Culture was the focal point of the meeting organized from May 14-18 of last year by the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (Movimiento de los Trabajadores Rurales sin Tierra, MST) and la Vía Campesina, international peasant movement in Curitiba, in the state of Paraná in the south of Brazil. The meeting allowed farmers from all over Brazil to get together to discuss the importance of culture and intercultural integration amongst Latin-American people.

The participants took part in conferences, debates, plays, concerts and even workshops on music, sculpture or painting. The mornings were reserved principally for reflexion and in-depth debates, whereas the afternoon activities were more fun based. The activities were organised in public places, which allowed them to be transmitted to a larger audience, notably the concerts which brought the days to a close. The rallying was a success as around 2,500 people from different areas – activists (of which 900 were from MST), representatives from social organizations, rural and urban associations, students and teachers – all were present at the meeting. The participants came principally from Brazil but also from all of Latin America.

Culture and communication for resistance

Associating the three notions of culture, communication and citizen resistance is at the heart of the work of MST, for whom culture is a vehicle for mass development, with the condition of “redistributing the means of communication of the elite by giving them new forms” according to Ana Chã, during her conference on the place of culture in the resistance of the Latin-American people. MST and la Vía Campesina defend a very strong link between activism and cultural activity and this debate was one of the points the most vigorously defended during the five days. The importance of being critical in the face of information that the media relays was underlined, notably because of the fact that a capitalist economy uses this information to transform the population en masse into consumers. The activists had to reinforce the fact that it is not the tool itself that causes damage, rather the use of it: thus the importance of keeping an eye of it in order to limit cultural, political and economic hegemony. The citizens were challenged to move from a defensive strategy in the face of this communication, to an offensive strategy in communication, in order to integrate it as a new way of defending their ideas and values.

The participants took over a theatre

One of the main events of the meeting was the occupation of one of the principal theatres of Curitiba in order to hear a symphony orchestra followed by popular Brazilian music. This type of culture generally reserved for the elite, was overrun by people from all of Latin America, united around the music. The reactions were very positive, to the conferences as well as in response to actions of this type. The participants were made aware of the role that they could play in the process of cultural exchange between the farmers and the Latin-Americans, notably by organizing cultural activities in the communities.

Also read: Resonances Latin America N° 25 - June 2008