Padre Andreas, a Jesuit priest from Spain, came on a radical mission to the impoverished hillside shantytown of Alto do Cruzeiro in the municipio of Timbauba, a sugarcane market town in Pernambuco Brazil. At the time, 1989, I was living on “the Alto” (the hill) with the rural workers, sugarcane cutters, and fishermen and women while writing my book Death Without Weeping: the Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil As a dedicated liberation theologist Padre Andreas declined an invitation by the local elderly Monseigneur to sleep in the local rectory which itself I can assure you was not so great he spent each night in a different hovel of the Alto listening to the stories of the residents of the stigmatized community mapped the obscure paths on the hill with names like ‘the vultures stench’ and ‘murderers ledge’ in an attempt to recover what he called ” the lost history and invisible geography” of the shantytown The good priest delighted the impoverished hillside community with his radical ideas and radical hope inspired by Brechtian tactics of theatre of the oppressed He introduced participatory Masses in which the distinction between the priest as sacred celebrant and the ‘faithful’ as followers was ended Their shyness and their illiteracy got in the way but Padre Andreas told them that they were more precious to Jesus than their cruel sugar plantation bosses who took all that was sweet out of their lives All they had to do was to speak from the heart When Holy Week arrived there was a meeting on the Alto about how to bring liberation theology into the Stations of the Cross the procession of the fourteen events honoring the passion and death of Jesus How could the shantytown create a different and existential reflection on the poverty oppression and everyday suffering of the people of the Alto There had been other attempts with traditional bonfires to honor Saint John The ritual was turned upside down when the people of the Alto decided to burn schoolbooks (of all things!) that their ignored children had never been taught properly how to read “What good to us are these maps to a world we do not know if we cannot read these books?” a local leader protested as the damned books were burned in a bonfire On another occasion the annual blessing of automobiles on the feast day of Saint Christopher set the stage for rituals that questioned the grotesque inequalities the unacknowledged mortal sins and social sins of greed and indifference that required ritual exorcisms on the day of the annual Christopher’s parade of sugarcane trucks police vehicles that circled around the market town as they were blessed by the parish priest on an impromptu stage A plot emerged when a dozen or more Brown and Black women of the Alto who daily carried polluted water from the river each day stepped up on the stage to join the priests who were confused and yet welcoming the women But before they knew what was happening the women shaking and carrying buckets of dirty war from the local river on their head dumped their pails on the parade of decorated cars amidst screams and curses by the elite and very white car owners As Holy Week arrived Padre Andreas and the people of the Alto quickly organized an early morning Via Sacra (Stations of the Cross) The procession began in front of the straw hut of Ze de Mello one of the oldest residents of the Alto do Cruzeiro Ze’s doorstep was decorated with garbage where feral pigs and wild goats often foraged The priest called on the cane cutters to be the first group to carry the heavy cross on their shoulders that would lead the people in a liberationist Stations of the Cross As one group grew weary another group – garbage workers traditional healers and finally mothers –was each called forward to take up the cross At each designated “station” Andreas reflected on a crisis he spoke of food shortages and the crisis of the roçados the small private vegetable and bean gardens that were ‘undocumented’ A rural union leader called attention to the laws that were supposed to protect the rights of the peasants and rural squatters One of the “stations’ took the procession to the police precinct where the priest and his people reflected on police brutality and lack of social justice The police acted independently like a mafia and an older mother called out “you are not peacemakers” The next Station of the Cross-was the local jail where the padre reflected on the social conditions that forced a hungry population to commit “crimes of hunger” “Blessed are the hungry who steal bread to feed their children” Blessed are the street people who are jailed without justice Street Kids in Jailed without Justice but with plenty of Bias The procession formed in front of the town hall The Brazilian government had given stipends to local bakers so they could distribute bread during Easter to all families that could not afford it But the bread had not yet come to the Alto do Cruzeiro The mayor and his assistant listened with anxiety If the bakers would not comply wit the program As the procession continued on the main street local working class people joined the poor The next Station of the Cross was the local hospital where women spoke of fainting in the hospital hallways unattended Where was a Simon of Cyrene or a Good Samaritan to wipe the sweat from the fevered brow of a man dying from dengue or Chikungunya the patron saint of midwives to help women in labor Woman were giving birth on the floor of the hospital without even a cot to lie on or a nurse to offer a taste of water or wine to dry and fevered lips “Our Stations of the Cross represent your Calvary!” Padre Andreas announced though a bullhorn that someone in the crowd had handed to him Our Stations will allow you to reflect on the painful steps of your own crucifixions the useless suffering and premature deaths that all of you have experienced in your families” the procession moved indoors to the altar of the local Basilica of Nossa Senhora das Dores where the Stations paused at the feet of Our Lady of Sorrows Together they reflected on the suffering of women so many of whom had lost their children as babies and as adolescents the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’ A nun came forward to reflect on the Pieta the thirteenth Station of the Cross when the dead body of Jesus is taken down from the cross and laid in the arms of his mother What mother here has not felt those same daggers stab her breast Like the Holy Mother the women of Alto do Cruzeiro know the weight of a dead son in their arms.” The death of a son killed by gangs Irene and her sister had each lost sons to local death squads the procession ended at the municipal cemetery to reflect on the last traditional Station of the Cross when Jesus was laid in his tomb ” If Jesus died today in Timbauba” Padre Andreas reflected what Joseph of Aramathia would come forward to offer him a tomb Here our dead are wrapped in a tattered bedsheet and dumped in a common grave among the anonymous dead Those who died poor can sometimes beg the mayor for a month in a proper grave so that they could bring flowers Xoxa wanted to bring a pair of socks to her little sister Leonardo wanted to know who would be the next to die On the procession’s return to the Alto do Cruzeiro I want all the women to come forward and carry our cross home to the very top of the Alto do Cruzeiro.” The women were beaming with pride they were like the women of Jerusalem… and so they were Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology is holding a two-day conference on May 1 and 2 called “Anthropology on the Front Lines." UC Berkeley anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes has worked tirelessly to expose “uncomfortable truths” across the world where she explored the symptoms of the community’s decline where she studied impoverished mothers who let go of their angel babies perceived as creatures who “wanted to die.” For the past 15 years she has been studying an international kidney trafficking circuit Nancy Scheper-Hughes is a professor of medical anthropology emerita at UC Berkeley Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology is holding a two-day conference on May 1 and 2 called “Anthropology on the Front Lines,” bringing together a host of scholars who are also activists many of whom have collaborated with or been mentored by Scheper-Hughes over the years to talk about how they work when they’re on the ground Berkeley News spoke with Scheper-Hughes about the philosophy she lives and works by and the role she thinks anthropologists should play in society Berkeley News: What can we expect at this conference Nancy Scheper-Hughes: The people at the conference have serious political commitments and they’re not all compatible But we will feel free to disagree openly using tools of conviviality but with the sense that we are all trying to do some good in the world Marcelo Suarez-Orozco was a brilliant student — I came to Berkeley when he was finishing his dissertation on Central American youth who had migrated to the U.S Marcelo was a young refugee of the Argentinian “Dirty War.” I was an informal mentor to him and invited him to write an article on what happened to children during the war from 1974 to 1983 He gave up prestigious appointments at Harvard and NYU to be the dean of UCLA’s School of Education where he has transformed what a public university can do a professor emerita of medical anthropology at McGill University We were doctoral students together at Berkeley and afterwards we co-invented a new field: critical and interpretive medical anthropology rooted in a radical phenomenology of the body not as one “thing” but as multiple Margaret has continued to shape the field and has moved from a phenomenological anthropology to a hardcore but still very critical study of science Scheper-Hughes with a trafficked kidney seller in Brazil in 2008 You call yourself a “barefoot anthropologist.” Can you explain what this means Anthropology has to be done with our feet on the ground This doesn’t mean that you’re not theoretical but it’s theory in action It also means not being caught up in the machine that academic institutions often create called liberation theology — a “barefoot theology” that was extremely politicized You had a preferential option for the poor You didn’t worry about losing God in heaven I tried to translate that into a new practice of barefoot anthropology To understand the people you’re working with I have always lived in the communities that I’ve worked in hardly knowing what are the right questions to ask You might have the wrong questions and your proposal might have to be turned upside down We try to respect all of our anthropological subjects but at some point you have to decide where you’re going to draw the line and be critical I tend to expose structural violence — invisible forms of violence — rather than violent individuals But what we bring to the surface might mean offending a certain class of people Scheper-Hughes with Gadalya “Gaddy” Tauber inside his prison cell Have you ever become close with people you had to be critical of Gadalya “Gaddy” Tauber was one of the biggest organizers of an international kidney trafficking circuit I didn’t name him — I never mention names before a person has been arrested I just explained how the trafficking system operated Congress and the South African Commercial Crime police in Durban You have a unique position on why you think it’s okay to recruit poor people from the slums of Brazil and send them to South Africa to have their kidneys removed for sick people coming from Europe I spent two summers visiting Gaddy in prison He even read my book Death Without Weeping and gave me a new lens to interpret life in the shantytown based on his own experience of the Holocaust I befriended many of the people who got caught up in organ trafficking — the doctors who were doing it the patients who thought it was okay to travel across the world to have an illegal transplant package for $120,000 It takes some 28 people to carry off an illegal transplant People you least expect to understand can touch you in such a way that you’re a better person because of them Scheper-Hughes with kidney transplant patients at UCT Medical School in South Africa What do you see as the responsibility of an anthropologist but we try to see each individual who works with us as a gift They may be radically different in their ways of being in the world just as we are radically different to their world we can almost always learn to understand each other Anthropology is a vocation based not necessarily on love but rather on a deep curiosity that is open to many surprises It doesn’t mean you have to justify what they’re doing It doesn’t mean that you always have to please people Our job is to understand the way people think You just never know whom you’re talking to In addition to “Anthropology on the Front Lines,” the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology is showing “The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy,” by 2014 Turner Prize recipient Duncan Campbell The showing will be followed by a panel discussion Learn more about the conference online and on the campus’s events calendar. There is also more information about the film showing available online; registration is requested Learn more about Scheper-Hughes on the anthropology department’s website MST ocupa engenho improdutivo em Timbaúba (PE) - MST-PE the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) month of mobilization in defense of agrarian reform and in memory of the 27th anniversary of the Massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás around 250 families occupied an unproductive area of Engenho Cumbe in the city of Timbaúba (Pernambuco This was one of several actions – including other occupations blocking roads and a pedagogical camp in the “S curve” in Pará (where the Massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás took place) – planned for this month across the country.   whose motto in 2023 is “Agrarian reform against hunger and slavery: for land will concentrate its main activities between March 17th and 20th in one of the most emblematic episodes of the fighting for land in the country when police repression against a marching in Pará brutally murdered 21 landless workers and left another 79 maimed The date became the International Day of Peasant Struggles ::  :: the journey arrives in a context with three new ingredients It is the first Red April under the new Lula administration (Workers' Party).“The new scenario we are seeing after a long period of agrarian reform blockade is one of dialogue with the Brazilian government” Contemporary slavery gains space in the public debate ever since the case of the 207 workers rescued from wineries in Rio Grande do Sul came to light And landowners have been organizing themselves – especially in the extreme south of the state of Bahia – to contain the advance of popular and indigenous movements that are fighting for the right to land She explains that this year's mobilization aims to present to society and to the federal and state governments that “to combat inequalities and hunger it is necessary to have a policy to confront the concentration of land in Brazil and encourage the agroecological production of family farming".  Ayala emphasizes that the current agrarian models in Brazil do not complement each other “It is important for the Brazilian society to know that the Brazilian countryside is not a homogeneous space Although there is a hegemonic project represented by capital and materialized in agribusiness there is also a counter-hegemonic force that is family peasant agriculture which tries very hard to exist and resist in this space” the fact that 33.1 million people are starving in Brazil is directly associated with the power and space that agribusiness has in the country a substitution of crops for items needed to feed the Brazilian people ::  :: The incompatibility between the models has been gaining new contours the MST and Pataxó indigenous peoples from the extreme south of the state of Bahia have denounced the organization of militias and groups of farmers in the region in a report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) they warn that twelve thousand Pataxó are living under a "low-intensity war" in southern Bahia with "attacks by farmers and militiamen" In a video circulating on social media since April 1 landowner Luiz Uaquim (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) places himself as one of the organizers of the group “Invasão zero” (“Zero Invasion”) which intends to prevent MST actions in the state “The producers will change their way of acting” says Uaquim: “It is a milestone in the history of the producer against the 'invasion' of land Let's do the 'Yellow April'" Combating slave labor and protecting the environment  Even though we live 135 years after the formal abolition of slavery in Brazil also on the national leadership of the MST “slavery is not eliminated just by signing laws: it is in the essence of the agribusiness model and rooted in the private property owner’s culture” “was developed by attacking the forests is it fulfilling its social function at that moment “We have a big task ahead of us” but also to society as a whole: “to embrace the debate on sustainable agriculture which needs to fulfill its social function by producing healthy food and respecting the environment.This is where the essence of life for the planet’s next few million years lies All original content produced and editorially authored by Brasil de Fato may be reproduced provided it is not altered and proper credit is given All original content produced and editorially authored by Brasil de Fato may be reproduced fazendeiros foram em um comboio de 35 caminhonetes até um acampamento do MST em Itabela (BA) in the city of Timbaúba (state of Pernambuco) and the headquarters of Incra in Maceió (state of Alagoas) inaugurated the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement’s “Red April” a month of mobilization in memory of the Eldorado do Carajás Massacre The "S curve" – where the state of Pará Military Police murdered 21 landless workers in 1996 – has hosted the Pedagogical Camp for Youth Oziel Alves the 17-year-old boy executed with a shot in the forehead in Eldorado do Carajás the camp brought together hundreds of young people and ended its activities with an act this Monday (17) "Agrarian reform against hunger and slavery: for land democracy and the environment" is the motto of this year's April journey in continuity and update of the peasants’ struggle who had their march to Belém (state of Pará) brutally interrupted 27 years ago which is one of the most emblematic episodes of the dispute for land in Brazil made April 17th the International Day of Peasant Struggles at a time when popular and indigenous movements claim to have to face the organization of new "rural militias" "We are experiencing a reorganization of the UDR" She refers to the Ruralist Democratic Union (UDR) an entity of rural employers created to react organized and violently to the advances of movements in defense of agrarian reform in the 1980s and 1990s in Brazil "What is happening is a reorganization of landowners with a view to defending property to the detriment of the law and life" Bahia is the state where this articulation is most explicitly operating ::  :: In a video that has been circulating on social media since April 1 landowner Luiz Uaquim (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) poses as one of the organizers of the group "Zero Invasion" which "The producers will change their way of acting" says Uaquim: "It is a milestone in the history of the producer against land invasion We are going to do the 'Yellow April'" farmers went in a 35 trucks convoy to the MST Camp Osmar Azevedo which was undergoing repossession in Itabela (state of Bahia) who organize a rural militia in the region "the militiamen" tried to enter the area "to threaten and coerce the families but the police intercepted it." The convoy then closed the BR 101 (highway that connects the northeast to the south of Brazil) for 15 minutes The action followed a pattern similar to what happened in Jacobina (state of Bahia) Peasants who had occupied a farm left the area under tension dismantled shacks and set fire to mattresses "They don't care if those are unproductive areas they don't care about anything other than the defense of property and Because the occupation is precisely to denounce illegality: the constitutional non-fulfillment of the social function" ::  :: According to a spreadsheet published by CNN 800 farmers distributed in 130 cities in Bahia are part of the "Zero Invasion" group They would be organized into seven main cells centralized in the municipalities of Itabuna Santo Antônio de Jesus and Vale do Jiquiriçá The articulation of farmers has the public support of rural unions entities such as the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of Bahia (FAEB) and politicians such as the mayor of Andaraí Wilson Paes Cardoso (Brazilian Socialist Party) who is also a rancher and president of the Chapada Forte Consortium says that he "vehemently disagrees with any act of invasion or occupation" as it violates "property rights" and generates "legal uncertainty" They are those radical Bolsonaro supporters who when forced to leave the front of the army's headquarters And they understand that we are the target indigenous organizations sent a report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) warning that with the "threats from farmers and militiamen" 12,000 Pataxó are living under a "low-intensity war" in southern Bahia young Pataxó Samuel Braz and Inauí Brito were murdered on the roadside of BR-101 highway an art with the photo of the coffins of those killed in the Eldorado do Carajás Massacre circulated on social media phrases in a threatening tone: in order for the scene not to happen again "What they have also been doing is putting this terror on" "But what we've always known how to do is land occupation and we're going to continue" "We will not accept landowners' repossession We have made the government of Bahia aware of the situation and we want to know how they are going to deal with it" videos of the motorcade itself and the call for action by ruralists is highlighted by landless leaders as a characteristic of what Eliane calls the "new guise" of organized action by large landowners ::  :: "agitation and propaganda to stay on top of a political platform" is one of the three components of this ruralist articulation are "violence and extermination" and institutional lobbying through the Agricultural Parliamentary Front The bench of Bolsonarist parliamentarians currently defends the creation of the so-called "Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) of the MST" But Brazilian society still needs to defeat Bolsonarism" "It is this Bolsonarism that tries to create a naturalization of death which makes a part of the population ignore that we continue with hundreds of millions of people starving" "landowners invade the Amazon to raise cattle on public lands decimating populations as they were doing with the Yanomami people" ::  "that we see so many rescues of people in conditions analogous to slavery That we see a white woman hit an uberized black worker with a whip That we see farmers with guns in hand recording videos to evict landless workers" The memory of Carajás as a projection of the future the omission of the State – either in the lack of justice in relation to the Eldorado do Carajás Massacre or in the freedom with which "rural militias" have acted – connects the scenario of 27 years ago and today And what has the State been doing about it?" as the photo that circulated [with the coffins] puts it Because there was no justice for the Carajás workers Among the 155 police officers who acted in the massacre only the two commanders of the operation were convicted of intentional homicide Colonels Mário Pantoja and José Maria Pereira Oliveira were arrested in 2012 they began to serve their sentence in freedom Pantoja died in Belém (state of Pará) in 2020 In different lawsuits from the 1990s onwards the judiciary ordered the State to indemnify and provide medical treatment for 50 of the survivors as well as a pension for some relatives of the murdered workers Another 20 are claiming compensation and await a response from the Attorney General of the State of Pará ::  :: Lawyer Wlamir Brelaz has defended survivors of the massacre since 1998 In an interview with Brasil de Fato for the Bem Viver show he says that the greatest injustice related to them despite a court decision which obliges the State to provide it The survivors of the Eldorado do Carajás Massacre are much more numerous than those who entered into a legal battle with the State: 1500 peasants participated in that march At least 79 were seriously injured.   the State's lack of responsibility for the episode "is a consequence and the cause and stimulus of new violence" "our militancy is ready to face this new era" "The 21 landless were murdered in the struggle for land that we are still occupying land and facing up to large estates so that agrarian reform can take place" the expectation that the movement's guidelines advance under the new Lula government (Workers' Party) "remains very high." However she believes that the result has not arrived: "We hope that this April will manage to get the government to put this agenda up for discussion" "No silence while there is no justice" "is that agrarian reform be carried out And we will make our whole year of fighting for justice" provided it is not altered and proper credit is given.