{"id":28961,"date":"2016-05-19T04:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T07:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=28961"},"modified":"2016-05-19T04:53:50","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T07:53:50","slug":"in-the-favelas-political-reform-means-guaranteeing-the-right-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=28961","title":{"rendered":"In the Favelas, Political Reform Means Guaranteeing the Right to Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

For the original article by Marcelo Casta\u00f1eda\u00a0in Portuguese published on his Lida Di\u00e1ria blog\u00a0<\/em>click<\/em> here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes I have the impression that we discuss the political climate with our heads in the clouds and feet in the air. We speak of political reform as if it were a matter of merely adjusting electoral rules to resolve clientelism and coronelism<\/a>\u2013the dealers in the political game of representation in federal legislation\u2013and I will limit my thoughts to this, but I could extend this reasoning to the state and municipal levels.<\/p>\n

In the favelas, the political reform required is simply the guarantee of life to enable political participation in the widest sense of social organization in favor of common demands. In the favelas, the fight is to\u00a0stay alive when faced with a murderous Military Police<\/a> and a war on drugs that victimizes people each day, including police officers.<\/p>\n

Favela residents\u00a0are not alienated; they\u2019ve already lost hope for representation, as they are simply restricted from politics because of their fear of dying if they organize themselves. Even so, there is organization<\/a> in the favelas.<\/p>\n

On the night of Saturday May 7, Eliane was having fun in the streets of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>\u00a0in the North Zone<\/a> of\u00a0Rio de Janeiro. She was targeted by shots that were only justified by the economic crusade with moral undertones that is drug prohibition. It doesn\u2019t matter that it was Mother\u2019s Day on Sunday, that she had three children. Independent media activists quickly managed to report\u00a0the incident\u00a0on social networks<\/a>, but this does not prevent the killings. From trying so hard, those who fight against this falter when they do not see any possibility for change, which will only be possible with the incitement of people who cannot imagine the way of existence in the favelas.<\/p>\n

These deaths no longer cause surprise, but those who live and work in the favelas\u00a0know the rage\u00a0of losing a loved one because of gun fights. What is commonplace for news agencies, hidden in the corner of a newspaper page<\/a>, leads to the accumulation of rage\u00a0that one day will erupt. As it says in the famous samba lyrics<\/a>, “when the people of the favela\u00a0come down the hill and it isn\u2019t Carnival\u201d is when we will have some possibility for social change. For this, the end of the Military Police<\/a> and the legalization of drugs must comprise any proposal for political reform that does not only benefit the same people as always, guaranteeing the poor the right to participate<\/a> in politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article by Marcelo Casta\u00f1eda\u00a0in Portuguese published on his Lida Di\u00e1ria blog\u00a0click here. Sometimes I have the impression that we discuss the political climate with our heads in the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":28962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1294,1331,335,1330,336],"tags":[1653,32,918,37,1781,1292,152,374,268,1385,365],"writer":[2070],"translator":[2071],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-opinion-2","9":"category-policies","10":"category-translation","11":"category-violations","12":"tag-community-media","13":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","14":"tag-military-police","15":"tag-north-zone","16":"tag-opinion-2","17":"tag-organizing","18":"tag-participation","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-state-violence","21":"tag-violence","22":"tag-zero-participation","23":"writer-marcelo-castaneda","24":"translator-kathleen-brauer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28961"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=28961"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=28961"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=28961"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=28961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}