Published on: 08 June 2016
This was the conclusion of the Inter-regional Meeting which ended in Salvador on
Saturday, having gathered together representatives of organizations for black women
and populist sectors from the North and Northeast.
“A coup-making, macho and sexist government doesn’t represent, only violates, us”. This
is one of the conclusions of the Inter-regional Meeting of Black Women and Populist
Movements from the North and Northeast, which finished on Saturday (04/06) in Salvador.
Alongside other messages prepared collectively, in line with a methodology called “Training
in Action”, this message forms part of a series of guidelines which will support the activities
of meeting participants and their social organizations in the struggle for more rights and
against the social setbacks currently present within the country.
Communication techniques were used to run debates, to formulate content and in
strategies to confront the current political situation in the country. Phrases, hashtags,
words of order (and disorder), began to be adopted as guidelines and slogans for
campaigns, and other activities, responding to the meeting’s call for creation: “Crisis?
Create resistance!!”
On Friday (03/06), the women put meeting deliberations into action, coordinating a
public debate on the theme “Challenges of the current situation for the struggles of
black women and populist sectors for rights and policies in Brazil”, which filled the
auditorium of the Barris Central Library. The activity represented the high point of the
methodology, from the recording of statements based on debates to the jointly
constructed content, the production of the debate and the distribution of a pamphlet.
The phrase “Black women carry on marching!” was also restated at the Meeting, which
brought together members of social organizations from the nine States of the
Northeast as well as Pará, Amapá and Tocantins. They decided they are not ready to
give up, but rather to achieve more, rights. “We will continue marching because this
civilizing model, which places millions of us outside its processes, has failed. Brazil
needs to constitute itself as a country of diversity,” declared Valdecir Nascimento
Coordinator of Odara – the Black Women’s Institute.
Priscila Estêvão, from the National Forum of Black Youth, said that “the transition
government has represented a profound setback for the constitutional rights of
minorities such as black people, poor people and homosexuals”. She noted that this
was evidenced in the closure of the Ministries of Racial Equality, Human Rights, and
Women, “not to mention the Ministry of Culture, whose closure was reversed due to
popular pressure”. But the young woman also stressed that the alternative media has
contributed to democracy by demonstrating another view of the facts, unlike the
position of conventional broadcasters aligned to the coup. Regarding this, the women
concluded: “Globo Network – enemy of democracy and of black women!”
At the Meeting, run by the Ecumenical Coordination of Service (Coordenadoria
Ecumênica de Serviço: CESE) and SOS Corpo – Feminist Institute for Democracy (SOS
Corpo – Instituto Feminista para a Democracia), with financial support from the
European Union, the participants also asserted that “Without Black Women, Brazil
would come to a halt!” Valdecir Nascimento went beyond this, declaring that black
people are perhaps the best placed to talk about a new Brazil because, “given the
position we occupy, we are in the best position to talk about and present solutions to
the exclusion and oppression that affect more than half of the Brazilian population.”
For Eliete Paraguassu, from the National Network of Fisherwomen “the statements at
the voting session for the coup were revealing of the people they wish to have at the
front of the government”. She stressed that the acts of the interim government have
intensified the exclusion of sectors historically discriminated against, for example the
closure of the Ministry of Agricultural Development, which was responsible for the
entitlement of quilombola territories. “Now, it is Temer who will say whether or not
we are quilombolas”, she added, referring to the measure which transferred the
jurisdiction for the recognition of quilombola communities to the Civilian Household.
The conclusion also emerged from the meeting that “The coup which makes our souls
bleed, strengthens our struggle”” which reinforces the speech made by Celenita, from
the Tocantins State Quilombola Coordination, who, in reference to the transference of
demands for the regulation of quilombola lands to the Ministry of Education said,
“black women always have been and always will be in the struggle, fighting for their
rights and this moment of political setbacks in the country, instead of weakening, will
strengthen us”.
The Project
The Inter-regional Meeting for Black Women’s Organizations and Populist Movements
from the North and Northeast is part of the Black and Populist Women’s Project: Tracing
Pathways, Constructing Rights, started in 2015, with activities planned until 2017. The
initiative is aimed at strengthening the struggle and self-organization of fisherwomen,
quilombola and indigenous women, rural workers, followers of African-origin traditions,
young people and other groups of women from the countryside and the city. Activities
include support to projects, training and communication activities, involving nine states
from the Northeast, as well as from Amapá, Tocantins and Pará.
Between 02 and 04 June, the activity enabled participants to share experiences, discuss the
direction of national politics and the recurrent threat of setbacks to the social gains made
in recent years.
The “Black and Populist Women’s Project: Tracing Pathways, Constructing Rights”
principally aims to contribute to the social integration and improved living conditions of
black women and women from the populist sectors living in poverty. It also aims to
strengthen the role of black and populist women and their organizations in public debates
and in the social participation processes referred to in government policies to combat
poverty, and for the social inclusion of women and the black population.
CESE has been a philanthropic institution for more than 43 years and acts to strengthen
those social movements and populist groups that fight for political, economic and social
transformations focusing on structures in which democracy with justice prevail, mediating
with financial resources and sharing spaces for dialogue and networking. The institution
has a centre in Salvador, Bahia and is made up of Christian churches. One of the ways it
fulfils its mission is by supporting projects from populist organizations.
SOS Corpo is a civil society, autonomous, non-profit, organization, founded in 1981 and
with a centre in Recife, Pernambuco, which has worked for 35 years in favour of the
emancipation of women, proposing the construction of a democratic and equal society
with socio-environmental justice. Its activities are based on the idea that women’s
movements, as organized social movements that struggle for social transformation, are
political subjects which provoke changes to the living conditions of women in general. For
the institute, the struggle against poverty, racism and homophobia are fundamental
aspects of feminism and social transformation in order to confront the capitalist, racist and
patriarchal system that produces inequalities and human suffering.