10th Anniversary of the Protests of June 2013

                                                 This month of June one of the biggest protests in Brazil history completes ten years. The reason why this protest is so much studied with many publications  and others are not, it was its character totally spontaneous, unexpected, democratic and non-partisan. We all in Brazil watched on TV and internet millions went to the streets to protest against corruption, injustice, violence, bad use of public money, etc. Hundreds of protesters wearing Guy Fawkes mask. Thousands of protesters with posters asking for more investment in education, political participation and inclusion, and governmental transparency and accountability. In my opinion, it was one of the most important and meaningful moments of the Brazilian history and a powerful demonstration of solidarity, empathy, independence, and political commitment of its people. Those protests called by some as "June Revolution," and by others as "June Journeys" must be always remembered. And it is good also to remember what the protesters were asking for and what has changed after so many years. If you want to read more about those protests, access the posts of this blog during the month of June, I have been doing summaries about it since 2017. This post is a summary of the introduction of the book, "Media and the Image of the Nation During Brazil's 2013 Protests." published in 2020 at https://download.e-bookshelf.de/download/0013/4112/35/L-G-0013411235-0043015184.pdf

              Nobody saw them coming. In hindsight, many reasons have been given, including the state of the economy, a pursuit of justice, a representational crisis in the national political system and media, the development of new communication technologies, the birth of a different kind of social movements and even a fascist conspiracy. However, in every conversation I have had ever since, those who witnessed the series of protests that stormed Brazil in June 2013 told me that they were surprised. National and foreign news media reported that Brazilians were protesting against the amount of money spent on sporting mega-events, to the detriment  of health, education and public transportation. Some demonstrators carried banners with slogans in English such as 'We don't need the World Cup' or 'We need money for hospitals and education'.  The June 2013 demonstrations amounted to the one of largest unrest in Brazil. 20 June alone saw more than one million people protesting in 353 cities. Local and international academics, journalists and pundits were puzzled by the sheer magnitude and potential implications of the protests. The violence of the military police against protesters and journalists proved to be a turning point. The general public became more supportive of the demonstrations, with a survey published at the time claiming that 55% of São Paulo inhabitants were in favour of the protests. Furthermore, Brazilians newspapers and TV stations, which had originally condemned the protests, became more sympathetic towards them. Simultaneously, in Brasilia, the non-partisan Popular Committee for the World Cup called for a protest outside the national stadium in Brasilia, to coincide with the inaugural match of the Confederations Cup on 15 June. 500 participants took part in that demonstration, but they put into the spotlight the disenchantment of many Brazilians with the astronomic costs of organising sporting mega-events. When on 17 June the protests returned to São Paulo, they were not only about public transportation fares. Participants' demands grew, including, infrastructure costs for the World Cup and Olympic Games, health and education deficiencies, and corruption among the political class. A whole array of non-partisan organisations took part and many demonstrators emphasised that they did not belong to political parties, to the point of expelling those carrying parties' banners or flags. With the intensification of protests in mid-June, authorities all over Brazil agreed to freeze or reduce public transportation fares. As a consequence, on 21 June the MPL (Movimento Passe Livre) stopped calling for more mobilisations. The demonstrations however continued, with polls estimating that eight out of ten Brazilians were in favour, and became practically a daily event, especially in cities hosting the matches of the Confederations Cup, such as BH, Fortaleza, Brasilia and RJ.  Although protests continued throughout the year, they significantly decreased with the end of the Confederations Cup on 30June 2013. By then, more than thirteen hundred people had been arrested, six had died, and hundreds had been injured. The June Journeys are the standard against which subsequent outbreaks of socialm unrest in Brazil have been measured. They have been celebrated as a positively exceptional moment for democracy. Analyses in their aftermath largely looked at them favourably, stressing that the protests had been the manifestation of a politically engaged people standing up to the abuses of the elites. Governments spent hefty sums of money on extravagant events, such as the World Cup and Olympic Games, hoping these events will paint a favourable picture of the nation. A good image is thus seen as a necessity to successfully entice tourists, attract investment, increase exports and consolidate political aspirations. Activists and sometimes journalists contest in turn these portrayals, seeking to convince domestic and distant audiences that the real nation is different from the one depicted by authorities. One of the main arguments of this book is that the disruption caused by the June Journeys to the authorities efforts to construct a specific image of Brazil sheds light on the tensions over the mediated construction and maintenance of the nation. The June Journeys are thus an example of the rapidly shifting nature of nationhood in a digital, transnational and increasingly hard to control media environment. The relative, albeit never completely settled, monopoly enjoyed by states and the national media on communicating the nation as a homogeneous whole has been disrupted. Multinational corporations, ranking agencies, NGOs, social movements and activists, all located both within and outside national boundaries, seek nowadays to push in and through the media the idea of the nation to advance it. At the same time, nations are increasingly communicated as economic units, and even promoted as brands.