In defense of National and Popular Sovereignty

From the web site of the MST

On this September 7, 2022, Brazil will make 200 years of political independence from Portugal.

Our country has never fully gained its National and Popular Sovereignty.

Since the arrival of European colonization in 1500, the model of economic development has been built at the cost of four centuries of enslavement. From the beginning, it was structured to meet external interests and to promote social inequality.

A strong economy on the international stage, which generates poverty for its people and environmental destruction in its territory.

A country privileged for its extraordinary natural wealth and a courageous people, led by an elite that even today, is anti-national, anti-social and anti-democratic. An elite that is content to be the “slave catchers” of international capital, to ensure the looting of our country’s riches.

To ensure the existence of this model, the ruling classes did not hesitate to resort, successively, to coups d’état, dictatorships and the institutionalization of violence against the Brazilian people.

The result of this model is the country we have today: totally subservient to the interests of international capital, with an economy ranked among the largest on the planet, at the expense of the exploitation of our people, our lands and natural wealth. An economic model that promotes and feeds on the gigantic economic and social inequality existing in our country.

The bourgeoisie never set out to build a nation. When indigenous peoples, Blacks and the poor in general, dared to fight for Liberty and Equality, they were vilely repressed in their own country.

The perpetuation of true structural ills, such as the concentration of land, wealth and income, serve both to increase social inequality and for the dominant classes to exercise their dominion over the lower classes. They captured everything: education, knowledge, culture, communication and information, as if they were exclusive privileges of the ruling classes.

No! Brazil belongs to Brazilians and not to their elites. This land has an owner, as Sepé Tiarajú  shouted.

We have reached a situation of extreme subordination to international interests. We have a President of the Republic who, with the connivance of the military who enrich themselves in his government, salute the United States flag to show how servile he is to the empire. Our flag will never be that of the USA!

A president who hypocritically wears the national flag on his shoulders; promotes trading of our natural wealth and state-owned companies for the benefit of international capital; servile to transnational corporations of transgenic seeds, pesticides and mining, and encourages violence against the territories of indigenous, traditional and quilombola peoples.

There is no democracy when the assets of the Brazilian people, such as Petrobras or Eletrobrás, are subordinated to the interests and greed of the international market.

A nation cannot be built with a government that attacks state institutions and disrespects electoral processes. It appropriates national colors and symbols to promote fascism and hatred among people. It extols torturers, dictatorships, and coups d’état.

Democracy is not strengthened by having a government that adopts policies promoting hunger and poverty; facilitates the acquisition of weapons that end up in the hands of organized crime and militias; encourages environmental destruction and fires, destroys all biomes, especially the Cerrado and the Amazon.

It is a government that, with its policies and actions, deepens dependence, and increasingly distances itself from National and Popular Sovereignty. Thus, there are no reasons to celebrate 200 years of Independence.

It is only possible to be a sovereign country if we guide our destiny towards the well-being of all Brazilian people, guaranteeing equal access to education, health, work, income and culture.

A project of the country where the natural resources are considered social goods, destined to meet the needs of the population and not those of the market.

An economic development project that promotes the distribution of wealth and income produced, strengthens national production chains, science, and technology.

A project that radicalizes democracy, democratizing the State and ensuring popular participation in defining the course of our country.

A popular project that guarantees equality, diversity and rights, fighting all forms of prejudice and violence. That democratize access to land, carrying out Popular Agrarian Reform to produce healthy food. And that expands the offer of universal public services, ensuring a dignified life for the Brazilian people.

A Popular project of integration with the peoples of Latin America and the African continent. We will never pay off the debt we owe to these peoples, but we can reverse it in actions of solidarity and generosity, demanding that our government submit to this desire for historic reparation and a project of the future.

Now, urgently, we need to carry out a great national mobilization to defeat, at the polls and in the streets, neo-fascism, racism, machismo, LGBTQIA+phobia and the violence preached by Bolsonaro.

Popular organization is our main strength. We need, from now on, to build Popular Committees, in all spaces and in the largest possible number of municipalities, so that the Brazilian people are the protagonists of the necessary structural transformations.

We will only be independent if we build a Popular and Sovereign Project in our country.

Long Live the Brazilian People!

Long Live Brazil!

Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST