SPIEGEL: A drug war is raging in your major cities. Armed gangs control most of the slums in Rio de Janeiro. Has the government lost control over the favelas?
Lula: Police power alone isn't enough to solve the problem. The government itself must make its presence felt and provide opportunities, and then the violence will subside. This is why we are cleaning up the biggest slums throughout the country. We are providing them with drinking water, energy and sewage systems, schools, hospitals and libraries. With economic growth running at between 4 and 6 percent over a number of years, all this becomes possible. We have allocated $270 billion (€175 billion) to spend on improving slums as well as modernizing our infrastructure such as ports, highways, railroads and airports -- all without any new borrowing.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Lula in Der Spiegel
Lula comments on the motives for the slum upgrading in Sunday's Der Spiegel:
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Writing, teaching, and community media
I’m gonna throw this out, trusting you to chew on it awhile and give me your thoughts. I am pondering making a significant part of my life writing for a popular audience, teaching writing, and starting newspapers in marginal communities.
This idea came to me the other day and I can’t get it out of my head. I think this is because:
(1) Reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed has affirmed for me the importance of mental liberation as a necessary element of social change, not just changes in material relations. I come from a generation of young, western, bleeding-heart types being sent into the world with development studies degrees and dreams of staffing world-saving NGOs. But I have already concluded that both government poverty programs and their “purer” NGO counterparts suffer from a deep fear of trusting poor people with resources or ever allowing their citizens/clients true autonomy- thereby negating their own reason for existence. The only way that the underclasses of the world will get this control is by demanding it on their own terms. A pre-requisite of this demand is a critical understanding of reality and why it exists as it does. A pre-requisite of this understanding is freeing the mind from the myths that locate the sources of oppressive situations in oppressed people themselves, writing counter narratives… basically people who aren’t encouraged to think thinking for themselves and forming their own ideas of “what is” and “what should be done.” Community written and controlled newspapers could provide a space for this to happen, as could writing classes.
(2) Developing an ever more complex, critical, and reflective understanding of the world (both its larger elements, and the parts that intimately affect my life) has been THE thing making my life worth living. To use Freire’s language, this is the project of becoming progressively more human. Having my understanding of a situation completely blow up in my face, letting the smoke clear to see it in an entirely new way, and discovering that I am capable of changing that reality now that I understand it – that’s where it is AT! If my life project isn’t helping other people have this experience then it’s a waste.
(3) I might be better suited writing for popular, rather than academic consumption. I like writing, people tell me I am goodish at it, and I want to write things that change the way people understand social realities. And not just 10 people with advanced degrees – a politically significant number of people capable of changing social realities as a result. I also struggle to raise the patience/time necessary to write a scientifically sound article on, say, “the enabling factors of neighborhood leadership in earning community legitimacy.” People listen to folks who live in their community, for chrissakes. I don’t need to do three months of data collection to tell you that.
(4) The sub-human ideas that people outside of a given underclass have about said class are really disgusting. These ideas are propagated through terrible representations in media and affect both how an underclass understands itself, and how others think underclasses deserve to be treated. This reality smacks you in the face in Brazil – I spend an afternoon in a favela and then come home to read all google news-hits where the word “favela” was used. It’s two different worlds. What if media was a humanizing force instead of de-humanizing? What if people were telling their own stories, and others were actually listening?
(5) I got a little miffed with my boyfriend when he wouldn’t apply for the new position as Homelessness Advocate for the city of Columbus. I wanted him to propose starting a newspaper written and sold by homeless citizens as the goal of his position (Cincinnati does this: see StreetVibes). Then I thought – why the hell am I not doing this? Well, because I had a ticket to São Paulo of course, but that was probably the only thing holding me back. And you know what, similar empowerment initiatives through visual and print media are being done in Brazil - see for example Viva Favela, Observatório das Favelas, Alfabetização Visual where my girl Gabriela O’Leary works, and the many examples of small community radio in peripheral neighborhoods all over the city.
If I run with this idea, it doesn’t mean I can’t go to grad school. It does mean I won’t be a prolific academic, probably not even a professor, and I will end up work primarily in English speaking countries because I don’t think my language abilities will ever be strong enough to teach writing in anything but English.
What else important might I be giving up taking a path like this? Are there other plusses? Think about it for a bit and give me your comments.
This idea came to me the other day and I can’t get it out of my head. I think this is because:
(1) Reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed has affirmed for me the importance of mental liberation as a necessary element of social change, not just changes in material relations. I come from a generation of young, western, bleeding-heart types being sent into the world with development studies degrees and dreams of staffing world-saving NGOs. But I have already concluded that both government poverty programs and their “purer” NGO counterparts suffer from a deep fear of trusting poor people with resources or ever allowing their citizens/clients true autonomy- thereby negating their own reason for existence. The only way that the underclasses of the world will get this control is by demanding it on their own terms. A pre-requisite of this demand is a critical understanding of reality and why it exists as it does. A pre-requisite of this understanding is freeing the mind from the myths that locate the sources of oppressive situations in oppressed people themselves, writing counter narratives… basically people who aren’t encouraged to think thinking for themselves and forming their own ideas of “what is” and “what should be done.” Community written and controlled newspapers could provide a space for this to happen, as could writing classes.
(2) Developing an ever more complex, critical, and reflective understanding of the world (both its larger elements, and the parts that intimately affect my life) has been THE thing making my life worth living. To use Freire’s language, this is the project of becoming progressively more human. Having my understanding of a situation completely blow up in my face, letting the smoke clear to see it in an entirely new way, and discovering that I am capable of changing that reality now that I understand it – that’s where it is AT! If my life project isn’t helping other people have this experience then it’s a waste.
(3) I might be better suited writing for popular, rather than academic consumption. I like writing, people tell me I am goodish at it, and I want to write things that change the way people understand social realities. And not just 10 people with advanced degrees – a politically significant number of people capable of changing social realities as a result. I also struggle to raise the patience/time necessary to write a scientifically sound article on, say, “the enabling factors of neighborhood leadership in earning community legitimacy.” People listen to folks who live in their community, for chrissakes. I don’t need to do three months of data collection to tell you that.
(4) The sub-human ideas that people outside of a given underclass have about said class are really disgusting. These ideas are propagated through terrible representations in media and affect both how an underclass understands itself, and how others think underclasses deserve to be treated. This reality smacks you in the face in Brazil – I spend an afternoon in a favela and then come home to read all google news-hits where the word “favela” was used. It’s two different worlds. What if media was a humanizing force instead of de-humanizing? What if people were telling their own stories, and others were actually listening?
(5) I got a little miffed with my boyfriend when he wouldn’t apply for the new position as Homelessness Advocate for the city of Columbus. I wanted him to propose starting a newspaper written and sold by homeless citizens as the goal of his position (Cincinnati does this: see StreetVibes). Then I thought – why the hell am I not doing this? Well, because I had a ticket to São Paulo of course, but that was probably the only thing holding me back. And you know what, similar empowerment initiatives through visual and print media are being done in Brazil - see for example Viva Favela, Observatório das Favelas, Alfabetização Visual where my girl Gabriela O’Leary works, and the many examples of small community radio in peripheral neighborhoods all over the city.
If I run with this idea, it doesn’t mean I can’t go to grad school. It does mean I won’t be a prolific academic, probably not even a professor, and I will end up work primarily in English speaking countries because I don’t think my language abilities will ever be strong enough to teach writing in anything but English.
What else important might I be giving up taking a path like this? Are there other plusses? Think about it for a bit and give me your comments.
Brasilândia
Time for another research update: I am growing tired of meeting new people and reading semi-random things. My thoughts on issues related to my topic- how democracy works in favelas and could work better- are starting to atrophy and I feel the overwhelming urge to just DO something. What I really lack is a sustained role that forges some sort of unity between thinking and action – a space for praxis.
This is now my top priority. Luckily a project I was half-heartedly helping out with looks like it has the potential to, at least in part, become this space.
For the last 3 weeks a group of University of São Paulo students in architecture and international relations has been in the process of creating children’s programming in favela Brasilândia- actually an agglomeration of several favelas to the north of the city. I was tagging along, not out of any great affinity for kids, but as a way to observe community meetings and get a feel for the area. Plus free coloring…
But after a planning meeting, the group has decided to re-think its involvement in the community. In a handful of weeks, Brasilândia will become another urbanization and regularization site in the city. The details are still being worked out, but the standards are surely in order: evicting people from areas of risk, possibly building public housing blocks to replace their demolished homes, paving a few roads, building sewage canals, and arranging land titles for the residents who are able to stay put.
Meaning it is a critical time for the neighborhood. It is about to undergo serious changes and needs to be organized and attentive to insist that, to every extent possible, residents be given control over the results.
Happily, the students decided this week on two important changes in approach to make their work more relevant to the community’s current position. First, they are going to start a series of dialogues with adults, including members of the community commission. Second, the themes for investigation will be generated by participants, rather than the university students. The overarching goal is to follow Paulo Freire’s model of a Liberating Pedagogy, creating an environment where participants achieve an ever more critical and expanded understanding of their reality, and begin to develop responses to the forces that confront and oppress them.
So at the moment we are recruiting more USP students, specifically ones with education backgrounds, to help us develop the project. I hope to get us some training with a unit at USP that has experience running literacy courses on the Freire model so we can learn “classroom” strategies. It is too early to tell if this will become my “praxis role” down here. I am still following up on a few leads in the search for groups that are doing good politicizing work in favelas. But it is something worth being optimistic about at least!
This is now my top priority. Luckily a project I was half-heartedly helping out with looks like it has the potential to, at least in part, become this space.
For the last 3 weeks a group of University of São Paulo students in architecture and international relations has been in the process of creating children’s programming in favela Brasilândia- actually an agglomeration of several favelas to the north of the city. I was tagging along, not out of any great affinity for kids, but as a way to observe community meetings and get a feel for the area. Plus free coloring…
But after a planning meeting, the group has decided to re-think its involvement in the community. In a handful of weeks, Brasilândia will become another urbanization and regularization site in the city. The details are still being worked out, but the standards are surely in order: evicting people from areas of risk, possibly building public housing blocks to replace their demolished homes, paving a few roads, building sewage canals, and arranging land titles for the residents who are able to stay put.
Meaning it is a critical time for the neighborhood. It is about to undergo serious changes and needs to be organized and attentive to insist that, to every extent possible, residents be given control over the results.
Happily, the students decided this week on two important changes in approach to make their work more relevant to the community’s current position. First, they are going to start a series of dialogues with adults, including members of the community commission. Second, the themes for investigation will be generated by participants, rather than the university students. The overarching goal is to follow Paulo Freire’s model of a Liberating Pedagogy, creating an environment where participants achieve an ever more critical and expanded understanding of their reality, and begin to develop responses to the forces that confront and oppress them.
So at the moment we are recruiting more USP students, specifically ones with education backgrounds, to help us develop the project. I hope to get us some training with a unit at USP that has experience running literacy courses on the Freire model so we can learn “classroom” strategies. It is too early to tell if this will become my “praxis role” down here. I am still following up on a few leads in the search for groups that are doing good politicizing work in favelas. But it is something worth being optimistic about at least!
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