Long live the MST: 37 years of struggle

From the MST Page

A wandering people has been born, who has been, for 37 years, unveiling the dead land in the hands of those who do not know that the true meaning of life is on the ground. These people dream, transform and multiply. They show their vigor and strength with their loud cries. Singing, charm and poetry are part of this journey.

It was due to the experiences of struggles in Latin America and the world, motivated and hoped for by the stories of resistance of other peoples and movements in defense of the democratic use of land, that Brazil manages, under the bloody boots of the military dictatorship, the resumption of the struggle for land. A pregnancy crossed by turbulence, insomnia, cries of pain and hopelessness until its birth.

In the midst of the effervescence of the peasants union struggle, and later with the occupation of the latifundium, and under the tent of black canvas, the MST was born. In large occupations they organized their dwellings under the black tarpaulin, which in the sunlight causes almost unbearable heat, and in the low temperature it causes the droplets of dews that wet their rags to sleep, or to dress.

A movement made of people, people, life, dreams, and courage. It didn’t have time to be a child, it had to learn to take care of itself and take care of others from an early age. It had to learn to walk in order to defend itself against the insane beasts of capital that, frightened, provoke horrors and fears against its people.

The MST becomes a good place to live in community; it is possible to find a bigger plan than the struggle for land. There are millions with unity around political principles and tasks. A movement that is an advance of the political formation of the militancy, taking care and projecting its staff. The spinal column searching for an organic organization that makes democracy possible. Class solidarity and internationalism are part of this organization as are the experiences of mistica; respect for symbols (anthem and flag); and political autonomy. These are foundations capable of facing the gales.

In search of what is fair and what is right, they organize their food, their backpack with what little remains, their piece of canvas, and in a truck their dreams and hope are mixed with their belongings from the camp, and so they go in search of a piece of land to be able to live. In the back of those trucks where only the sigh of each person was heard, stories were shared, suffering lives that learned to have faith, courage and hope. The possibility of meeting around a flag, and knowing that they were not alone, gave substance and identity to the movement of families without land. Knowing that not struggling was worse than the difficulty of the struggle!

When they meet, they recognize each other, they pour out the words, the songs to chase away the pain, the prayers to soothe the heart and say that their previous silences were not muteness, they were the way of bearing the burden imposed by the power holders. In the ranks that walked together on the journey through life, they find their new paths, their dances, their screams, their fears, their schools, their dreams, their organicity, their needs and the search for the promised land. They are feeling more and more the absurd hunger for social justice, being more and more truly land that cries out for freedom, this same freedom that offends property owners and lackeys of inequalities.

The MST, becomes the tailor of dreams and hopes. They embroider and mold themselves with humanist and socialist values. They are more than words, they are daily actions of love for the people; it is the capacity to be indignant; the spirit of rebellion and sacrifice; solidarity, among others.

Values ​​that are not just letters that join musical notes. They are alive, pulsating in clenched fists, in cooperative actions, in instances, in collective and training spaces. Belonging to the cause and taking care of symbols is the bridge that unites them and makes them seeds of utopia.

The Movement that inspires and conspires to struggle, takes care of its own. It always knew how to truly look at what is most beautiful, which are his subjects in the process of struggle: women, men, children, LGBTI +, young people, the elderly. It built a collective social subject. It forged a militancy that carries multiple dimensions of life, of values, with a humanistic and emancipatory sense. As a popular organization, something new was being forged, we would say, a new type of organization: it brings together elements of the theory of organization with the party, the playful, the mystical, the celebration, the joy, the music, the culture, the art, the encounter and fraternity. Elements that make up a peculiar characteristic in its militancy, highlighting a humanized social being, concerned with the social, political, economic and environmental issues of our time. An awareness emerges with a broad horizon for major themes, for the tasks of class organization and its political instruments.

With each flag stuck in a latifundium, a victory, a crack dug in the ground. Ground that sprouts the seed that will feed the people. In each conquered floor, beautiful gardens are born, giving color and life to the current that will not accommodate itself. Struggles that resulted in economic and political conquests, which forged the temper of militancy and the social base. In the certainty that there will only be changes if there are processes of mass struggles. It is a new force that guarantees the arrival of others, plus others, many others and others that are yet to come.

The stones found on the way, the murderous weapons of the latifundium and the state prevented many from continuing to walk. However, in every corner of this country there is a hope of planting and taking root. With each conquest of the struggle, the latifundio changes its name, the dry and dirty soil of unproductive cattle, gives way to the root of the plant that generates bread. The end of the grass is decreed, which will give way to healthy food, producing new relationships between man/man, woman/woman and between both and these with nature.

A lasting experience, with clear objectives that transcend the struggle for land, the MST over these 37 years has been learning to renew itself, and to advance along with its class, conforming and transforming itself with what has been learned so far. Being born and reborn every day, at every step, at every training process carried out with the staff forged and tempered in the class struggle, militants, who work together with the social base and in the occupations, mobilizations and in the long and expressive marches that follow course the spring that comes each year.

Edited by Fernanda Alcântara | Translated by Friends of the MST