São Paulo’s industrial belt, to the Church base communities, and to the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST).

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2012/11/20/rivalitat-brasilien-argentinien-auf-kuriose-weise-weiterbestehend-brasilianische-medien-verzichten-bewust-auf-landervergleiche-mit-fakten-daten/