Redempption
8th September 2013, 05:13
As some of you may know there has been a lot of civil unrest in Brazil since june, today (07/09) was the idependence day of Brazil, and as it was expected there were many protests and I went to one of then here in São Paulo. There are many groups involved in these acts from right-wing to left, but one of then that has been getting a lot of attention is the "Black Blocs".
The protest that I went had about 12 to 15.000 people in it, and I dare to say that more than 1.000 of those people were part of the Black blocs and I think I have a theory why these groups have been getting so strong here in Brazil. In all its history the country has been controlled by elites and right wing groups, and there was always large groups of socialists, communists and other left wing parties trying to end that, this changed in some ways when the PT (worker's party) was elected a few years ago and has been in power ever since, first with Lula and now with Dilma.
The problem is, despite calling themselves "left-wing", many of the parties have done little to help in the struggle against capitalism or common social problems in the nation like education and health care, the only few thing the goverment did, like the "Bolsa Família" project, are only short term solutions. This only gets worst when large schemes of corruption involving both left and right-wing parties were uncovered.
I belive that because of all this the young and, in many cases, opressed people in Brazil, when trying to find a political group that can represent them, usually only see 3 options:
1) Join to the right wing that has controlled the country for most of its history and is the cause to many of the social problems.
2) Join to the left wing that, despite talking about equality and justice, has done little to change things and has, in many ways, become exacly what it was to supposted to fight against.
3) Join a black bloc.
In other words, they don't see any other option, for them, the only group that seems to actually try to fight against the opression are the anarchists and the Black blocs.
The protest that I went had about 12 to 15.000 people in it, and I dare to say that more than 1.000 of those people were part of the Black blocs and I think I have a theory why these groups have been getting so strong here in Brazil. In all its history the country has been controlled by elites and right wing groups, and there was always large groups of socialists, communists and other left wing parties trying to end that, this changed in some ways when the PT (worker's party) was elected a few years ago and has been in power ever since, first with Lula and now with Dilma.
The problem is, despite calling themselves "left-wing", many of the parties have done little to help in the struggle against capitalism or common social problems in the nation like education and health care, the only few thing the goverment did, like the "Bolsa Família" project, are only short term solutions. This only gets worst when large schemes of corruption involving both left and right-wing parties were uncovered.
I belive that because of all this the young and, in many cases, opressed people in Brazil, when trying to find a political group that can represent them, usually only see 3 options:
1) Join to the right wing that has controlled the country for most of its history and is the cause to many of the social problems.
2) Join to the left wing that, despite talking about equality and justice, has done little to change things and has, in many ways, become exacly what it was to supposted to fight against.
3) Join a black bloc.
In other words, they don't see any other option, for them, the only group that seems to actually try to fight against the opression are the anarchists and the Black blocs.