Social Movements in Cuba and Brazil - Essay Example

?According to Michael Leon Guerrero and Cindy Wiesner of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, a group of social movement organizations in the Americas, due to the world economic downturn of the last few years, neoliberalism has backtracked. Guerrero and Wiesner also credit the success of the global justice movement with the weakening of influence of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the G-8, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). As they state, “The FTAA was declared dead and buried by Hugo Chavez and other Latin American Presidents in November, 2005 in Mar de Plata, WTO negotiations have met strong popular resistance and is currently in limbo, the IMF and WB have lost much of their financing and political influence.”1 Social movements in the Americas, especially in countries like Brazil and Cuba, in the presence of strong centralized governments, have reverted to local and national strategies to combat and defeat new bilateral trade agreements and other local struggles. There are definite trends that social movements in the Americas face, issues that have united them. U.S. imperial aggression have increased, with the expansion of U.S. military bases, the revival of the U.S. Navy’s 4th Fleet, and an increase in covert operations by the U.S. against South American nations like Venezuela and Bolivia. Social movements have had to fight bilateral trade agreements by the U.S. and the EU in individual nations throughout the region. Cities and towns throughout the Americas have been under attack for the exploitation and control (through trade, energy, and security agreements) of natural resources such as land, water, and energy; this has resulted in global warming, as well as other worsening environmental and health impacts. The most serious impact of the gap left by multinational organizations is the criminalization of social movements. Internal security laws, modeled after the U.S. Patriot Act and Homeland Security department, have been adopted by Latin American governments. In other words, political resistance to neoliberal strategies has been violently repressed, in the form of interrogations, the monitoring of social organizations by national governments, and political assassinations. As Hector de la Cuerva of the Mexican Network Against Free Trade (RMALC) has stated, “The face of neoliberalism is now militarism.”2 In 1996, well before 9/11, Brazil used these kinds of tactics to suppress social movements. On April 17, 1,500 families of landless peasants making up one of these movements, the Movement of the Landless (MST), gathered near the town of Eldorado do Carajas, demanding land reform because in Brazil, only 1% of the population owns 50% of farmable land.3 The police opened fire on the protestors, killing almost two dozen and wounding dozens more. Ever since, the MST has worked for justice for victims of the massacre. One way was declaring April 17 as International Day of Peasant Struggle and by fighting for agrarian reform, equality, justice, and peace for both the landless peasants in Brazil and throughout the world. In Cuba, the situation for social movements is a bit different. The fact that the Cuban government is socialist and shares many of the same values and beliefs as many of the country’s social movements helps the situation for these organizations. Fortunately for Brazil, Cuban-Brazilian relations have been “excellent” in May 2008 and Brazilian President Lula da Silva expressed desire for Brazil to be Cuba’s “number one partner.”4 One of the worst things that could have happen to social movements in Cuba was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, which as political scientist George Zarur has stated, “represented a national catastrophe for Cuba.”5 Up to that point, Cuba’s economy was entirely dependent upon the Soviet Union, which subsidized the Cuban economy between four and six billion dollars per year, making up 20-40 percent of its GNP. It also enjoyed a monopoly for sugar production for most of Eastern Europe. The consequence was a severe economic crisis and a forty percent drop in Cuba’s GNP, and was made worse by the American blockade. Financial reforms by the Cuban government have improved the economic situation there somewhat. Unemployment is very low in Cuba, and its citizens enjoy universal access to its educational and health care systems. As Zarur has also said, “The counterpart to the absence of paupers is the equal distribution of scarcity.”6 Nevertheless, even though Cuba has historically been the most vulnerable country for American expansion in Latin America, it remains the only country in the region that “openly resists the cultural and political influence of the U.S.”7 In spite of the powerful forces behind neo-liberalism, social movements in Latin America have successfully fought back against them. Activist David Abdulah credits this to the “constant underestimation of the resilience and capacity of the masses of people to take action in defense of their own actions.”8 Abdullah reports that although social movements in Latin America has flourished, the opposite seems to have happened in the Caribbean, a reversal of the situation of thirty years ago, when several revolutions were occurring in other nations in the Caribbean while Latin America was mostly ruled by dictators. Perhaps this is because so much was accomplished during this time in the Caribbean, while there is much work to be done in Brazil and throughout Latin America. The economic downturn has benefitted social movements in Latin America as well, while it was solidified the gains made in the 60s and 70s. At any rate, social movements throughout Latin America, including both Brazil and Cuba, are as strong as ever. Bibliography Abdulah, David, “Social Movements in the Caribbean: Solidarity, Building of Alliances and Convergences, Struggles and the New Threats of Criminalization of Protests,” paper presented to the Fourth Assembly of Caribbean Peoples, June/July 2008, http://www.normangirvan.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/abdula-social-movements1.htm. Cohen, Dan Baron. “Beyond the Barricade: Social Movements in Brazil.” New Internationalist, September 2001, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_2001_Sept/ai_78900924/. Guerrero, Michael Leon and Cindy Weisner. “Reflections on the III Americas Social Forum, Guatemala.” Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, last modified November 1, 2008, http://www.ggjalliance.org/node/28. Quintero, Marina Menendez. “Cuba-Brazil Relations Get New Impulse,” Juventud Rebelde, May 31, 2008, http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/cuba/2008-05-31/cuba-brazil-relations-get-new-impulse/. Zarur, George. “Nation and Multiculturalism in Cuba: A Comparison with the United States and Brazil,” George Zarur.com, http://www.georgezarur.com.br/artigos/124/nation-and-multiculturalism-in-cuba-a-comparison-with-the-united-states-and-brazil. Read More