Mato, Morro & Rio - A story of ideas, plans and experiences part I

Mato, Morro & Rio translates Bush, Hill & River, but in portuguese sounds just like Kill, Die & Laugh

This project appeared to me unexpectedly in a time of great uncertainty in my life and around me. I had just finished a previous job and was looking for a new endeavor. Browsing through facebook I came across a post with some pictures of two slummy shacks asking for donations for a anarchist comune within a land reform movement in the state of Goiás, central Brazil. The post looked very appealing to me because usualy anarchist facebook forums are flooded with the same topic of the season and endless discussions, but this was acctualy proposing something concrete. I made contact with the lady from the post and offered help as an architect and designer and we engage in conversation about what was the project about, but she woudn't talk about how to do it, who's doing it or where exactly it was located. Somethings can't be said right away, she said.

Eventually I realized the only way I could get realy envolve was to take a trip to Alto Paraíso de Goiás and meet them personaly. I had no expectations whatsoever because anything could happen, from scam to full alternative society. Once I had the city, wich now I knew was the turists entry to Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, wich I've aways wanted to go. I had nothing to loose and was curious as hell.

By some communication breakdown I convinced a friend, that thought he was going to a ecovillage, to go with me. We bought camping tends and equipaments, tickets and went for three weeks in the savanna winter.

We got there at night and they were waiting us sitting by the fire on the grass near station. They made bird noises to call us and we went meet them. We drink some wine there and went on the gas stations licour store get some more, smoke ganja and talk a little bit more. We were measuring each other out, trying to be sure that it was a good idea after all, trying to get what kind of anarchist we were dealing with. We got along and went to sleep in a friends house.

The next day we bought food suplies, wich were pretty heavy and also arange a ride so we could get to the actual moviment camp. It is a long dirt road to get there and this was the first 'give value' leasson. Usualy they hitchhike and have to do all city duties in one day, with no visitors financial resources. I then realise the obvious; there's a huge social gap between us and that would be aways present in every situation. It was already dark when we got there, so we just unpack, lit a fire and ate dinner. Can't remember what we ate but I do remember they brought a guitar and we sung 'Pais e filhos', of Legião Urbana, wich is a very popular 80's Brasília band. I remember thinking how beautiful and how I would aways remember this song apart that I dont realy listen to the band... So there you go. It was late and dark, and for all we knew we were just beside the road, so me and my friend slept in one of the comrades shack, witch was confortably neat. By morning we would finaly see the place.

In the morning we started what would become a rotine of breakfeast readings wich the first was the novel 'Model farm' of Chico Buarque de Holanda. It is a parable that tells through farm animals, how centralized power corrupts, a lot inspired in George Orwell's 'Animal farm'. In Buarque's novel, there's lots of comments on brazilian bad habits, such as misogyny, autoritarian populism, censorship and hypocritical sexual repression. Although the book was written as a critic of the military dictatorship in Brazil our reading of it could be used for understand and critic the very own camp we were in. Specialy the chief-bull character, Juvenal, wich would relate with a specific member of the board of direction of the landless moviment, as they would told us. They told us about the MSL (Social Strugle Moviment, in portuguese) and the FLN (National Strugle Front), witch are both land occupying organizations that derive from most well known MST (Landless Moviment), linked by the controversy José Rainha Júnior, who has under his wings other local chiefs whose intent would be to establish comunication beetwen landless workers and both internal and government bureaucracies. So the result of it is obvious corruption of these centralized powers in these hierarchical institutions, that has monopoly of information and legal and political means over the actual landless workers. Therefore, they hold power of the organizing methods and avoid to let workers make their own decisions because "options" are aways presented by the directors board, just as in Buarque's novel, Juvenal is a good bull, he's just following orders of the best informed board of directors that only want the well being of everybody (but are never around doing the hard work). There's a lot of good people in landless movements, most of them are the workers. Directors and chiefs, don't interact in horizontal relationships, they're in it for something else, they see themselfs as something else. That social body and its power, for these directors, must be tamed, and once it is they have the right to ride on top of it and chase some land to speculate and some agreement deals with some land owners.
We then realize how complicated the real spectrum of the situation is. There were no good guys, and even the workers, whose strugle for survival is so brutal, can cheat, steal and hit woman if it would suposly make his life easier. But most often what they would do to improve themselfs were to obey authority leaders and structures. Just like caddle people they are taught by exemples such as exclusion, burnings of goods and physical violence. And so workers reproduce with lower hierarchical figures like wifes, children and animals, closing a vicious violence and authority circle. We were begining to understand that this vicious authoritarian circle would extand to animals and nature, in class authority, misogeny and an antrophocenic view of existance, and all of it would stagnate expression, culture and knowledge and create a meek working class that really feels powerless and belives it need those representatives directors and best informed boards. So nothing can happen spontaneously, every thing is the same, farm workers trying to reproduce and compete with big agrobusiness techniques, desertifying the land and trying to dominate nature. A scarcity ideology predominates. Our work would be to break the cicle, question authority, think in abundance and empower workers with hidden knowledge and information.