"There's no good government for a bad state.
Any government that rule this state will be a colonialist government,
because the state is colonialist."
In the face of the endless accumulation of catastrophes produced by colonialism,
the Brazilian state continues to advance and encourage
an economy based on the looting of territories,
and both human and non-human lives.
Through the new PAC, the Growth Acceleration Program,
announced in 2023,
the Worker's Party (PT) government promotes the removal of peoples from their land
and the destruction of life on Earth to pave the way for developments
that primarily aim to maintain the capitalist system creating profit for the elite.
The violence needed to build them
is carried out by both the repressive forces of the state,
and by paramilitary organizations,
which are growing and getting more organized, whether in the city or in the countryside.
On January 21, 2024, the militia group Invasão Zero,
composed of agribusinessmen, farmers, and state agents,
assassinated the Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe Pajé, Maria de Fátima Muniz Pataxó,
Nega Pataxó, in Potiraguá, southern Bahia.
In the action, Chief Nailton was also shot, and other people were injured.
The Bahia Military Police supported the action,
by going to the indigenous territory on the day before.
On Saturday, the police were in the area. They beat up some indigenous people,
taking all the cell phones from the people who were there,
premeditating that the indigenous people wouldn't be able
to film this action the next day.
Such attacks, among many others,
show that the reconstruction of Brazil and its growth,
used as a slogan by the current government,
means the reconstruction of the colonialist trauma and catastrophe,
strengthening even more far right armed groups with ties to the agribusiness.
Faced with the ongoing destruction,
a set of popular movements has acted,
exposing the limits of bourgeois democracy to create feasible alternatives
to the end of this world as we know it.
Starting on December 11, 2023,
several popular organizations in Ceará occupied the PT headquarters in Fortaleza
and the Fronteiras Dam, in Crateús,
and took part in the 1st Occupation in Defense of the Common Home,
a struggle against capitalism in defense of life on the planet.
The territories occupied by the state of Ceará,
currently governed by PT's Elmano de Freitas,
have been targeted by projects that expropriate lands
from quilombola and indigenous people, and small farmers,
as well as destroying a diversity of environments and non-human lives.
Projects that contemplate agribusiness, mining, dams,
the privatization of beaches for the construction of large hotels and wind farms.
This list is strengthened by PAC projects,
such as the Fronteiras Dam, in Crateús,
and uranium mining linked to the Brazilian Nuclear Program in Santa Quitéria.
These projects have contaminated soils, waters, and air,
spreading hunger
making a multiplicity of ways of life impossible
in the various territories.
In the territories occupied by the state of Pará,
on December 15, 2023,
Senator Zequinha Marinho, from Podemos party, held an event
in defense of the construction of Ferrogrão,
a railway line that intends to connect Mato Grosso to Pará.
It is another project that is part of the new PAC
and that has excited loggers, land grabbers, and gold prospectors.
It is estimated that this project will destroy
about 2,000 km² of vegetation and indigenous territories.
Indigenous people protested against the project,
highlighting the threat that the new PAC represents
to the struggles for land and territory.
The occupation of the PT headquarters in Ceará
and the protest of indigenous peoples in Pará
denounce the limits of the current government and
the failure of representative democracy
in combating social inequalities, racism, cis-patriarchy,
ecological destruction, and territorial expropriation.
And makes us see the pitfalls of a conciliation government,
which seeks to remove the autonomy of popular movements and the struggle for territory.
The state will not save us,
because its survival depends on constant economic growth
and, therefore, on large infrastructure projects
and the exploitation of our lives.
The new PAC shows the commitment of the Lula government
to accelerate the destruction of nature
in the name of perpetuating a destructive mode of collective life.
It brings together the interests of
multinational corporations and state companies,
right-wing politicians
and progressive ones nostalgic for developmentalism.
It then becomes once again explicitly impossible
to separate the Brazilian state
from the reactionary forces that drive agribusiness and neo-extractivism.
After all, the Brazilian state, since its inception,
has been a project of exploitation and genocide
of black and indigenous populations and the natural resources of this land.
For the benefit of a reactionary white elite,
always supported by the army, police, hitmen, and militias.
The eternal thirst of states and capitalism for natural resources
to drive economic growth acceleration
and the endless accumulation of capital
are making the whole world increasingly uninhabitable,
destroying ecosystems and fueling climate change
that intensifies extreme climate events.
Drying up springs and rivers,
eroding the soil
and destroying homes and crops.
As living conditions deteriorate,
so does indignation.
As well as the greed of capitalists for lands
that have not yet become unproductive
and for untapped mineral reserves.
It's no wonder that governments worldwide
have been expanding and militarizing their security, control, and repression apparatus
to deal with increasingly frequent riots.
The response of the governor of Bahia, PT's Jerônimo Rodrigues,
to the attack on the Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe,
was to create a specialized PM company to deal with agrarian conflicts.
In Rio Grande do Sul, Governor Eduardo Leite of PSDB
sent riot police to end the protests
and barricades erected at various locations in Porto Alegre
by the outraged peripheral population after days without water and electricity
due to a storm.
It's not surprising that in 2023
Lula sanctioned the the new Military Police law
in cooperation with the far right.
This law increases the militarization of the police forces
and was considered worse than the decree of the military dictatorship
that it aims to replace,
according to human rights advocates.
Our struggles are all interconnected.
Racism, sexism, and transphobia
are the violence that pave the way for the advances of the state and capital,
which destroy the diversity of forms of life, biomes, and landscapes,
making room for monocultures, standardization, and homogenization.
Fighting systemic racism means fighting the police and prisons,
which are used to subjugate black and indigenous people
and deprive them of their way of life and territory,
imprisoning those who dare to resist.
Fighting sexism and transphobia means fighting the state,
which seeks to establish increasing control over our bodies,
hierarchizing, classifying, desterritorializing
to control our productive and reproductive capacities.
There is no possible reconciliation
with those who want to oppress us, exploit us, and kill us.
To advance in the struggle for other modes of existence,
seeking more egalitarian social relations
free from the control of reactionary forces,
it is essential to fight against the destructive structure of the state,
whether under the control of a conservative or so-called progressive government.