The Path to Change: Brazil's landless peasants become a major political force

Che Guevara once said, “Solidarity is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary.” This quote concluded a statement by Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST) discussing the success of the "National March for Agrarian Reform," a 17 day, 12,000 person march that extended over 125 miles.

The purpose of the march was to raise the awareness about the need to change economic policy with both the public and policy makers. Since the conclusion of the march, which took place in last May, a political coalition has formed comprising 45 social movement groups, demanding ministerial, political, and economic reform. The success of this new coalition follows the success of the MST march, which itself has become a model for organizing. Activists around the world, especially here in the United States, would be wise to learn from the men and women of the MST.

Each day participants of the march awoke early, sometimes around 3:00am, to begin their trek towards the nation’s capital. As they marched, the radio program ‘Brasil em Movimento’ was projected via loudspeakers for all marchers to hear. In closing, each day’s 40-minute program the host posed an important question for each night’s organized debates. After stopping to set up camp, eating a late lunch, and taking a brief recess, marchers gathered in groups for study and debate sessions where important issues were discussed. Maria de Nazaré Nascimento, a rural worker from the state of Paraíba who has been waiting for a piece of land for over two years now, stated, “I am very happy to have had participated in this work of the March. I’m learning so much during these education sessions”. Agrarian reform, genetically modified crops, imperialism, and water rights, are just a few examples of topics that were discussed. As the 12,000 rural workers debated with one another they developed shared understandings of the topics at hand and built relationships with one another as they acted (by marching) and reflected (by studying and debating

With the arrival of the march at Brazil’s capital, President Lula met with 50 MST leaders to listen to their demands and receive proposals that had been discussed with civil society during the course of the march. Titled, “What Must be Done to Change the Life of the People”, this set of 16 proposals included the hindrance of genetically modified crop (GMO) production, a rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and the immediate withdrawal of Brazilian troops from occupied Haiti. Of their demands for agrarian reform, Lula promised to guarantee the necessary resources to fulfill the goal of settling 400,000 families by 2006 and to take concrete steps towards implementing agrarian reform, such as an updating of the productivity indexes that define when property is productive – since land that is unproductive can be legally expropriated for agrarian reform purposes. This change has the potential of making the MST’s legal battles for land reform a bit less difficult.

Paulo Freire, the Brazilian revolutionary-teacher wrote that, “By means of manipulation, the dominant elites try to conform the masses to their objectives. And the greater the political immaturity of these people (rural or urban) the more easily the latter can be manipulated by those who do not wish to lose their power”. The MST’s approach of developing the political maturity of rural workers serves to prevent such manipulation from Brazil’s rural elite. As we work to organize our communities (e.g., universities, workplaces, churches, etc.) the encouragement and development of political maturity via continuous action and reflection will prove its worth through the denial of the objectives of the dominant elites (e.g., wars of aggression, budget cuts for social programs, etc.). The MST teaches us that action, reflection, and further action, are the way forward.

Visit "http://www.mstbrazil.org" for more information about the MST.