The 7-O protest in Rio: “the demonstrators is my friend, you mess with him you mess with me”

by TALITA TIBOLA and BRUNO CAVA

Explosions are heard in the Chamber of Councilmen, fireworks, everyone’s temper starts rising, they realize the targets are not the people protesting, but the building itself. Claps. In the front row, some start writing on the walls of the chamber: “+books, -bombs”, “out Cabral”, “where is Amarildo?”. The doors are being forced open, while guards on the inside throw teargas bombs and sprayed the demonstrators with jets from the extinguishers.

At the same time, more people continue to arrive at Rio Branco, the avenue where the procession had covered since the Candelária church, in a stretch of almost 2 km (1,24 miles). At the exact moment of the attack on the Chamber, a big group who cheers the protest with sambas is going through the avenue chanting, “oh, Cabral is a dictator, Cabral is a dictator”, the chorus reinforces the meaning of the explosions, even though it expresses it in a different way. In the middle of the Cinelândia square, in front of the Chamber, fires are lit and chants are sung. And the presence of Indians, also showing once more that Aldeia Maracanã[1] endures. In the square there are many, dressed in black, they jump and scream unison “there won’t be a (World) Cup” From children to elders, from the woman who declares herself “black grandma” to the one who apologizes to the black blocks for condemning their tactics before, to youngsters in black who sing “the teacher is my friend, mess with him you mess with me” or, in a symmetrical way, teachers and others chanting “the black bloc is my friend, mess with him you mess with me”.

The march is long, one of the longest in Rio since June, the news report 3 thousand people, the next day they are less shameless and say 10 thousand. A math without any support, taking into account, that during Carnaval, these same vehicles reported that this same crowded avenue can reach the millions. The throng of people fills the street with signs and screams, as well as, along the march the walls are filled with graffiti: “this is just paint on the boarding, vandal is the State”, “beautiful woman is the one who fights”, “the love is over”, “A.C.A.B. (acronym for all cops are bastards). Walking through Rio Branco, the heterogeneous constitution of the march is noticeable that, however, doesn’t reduce itself to civic invocations throughout Brazil, or the generic anticorruption accusations, like was normal in the big manifestations in June. At no point, it fell into vain pleads “against-everything-that-is-there”. The march was not only one of the biggest ever, but also more organized and less “spontaneous”. A great differential from the giant ones in June. The fact is, in these four months of intense mobilization, the protests went through a long arc collecting demands, resentments and transformations, articulating struggles once scattered.

In fact, the issues were concrete and embedded in the subjects. Since the beginning of the protests cycles, in the fall, part of the Brazilian left, in the government or in the opposition, have shown impatience and even exasperation in not being able to identify (and even less, control) the direction and the content of the protests. This led, at times, to a defensive argument that there was a “way to the right”, meaning, that at the bottom the effect of the protests was to weaken the government and the plans of the left, tending them to the right. If, to demobilize the riots and protests, the ruling class tends to mobilize the fear of chaos and of quarrels, so to praise (and therefore maintain) the established order; this left ended up adopting its own version of fear, of an “underlined and cunning threat”, the danger of “fascism” that the masked ones would represent. Both the traditional protectors of the status quo, as well as the left who (allegedly) would be for the social transformation, show this way to be affected by the fear, joining immediately the blackmailing argument of “less bad”. Showing themselves, ergo, disinterested in reading or really researching the the social forces at the base of the protests, rushing to conclusions or attacking media characters and Manichaean that it is safer to keep things essentially the way they are.

This time, however, the protest didn’t leave any room to doubt why it was here. The speech on the street polarized around the issue of education, starting from the strike of teachers and other professionals from the municipal sphere. And it didn’t stop expanding in sight of different groups, going through the opposition of the three spheres of the government (federal, state and municipal), the opposition to the criminalization of the protests e protestors, the LGBT affirmation (“without transvestites there is no revolution!”) the fight for housing and against the removals, feminism (“without women there is no revolution!”), the systematic questioning of expenses and planning of the mega events, the Indian struggle, the black movement, among others. A lot of signs and flags, - red, black, colorful, purple – cohabitated on the avenue, from the most conventional union or party organizations, to autonomist groups derived from the occupations from 2011-12, punk- anarchists and autonomist fronts – all that to the sound of bands, singing megaphones and whistles. Those who were there could see the positivity of the protest, its great strength like an unlikely union of differences and antagonisms, empting any accusations from the right, that it would be about disorder and nihilism, and part of the institutional left (mainly from PT – Partido dos Trabalhadores), to whom the protest lacked political guidance.

But what allowed such unlikely composition, to the point where the black blocs were openly welcomed before, during and after the teachers march? Without being isolated?

It is still too early for accurate evaluations on this subject, however it is possible to comment on some elements. First it is possible to recognize the unbending character of the black bloc strategy in Brazil. It grew along the protests, without an ideology, a center or nor a specific leadership. It was like a contingent answer, a self-organization in the presence of needs pressed by a reality of brutal repression and constant criminalization. It is hard to specify the degree of reference of the Brazilian black bloc strategy, in comparison to its tradition in global struggles, other than the name and garments. Since the early great marches, in mid June, a front of protestors more willing to resist the police’s repressive actions has been formed. In order not to be criminalized by a punishing power extremely aroused by the media, these protestors began covering their faces with masks or rolled up shirts. More or less random, in a variable composition, they gradually ended up recognizing themselves and being recognized as a part of a more hostile singularity, directly responsible for the self-defense of the protest. The constitutive opening, that is, the possibility of anyone participating, since the beginning, characterized this practice. It means, what is suggested is that to be black bloc during the performing as such, in a specific moment. It doesn’t close itself as a group. It might work in a swarm logic: it unites itself for particular actions, but, immediately after, dissipates itself until the next suitable occasion.

Unlike the other argument which repelled other protestors it was the black bloc that gave a supporting factor to the street protests, by effectively giving a conscious to the resistance. They even gave rhythm to the protests when the numbers began to dwindle. By taking over the exercise of self-defense of the crowd on the streets and, at times, even fighting back with attacks on the symbols of capitalism, the black bloc immediately attracted the hatred of the dominant class. Capable of maintaining the protests on the streets even under bombarding by the police, they rose to the condition of the main thorn in the punishing power, whose gears include the corporate media, the penal system and the militias (mafias) that control territories, public contracts and services. The continuance of the riots started to threaten the ultra lucrative transaction in the real estate market, the tourism industry and the massive sale of alcoholic beverages in virtual monopoly.

Obviously, the black bloc tactic doesn’t have the prerogative to confront on the same level a super violent and heavily armed state. Actually, its concrete action doesn’t even direct itself to this level of opposition, as it depends entirely on a great assembly, which it is a part of, in order to be able to act.

If the rejection of the black blocs by the organize right was to be expected; it caused astonishment, nonetheless, whith the speed in which people and groups to the left, – either in the government or, in a lesser scale, in the opposition – cursed us as their enemies. Without even trying to understand them, often with information taken from the big media; this left swayed between the reproval for being rebels without a cause, irresponsible, naive, and the even greater accusation of serving “occult forces”, manipulated and dangerous to democracy. There was also, amidst the disqualification, an attempt to classify them as “coxinhas” (a Brazilian snack): middle class people without any political conscience, moved by moral anti corruption agendas or anti politics in general, in all ways uncommitted to change society.

What was the bewilderment, however, when among the black block started to emerge, young people from the periphery, from the public schools, and a shy (though undeniable) support from the poor population, especially in communities threaten to be removed, under police submission, or simply impoverished. This participation from the poor, among the block bloc, can also be explained by their courage and tenacity in continuing to return to the front line. It may seem absurd to people living in an apartment in a well located neighborhood, but to masked boys and girls in the protests, it is still safer to challenge the riot police and to go against the rubber bullets than living in their communities besieged by militias, armed trafficking, and police violence. In the moment that the swarm gathers, the poor don’t feel isolated and don’t suffer the discrimination to which they are usually submitted in the territories where they live, and can have a “live together experience which is immediately personal and political, as a feeling of mutual support and production of collective purpose.

All this shows the magnitude of the dilemma exposed by the protests in Brazil. Condensed to the right or to the left, under strict monitoring and criminalization, it is still surprising how there is still the capacity to renew, arriving to the 50thousand protest of 7-O. There the black blocs were integrated with teachers, not only well-organized, but apparently motivated to continue fighting and qualifying themselves. They could be the answer, or at least the basis for the question, to ways out of the impasse. That is because the black blocs are registered in a constellation of issues involving the poor, the black, the LGBT and other minorities which, in a group, are the majority of the city.

The novelty in the 7-O was in the teacher’s welcoming of the black blocs and vice-versa. That ended up transmitting a sensibility change to the context of the protest as a whole. If before the black blocs used their tactics with reserved agreement of the great majority of the rest of the protestors, now they ostensibly became the protagonist side-by-side with the affirmative of rights guidelines. This time, this mix was openly recognized, creating an effect of managing wishes, demands and means of expression. After the removal of the teachers and other activists’ camp, called OcupaCâmara (occupy Chamber), in 09/28, and the extremely hard repression of Oct 1st in Cinelândia, – when the law proposed by the mayor and unwelcome by the teachers and other protestors passed to the sound of bombs, – many teachers who didn’t want to go shoulder-to-shoulder with the black blocs realized that, without them, they would be simply crushed by the government, and continue to be forgotten. If before they estimated that the tactics would harm them in the strike negotiation, they realized that, without this politic-esthetic power, there would be no negotiation: only a governmental wipe-out increasingly more ignorant.

In the 7-O, for the first time since June, the black blocs were effectively integrated into other protests there, and not only as a tactical arm of the protest. Many teachers not only thanked and encouraged the young people in black, but also formed a hybrid block themselves: the “BlackProf” (professor is teacher in Portuguese). With black shields where it read “Tropa de Profs” (a play on the name “tropa de elite” the Brazilian elite troop of the military police and a short for the word for teacher in Portuguese), they formed the line with numerous independent groups of masked young people. Many teachers, even from the unions, after the protest, also declared themselves in favor of the black blocs, contradicting the editorial line of the big media (and part of the institutional left), which separated the groups, according to a Manichaeism that opposed the “good protestor” to the vandal. Effectively, the following days news focused almost exclusively on theatrical images of the conflict with the police and of damaged property in the final chapter if the protest. The fact that actually mattered, bent before the preposterous hypothesis that there would be “infiltrated people” in the protest, with the sole purpose of causing “panic” and to practice “pointless violence”.

The big media (and part of the institutional left) perfected themselves in erasing a singular event in the history of struggles in Rio de Janeiro. As if there hadn’t been a march of, at least, 50 thousand people, in a potent and unseen chain of subjects, grouping a constellation of struggles for rights to the city. It’s as if there was a battalion of columnists in the editorial room just waiting for the time to spill uncritically the general condemnation of these “acts of vandalism”, fitting the common places which, they believe, would reverberate in the “average readers”. The headlines, the news and the columns limited themselves forging the image of fear, of disorder, of chaos, to try to take more people off the streets and divide the protest.

Those who were in the Cinelândia square when the police repression started, – and had the displeasure of tasting the columns of teargas and pepper spray, and were frozen with the first bombs and rubber bullets –, saw something really different. The action of the “street rioter” and “nihilist” didn’t seem so chaotic. The targets, by the way, seemed selected according to a clear logic: the municipal chamber of councilmen where days before the police had massacred the teachers, the bank agencies, the front of the mega businessman Eike Batista’s building, the American Consulate, some big band stores, and so on. The action’s coordination, just the same, was clear, according to a swarm tactic, grouping and regrouping while protestors oriented each other, protected themselves and oriented each other, protected and repressed some behavior (like attacking the small businesses, or any physical offense to people). None of that is shown in the journalistic narratives, which have nothing worthy of the name journalism. Such is tailor-made to move the gears of the punitive power, satisfying the urge for “pacifying”. In no moment, the big media (and part of the institutional left) goes further than an empty Manichaeism, where the moments of refusal and negativity seem detached from an entire social, historic and political context, its positivity, its productivity.

In fact, whoever reads the newspapers or watches TV might have the impression that the violence problem in Rio de Janeiro is caused by a hand full off nihilist vandals, inebriated by their own destructive energy. In other words, by a “bunch of lunatics breaking everything”, trying to infiltrate themselves in legitimate protests. It seems that Rio lives in a time of peace and prosperity, when only extremist groups insist on showing their dissatisfactions, baselessly. They would be enemies of the beautiful Brazilian democracy. It is, truly, a colonial mentality, in effect in the 21^st century, in which appropriate consists in praising and defending the healthy sociability among all social subjects. According to this mentality, oppressors and oppressed should walk calmly hand in hand towards progress, like that, after all, it would be better for everyone.

The terrible irony is that the violence is considered taboo, in a city where the police kills 500 people per year (the crushing majority being poor and black young people), and makes so many others disappear. Where a favelado (person from the favela) can be kidnapped, tortured and killed, without any big commotion, a situation which the protests themselves are changing, as seen in the “Cadê o Amarildo?"[2] campaign or in the chacina da Maré[3] episode. In a city whose mayor is not ashamed to use the name “Choque de Ordem” (collision of order) for his plan for territorial ordering, taking and beating homeless people, street vendors, street artists, chemically dependent people, and whoever is on the street violating any “municipal posture”. This same mayor committed to “sanitize” entire neighborhoods and brutally removing favelas, expropriating residents, to undergo big road constructions for the World Cup and the Olympic games. And as if the population or Rio was “pacific” (at best it is pacified) in face of the daily violence in the public transportation, in the public health system, and in the education itself. Only in September, there were 2 violent riots at the end of the working day, with depredating and burning of trains and buses. In this scenario, the protest, for many people, represent a chance to fight for peace itself. The fear, for them, has already happened, and they are not going to be intimidated with threats of punishment, if the punishment is the norm in their lives. The struggle that the punitive system always reduces to “vandalism”, to many, is the chance to build a peace that is not pacification. The Amarildos from Brazil are anonymous long before any group identified as such, long before the use of Guy Falwkes’ mask. If, finally, Ararildo, was able to have a name, it was because protestors earned the right to name him and, in his name, keep fighting. Amarildo is the name of many.

In a profoundly violent reality, – where it is presented not only the traumatic violence of politics, but also the category violence of public services – it is paradoxical that what bothered most, including part of the left, is the riots, with some broken windows, graffiti walls, burned trash cans and one or another major store attacked. The only casualty caused by the state is greater violence. Put into perspective, violent and fascists, after all, are not the protestants, whose political meaning of “vandalism” is very clear. While the sequence of protests reignites itself, more qualified and again nearing the hundred millions, rarely Bretch’s sentence was so up to date, “The headlong stream is termed violent/But the river bed hemming it in is/Termed violent by no one.”

In the 7-O, the teachers recognized in the black blocs their students, even if they weren’t, rigorously so, frequenter of the same classroom. In the same way, the black blocs saw in the teachers their own teachers. Taught and learned from each other, building a sense beyond sector agendas or the black bloc tactic. This is an example of a possible commonness, a commonness in the difference built on the streets, in the struggles for alternatives to the pacification of the “new Rio”, against the consensus successively more authoritarian and impenetrable.

The shift in behavior between the teachers and black blocs produces, by itself, a shift in the overall sensibility. Known for being a part of a commonness of struggles, they become a powerful symbol for a new stage of the protests that self-organizes and re-qualifies itself constantly. This sensitive shift could be seen in the protests with the increased black shirts, the “we are black blocs” attitude, and through signs, like in one from a protestor that read: “I’m no longer Luther King, today I’m Malcom X!”.

The shift in sensibility doesn’t put the black blocs as something separate anymore, but something that is a part of something, and that starts to form its own struggle. This is seen by the government, which in the 7-O changed strategy, withdrawing from the scene at first. The police lets the inquiry runs free only to, in a later moment, come at full throttle in a new series of criminalization and intimidations, which is happening now.

The challenge remains to persist in the fight regardless from the desperate resources from those who watch our mixes and composition of the city. As a teacher said: “Now young people are with us, why would we do everything to separate ourselves from them? No! We are together in this.”

To those who were in Cinelândia, the calculated absence of the police was disturbing. While the protest reached the end of Rio Branco (an avenue in downtown Rio) and the chamber of councilmen was harassed by protestors, it could be detected a strange silence, beyond the noise of explosions and helicopters. It is the silence of waiting, the prelude of a brutality about to fall on the protests. There are few seconds in a suspension state, before it is heard the teargas bombs and the first tears. The time lapse when we can still be together. We will remain like that.

 

* Translation by Julia Uzeda.