An Interview with João Pedro Stédile

Introduction: Land reform in Brazil today is not just one of the most pressing needs to make a clearly bourgeois development viable but also (and in the first place) our country's oldest historical obligation. From the old promise held out in the times of the early colonial land grants, proprietorships, and slave plantations to its reappearance as a key motif in the popular rebellions under the Brazilian empire and in the settlements of Canudos (in the Bahian outback in 1896-1897) and Contestado (the no-man's land between the states of Parana' and Santa Catarina in 1912-1916), land reform has been regarded as one of the principal internal problems to be overcome, justifying and fostering the Brazilian military and paramilitary apparatus. In the twentieth century, history repeated itself, just as bloodily as in the nineteenth, and, since 1964, when the new military regime of President Humberto de Castelo Branco enacted the Land Tenure Statute, the state has itself assumed responsibility for carrying out land reform, depriving it, of course, of its most obvious political context. The cost-the very high costof the army's ruthless repression was the destruction of the great mass movements represented, principally, by the Peasant Leagues' and the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (Brazilian Communist party-PCB). The consequences of this were harrowing but not fatal. Despite its violence toward popular movements, the military regime lacked the courage to tackle the underlying problems that created the demand for land reform. The civilian governments that have been in power since 1985 have been equally timid, with the result that the question has transcended the transition from dictatorship to democracya transition that has been rather poorly defined in many other respects as well. The roots of the problem lie in a ruling class for which land speculation is the

Archaeology · Bourgeoisie · Colonialism · Communism · Constitution · Economic history · Land reform · League · Peasant · Political science · Politics · State (computer science) · Statute · History · Land Rights and Reforms · Law · Rural Development and Agriculture · Urban Development and Societal Issues

• Human rights and collective emancipation

  Open Access•Richard Dunford, Robin Dunford•Review of International Studies•2015

  Incluir item

• Space, Ecology, and Politics in the Praxis of the Brazilian Landless Movement

  Open Access•Abdurazack Karriem•Gramsci•2012

  Incluir item

• Trying to build a classless utopia in the land of racial democracy

  Rolf Straubhaar•Race Ethnicity and Education•2015

  Incluir item

• Opening Up for Participation in Agro-Biodiversity Conservation

  Open Access•A Delgado•Journal of Agricultural and…•2008

  Incluir item

• Looking North and South

  Open Access•Ana Delgado, Roger Strand•Geoforum•2009

  Incluir item

• Vernacular rights cultures and the 'Right to Have Rights

  Robin Frederick Dunford, Richard Dunford et al.•Citizenship Studies•2015

  Incluir item

• Socialist Values and Cooperation in Brazil's Landless Rural Workers' Movement

  Open Access•Aldiva Sales Diniz, Bruce Gilbert et al.•Latin American Perspectives•2013

  Incluir item