Chapter News: MST’s Ana Chã in California Bay Area and New York City, Chicago Gallery Hosts MST Artwork and Presentation

Ana ChaAna Chã, a member of the MST’s Culture Collective, gave two presentations on the role of culture in social movements, particularly the MST. On August 11, 2014, in the Bay Area, she addressed cultural workers at Occupy the Farm in Albany, CA. Read more and view photos.

In New York City, on August 13, 2014,  Ana gave a presentation on thesame topic with an emphasis on mística to a gathering at a collective space in lower Manhattan. Read more and view photos.

On August 8, 2014, the Uri-Eichen Gallery in Chicago’s Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen hosted artwork and presentations on the MST and the rise of new democracy in Canoas, Brazil. MST posters, original oil paintings by Aliene de Souza Howell and products of worker’s cooperatives were all displayed in the gallery. Read more and view photos.

Palestinian movement holds vigil in São Paulo

By Maura Silva

Translated by Omid Afzalalghom

It was early evening on Tuesday (15th) when Cinquentenário de Israel Square, in the Higienópolis neighbourhood of São Paulo, began to be lit up by candles lit in honour of the 200-plus people killed in recent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. 

The vigil, organised by the Palestine for All Movement (MOPAT), brought together about 500 people and featured videos, poems and musical interventions about Palestine.

International Day of Peasant Struggle

April 17In one of many protests on Thursday April 17, around 500 MST workers  from the Brazilian Federal District (state to which Brasilia, nation's capital, belongs to) and its surroundings blocked sections of the BR 020 highway, between the Planaltina (DF) and Formosa (GO) municipalities, at the height of kilometer 43 and the BR 070 highway, in direction towards Águas Lindas de Goiás. 

Stedile: Structural Reform on the agenda for the 11th July mobilizations

We have not had such vigorous street mobilizations since the campaign for “Rights Now” in the '80s.  The protests which exploded with the youth indignation were just the tip of the iceberg of the profound social and economic problems that persist in our society.  On one hand, the big cities have become a living hell, where workers pay high costs for low quality public transport.  Besides that, they spend two or three hours a day traveling, a pure waste of time.

Those who managed to buy an automobile, financed by international finance capital, are realizing that they paid dearly for the ability not to be able to move.  The auto assembly companies and the associated banks have never before sent so much money abroad.

Seventeen years after the massacre, the attack on land reform continues

drawing of massacreSeventeen years have passed since that fateful April 17. On that day in 1996, a march of rural workers organized by the MST was blockaded and attacked by military police in the city of Eldorado dos Carajás, Pará state. 19 people were killed on the spot and 2 others died days afterwards. The day of the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre has officially become the National Day of Struggle for Land Reform.

Meeting of Friends of the MST Reinforces the Importance of Agrarian Reform

By José Coutinho JuniorMeeting of Friends of the MST

More than 200 people from various social movements, political parties and NGOs gathered this past Sunday (12/9), at the National School Florestan Fernandes (ENFF) for the Meeting of Friends and Friends of the MST. João Pedro Stedile, MST leader, began the meeting with an analysis of the forces acting on the class struggle of the Brazilian society and how this is reflected in the countryside.

"What we face today in agriculture is no longer the backward landowner, now, when we fight for land it is necessary to face the entire capitalist system, represented mainly by finance capital and the bourgeoisie, to see that they do not have total hegemony in government clinging together with the judiciary and the media."

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