2003 CLAS Summer Research Report Wendy Sinek Political Science "Coalitional Choices and Strategic Challenges: The Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil"

 

The dramatic emergence of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil—involving hundreds of thousands of families—is a remarkable political phenomenon. As of January 2003, the MST boasted about one million members, and had gained over five million hectares of land for approximately 350,000 families. Yet at the same time, the number of rural workers in Latin America has been declining over the past 40 years, and migration from rural to urban areas has increased during this same period. One would not expect peasants to engage in sustained collective action pressing the boundaries of social and political change, yet the MST has been doing exactly that for over twenty years.

At the same time, the movement has charted an interesting course in terms of its coalitional choices. Originally a staunch ally of the Catholic Church, the movement later eschewed all external associations and became fiercely independent, only to reach out to a wide range of international allies ten years later. This raises the question: what are some of the steps involved as we explore social movements that make transitions from dependence to autonomy and back again? The objective of my summer research was to address this question in part, through gaining a better understanding of the impact of external alliances on the MST, and how these might relate to the movement’s current challenges and strategic choices. This fieldwork directly relates to my dissertation topic, which will address popular social movements in Brazil and in one or two other Latin American countries.

I used my CLAS funding to travel to Brazil, where I spent five weeks carrying out two parallel investigations. First, I conducted semi-structured interviews with MST leaders at the national, regional, and local levels. Interspersed within these administrative interviews were visits to MST encampments and settlements in the states of São Paulo, Brasília, and Bahia. I was invited to live with a local family at each location, and became involved in the activities of the community as a participant observer. In addition, I also had the opportunity to attend part of a meeting for State and Regional MST Directors from the state of Bahia. Finally, I obtained primary and secondary source materials containing data on Brazilian agricultural reform from academic contacts at the Universities of São Paulo and Brasília.

Although my time in Brazil was fairly brief, and I cannot draw conclusive inferences from my interactions with an admittedly non-representative sample of leaders and activists, I was able to gain further insight into the current situation facing the MST. My preliminary conclusion is that, given the rapid influx of new and primarily urban members to the MST, it may be time for the movement to revisit their current coalitional position and attendant strategic choices.

Current Coalitional Position: International and Local Alliances

The MST’s major alliances at present are with international NGOs and social movements that have a progressive orientation. Environmental protection, indigenous rights, and the international campaign against war and militarization have risen to the forefront of the MST’s agenda. The movement receives organizational support (and occasionally financial assistance) from transnational social movements concerned with these issues. Since 2000, the MST has also developed strong ties with transnational peasant organizations, such as the Confederation of Latin American Rural Organizations (CLOC) and Via Campesina. These movements share resources, skilled personnel, and conduct joint mobilizations on the international and national levels.

However, some of the movement’s strongest international allies are with NGOs that are challenging the neoliberal economic model. Arguably the two most prevalent issues on the MST’s agenda are the international campaign against genetically modified food, and the regional effort opposing the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas. Some MST leaders would also like to see the movement develop ties with the major economic powers in the Southern hemisphere, such as India and South Africa. These links would facilitate the exchange of agricultural production information and technology, as well as eventually create an alternative center of economic power.

Collective farming is an important component of MST settlement life. These members spend two days each month working in the community-owned cacao fields. After the cacao is sold to a Swiss chocolate-making company, the profits are reinvested into the settlement community.

At present, national institutions such as political parties and unions are not significant coalitional partners for the MST. While unions and leftist political parties will mobilize in conjunction with the MST on occasion, their activities are generally separate. Although it might appear that the MST and the Worker’s Party (PT) have strong ties, officials stress their mutual autonomy. One MST leader at the national level explained to me that, since political parties gain and lose power over time, it is in the best interests of the MST to remain outside of partisan politics, supporting any candidate whose views are in accordance with the movement’s agenda. In this way, while the MST actively supported Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva’s presidential campaign (and now that he has gained power, expect him to remember this support by increasing the pace of agricultural reform), the movement has no formal alliances with the PT.

Instead, many MST leaders stress that their most important domestic relationships are with local mayors and governors. This is because most conflicts take place at the city and state level, and their resolution depends in large part on the actions –or inactions –of these officials. With the power to either facilitate MST projects or increase bureaucratic red tape surrounding them, to casually overlook or violently destroy MST encampments, it is evident that these personal relationships on the local level are some of the most crucial for the movement’s success.

New Members: Poor Urban Residents

Twenty years ago, the MST was principally composed of rural workers and family farmers who had lost their land and/or their jobs due to agricultural modernization. Many of these individuals still play a vital role within the movement, as well as their children, who are some of the movement’s most outspoken and ideologically committed activists. Yet within recent years –and especially within the months following Lula’s election –a new group of actors has been joining the MST in exponential numbers: poor urban residents. The best way to describe them is to allow them to speak for themselves; three composite descriptions follow that are representative of this new category of MST members.

A partial view of an MST encampment. Most dwellings are constructed of bamboo and plastic tarp, and members might spend years “baixo da lona preta” (under the black tarp) waiting for title to the land.

“I was working as a housekeeper in the city when some guys with a loudspeaker attached to their bicycle came through the town, talking about the MST. I cook, clean, and do laundry all day and barely earn enough to eat and pay rent. I’ve never been able to save money. Life in the encampment is hard, but I would rather be here struggling for land than working all day for almost nothing for someone else.”

“I’m 60 years old, I have three children and seven grandchildren, but nothing to leave them. I joined the MST right after Lula’s election, because he supports land reform and I think this encampment has a good chance of becoming a settlement. Besides, all my kids live in a distant city, and it’s been lonely. I like being part of a community again.”

“ I heard about the MST through my cousin. I’m a construction worker, but I haven’t been able to find much work lately. My grandfather used to farm, and I think it’s something I might like to try. I still work in construction when I can find it, but it would be nice to have some land eventually.”

As these composites show, the MST is actively reaching out toward, and attracting, urban residents who are unhappy with their economic situation. For these new members, gaining land is their most important goal, and it is the primary reason why they decide to ally themselves with the MST.

New Challenges

One of the MST’s main challenges throughout their history has been pressuring the government to actually implement agricultural reform. Within the past decade, the movement’s goals have broadened to encompass overall social and economic justice, and their attendant international alliances reflect these changes. However, there is a potential disconnect between the MST’s international partners and local grassroots activists that increasingly include an urban component. Therefore, one of the most important challenges for the MST is making their broader ideological concerns relevant to these new actors, whose primary goal remains obtaining land for themselves and their families.

Specifically, some MST leaders acknowledge that it can be difficult to keep members actively involved in the struggle for social justice after they have received a land title. While people who participated in the encampments are often very willing to contribute toward future collective farming projects of the settlement, their extended family members who join them in the settlement are often less enthusiastic. Moreover, urban newcomers sometimes decide that a rural lifestyle really isn’t for them. If this happens after they have received a land title, they can sell the structures on their property, and the buyers may or may not be inclined to participate in the collective life of the settlement.

Once an MST encampment becomes a settlement, members are free to construct permanent houses, similar to this one.

At the same time, the MST is having some difficulty differentiating itself from other, more radical movements. In São Paulo state alone, there are about 40 leftist organizations, some of which engage in violent protest under the banner of agrarian reform. When the media does not carefully distinguish between these groups and the MST –which is often the case –their reputation as a radical organization grows.

Preliminary Conclusions

It appears that infusing new actors with a collectivist orientation, and making fairly abstract ideology relevant to their practical concerns, are some of the MST’s most pressing challenges. Continued land reform is necessary to meet the interests of new members, but actions that pressure the government for land reform, such as more frequent land invasions, may simultaneously alienate more moderate factions within Brazilian society. Combined with public confusion over the instigators of increasingly radical land invasions, the MST appears to be on the threshold of significant change.

If I were to suggest a manner in which the MST could address these strategic challenges, I would recommend that the MST revisit their emphasis on international alliances, and possibly develop stronger ties to national institutions, such as Brazilian NGOs, unions, and political parties. Public opinion remains firmly in support of the MST’s original grievances regarding agricultural reform, but if this support begins to erode, the movement’s ability to pressure the government through mass demonstrations may diminish as well. Alliances with established Brazilian institutions might allow the MST to successfully distinguish themselves from more radical elements, as well as provide official channels through which they can further their mission of making social and economic justice a reality for all Brazilians.