8 - Participation

And participation?

This brings us to Brazil in the mid eighties. Civil society awakens after the long military dictatorship. It stretches its arms after years in handcuffs, looks around, and notices that it has a lot of work to do. It embarks on a mammoth journey to build a just society based on equal rights and equal access to the system of governance, aimed at lifting its people out of poverty.

The inequality smacks me in the face on my journey from the airport to the hotel the day I land in Rio, not to mention my perspective two months later. It doesn’t take civil society too long to notice it either. It also notices that masses of people all over the country are not just excluded from the development process but also from the process of governance itself. Their needs are neither met nor acknowledged. There is no mechanism in place to allow them to express their demands, and no mechanism to legitimise their demands in the eyes of the government. In fact the government at the time doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of large sections of the populations, such as many of those in favelas or communities deep in the country. Either they are not aware of their existence, or they simply rather not acknowledge the extent of their responsibilities.

Instead of falling backwards off its chair, overwhelmed by the size of the problem, civil society offers a simple solution: Allow the poor and excluded to participate in the system of governance. Give them a voice so that their demands are heard. Then we can start tailor-making public politics to meet their needs. The first thing they do is begin by influencing the new 1988 constitution, “enshrining new rights which in many cases have not so far been implemented.”[1].

These rights include giving access to civil society to the system of governance in order to increase participation by otherwise excluded sections of the population. A new public space is created where civil society and the government meet and devise the best possible policies such as social assistance, education, health and defence of children’s and adolescent’s rights. According to Actionaid Brazil, these councils are still not in place in many municipalities, and their decisions have been systematically ignored by ministers and department heads at state level.

This momentum of civil involvement leads to the impeachment, in 1991/92, of the first elected president by direct vote since the fall of the dictatorship. He is accused of corruption and forced out of office. Several NGOs turn their attention to combat Brazil’s extreme inequality, by initiating a movement called ‘Citizen’s action against hunger, poverty and for life’. This campaign mobilises a significant cross section of civil society, with 3 million people organised in committees across the country and 30 million people donating for this campaign.

This momentum, full of hope and energy encounters strong resistance from the government in the mid nineties. Actionaid describes this resistance as “citizenship deconstruction” by the federal government. The government uses constitutional reform, in other words the undemocratic use of pen and paper, to withdraw established rights. They simultaneously combat any grassroots mobilisations and their organisations. “According to this strategy, it’s not sufficient to repress and demoralise grassroots mobilisations, it’s also necessary to dismantle the very capacity of the social sectors to mobilise”[2].

“Citizen deconstruction” continues to run deep throughout the nineties. The Federal Executive curtails the democratic functioning of other state branches, the Legislative and Judiciary branches are subordinated and governance is done through provisional measure. Actionaid explains how they get away with such draconian measure: “To ensure the political backing of conservative forces, the government has handed out ministries, public positions, and the government budget, thus reinforcing corrupting practices and private appropriation of public assets”. This structural system of controls is further strengthened by “implementing public-opinion mechanisms (media control). These mechanisms favour the increasing presence in congress of powerful organised-crime representatives, particularly of drug lords, seeking parliamentary immunity; and they stimulate all types of fraudulent activities”. This perspective is presented by the team of nine in Actionaid Brazil in a country strategy paper prepared with the contribution of its partner organisations, the landless rural workers’ entities, impoverished family farmers, slum dwellers in large city outskirts, and NGOs committed to empowering those social groups.

Not convinced by the notion of participation for building a democratic autonomy as a strategy for lifting its people out of poverty, the government has other plans for meeting its human rights obligations. This plan is based on a new macro-economic trend that promises to lift Brazil and its people into the comfort of the twenty first century.

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[1] Country strategy paper 2001-2003 – Actionaid Brazil

[2] Actionaid – Country strategy paper 2001-2003, page 10.