{"id":72324,"date":"2022-10-19T11:11:54","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T14:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=72324"},"modified":"2023-05-23T09:23:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-23T12:23:36","slug":"favela-organizers-host-historic-march-with-former-president-and-presidential-candidate-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva-in-complexo-do-alemao-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=72324","title":{"rendered":"Favela Organizers Host Historic March with Former President and Presidential Candidate Luiz In\u00e1cio ‘Lula’ da Silva in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o [IMAGES]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

On the Brazilian holiday of October 12\u2014the Day of Our Lady of Conception\u2014a rally in support of presidential candidate Luiz In\u00e1cio “Lula” da Silva<\/a> took place on Itarar\u00e9 Road, one of the main roads in the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a> grouping of favelas, in the North Zone<\/a> of Rio de Janeiro. The Workers’ Party (PT) candidate had led in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election with the largest ever recorded vote. According to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Lula received 57,259,504 votes, 48% of all votes that were cast. For an all-out victory in the first round, 50% would have been necessary. While this was an impressive result, many supporters were frustrated that the electoral process would continue through the second round, which will be held on October 30.<\/p>\n

Local Movements and Organizations Invite Lula do Dialogue<\/h3>\n
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Ren\u00e9 Silva with Lula. Photo: Ren\u00e9 Silva on Twitter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ren\u00e9 Silva\u2014founder and director of the internationally-known<\/a> community newspaper Voz das Comunidades<\/a><\/em>\u2014invited Lula to Complexo do Alem\u00e3o for a march with Lula event, organized so that a direct, constructive dialogue with the favela could be established. Lula is widely recognized in Brazil for his policies that reduced inequality<\/a> and grew the middle class<\/a>, especially in favelas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It is the realization of a very big dream. Not only for me, but for the favela as a whole, to have this meeting here in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o. Other meetings with favela leaders have happened in the past, but they were inside hotels and I always said that we needed to do a meeting like this within the favela and for the favela.” \u2014 Ren\u00e9 Silva<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lula’s itinerary in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o began with a meeting at the headquarters of Voz das Comunidades<\/a><\/em>, in the lower part of Morro do Adeus<\/a>. The candidate and his wife, Janja Silva, attended an 8am breakfast with community leaders from Complexo do Alem\u00e3o and other favelas such as Acari<\/a> and Manguinhos<\/a>, as well as elected federal and state deputies Benedita da Silva<\/a> (Workers’ Party, PT), Renata Souza<\/a> (Socialism and Liberty Party, PSOL), Tal\u00edria Petrone<\/a> (PSOL), Tarc\u00edsio Motta<\/a> (PSOL), Glauber Rocha (PSOL), Dani Monteiro<\/a> (PSOL), and Mayor Eduardo Paes<\/a> (Social Democratic Party, PSD).<\/p>\n

Only four community leaders were able to speak directly with the former president, among them Alan Brum, director<\/a> of the Roots in Movement Institute<\/a>. He handed the former president and current candidate the CPX Popular Action Plan<\/a>, developed by 18 grassroots organizations from Complexo do Alem\u00e3o. The document is the result of extensive discussions among residents and community leaders from the 13 favelas that make up the favela complex, who identified essential needs, aspirations, and ways to promote improvements within the community.<\/p>\n

“Through this event with Lula’s campaign, the Workers’ Party government has opened a critical space for dialogue not only with Complexo do Alem\u00e3o, but with other favelas. It just took place here. The goal was to listen and understand the local demands and, even more importantly, what form and relationship we want to establish with [Lula\u2019s] future mandate. He made the commitment, based on our demands, that in the first 100 days of office he will create a national commission of the peripheries to develop public policies for Brazil\u2019s urban peripheries. He committed to the agenda of establishing a relationship with the urban centers.” \u2014 Alan Brum<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During the meeting with Lula, Brum requested that life return to the center of the debate and become the focal point of public security policy, because “we are tired of dying.” Besides the Complexo do Alem\u00e3o Popular Action Plan, he also presented a health plan produced by another local organization, Educap<\/a>, by its coordinator Lucia Cabral.<\/p>\n

Lula also met with an elderly couple from Manguinhos who had stood at the local community market with a box labeled “Lula’s Ear” collecting the demands of favela residents. Manguinhos resident Bezerra da Silva explained that the project resulted in 200 messages from residents to former president Lula.<\/p>\n

Event Marks Powerful Exercise of Democracy<\/h3>\n

This is the first time that a candidate for the Presidency of Brazil has held a rally with favela residents during a political campaign vying for the second round of electoral votes. For L\u00facia Cabral, Educap<\/a> coordinator, the event\u2014organized by favela residents together with Lula’s campaign coordinators\u2014represents democracy being exercised.<\/p>\n

“Lula being here in the community is building democracy. This is the most important aspect of the event today. We have him as a reference from the favela to the favela. He will work on the social policies that we really need. This meeting with the leaders and the walk [in the community] are very important at this moment to stop the violence against our democracy from the poor administration of these last four years.” \u2014 Lucia Cabral<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For her, Lula’s meeting with community leaders and residents of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o was an opportunity to give Lula “the straight talk from the favela” without intermediaries, through the four community representatives who had his direct ear.<\/p>\n

And the straight talk was direct and clear, says Cabral: “The straight talk was that he has to govern [in partnership] with the favela and for the favela.” She concludes with: “And I leave this meeting feeling that our former president Lula is with us.”<\/p>\n

The meeting between presidential candidate Lula and community leaders was broadcast on the campaign’s YouTube channel<\/a>. One of the key organizers was activist and human rights defender Camila Moradia, in addition to the Voz das Comunidades<\/em> team, other leaders, residents and volunteers, together with the Rio de Janeiro city government and municipal secretariats.<\/p>\n

Moradia, one of the founders of the Women in Action Movement in Alem\u00e3o and a member of the Fight for Housing Commission, was one of four leaders present representing the favela movement. She gave a speech entitled “We will vote for Lula.”<\/p>\n

“We will vote for Lula for the right to live. The favela votes for Lula today so that once again our main agenda is living. We will vote for Lula for our families, mostly headed by women and solo mothers. We will vote for Lula for the present and future of our children. We will vote for Lula for access to education and quality health care. We will vote for Lula for dignified housing and an end to forced evictions. We will vote for Lula for jobs with dignity. We will vote for Lula so that we, the poor and favela residents, can enjoy culture, leisure, and sports, everything for our children, youth, and ourselves. We will vote for Lula for entrepreneurship and for income generating projects and programs. We will vote and elect Lula so that legitimacy and legality will always be given to dialogue with the people. The fight for access to rights and the fight against all and any form of prejudice. For a Brazil for all, where God is among us. We are with Lula, we will vote Lula, we will elect Lula against hunger, with hope and faith.” \u2014 Camila Moradia<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Born and raised in Parada de Lucas, Marcelle Decoth\u00e9 reminded Lula that it is the favela itself that can best speak on behalf of the favela.<\/p>\n

“I have three messages in my three minutes to speak. The first message is: the places that elected and voted heavily for Lula as president were the favelas and peripheries, Mar\u00e9, Parada de Lucas, Alem\u00e3o, Rio das Pedras… And today we have created this movement to take over your campaign in Rio de Janeiro to say: we know how to conduct an electoral strategy and we are going to talk to our family, our people. Evangelicals? They are our mothers! Our families are the ones who went hungry. And it is we who are taking your campaign by storm at this moment in Rio de Janeiro to say: we are the ones who speak to our own people.” \u2014 Marcelle Decoth\u00e9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Members of City Councillor Thais Ferreira’s team from the Solidarity and Liberty Party (PSOL). Photo: Jeferson Rodrigues<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second message from Decoth\u00e9 came after she described how she was a beneficiary of affirmative action, gaining access to university through the public policies developed under Lula\u2019s previous presidential terms. Above all, Marcelle’s second point was a suggestion: she proposed to candidate Lula that, if elected, he should set up a People\u2019s Cabinet of Peripheries.<\/p>\n

“In the first 100 days of your government, you can nominate your ministers, staff your ministries and send around the country community leaders to listen to demands and deliver a people’s plan of improvements for Brazil. Because it is from there that we will build the unity of peripheries that we want and need.” \u2014 Marcelle Decoth\u00e9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the most moving accounts came from Buba Aguiar, member of Coletivo Fala Akari<\/a>, human rights defender and resident of the Acari favela, who worked on the front line of the fight against the pandemic in her community.<\/p>\n

“At the beginning of the pandemic, we gathered several leaders from the favelas and peripheries of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, forming a large coalition to face the pandemic, because we already knew that it would affect Afro-Brazilians and low income people more. We already knew that Bolsonarism was going to do nothing and was going to do everything to kill us<\/a>, and kill us in several ways: by Covid, by gunshot, by hunger<\/a>. And we who are sitting here, we were the front line who had to deliver food, hygiene kits. We even delivered water to certain hospitals… and I speak as a resident of Acari who lives next door to a reference hospital. We were literally in the firing line, being shot at by the police [when we were delivering] basic food parcels. In Acari, we had sanitizer donations being seized as illegal merchandise. We’ve put youth born and raised in our favelas inside federal universities. I am also the result of your public policies. I can beat my chest and say: I’m a sociologist who graduated thanks to your public policy, the daughter of a northeasterner, and granddaughter of a peasant from the Peasant League. All this is to say to Lula that there is no way to stop authoritarianism, to stop Bolsonarism without the leaders that are here today. Because only with us, truly together with you, will we be able to put Brazil back on track.” \u2014 Buba Aguiar<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, D\u00e9bora Silva from the Belford Roxo<\/a> NGO “Yes, I’m from Meio Street<\/a>!” reminded those in attendance that institutional racism makes living impossible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m from the area once considered the most dangerous in [Greater Rio’s] Baixada Fluminense [region], which is Rua do Meio, in Belford Roxo. During the pandemic, we were facing starvation and they did something to kill us: they canceled all the intercity buses and without intercity buses, we have no health care, we have no education, we have no jobs. So, we got 30 community leaders together in order not to die of hunger or be shot. We had to get together in a task force to get help in Rio, in the South Zone, so that people would look at us, because our mission is to take Belford Roxo out of economic, social invisibility… They left us there for dead, but we agreed not to die! If it weren’t for these leaders sitting here we would have died.” \u2014 D\u00e9bora Silva<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She reported that the community task force helped the population access emergency aid, because the Reference Centers for Social Assistance (CRAS) were closed for four months during the pandemic. They had to gather 40 volunteers to register over 100 people for emergency aid and many more were left behind. “So there is no other option for democracy [than voting for Lula]. Without culture, violence becomes a spectacle and that is the state that we are living in, in Belford Roxo, in Baixada Fluminense,” D\u00e9bora Silva summarizes.<\/p>\n