Tags
“A Pedagogia dos Aços” por Pedro Tierra, Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), Brazilian Poet Pedro Tierra, Landless rural workers, Social injustice, Tocantins/Brazil, Workers struggle
Memorial of Massacre of Eldorado dos Carajás – Pará – Brazil
Photo Credit: Globo (Glauco Araújo)
Learn more about the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST)
My Poetry Corner February 2016 features the poem “The Pedagogy of Steel” (A Pedagogia dos Aços) by Brazilian poet Pedro Tierra, pen name of Hamilton Pereira da Silva, a politician and Secretary of Culture in the Federal District.
Born in 1948 in Porto Nacional (Tocantins), Pedro Tierra abandoned his studies to join the resistance movement to overthrow the military dictatorship (1964-1985). In 1972, he was arrested and tortured for his subversive activities. During the five years he spent in prison, he lost several of his companions.
To survive and maintain his sanity, he began writing poetry. Adapting a Spanish pen name deterred exposure. He smuggled his poems to friends outside the prison, keeping them informed of life in captivity.
In 1977, Tierra’s collection of prison poems was secretly published in Italy under his pen name with the title, Poems of the People of the Night (Poemas do Povo da Noite). In his poem, “Prologue,” he pays homage to his companions who had died in prison or ‘disappeared.’
I am here to speak
through the mouth of my dead.
I am poet-witness
poet of the generation of dreamers
and blood
over the roads of my country.
We will survive.
After his release in 1977, Pedro Tierra dedicated his time to social causes. He was active in the foundation of rural workers unions across Brazil, the Workers’ Party (PT), the Workers Exclusive Center (CUT), and the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST).
The featured poem, “The Pedagogy of Steel,” denounces the massacre of nineteen landless rural workers by the military police in Eldorado dos Carajás (Pará), on April 17, 1996: the fourth of similar massacres in the 1990s. Tierra not only recalls these four massacres, but also includes three earlier clashes (1893-1930). He makes clear that the struggle of small farmers and rural workers against large private landowners and giant agricultural corporations continues to be one of violent confrontation and exclusion.
Tierra’s use of the metaphor “steel” captures well this ongoing, relentless struggle. Forged in fire, steel is not only used in weaponry, but also reflects an emotional state. He expresses both connotations in the third stanza:
The pedagogy of steel
strikes down the body
this merciless geography…
Geography is the most comprehensive study of man and his environment. When that habitat becomes “merciless,” where does it leave man? As Tierra notes in his following stanza:
There is a nation of men
excluded from the nation.
There is a nation of men
excluded from life.
There is a nation of silent men
excluded by every word.
There is a nation of men
fighting behind the fences.
There is a nation of men
without face,
buried in the mud,
without name
buried by silence.
The plight of landless rural workers is not unique to Brazil. A front-runner American presidential candidate has used very derogatory words to criminalize undocumented, Mexican farm workers, eking out a living here in the United States.
Read the complete poem and learn more about Pedro Tierra and his work at my Poetry Corner February 2016.
Three Worlds One Vision 
The world is full of strife and struggle, and an activist of a certain age can’t really be faulted for thinking, where is all of this leading? We should be way past the need for such struggles against oppression, but the world has always been, and it seems, will always be, ruled and led by pathocrats. Some struggles costing much blood and tears succeed for a time, witness the French Revolution, only to be overturned in time. “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite…?” In your dreams.
Witness the Weimar Republic, the only real democracy enjoyed by Germany to that time. Lasted less than 15 years to be wiped out by the Nazis aided and abetted by international banking and American corporations. And how loudly “we the people” clamoured for their Fuhrer.
Witness the labour movement which made great gains in the 20th C., only to be all but wiped out by the end of it – only 11% of American workers are now protected by a union, down from 20% in 1983. And how often did unionized workers vilify and demonize their union and its leadership, and gladly de-certify?
Wages are losing out to prices; small land owners are forced into bankruptcy though some luck out in selling their food-producing farms to developers or agribusiness. What happens to an over-populated world where 1% own 50% of the so-called wealth? The System has its heavy paws on everybody’s shoulder. Most times the claws are extended, raking trails of blood; sometimes you get lucky and it extends its velvet touch but the claws are always there. And the sheeple are certifiably stupid, ignorant and short-sighted. When their oppressor hands them a bone, will they ask from whose corpse it was taken? No. They’ll celebrate and have a barbecue in the back yard.
Struggles will continue when people are pushed to their limit, when life isn’t worth living any longer, as indicative of this poetry, but whether there is a struggle or the victim goes gently into that good night, what is really gained… or lost, for that matter? How long will “man” keep pushing that boulder up the mountainside until he finally lets it roll back down, damn the consequences, and asks himself, “What am I doing this for? Who benefits? What’s really in it for me? What should I be doing that could have a chance of making real change? Where are we going from here? And by the way, who actually owns this planet?”
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Sha’Tara. As you point out, it’s a struggle without end that forces us to the limit of our endurance. To give up the struggle is to condemn ourselves to a state of apathy.
Who actually owns this planet? Wish I knew the answer. Who controls it has become clear for all to see. In the words of Pedro Tierra: “The land is worth infinite / reserves of cruelty, / inside the fence.”
LikeLike
Are we then condemned to an eternity of struggle? Must we watch as millions are condemned to die each year as sacrificial victims to greed and blatant sociopathy? Is there no better way? My question, “who owns the earth” was rhetorical. I suppose that whatever can control it according to its own will, owns it. If that’s the rich and powerful then the rest of mankind is a tenant at best, a hopeless dispossessed wanderer at worst. The question is, what is powerful enough to stop the injustice and murderous madness?
LikeLike
“Are we then condemned to an eternity of struggle?”
~ Judging from the history of human civilizations, I would say that it appears that way. We are not like other species that kill to eat and defend one’s territory. We want more. We want it all. We humans act more like viruses that feed and multiply within their hosts to the point of destroying the host.
“Is there no better way?”
~ Our great philosophers and prophets have all shown us the better way. But the better way is difficult. It demands letting go of our self-interests and embracing the common good. Whenever we unite to work towards the common good, we face opposition and death. The greater our numbers, the greater our chance for success. We’ve made great progress, but the struggle never ends.
“The question is, what is powerful enough to stop the injustice and murderous madness?”
~ We are the cause of the injustice and murderous madness. We must be the solution. Our power lies in our unity. That’s why those who control and oppress us do their utmost to divide us and keep us divided.
LikeLike
True answers, and yet, as I see it throughout history, “our unity” has not worked all that well. The problem with “unity” is that united people discover within their “unity” a power they no longer can control and it turns on them. It is a truism of all revolutions as expressed by this slogan “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido” that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It turns victims into oppressors, time and time again. “There is a way that seemeth right unto man but the end thereof is death.”
What if the solution to man’s social problems in not found in unity, but in the exact opposite? Since I left the path of united activism in the mid-eighties I have entered the path of self-empowerment as found through the practice of compassion. Me, just me. Here there is no power I cannot control; there is no force pushing me where I would have chosen not to go; there is no making deals with the lesser of evils out of “necessity;” there is no fear, no anger, no depression because there are no expectations. And no one else has to pay the price when I work alone if I’m condemned for it. Also the lone “warrior” as no attachments to anything or anyone, hence doesn’t carry any burden of special responsibility for special individuals.
My previous questions to you were rhetorical since I had my own answers, but I wanted to see yours. The final question to ask is, do I continue to follow a pattern of actions that has never worked? As one example, and there are too many, look at India today, with its own manifold political problems. Who are the people blaming for the conditions in their nation? Gandhi! He “united” India against the British Raj, and when the British soldiers left, the country erupted into civil and religious war, resulting in partition.
Evolution works through adaptation and that means abandoning something that no longer works in favour of something new that has a chance of saving the species by turning it into something it’s never been before. Man is at a critical crossroads, one leads into an abyss, the other into an unknown. The first is guaranteed to kill the species; the second gives it a chance at survival. Likely, man as a species will choose wrong and take the path over the cliff, but the other path is there, wide open if full of risks. When faced with extinction the risks seem to me of little consequence.
Just some food for thought.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. (Robert Frost: The Road not Taken)
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing, Sha’Tara. Lots of food for thought.
LikeLike
You’re welcome… and I certainly did not intend to be discouraging quite the opposite.
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing such important information about Tierra’s powerful work and the Landless Rural Workers Movement. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe the never-ending global atrocities that greed-fed imperialism has fomented. It saddens me deeply to learn more and more about the US role in all of this.
I would like to reblog your post with your permission, Rosaliene. We learn so little about South American issues in school or from media in the U.S. Thank you for helping raise awareness.
LikeLike
Carol, thanks for your interest in reblogging my post. Permission granted with appreciation 🙂
I was living in Brazil during the 1990s and watched with horror the national TV news reports of each of the four massacres. Brutal violence. As Pedro Tierra notes in his poem: “Life is worth so little / from outside the fence…”
To learn more about “the never-ending global atrocities that greed-fed imperialism has fomented,” I recommend The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, published in 2007. She reveals a shocking view of our world. Nothing has changed. Only transformed into other forms of chaos.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May I share these comments as well as part of the introduction for the reblog, Rosaliene?
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing my post, Cyril. Have a great week 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks, Rosaliene. On a related topic, the PBS Newshour recently featured a segment on what solitary confinement does to inmates. I believe there has been a recent change at the federal level to reduce or eliminate this practice.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Voices from the Margins and commented:
I am sharing a post as a reblog from Rosaliene Bacchus’ blog, Three Worlds One Vision ~ Guyana – Brazil – USA.
I would like to thank her for giving me permission to do so. This morning, she shared this crucial context for her post, “The Pedagogy of Steel” by Brazilian Poet Pedro Tierra.
“I was living in Brazil during the 1990s and watched with horror the national TV news reports of each of the four massacres. Brutal violence. As Pedro Tierra notes in his poem: “Life is worth so little / from outside the fence…”
“To learn more about “the never-ending global atrocities that greed-fed imperialism has fomented,” I recommend The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, published in 2007. She reveals a shocking view of our world. Nothing has changed. It’s only transformed into other forms of chaos.”
Thank you for the crucial work you do to raise awareness, Rosaliene!
LikeLike
Thanks, Carol 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: “The Pedagogy of Steel” by Brazilian Poet Pedro Tierra | Voices from the Margins
Really powerful. I don’t know what else to say.
Thank-you, Rosaliene.
P.S. I tweeted this.
LikeLike
Thanks, Claire. I’m not on Twitter but appreciate the tweet 🙂
LikeLike
Well, you had 44 engagements and one guy named Matteo Balzarini Liked your post. I don’t know if that translated into more people actually coming here and reading it.
I sure hope so.
Anyway, I truly think you would like Twitter. It’s amazingly easy – just go to twitter.com and click “sign up”.
Of course you may have already been on Twitter and are not a fan. But this is in case you haven’t.
XO Claire
LikeLike
Claire, thanks for sharing the feedback on your Twitter post. That’s great news!
If I’m to finish revising my second novel by the end of this year, I have to stay clear of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. I prefer to continue devoting time to my blog and exchanging ideas and info with amazing bloggers like you 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
(-:
LikeLike
I’m certain that Tony Diaz is actually talking pretty specifically about Mexican-Americans, whose experience and heritage continues to be degraded here. He refers to himself as a Chicano, and those are the people to whom he has devoted his life. Diaz was the very first Chicano at (I forget the region and/or university) to get an Master’s in Creative Writing – in 1996!! That says a lot.
In El Paso, for example, almost 80 percent of the K-12 students are Chicano – and not even half of them graduate from high school. When Diaz’s group of teachers in Arizona started using a curriculum based on Mexican, Mexican-American, and Central American literature, student academic performance went through the roof!. Then Arizona banned the curriculum. So the Book Thieves, as the teachers called themselves, smuggled the books into the schools.
That same success was seen in El Paso, when Tu Libro, organized by Georgina Perez, ran a pilot program. Perez is running for the Texas State Board of Education.
LikeLike
Thanks for the info, Claire. How tragic when we have to struggle to preserve our national heritage!
LikeLike