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Category Archives: Brazil

“Sadness has no end” by Brazilian Poet Eli Macuxi

03 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil, Poetry

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

"Sadness has no end", “Tristeza não tem fim”, Brazilian Poet Eli Macuxi, Roraima/Brazil

Cereia by Carmezia Emiliano - Indigenous Macuxi - Roraima - Brazil

My Poetry Corner September 2017 features the poem “Sadness has no end” (Tristeza não tem fim) by Brazilian poet and educator Elisangela Martins, who self-identifies as Eli Macuxi or Elimacuxi. She teaches history and art criticism at the Federal University of Roraima located in Boa Vista, capital of the state.

Fascinated by verse since childhood, Elimacuxi began writing poetry in fifth grade. At fifteen, she dreamed of having her work read and studied by others. “But the desire was totally blunted by the pessimistic awareness of reality,” confides the poet on her blog. “I was a skinny teenager, without luck of getting a job, studying at a night school on the periphery, ‘daughter of a drunkie,’ with lots of younger siblings. To be a writer? Poet? It was laughable.”

While she earned her Bachelor’s degree and then Masters in History, her love for poetry never waned. In 2013, she published her first poetry collection, Love For Those Who Hate (Amor Para Quem Odeia), which portrays love in its various forms of human experience. Continue reading →

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Patativa do Assaré: Brazil’s Popular Oral Poet

04 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil, Poetry

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

Agricultural workers, Brazilian Oral Poet Patativa do Assaré, Ceará/Brazil, Landless peasant farmers, O Agregado e o Operário, Sertão Nordestino/Northeast Brazil, The Peasant Farmer and the Factory Worker, Workers Rights

Patativa do Assare seated in front of his hut in Assare - Ceara - Brazil

My Poetry Corner June 2017 features the poem “The Peasant Farmer and the Factory Worker” (O Agregado e o Operário) by Antônio Gonçalves da Silva, known as Patativa do Assaré (1909-2002), a popular Brazilian oral poet, improviser of oral verse, composer, singer, and guitar player.

The son of poor peasant farmers eking out a subsistence livelihood in the semi-arid hinterlands, known as the sertão, of the Northeast State of Ceará, Patativa began working at an early age on his family’s small plot of land. At the age of four, he lost his sight in one eye due to lack of medical assistance. With his father’s death four years later, he had to work as a farmhand to help his family, leaving him no time to attend school. During his six months of formal education, he learned to read and write.

God was his Master; Nature was his teacher.

Sertao Nordestino - Northeast Brazil (2)Sertão Nordestino – Northeast Brazil  [Photo Credit: poesiafaclube.com]

 

I was born listening to songs
of birds in my mountain terrain
and seeing wonderful marvels
that the beautiful woodlands enclose.
That is where I grew up
watching and learning
from the book of nature
where God is most visible
the heart most sensitive
and life has more purity.
Continue reading →

“Our Flag is Education”

20 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil, Education

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Brazil’s Proposed Constitutional Amendment PEC 241, Paraná/Brazil, Public Education, Student High School Occupations in Brazil, Student Leader Ana Júlia Ribeiro

military-police-in-school-occupied-by-students-sao-paulo-brazil

Military police in high school occupied by students in São Paulo – Brazil
Photo Credit: Agência Brasil Fotografias/Jacobin Magazine

 

My second quote for the ‘Three Quotes for Three Days’ challenge – an invitation from British author and blogger Frank Parker – comes from Ana Júlia Ribeiro, a sixteen-year-old, public high school student in Curitiba, capital of the State of Paraná in South Brazil. It’s an excerpt from her ten-minute impassioned address before the Paraná State Assembly on October 26, 2016, in defense of the student occupation of their high schools.

Our flag is Education. Our only flag is Education. We’re a nonpartisan movement. We’re a movement by students and for students. We’re a movement that cares about future generations. A movement that’s concerned about society. Concerned about the future of the country. What future will Brazil have if it doesn’t want a whole generation to develop critical thinking? People must have a political, critical sense. People shouldn’t just believe any stuff they read. We must know what we are reading. We must stand against functional illiteracy which is a major problem in Brazil today. That’s why we are here, and that’s why we have occupied our schools. That’s why we have raised the flag of Education.

Continue reading →

Latest News on Brazil

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil

≈ 8 Comments

bank-workers-on-strike-brazil-6-september-2016

Brazil – Bank Workers on Strike since September 6, 2016
Photo Credit: Diário de Goiás

 

Brazil’s Impeached Ex-President Dilma Rousseff Says Successor “Confessed to the Coup”
By Inacio Vieira, The Intercept, September 28, 2016

Washington Tries to Break BRICS. Rape of Brazil Begins, on Behalf of Wall Street…
By F. William Engdahl, Global Research, September 25, 2016

Brazil Court Moves on Corruption Probe of President Temer
teleSUR, September 24, 2016

60,000 Brazil Bank Workers Strike Against Temer’s Labor Reforms
teleSUR, September 24, 2016

Latest News on Brazil

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil

≈ 23 Comments

brazil-teachers-protest-against-the-coup-22-september-2016

Teachers Against the Coup!
Belo Horizonte – Brazil – September 22, 2016
Photo Credit: Twitter/@Reginaldo Lopes

 

Anti-Coup Protests Erupt Again in Brazil
teleSUR, September 22, 2016

Readout of Vice President Biden’s Meeting with President Michel Temer of Brazil
The White House, Office of the Vice President, September 22, 2016

Corruption and Big Business Triumph in Brazil

18 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil

≈ 37 Comments

Tags

2016 Coup in Brazil, Corruption in Brazil, Ex-President Luiz Inacio 'Lula' da Silva, Impeachment of Brazil President Dilma Rousseff 2016, Michel Temer

new-brazil-president-michel-temer-august-31-2016

New Brazil President Michel Temer – August 31, 2016
Photo Credit: Pensa Brasil

 

On August 31, 2016, following her four-month battle against members of congress calling for her impeachment, Brazil’s first female president Dilma Rousseff lost by 61 to 20 Senate votes. The corrupt political class and their Big Business collaborators won the day. Michel Temer – Rousseff’s former Vice President and ally from the right-wing Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) – now governs Brazil until her mandate ends in 2018.

After thirteen years of economic boom then bust, the government of Brazil’s center-left socialist democratic Workers Party (PT) became the victim of a parliamentary coup d’état. The former president and popular PT leader Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva now faces charges of masterminding the Petrobras graft scandal intended to make him ineligible to run for the presidency at the next election.

Brazil’s Workers Party is by no means exempt from corrupt practices. Brazil runs on corruption. It’s a plague that infects not only the government but also all of Brazilian society. If you do business with Brazil, you may or may not be aware of the corruptive hoops that your Brazilian partners or representatives jump through daily to stay in business and meet your requirements.

Since its foundation in 1980 as a large left-wing socialist movement, arising from opposition to the military dictatorship following the 1964 coup d’état, the Workers Party moved towards a form of democratic socialism that served the capitalist economic class while implementing social programs to lift the working poor out of poverty.

When my family and I migrated to Brazil in 1987, I experienced first-hand the struggles of Brazil’s majority low-wage workers. At the time, while I still struggled to learn Portuguese, I became a strong supporter of the PT presidential candidate, Lula da Silva in the 1989 General Elections. Lula’s rise from poverty and his tireless fight for workers’ rights inspired and gave hope to the people…me inclusive.

After three failed attempts for the presidency (1989, 1994 & 1998), Lula won the 2002 General Elections in the second round with 61.3 percent (52.7 million votes), becoming at the time the second most voted-for-president in the world, after Ronald Reagan (1984).

I recall well that election and our elation after years of struggle. Brazilians, especially those of the educated middle class, deemed a person without a college degree unworthy to hold the nation’s top post. A common criticism for not voting for Lula: How would a person of his humble origins be able to negotiate with foreign leaders? In addition to shedding his Che Guevara appearance, Lula had to appease investors, fearing the “Lula Risk,” that he would stay the economic course set out by his predecessor, if elected.

The impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff has knocked me sideways. The pain from the fall runs deep. Under the new right-wing government’s neoliberal economic strategies for recovery, all the gains for Brazil’s low-paid workers and their families are now at risk. But that’s another story.

 

Naomi Klein, Oliver Stone, Noam Chomsky, Others Condemn ‘Coup’ in Brazil

26 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Brazil Coup 2016, Impeachment Brazil President Dilma Rousseff

A little too late?

Naomi Klein, Oliver Stone, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sarandon, Arundhati Roy, and 17 other human rights activists, intellectuals, and public figures on Wednesday sent a letter to the Brazilian government condemning the impeachment of the country’s President Dilma Rousseff, and demanding that Brazil’s senate “respect the October 2014 electoral process which over 100 million people took part in.”

Source: Naomi Klein, Oliver Stone, Noam Chomsky, Others Condemn ‘Coup’ in Brazil

“Sonnet of the Friend” by Brazilian Poet Vinicius de Moraes

07 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil, Poetry

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Bossa Nova, Brazilian Poet Vinicius de Moraes, Friendship poems, Garota de Ipanema, Love poems, Rio de Janeiro/Brazil

Garota de Ipanema Restaurant - Ipanema Beach - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

Garota de Ipanema Restaurant – Ipanema Beach – Rio de Janeiro – Brazil
Photo Credit: The Real Rio de Janeiro Blog

 

My Poetry Corner August 2016, featuring the poem “Soneto do Amigo” (Sonnet of the Friend) by Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes (1913-1980), is dedicated to a dear friend who is facing a challenging period.

Born in the city of Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil until 1960, Vinicius de Moraes is the poet of love and passion. At twenty years, he published his first book of poetry. Two years later, his second collection won Brazil’s National Poetry Award. A diplomat during the period 1946 to 1969, he served in Los Angeles, Paris, and Montevideo. He married nine times and had five children.

Love is a memory
that time doesn’t kill,
the beloved song
happy and absurd…

[“A você, com amor” (To you, with love) by Vinicius de Moraes]

In the 1960s, Vinicius de Moraes contributed his talents as a lyricist and musician to the emergence of the bossa nova which incorporated elements of Brazilian samba and African American jazz. These musical collaborations gave birth to numerous classical Brazilian songs – the most famous being “Garota de Ipanema” (Girl from Ipanema) with Tom Jobim. Continue reading →

Interim President Michel Temer’s cabinet: A government of white men

19 Thursday May 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil

≈ 4 Comments

News from the “Black Women of Brazil” blog about the new all white male interim government.

Black Women of Brazil

Posse, ministros, Michel Temer 0102 (6)-5783 Interim President Michel Temer speaks at inauguration of his cabinet’s ministers

Note from BW of Brazil: It’s been nearly a week since President Dilma Rousseff was suspended for a period that could last up to 180 days while it is decided if she should be removed permanently. Rousseff’s suspension was approved after the Federal Government’s Lower House voted in support of impeachment procedures and then, last week, 55 of 81 senators also voted in favor of the process. But in a true example of Brazil’s history having been and continuing to be based on corruption, 12 of the 13 ministers nominated for interim President Michel Temer’s cabinet have been found to have accepted donations from companies involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals in the nation’s history, the so-called Lava Jato case. This besides the fact that yesterday, the STF (Supreme Court) initiated a process that…

View original post 1,109 more words

Lula Calls for ‘Broad Front’ to Combat Coup in Brazil

15 Sunday May 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Brazil politics, Coup in Brazil, Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva, President Dilma Rousseff

Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva

Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva
Photo Credit: Reuters

For some time now, as the political crisis in Brazil escalated, I have found it difficult to write about the shenanigans of Brazil’s corrupt political class and their Big Business collaborators to oust the democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores).

Today, I mourn the death of democracy in Brazil and the triumph of Big Business. For those readers who only follow news reports from the West, I share with you an update of the situation from the leftist Latin American news media, TeleSUR.

Readers fluent in Portuguese can follow developments on the official website of the Workers’ Party at http://www.pt.org.br/

Social mobilization could be now the last resort to save Brazil’s democracy.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spent Friday speaking with leaders from Brazil’s social movement and trade union organizations in an effort to create a new “broad front” to resist the parliamentary coup that saw democratically-elected President Dilma Rouseff ousted from power. 

Read complete article at TeleSUR.

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