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Re: [xmca] Banners of Brazil

Hi, Achilles and all!
I would not like to keep the topic of this list on the very specific situation of Brazil, but I would like to present some more examples in order to, perhaps, clarify my position on the topic. Achilles, my friend, with our backgrounds, we cannot be black or white, good or bad, horizontal or vertical, I believe life goes in all directions, in multiple colors, with varied possibilities. But I like to think that there are important turning points and I can see this moment as one. I will present three very recent concrete examples that are very special for the kind of collaborative interventionist research I conduct in very poor communities in Brazil. Example number 1: In Rio, in one of the richest parts of the city, there are two very important favelas: Rocinha and Vidigal. Normally, because of the drug war, they are always fighting. Yesterday, Rocinha, which is located on a hill, “went to the streets” to complain about their living conditions, carrying banners related to the things they have struggled for many years. They decided to walk to the house of the governor (http://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2013/06/25/na-rocinha-rj-moradores-protestam-contra-construcao-de-teleferico.htm). Vidigal is on the way to his house. I confess that I was really worried when I saw the news about this at first. But my surprise was enormous to see that people from Vidigal instead of fighting with people from Rocinha, joined them in the movement to the house of the government to claim together for the same rights and they were singing the Brazilian anthem together. When interviewed, people from both favelas would talk about how they had to have better sanitation, better streets, more dignity in their lives in the favelas. They spoke in a very positive way towards each other and I could see the exercise of a collective agency that was triggered by the semiotic tool, which were the 20 cents. In the many years I worked in Rio with the favelas, I never saw this and I do not say that today they won’t fight for the drug control, but what is important is that yesterday they saw through the drug issue and could reach a new way of living close to each other. Example 2: In one of the schools where we conduct our research, the coordinator invited the students and teachers to discuss about the movements that are taking place in the whole country. Some of the students asked the coordinator if they could change the topic a little and proposed that instead of discussing the topics of the complaints outside the school they wanted to discuss the complaints that they, the students, had in relation to their own school. The coordinator accepted the change and the students started talking about teachers who do not use the books in a proper way, the types of tests they consider unfair and other issues of their everyday lives. Not all teachers were happy with that because students, just like the guys on the streets, were kind of “verbal violent” sometimes. However, the coordinator explained to them that they would have to find ways to teach students how to complain and present their cases once it was essential that they were becoming agents in the real participation in school life. Example 3: Young people from “Juntos” (Together) http://juntos.org.br/ that organizes movements, such as “Passe Livre”, gather as a group which joins for fighting for different causes, as they say: “Together for a better future”. The success of the recent events and worries with the violence and terrible conditions of teaching and learning in public schools (it would take me another much bigger message to explain what this mean to you all) triggered a new action in Itapevi, a small city in the outskirts of São Paulo. These young people decided to approach the negative student leaders in these schools. According to the youth from Juntos, these leaders seemed kind of enthusiastic about the movement triggered by Passe Livre. So they aim now to involve these leaders (who are very young teens) in the Juntos and initiate a movement to recreate/ restructure school “from below”. I do not know where all this will lead to and I am well aware that many people are using this moment in our history to guide the people to vandalism and even to a more alienated direction. But what I can tell you all is that two weeks ago that was not what these kids were talking about. I had meetings with some groups of them who were really disappointed with the way schools were organized and doubted that their teachers would be willing to change their way of teaching in order to achieve the community’s needs. Now they seem to have understood things in a different way. Many have been saying that they have to struggle for the type of education they want. I studied and now teach at the same university where Paulo Freire used to teach and I learned to think from his perspective. I lived my life as a young kid in communities such as the ones I depicted, and now I work with these communities. What I can tell you is: I can see things going beyond. 
Best.
Fernanda
don't forget that development could also have "involution" moments, sometimes. There is not always only a inexorable progress, has in positivist analysis... Indeed, human development, social by definition, can not be only a spontaneous process, without orientation and direction by the dialogic relation with social other, that can not be, all the times, totally horizontal, symmetric and democratic or polyphonic. Don't you think about something like this too? Kisses. Achilles.
-----Mensagem Original----- From: Achilles Delari Junior 
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 7:33 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: [xmca] Banners of Brazil
Fernanda and Andy. In time: "in all ideological sign there is a confrontation of contradictory value's index. The sign becomes an arena where develops class struggle" (my amateur translation from portuguese: “em todo signo ideológico confrontam-se índices de valor contraditórios. O signo se torna a arena onde se desenvolve a luta de classes” (Bakhtin [Voloshinov], 1992b – p. 46 - I can find in Russian if you wish). Can we suppose that in all kind o ideological struggle both sides can win or lost in certain measure, don't you agree? Only in order to continue dialog. No agreements can be very welcome too... 
achilles_delari@hotmail.com> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: [xmca] Banners of Brazil
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 22:09:44 +0000
Fernanda, don't forget that development could also have "involution" moments, sometimes. There is not always only a inexorable progress, has in positivist analysis... Indeed, human development, social by definition, can not be only a spontaneous process, without orientation and direction by the dialogic relation with social other, that can not be, all the times, totally horizontal, symmetric and democratic or polyphonic. Don't you think about something like this too? Kisses. Achilles. 

> Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 10:47:46 -0300
> From: liberali@uol.com.br
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Banners of Brazil
>
> Hi, everyone!
>
> For Brazilian standards, being in a movement does not simply mean moving
> and shouting, it means talking, discussing, disagreeing, finding new
> people to talk to and to agree and disagree with. The most important
> thing in this movement, in my opinion, is not the fact that people are
> going to the streets but the fact that, no matter what rank of life,
> people are discussing and believing in their power of protesting. There
> has been the most amazing things going on: skatists fighting for the
> right to use the streets for their purposes, millionaires in front of
> the governor's house fighting for more security for the district where
> they have their mansions, very poor people demanding the reconstruction
> of roads long not taken care of. I believe that in the Brazilian
> context, going to the streets to claim for the 20 cents and all the
> other issues or staying home on the internet discussing them have the
> effect that electing a worker had, 12 years ago. In a collective
> perezivanie, people start to believe in themselves as capable of going
> beyond, of transforming who they are into who they can become. I believe
> this is the greatest result of this movement just as it was the greatest
> result of Lula's election in 2002.
>
> Best.
>
> Fernanda
>
>
>
> On 6/25/13 10:23 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
> > Cristiano, Achilles, and everyone,
> > We see a lot of marching in the streets. But while this has an
> > important function in drawing people out of their homes and gathering
> > them together, especially when there is violence it can have the
> > effect also of excluding a lot of people, and actually, marching
> > doesn't involve a lot of talking. With "alliance politics" of the kind
> > which is in the ascendant today, different projects can agree on very
> > limited and specific goals (e.g. we will march to the President's
> > Palace at 2pm on Saturday), while not being able to agree on anything
> > else. This politics opens the way for deeper engagement, but does not
> > in itself achieve that. So,...
> >
> > Are there any new discursive forms of practice - mock parliaments,
> > community forums, school occupation committees, etc or whatever > > emerging? 
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > mattos@if.usp.br wrote:
> >>
> >> There is much we can talk about and reflect on this Brazilian
> >> collective phenomenon.
> >>
> >> We could propose multiple and combined "germ cells" or to infer what
> >> emerging agendas will resist in the ?day after".
> >>
> >> But, what is clear is that there was a potential social configuration
> >> that has suffered a phase transition, and mediated by different means
> >> of mediation, many self-organized, creating crowds moving by
> >> pseudopods, spreading through the cities with different leading
> >> motives or interests, a kind of new born organism learning to be
> >> yourself in its on ?inconclusion?.
> >>
> >> There was more than 20 years since we had this kind of movement in
> >> Brazil, it is a long time considering the social tragedy we live in
> >> our daily lives, the crazy tension of living between the medieval and
> >> ultra-modern times and praxis.
> >>
> >> For me, considering my "nanogenesis", the worth was witnessing the
> >> emergence of consciousness in my daughters (11 and 13 years old), on
> >> the possibility of the social collective action aiming to transform
> >> the immediately given even with different motives and interests.
> >>
> >> For those who believe that from first neighbor interaction could
> >> emerge on long range interactions and on phase system?s transitions,
> >> I think that all of this could be the start of something different
> >> from the sameness and hopelessness our people were living.
> >>
> >> Best for all, Cristiano.
> >>
> >>
> >> Cristiano Mattos
> >> Departamento de Física Experimental
> >> Instituto de Física - USP
> >> Caixa Postal:66318 - CEP:05315-970
> >> São Paulo - SP - Brazil
> >> Tel: (+55)11 3091-7077
> >> e-mail: mattos@if.usp.br
> >>
> >>
> >> Quoting "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net>:
> >>
> >>> For sure, Achilles, we cannot at all see the "unit of analysis" or
> >>> "germ cell" of this movement, or what project(s) will emerge from
> >>> it. I suspect that will take some time before that is discernible.
> >>> In ascending from the concrete of perception to the abstract, we at
> >>> least can see here a glimpse of the enormous diversity of views and
> >>> situations which are activated by the protest originally against the
> >>> rise in bus fares!
> >>>
> >>> Watch this space!! :)
> >>>
> >>> Andy
> >>>
> >>> Achilles Delari Junior wrote:
> >>>> Sure. But this is only a little elementary fragment of the whole,
> >>>> not necessarily a unit... I guess the unit is not the
> >>>> undiscriminated topics of the agenda, itself. But the contradiction
> >>>> between this first character against a (explicit or not) trying of
> >>>> political conduction of all (which is also in process of
> >>>> polarization)...
> >>>>> Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:38:24 +1000
> >>>>> From: ablunden@mira.net
> >>>>> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>> Subject: [xmca] Banners of Brazil
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I think everyone on this list will appreciate this glimpse into
> >>>>> the consciousness of the current movement in Brazil.
> >>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/21/world/americas/brazil-protest-signs.html?ref=americas
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Andy
> >>>>> (as well as the cool javascript)
> >>>>> -- > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> >>>>>
> >>>>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >>>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> >>>>> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
> >>>>>
> >>>>> __________________________________________
> >>>>> _____
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> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> -- > >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> >>>
> >>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> >>> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
> >>>
> >>> __________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
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