MST: a bottom-up Agrarian Reform

In the beginning of our long trip in Brasil, an old black man in Bahia told us: "tem muitos Brasis em Brasil", meaning there are many Brasils within Brasil.

After 2 months of exhausting travelling, spending more than 6.000 Km in buses and changing 10 different states, only 2 things are in common within this immense country: football and fazendas...

Fazendas are big (better say enormous) pieces of land that belong to powerful people, the fazendeiros. The fazendeiros usually make money from different business than agriculture (media, finances, constructions, investments etc.). One should look back to the history of Brasil to find out how so much land was concentrated in the hands of so few people (which is not the issue at this post). The important thing is that the whole Brasil, an immense area of land, almost 65 times the size of Greece is cut into (quite big) pieces and distributed to (quite few) people.

Natural parks, whole parts of cities, areas of archaeological importance, regions of indigenous communities, touristic destinations, mountains, beaches, valleys, lakes, and rivers, everything in Brasil can be a fazenda. If you take a bus-ride to the countryside you will discover that both sides of the roads are fenced. We even visited some touristic sites where we had to pay an entrance fee, not to the Brasilian Tourism Organisation, not even to a private company for the preservation of the site, but to the owner of that piece of land.

These fazendas are rarely productive. Many are abandoned and some are rented out to multinationals for industrial purposes (cultivation of eucalyptus, acacia etc.). Property titles are often questionable, as for taxes they are rarely paid by the fazendeiros.

What is undisputable is that all fazendas are always fenced and very well guarded. Who wants to lose his beloved fazenda by any group of invaders? Possession of land in Brasil is power. Show me your land to tell you who you are…

Some kilometres far from the fazendas, millions of poor Brasilians try to survive packed in the favelas, self-built settlements at the suburbs of big cities. Unemployment, poor hygienic conditions, violence and hunger prevail in the favelas.

Therefore, some years ago the government promised the “Agrarian Reform”, in other words to buy land from rich and redistribute it to poorer Brasilians. However, the plan never went through. The powerful lobbies of fazendeiros stopped any attempt.

Some 22 years ago the Movement of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) was created as a means of pressure to the Government of Brasil to proceed to the Agrarian Reform.

In very simple words, here is how the movement works:

MST is having its own research groups, which identify which fazendas are not used, therefore are eligible for expropriation. It sets settlements at the territory outside this fazenda and proceeds to short-term occupations of the fazenda. Occupations are usually pacific (women and children are at the front lines) and may last from a couple of days, to many months. Usually, occupants are thrown out by the police or the guards of the fazenda. However, these symbolic occupations, serve as a means of pressure for the government to start negotiations with the fazendeiro and proceed to expropriation of his land. Often negotiations are successful, the land is expropriated and redistributed to members of MST. Some other times, the fazendeiro might not agree to give away his land. In that case the government makes sure to start negotiations for the expropriation of nearby fazendas.

Under the constant pressure of MST, every month the government is happy to announce the expropriation of more and more fazendas. Now about 200.000 poor Brasilian families have won their piece of land and escaped from the nightmare of the favelas. Another 200.000 families are camping outside big fazendas waiting to earn their own land.

MST has achieved what no previous government had achieved, the redistribution of the Brasilian land …or better call it: “a bottom-up Agrarian Reform”!!!

The MST bourgeoisie

At the Serra Gaucha, about 1 hour north of Porto Alegre lays the assentamento of Capela. When we arrived here, we could hardly believe our eyes. Nice fresh-painted houses, shiny cars and natural blond children playing with new bikes. Hard to describe our shock when they brought us to the special guesthouse for MST sympathizers that visit the assentamento. Our previous experience from the poor living conditions of other assentamentos brought thoughts about strange businesses going on here, like money laundering, drug trafficking, etc. However, after spending a week here things are much more clear. But lets take the story from the beginning.


Porto Alegre (P.A.) has a long history of progressive politics. In the late 80´s when the Labor Party came to power, they set up a governannce system, where citizen committees set priorities and decide a budget that the city council is unofficially bound to respect. In 2001, participants of the 1st World Social Forum discovered that Porto Alegre was itself a model of democratic political organization (many Latin American cities are now trying to copy this system). Just a short visit to P.A. gives a clear view how much this city differs from the rest of Brazil: numerous bookstores, public political acts, cultural events etc.

These conditions favoured the development of various movements and of course of the movement of the Landless people of Brazil. This is where MST became popular and starting spreading throughout the country. People went out in the streets, living in temporary tents and pressing the government to give them land. This way, the first assentamentos were created.


About 12 years ago, 100 families earned a land at the position where the assentamento Capela is laying now. People starting cultivating individually and eating what land was generously giving them. People were happy to have basic alimentation and a house to live, however 30 families wanted to improve their living conditions and they decided to join forces. They created COOPAN, a cooperative that produces rice, black beans (feijoao), milk (from cows) and pork meat. Within COOPAN, men and women work collectively the land and share the products, as well as the income from selling them to city markets.

Hoewever, business went well, so they started cultivating in bigger quantities, producing more, selling more, earning more! Thats what explains the quality of life they have right now.

Bur lets see some more dimensions of this assentamento:

Environment:
Cultivation is stricktly organic, any use of fertilizers is forbidden, products are transported with own trucks and sold from the store of MST at the central market of P.A. All activities (use of energy, water and garbage disposal etc) are with respect to the environment and preservation of biodiversity.



Internal organization:
All decisions are taken collectively by the families, problems are raised at the weekly assemblies and resolved immediately. All people are working either with the land or the animals (2 people are doing office work) and they swift roles if they wish. Everybody works very hard from early morning to late night and they all receive the same salary no matter what kind of work they are doing. Members of the cooperative usually have free and unlimited access to all products (or buy at price of cost). Finally, the earnings that stay within the cooperative are used for improvement of common spaces, buying equipment etc.

Education:
Here, more than anywhere else we have visited, education is one of the highest priorities. The school of Nova Sociedade is one of the best in the wider region. All children of the Capela families attend school and students are coming even from other assentamentos or from non-MST regions. There are also night courses for alphabetization of adults. We spent extensive time at school, following classes and talking with students and professors. Financial and infrastructure problems do exist but people are giving daily fights and the results are obvious. Classrooms are clean and better preserved than many Greek schools, 2 warm lunches are provided every day and at the school library we found books we didnt find in many libraries in Brazil. But nothing is conquered without a fight. Professors were unpaid for more than a year and transport doesnt reach the school, so on 07.08 parents and students from MST started walking from various regions and after hours arrived at the General Secretariat of Education at Porto Alegre, where they entered the building, set a tent and started giving a symbolic school class. Newspapers wrote about vandalism and TV condemned the guerrilla movement of MST.


Socialization:
The assentamento of Capela is nothing but isolated from the society. Every second Sunday a social event is taking place at the football course at the heart of the assentamento. Be it a football game, an animal market or a cultural event, people from the community are always invited to visit the assentamento together with their families, integrate with MST people, try local products and eat grilled meat prepared at the gigantic barbeque especially built for these events.

Ideology:
The people of the assentamento never forget their roots and their fight to earn this land and they constantly support the movement of MST in one way or another. Since they have more resources, they coordinate the education system within the schools of the acampamentos in the whole state, they coordinate public acts, they raise awareness on current issues and they support the movement in moral and material ways.

Of course nothing comes without a cost. When we arrived here we observed that most people had a kind of invalidity (missing fingers, toes, hands, legs etc). During work, we also observed that they were little cautious with using dangerous tools (saws, knives etc.). So it was not a surprise when we actually witnessed a labor accident (full of blood)!!!

Men and women in assentamento Capela work hard, from sunrise to sunset, many times under difficult weather conditions. And they are not ashamed to have a big house, a new car, a TV or a microwave oven. On the contrary, they are proud of their ownings that have earned working hard. They are also proud to have earned their fight against land-owners, proud to work the land and eat its products and above all proud that they can provide their children a decent living and a promising future.

The curse to be rich

The distribution of resources in Brasil (land, income, minerals etc.) is ridiculously unequal. Some people talk about the following figures: 7% of the people own the 93% of the resources of the country, while 93% of the people live with the remaining 7%.

I am not sure if the above figures correspond to reality, but what you can easily see if you travel in Brasil is the existance of 2 worlds:
- the world of the rich people and
- the world of the poor people

The rich ones have access to all services and can afford all the amenities and beauties of this wonderful country. They can afford a a big house with a garden or a spacey appartment with a view. They can afford a housemaid (or more than one), a gardener and a driver. They can afford a luxurious car, expensive furniture and imported jewlery. They chose private (mainly international) schools for their children, they buy expensive clothes and they spend their holidays to the United States or Europe. You name it, they afford it.

Is it because everything is so cheap?
...partly yes, services are extremely cheap, for example the monthly salary of a housemaid is rewarded with 100 EUR and a plate of rice
...however, most imported products are extremely expensive, costing twice or 3-times the European prices. Multinationals sell so expensive as long as there are always enough rich people (7% of 185 millions is about 12,5 millions of people) to buy them.

But is it really as nice as it sounds to be rich in Brasil?
A short visit to Sao Paulo (SP) is enough to answer the question. Rich people in this megalopolis, live completely isolated from the society and are totaly unaware of the reality around them.

I explain myself:
They are into constant fear. Rich people in SP live in condominios (complexes of houses or apartments), well protected behind alarm systems, armed guards, cameras and wired fences.
They drive huge cars with black glasses, locked doors and closed windows at all times. They are afraid to stop at traffic lights and they never park at a non-protected area.
They cannot even enjoy a beer at an open-air cafe, a walk at the streets or some jogging in the park.

Is all this fear justified?
The fear in Brasil -as in most of Europe and United States- is created by the media (which is the most corrupt and manipulating I `ve ever seen in a country, I hope I can dedicate a post for this subject). The media in Brasil, next to football and the telenovelas, they principally sell fear. The news dedicate at least the first 15 min to talk about street violence and the papers show daily pictures full of blood at first pages. For most of the rich people that have never been out of the comfort of their car (never walked, never used public transport etc.) this is the only truth. Therefore with good reason they are afraid of everything, even of their own shadow (as we say in Greek).

So street violence doesn`t exist?
Of course it exists, as in most of big cities, but of course the reason is not that SP has a big concentration of "bad guys". On the contrary the Paulistas are extremely kind and hard working people. The reason is the incredible poverty of the big majority of Brasilian people.

And what is the government doing?
They do a lot but towards a rather wrong direction. Some would expect that the government would take actions to create jobs, improve the education and living conditions of poor people. But instead of finding a solution, they `d rather put the problem under the carpet.

Street children are being killed by dozens by corrupt police officers who execute contracts, pickpockets are thrown into jails and stay in packed cells for ages without a trial, street vendors are expelled from cities and are replaced by shopping centers owned by multinationals. Even the most hard-working people of SP, the garbage collectors, who walk barefoot for more than 15 hrs per day to collect and separate garbage, they will soon be replaced by a professional company that will provide less services (collection but no separation of garbage) and at a much higher price. However, the change was decided by the city authorities only because the neatly dressed employees will look nicer than the filthy barefoot garbage collectors.

As our friend Kritonas said, who lives in SP for the last 2 years, better being middle class in Greece than high class in Brasil. At least in Greece, you can enjoy an ouzo with your friends at a taverna downtown, whereas from SP you need to cross the ocean to enjoy a coffee at the open-air.

Isn`t it a curse to be rich in Sao Paulo?

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