11th Anniversary of the Protests of June of 2013

                      This month of June one of the biggest protests in Brazil history completes eleven years. The reason why this protest is so much studied with so 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 of protesters went to the streets to protest against corruption, injustice, any kind of 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 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 these protests since 2017. I've also, since 2020 a YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@lucianofietto4773. Educative/cultural activism for a stronger democracy, a fairer justice, a broader human rights and governmental transparency. This post is a summary of the article with the title of, "Social movements, cultural production and protests."  It was published in October 2015 at https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/681927#

                     In June 2013, a series of large demonstrations throughout Brazil shook its cities and political landscape. They perplexed politicians and analysts, many of whom found themselves without solid references to interpret the novelty of these demonstrations, and many have oscillated between silence and old discourses. The protests also have a global lineage, and they followed closely ones in Istanbul in the previous month. Analyses of protests have already features to the existence of a new type of public mobilization. They include a symbiotic relationship with the internet and social media; the spontaneous diffusion around networks; the capacity to attract thousands of participants in a short period of time; the heterogeneity of the participants, who may or may not form coalitions; the handmade quality of posters and banners. The demonstrations also disregard established political institutions such as political parties and unions and clearly indicate a shift in the way in which political languages are produced, circulate, and guide practices. One of the main features of the demonstrations was the proliferation of handmade posters with imaginative phrases in which individuals expressed their frustations, their take on what was going on, and their demands. many posters in June 2013 communicated ideas that have been circulating in several genres of cultural production, in the social media, and in blogs for quite a while. Moreover, from the streets, participants fed back social media, describing, documenting, interpreting, and thus amplifying the events. The internet has been functioning for long time as the space to express and spread the feelings of irritation. Anyone who follows Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis knows that people use their cell phones to post messages of frustrations. The tension expressed on the streets and in social media became palpable. An image that went viral, a young man held a poster with the words "The people woke up". They knew, the the others were the one now discovering and being surprised. Those who did not realize what was going on were the political parties that have not listened to them. the governments that have disrespected them continuously, and the middle class that arrived late in the streets to join in the indignation. Thus, in the same way that the spontaneity of the demonstrations indicate a break in authorities and modes of political organizations, the cultural production and its circulation via internet has been breaking monopolies in the production of representations and interpretations and displacing authorships and authorities.  After the demonstrations exploded, all manner of simmering irritations and anger from across all social groups found expression on the streets, most notably exasperation with politicians and their corruption, frustation with governments at all levels, the sense of absurdity of the expense of megaevents such as World Cup contrasted with the disregard of basic social rights such as education and public health. (we want "FIFA standard" schools and hospitals, said the posters); annoyance with political parties; perplexity with the attempt of some in Congress to undermine LGBT rights; and the revolt at continuous police violence. This proliferation of protests on the streets, preceded by exchanges on the Internet and years of cultural production indicate the incapacity of organizations and institutions to maintain a hegemony in the production of interpretations and practices. This can be very positive and liberating, opening new paths, breaking old monopolies, and revealing new articulations. But it also indicates risks and the need for a new democratic articulation that goes beyond posters, hashtags, and inscriptions on walls, an articulation able to contain authoritarian and violent impulses and create political spaces without sacrificing the novelties. How this articulation may be obtained is an open and challenging question. When the urban social movements emerged in the peripheries of São Paulo in the mid-1970s, they were a big surprise, but no one had predicted that the movements that would be fundamental to democratizing Brazil would come either from the peripheries or from the Catholic churches and that they would be articulated through demands for rights. Moreover, no one could predict the influence they would have in shaping Brazilian democracy in the decades that followed. It is clear that old interpretive frameworks will not help to understand them. These protests have not been preceded by years of political organization and have no clear leaders or organizations associated with them. However, it is clear that the political interventions that now carry the promise of innovation and pushing the limits of established and unequal social arrangements are not coming from predictable places, and they reveal how much cities and its polity have changed in the last few decades. In spite of recent improvements, São Paulo continues to be almost as unequal as it has always been, but the nature of poverty, the urban environment, and the citizens' engagement have changed a great deal. Poverty has different signifiers in a city of better infrastructure, better mass communication, democracy,  and less violence. Any new democratic articulation will have to consider these peripherical groups, their inventiveness, and the challenges they present for the creation of a more democratic and less unequal society.