*By Marcelo Nery
We can be surprised at any time. However, when we find ourselves surprised by repeating events, such a reaction may indicate a lack of knowledge or a conscious choice to neglect. The premise I wish to highlight is that, although responses to a previously identified problem may be objective, in the Brazilian context, the transition from learning from the past to implementing concrete actions is anything but simple. To illustrate this point, and ensure that ignorance is not an excuse, let's consider a peculiar example, without losing sight of the chronology of the facts.
At a certain moment, a series of mobilizations occur simultaneously in dozens of cities. These mobilizations can be considered the first insurrection or popular uprising of truly national proportions in decades. It all seems to have started for reasons that many consider trivial: a fare increase here, an act of police violence there and a lack of investment in public services there. Nothing out of the ordinary. Labor and class demands draw attention, as categories on strike or mobilized have been demanding their own agendas for some time. Nothing out of the ordinary either.
Until a series of dissatisfactions and movements of demands, which had been brewing in previous years, erupt and gain prominence. Part of the press is criticized for the lack of coverage of the protests. Some media outlets are accused of ignoring the importance of social protest. As calls are made over the Internet, there is often more trust in online information than in information broadcast on television or newspapers.
The predominant opinion is that traditional media are late in expanding coverage of claims. Press professionals suffer intimidation from both protesters and police officers. The largest media outlets and their journalists are rejected in the demonstrations. These vehicles and representatives of public authorities, at least in advance, describe the protests as acts of vandalism, resulting from political and ideological ignorance.
In response to this description, which was often linked to a declaration of the lack of clear demands during the demands, an online collective released a video entitled “The 5 Causes!”, suggesting the consensual reasons why people would be demonstrating and asking for collaboration and adherence to these causes. The protests are highlighted in the main international communication agencies, which highlight the “truculence” of the police and the “climate of insecurity”.
Government members make statements about public acts. Some claim that those demonstrations are legitimate and proper to democracy, while others say that vandalism should not be tolerated. At the same time that we are seeing an increase in violent state actions against activists, we are witnessing statements from public authorities seeking to reassure the population. There is evidence of an internal dispute over the leading role in the mobilization between social movements, anarchist groups, unions and party currents. Finally, a meeting takes place between representatives of public authorities and protesters.
As a result, some demands are met, a pact to improve public services is promised, a plebiscite is proposed, priority measures are defined, laws are approved and collective mobilizations slow down. However, we cannot forget that the balance also includes the emergence of an environment conducive to extremist ideas developing myths and causing disinformation, less trust in public institutions and traditional media, depredations, hundreds of arrests and injured people.
Eleven years ago, this same month, thousands of Brazilians chanted slogans in the country's main capitals calling for changes in politics and public services. The methods used included mass protests, popular assemblies, interface between cyberactivism and alternative media, Black Bloc tactics, occupations, barricades, graffiti, posters and banners. There were also attacks on symbols of capitalism, such as bank branches and establishments of large international franchises, and of public authorities, such as police vehicles and legislative assembly buildings.
In fact, June 2013 would not have happened the way it did if the scenario of dissatisfaction had not been minimized until it turned into collective indignation. It would not have happened without the population's quick access to online media, especially social networks. And it would not have happened the way it did without violent police repression.
How can we prevent a similar incident from recurring? What lessons did we learn from this experience?
To answer these questions we need to understand three fundamental points. First: Recent transformations in Brazilian society must be analyzed in the context of global changes. However, it is essential to highlight that social dissatisfaction is not generic, but rather a set of trends in different societies and periods. In Brazil, Brazilians tend to act according to emotion, and not reason (as Sérgio Buarque de Holanda warned), demonstrations tend to be quick and intense. Therefore, the dissatisfactions that generated the protests in Brazilian metropolises have global similarities, but local singularities are elements present in different nuances of popular mobilizations.
Second: The mobilizing power of instant messaging platforms and social networks is now widely recognized, as they sensitize users so that they share questionable content (due to the veracity or accuracy of statements, for example) and even voluntarily participate in demanding causes. . These causes, although collective, are often interpreted in a personalistic way, reducing the political to the personal. This results in bubbles of opinion and the privatization of politics, inserting it into something like a “moral grammar”, that is, a presupposed innate and universal structure of human morality. Such privatization generates collective actions that are often anti-institutional, with the potential to even destabilize democratic contexts.
Third: The violent actions of State agents in demonstrations are not just reactions to some previous or expected behavior. The State, whose use of force is legitimate for the maintenance of peace and order in societies, influenced by the collective will of social groups, operates according to interests and values in dispute, prioritizing groups according to their importance in terms of power and hierarchies social. This prioritization affects the structure and functions of the State, with certain costs for civil society. For example, police violence, which generally affects different social groups in specific circumstances, is related to the perception of these groups and social control mechanisms as well as dominant political and economic concerns.
In summary, the basic propositions are: dissatisfactions cannot be limited to global processes; the political cannot be reduced to the personal; and State action cannot be limited to the coercion of typical and typified groups.
It seems clear that we have reached a rare moment in which the initial response can be objective. Before future journeys, it is decisive: to implement conflict prevention measures based on understanding the local causes of dissatisfaction, increasing trust in democratic institutions (public, social, political, legal, etc.); adopt communication technologies to monitor and respond effectively to social demands and crises, promoting dialogue and citizen participation; and strengthen accountability mechanisms to guarantee the accountability of the agents involved, both the protesters and the State, prioritizing the security of property and, above all, of people without using excessive force, which should only be resorted to as a last resort. Certainly, objective answers. However…
*Marcelo Batista Nery is a researcher at think tank from ABES and the Oscar Sala Chair at the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP (IEA-USP), coordinator of Technology Transfer and Head of the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center (BRA-61) at the Center for Violence Studies at the University of São Paulo .
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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