[5th National Congress] Opening Statement by MSTs Marina da Silva

Good Evening Friends,

In the name of the national directorship and of the families of the MST, I salute the representatives of the entities that are here tonight, at the same time that we recognize the importance of the presence of each one of you and your organizations for the struggle of the workers in Brazil.

I compliment all of the invited entities and organizations, the international delegation of more than 28 countries, especially the organizations of the Via Campesina from various continents, the friends of the MST, and the politicians: senators, congressmen, mayors and councilmen.

With utmost respect I salute the militance of the persistance, dedication, spirit of sacrifice and responsibility for the preparation of our congress at the grassroots, in the states and here at the gymnasium where they contructed the city of the Landless.

And with much affection, I complement the almost 20 thousand delegates, the more than one thousand Landless children, companheiros and companheiras, true heroes of this nation, present from the 24 states where our movement is organized.

This Congress was switched various times, for various reasons. With certainty, we are realizing it in the most opportune moment of the History and the correlation of forces in Latin America.

Opportune, because we are witnessing throughout the entire world imperialist intervention through wars, the invasion of countries for natural resources, and through international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund.

Opportune, because here in Brazil we are experiencing, through the structure of the bourgiose state, in the Legislative, Executive and the Judiciary branches, the maintenance of the priveledge and the defense of the interests of the elite.

Opportune, because we see the Brazilian Government, in its second mandate, maintaining an economic policy of continuity, adhering to neoliberal rules, with large damages, with a policy based on international exchange, a monetary and tributary policy focused on export.

A government that makes reforms and projects that benefit international financial capital to the detriment of the rights of the workers historically conquered through struggle.

We see the transnationals being prioritized, incentivizing monoculture production, and the liberation and the use of transgenics and agrotoxins, with Agrarian Reform treated as a social compensation.

Opportune, because we are experiencing in Brazil a new phase of economic power in the countryside through agribusiness, organized by the historic landowners and by the multinational corporations, that want to secure control over our water, natural resources, biodiveristy and seeds, and to rob our Amazon, constructing dams and implementing the transposition of the São Francisco River. And leaving for the Brazilians only unemployment and misery.

For this, friends, our Fifth Congress has to be a mark in the History of the working class. A mark against imperialism, a mark against the neoliberal policies of this government, a mark against the multinationals, a mark in the struggle for legislation that limits private property. In the words of Florestan Fernandes: do not allow ourselves to be co-opted, not allow ourselves to be divided, and to win conquests for the people.

A mark in the struggle and defense of Agrarian Reform as a method to democratize land, destribute income, create employment and jobs, and to combat global warming provoked by the model of consumerist society, which is not concerned with the end of natural resources and the consequences of this in the lives of the population. And principally a mark in the construction of struggles for the maintenance and advance of the rights conquered by the working class, in unity, in the formation of militants and leaders, in the elevation of the consciousness and culture of the people, in defense of the environment.

And, above all, a mark in the construction of an instrument of struggle that provokes the reascension of the movement of the masses, and makes possible a political project that is popular, revolutionary, and that resolves the social problems of the Brazilian people, of Latin America and of the world.

Tomorrow, our Fifth Congress will no doubt be considered one of the largest events of campesinos in Brazil and the world. This recognition will not only be due to the number of workers that we unite, but by the quality of the struggles, because in these 30 years of our long march of confrontation and resistance to the large landholdings and to capital, we conquered and constructed a lot, and we overcame challenges. Our force resides in the number of organized people, we learn that an organized people is one invincible wall.

Our struggle grew and multiplied, our organization spread and rooted throughout Brazil, we projected our proposals and our ideas throughout Latin America and in various parts of the world, where we won allies, and we strengthened the collective utopia for a more just world. We cultivate solidarity between us and with all of the people in struggle on four continents.

We arrive to where we did not imagine we would arrive in the beginning of our organization, constructing the Florestan Fernandes National School, founding schools on the encampments and settlements throughout our country, strengthening the struggle against ignorance, breaking the walls of the tower of knowledge. We have our national campaign for “Each and Every Landless Studying” advancing.

The fruits of this incentive to study is the fruit of this Congress. Look: in the past we had to contract artists; today, we have the capacity to paint our own panel.

We still have much to do, to confront many challenges, but right now we can honor ourselves in that we have and are forming our own doctors, teachers, agronomists, lawyers, administrators, and militancy at a high level of political and ideological consciousness. We learn that no one is disposable, and that which conducts organization of the masses is the collective.

Throughout our history of difficult challenges, we have suffered many dissapointments. The arms of greed and the violence of the large landowners, the endless greed of the exploiters, the arrogance of the oligarchies, the criminal actions and the assassinations by the private militia and policemen at their service, they took from us many lives, many of whom could have been here with us today.

Those that fell became our guides in the construction of the future; we cultivate their memory with all of our affection and respect, their blood strengthens us and gives us the certainty of the triumph that will come, as we sing our Anthem.

In the meantime, worse than physical death, the challenge that provokes and invites us to form fronts to confront it and definitively stop it, is the challenge of the ideological fragility of friends of the struggle. Our enemies know that, more efficient than death to stop us, would be the death of our values, the death of our belief in our profound solidarity, of our integral dedication in the construction of a new world for our sons and daughters and for future generations. We have no doubt, they can take everything from us except for our socialist and humanist values.

Capitalism and its ideology of the cult of egoism and money, of veneration of private property, of the concentration of land, of the exploitation of men by men, knows how to infiltrate hearts and minds.

Not even the heroes of our struggle are immune. It is in this moment that begins the defeat, friend, and where we can weaken collectively. For this, we need to reinforce our firm ideology.

It is fundamental that we understand profoundly, with the mind and the heart, the biggest reasons of our struggle. That we know how to entirely assume our dreams and human values, cultivating our spirit in order to always rise above challenges, to confront and win them, not leaving one single opening for the virus of capitalism. From the human and socialist points of view, the MST is already the patrimony of humanity, and for this we need to take care.

Our Fifth Congress also has to be a mark for us to continue overcoming our challenges, it needs to be a mark in the strengthening of the revolutionary method of direction. We need to strengthen the sprit of closeness, as did Oziel Alves, youth of 17 years that gave his life defending our principles and Agrarian Reform.

It is necessary to strengthen our method of democracy and participation. To break from the fear of speech, to actively participate in the processes of decision-making. To guarantee that women and youth assume greater command of our organization, strengthening the areas of decision-making, respecting the decisions taken by the collectives and learning from the lessons of other organizations that existed before us.

We need to advance in the organization of a place for infants in the MST, because even they have rights, as they live on the settlements, as they study and as the community will assume the process of formation of Landless children. It is through education, in the preschools and the schools, that occurs the formation of these little ones: it is that which will early on make them form consciousness of closeness to the organization of the working class. The future of the MST depends on what we make today with our children. As Mao Tse Tung taught us: “if we have a project for one year, we sprout grains. If we have a project for two years, we plant trees, but if our project is for the entire life, we should educate and form people.”

We need, above all else, to care and value our greatest patrimony, which is our MILITANCY. This militancy, even with all of the difficulties and problems, makes the MST happen, cares and constructs the sustaining base of the Movement, that is unity, discipline and participation.

Importantly, the greater number of men and women of Brazil and of the world in the struggle, the more brilliant, more irresistible and more fecund our conquest will become. With more human qualities, our actions will have more human values, our attitudes and our revolutionary collective action, our victory will be that much greater and that much closer.

In the meantime, the struggle of the workers is international, we will not make the revolution alone, it is the force of all of the struggles and the accumulation of forces that will make us win. For this, the electoral victories that are occuring in various countries of Latin America signify the beginning of the end of the project of the elites and the international organizations that enforce structural adjustment and the reduction of state responsibilities. The election of these governments is of fundamental importance for the political, social and economic reorganization of these countries.

To the social movements, undertake the task to strengthen your organizations and the struggle, so that these electoral victories benefit the working class. And in the dispute of the project with the bourgoise do not diverge from the path of the necessary changes that must be made, do not lose your political autonomy from parties and governments.

In the weight of these electoral victories, we must not forget the ominous work that the conservative media has created in every country. With the fear of losing power, it manipulates information in the attempt to construct hegemony to benefit its project for society. For this, we demonstrate all of our solidarity to the government and to the people of Venezuela for their courage in the struggle for the democratization of the channels of communication, without which we will never have real democracies in Latin America.

In Brazil the media is so subservient that every day it tries to criminalize the movements; but it does not succeed, because the social movements are rooted in the core of society.

It does not know our organization, our model of agriculture based on the principles of agroecology, our model of production. It does not recognize our organization, our project of education and participation. It calls us revolutionaries of a form that limits us to a mere figure of speech, as if the model of society that we defend signified a backtrack and divergence from that called modernity.

We should not be afraid to be called revolutionaries, because thanks to our struggle and organization we are seeing thousands of people who before were hungry, today have food aplenty every day. We are seeing hundreds of people that were illiterate, that never had the opportunity to sit at a desk in a classroom, today reading, writing, and many of us are attending university.

We are seeing people who were living in a high level of social degradation, today with values of love, solidarity, cooperation and care. People with dignity. All of this is revolutionary!!!!!!!

We continue struggling and singing, as the poet says: the true singer is the one who brings from his breast the smell and the color of his land, the mark of blood of the deaths that he has witnessed and the certainty of his struggle lives!

- For this, in the name of the grand fighters and ideologists for socialism in the world such as Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburgo;

- In the name of the fighters for socialism and revolution in Latin America, such as Che Guevara and Aidê Santamaria.

- In the name of the grand academics, intellects and Brazilian socialists such as Josué de Castro, Madre Cristina, and Paulo Freire.

- In the name of the poets, blacks and Brazilian revolutionaries such as Maria Carolina de Jesus and Mario Lago.

- In the name of those that planted our seed such as the League of Campesinos, Contestado and Canudos.

- In the name of the martyrs for the struggle for land such as Sister Dorothy and Teixerinha.

- In the name of all of the movements that compose the Via Campesina in Brazil

- In the name of the National directorship and of the families of the MST, with much love, with much happiness and with much hope for the construction of Agrarian Reform: for social justice and popular soveriegnty, I declare the Fifth National Congress of the MST open!!!!!!