Ok, so the brazilian riots...
I've been seeing lots of misconceptions regarding the Brazilian riots here on tumblr. I'm not surprised, though, for two reasons: tumblr can be very misleading given the huge amount of well-intentioned and naive people. I know, I've been a victim of it. Remember Kony 2012? The second reason is because even Brazilians can't get this whole situation straight. So I'll give my point of view and I recommend planetarygirl's posts because she's awesome and has written great posts about it and I also recommend that you talk to other Brazilian folks before you start spreading information that might not even be true.
So, here's how all of this started: There is this group called Movimento Passe Livre (MPL), which translates to Free Pass Movement. The movement stands for free pass in public transportation, such as buses, regular trains and subway trains. It exists since 2005 and was founded in the city of Porto Alegre. It quickly spread throughout the country, given that fares here in Brazil are somewhat expensive especially when compared to the minimum wage (which lots of people don't even make, to be honest. We have lots of citizens here in Brazil who live with much less than the minimum wage).
MPL has been fighting for its causes (free pass in public transportation, better trains, better payment to bus drivers and other staff who work in this business, etc) since its beginning and going to the street and protesting. Due to the broadness of the cause, lots of social groups have become members of it, mostly students and members of left wing political parties, such as PSOL, PSTU, PCO, PCdoB and even PT, which nowadays is more of a left-center party (and is the party of presidents Lula and Dilma, our current president).
Alongside MPL, many other groups have a history of going out to the streets and protesting in Brazil: groups that defend LGBT+ causes, feminism, the black movement, MST (which stands for Movimento dos Sem Terra - the landless rural workers that fight for land reform), public school teachers and public health workers, just to mention a few.
Ok, so, in June, São Paulo city hall announced a raise in the bus fare from 3 reais to 3,20 reais. São Paulo statehouse also raised the subway and train fares to R$ 3,20. Many other states and cities also raised their public transportation fares. This caused MPL to go to the streets and protest in some of the cities. São Paulo included. I'm going to talk more about São Paulo because that's where I live (and I live right where the riots are happening). The first protest happened June 6th, with 5k people. It was not well received.
Most of the population (yes, including the current "rioters") were more worried with the traffic jam the protest would create and the media was calling the protesters "vandals" and "hoodlums". That is because some of the protesters were making barricades to protect themselves from the police and a few were spray painting public walls or buildings related to the financial business, such as banks. A minority were breaking car windows and subway stations. The police response was violent but well hidden. With protesters complaining about it, but the general public not giving a damn.
That went on for the next two protests, on June 10th and 11th. The same thing. Protesters from MPL and supporters, mostly students, left wing party members and other "liberal thinkers", focusing on the raise of the 20 cents and better transportation for the city. Since all of the encounters were on weekdays and at 5pm, there were very little working class or poorer people included. But even with that privileged shit, things were still ok on my view. I was supporting the whole thing, though not going to the street due to fear of the police repression.
On the 4th big act on June 13th, though, shit changed. The number of protesters increased a little bit and the police, run by São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, got out of control. They were pepper spraying people for not taking off masks, they were arresting people for carrying vinegar (known for suppressing the effects of tear gas), they were rubber bullet shooting people who were already with their arms up and people who were screaming "no violence! no violence!". Though the traditional media tried not to show it, protesters recorded all of the police abuse of authority on camera. Journalists also got arrested and hurt in the proccess. One even got shot in the eye with a rubber bullet, you've probably seen the photo. If you get interested, message me and I can send you links to the videos and photos. I will not post them here because they are too strong and might trigger somebody.
On Friday 14th, the country woke up to a whole different scenario. The media, who were literally one day ago calling the protesters troublemakers, hooligans and vandals, were now defending them and calling out on the police violence. Oh, what do a few hurt journalists do, amirite? With the media, the middle class opinion changed. And they were now siding with MPL and protesters. That also happened in other cities across Brazil.
I need to let you know, though, that police violence is not new to poor Brazilians, black Brazilians, homeless Brazilians, Brazilians who live in the favelas and the ghettos. We hear about police violence against people in the favelas all the time, but the white middle class is very conservative here and pretend they don't see what's happening if it's not in their face. (again, Americans and Europeans seem to think that the people they see in the photos are Latinos, and thus a minority. It's not true. Color and race work a lot differently here. Sofia Vergara, Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Antonio Banderas, Rick Martin, they would all be considered very white in Latin America and would have the same privileges Brad Pitt would if he was born here.) Even LGBT, feminist and MST protesters know about the violence. We get hit and pepper sprayed a lot. Even MPL is used to it! But it was new to the white middle class watching television. And they were pissed.
They were not only pissed about the police oppression. They were pissed that our last two presidents are from the Worker's Party (PT) and that they focus their government plan on the working class. They focus on bringing more Brazilians to the middle class (the new middle class, you might have heard of it), they focus on urbanizing favelas and creating new houses for people living in slums, they focus on eradicating illiteracy. I'm not trying to do any kind of propaganda here. I'm not even a fully supporter of PT or any of the two presidents, though I did vote for them because they were deffinitely the best running. And they were pissed that the government doesn't focus on the middle class.
So, on June 17th, this Monday, the protest which started with 5k people, reached 100k people and all 27 capitals of Brazil and some other big cities. A huge amount of people on the streets, but now there weren't only MPL and supporters, there were all kinds of agenda in there, all saying that it wasn't about 20 cents, as if 20 cents were a small thing. It might be small for the middle class that own a car and don't take the public transportation to work, of if they do, they have vouchers from work, like I do, because I'm a member of the middle class and privileged as shit, but most of them don't recognize it.
Most of the middle class protesters (because, again, these protests are not very open to the working class, even though they have their support) wanted to change corruption, and to have better public healthcare and education. Yes, there is corruption in our government. Our public healthcare and education is also very poor. But first of all, you're appropriating a legitimate movement to set your agenda? Secondly, these are topics that fall into a very demagogic argument. There's not a single person that is pro-corruption or who wouldn't like to have better healthcare and education. If you don't fight for concrete goals, you're not fighting for anything.
Then people from the white cishet middle class started exiling political party members (who were there from the beginning) out of the protest and they started saying stuff like "Brazil has finally awaken" and "The giant has awaken" and lots of other cliche oneliners that seriously offend people who have been fighting for all the different reasons since forever. And not only that, but they started implying that all that corruption and lack of healthcare and education was a fault of our current government.
Yes, there is corruption in our current government. But there was corruption in our last one. And the one previous to that, and the other one before that. Corruption is not a problem of this unique group of people. It's not even the most expensive one we've had. The same goes for education and healthcare. It's an institutionalized problem our country has that goes back to our military dictatorship and even to our empire and colonial times. Every govern tries to fix it the best way they can (and according to their interests, of couse). But until then, everything was ok. I was starting to get pissed, but were still fully supportive of the movement, because hey, it might be getting a little out of its path, but at least it's growing and getting international coverage and the raise of the bus fare was still the main issue there.
But then the radical conservative people walked in and started protesting against abortion, against the "gay dictatorship", to impeach president Dilma, to reduce or end the imprisonment legal age, to pair up with the army and take over the government (a.k.a. MILITARY DICTATORSHIP, guise we've been out of one for like 30 years and you want all that shit back? how privileged can someone be), the end of political parties... And people are following.
That was the situation for both monday and tuesday, with even more people on the street. Conservatives are appropriating the movement. More and more people are calling themselves apolitical, and they are actually anti-political. People carrying political parties flags are being actually beaten by other protesters. The police (military police, btw, I believe I didn't mention that. another great heritage from our military dictatorship.) is not doing much and are just attacking people that are comitting crimes against public patrimony. Many protesters are actually endorsing the police acts against those "vandals" (most of them poor and not white) because they are "staining the protests".
By wednesday morning, more than 12 cities had announced a return to the original fare for buses and subway trains. While MPL celebrated and stated that the fight would continue to get free pass for public transportation and land reform both in rural and urban areas, the other wave of protesters (larger in number) are still going on about corruption, healthcare, education, the world cup, the olympics, security, high taxes, abortion, impeachment, etc...
Today, more than 1 million people went out on the streets to protest about generic topics throughout Brazil. I think that it's great that people are engaged in discussing public affairs, but the people you see in V for Vendetta masks and holding brazilian flags are those who have no political agenda and are inflamed with this whole riot vibe. As I've said, most of them, according to a survey applied at the São Paulo protest last tuesday, said they are apolitical. The police and the government are supporting the protests, which consists basically of singing the national anthem, showing some posters, and hollering all your personal reasons to be there. To protest against "corruption" with no proposal like "full disclosure of public finances available online" for example and to no one in specific is just dull.
And I wouldn't mind it being dull since MPL and other serious movements are there protesting for important causes, but the lack of effectiveness of the middle class protest might result not only in weakening the causes the aforementioned groups are fighting for but in them (the middle class that leans towards a more conservative ideology) following the more conservative groups and starting to engage in this overoptimistic patriotism and antipartizanship that might lead to a dangerous scenario.
So, overall I support the movement, the original one, and I'm even happy that finally we're having this amount of people in the streets protesting. But I wish people were protesting for the same thing, instead of having an infinite number of personal causes that go from restating another military dictatorship to ending the military police. I know things like this will never be perfect, given it envolves so many people, but since the fare has lowered, the movement has gone cloudy and I'm scared of what might come out of it, especially because the majority of the protesters are from a center-right wing middle class that tends to a more conservative take on politics and social affairs. I'm scared of the number of signatures in an online petition to impeach our democratically elected president who has a rate of approval over 60%. And I'm scared to read a newspaper from the day after our last dictatoship was settled and seeing the resemblances with the speech of many people nowadays.
I'm not saying you should be against the riots, not at all. There are also lots of important cause being fought, like land reform, the end of military police, free pass in public transportation, the revogation of the "gay cure" bill and the "statute of the unborn" bill, but be aware of who you endorse and support.
I've spent hours writing this and I feel like I'm repeating myself so I'm gonna end it here, but talk to other brazilians, because, believe me, lots of people have different opinions than mine - I've got into so many arguments in these 3 weeks I've lost track of them. And if you want to know more, or want some sources or videos/photos or want to talk about it, feel free to message me.
