Racist extermination policies do not guarantee safety – independent organization can show that another path is possible!
The impact of the massacre in the Penha and Alemão neighbourhoods in Rio de Janeiro has reignited the debate on public safety and extermination policies on the country’s peripheries. The operation by Governor Cláudio Castro’s security forces left an official toll of 121 dead. At this time, it is already known that not everyone had a criminal record and, even among those who owned them, were not necessarily linked to organized crime. In the moments leading up to the operation, the state itself demonstrated complete unpreparedness and neglect, the police did not even know the correct identities of the people they shot at.
The right and far right of the country have taken advantage of the slaughter as an opportunity to regain ground in political discussions. This comes after a period of disorganization and retreat after defeats such as the condemnation of the arrest of former President Jair Bolsonaro and the resistance in the streets to the ‘PEC of the Banditry’ and the attempts of amnesty. It is no coincidence that the right-wing governors of the country, even at different paces, have rushed to offer support to Governor Castro. Even Eduardo Paes, mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro and who must face the governor’s group in the next elections, has followed a trajectory of adapting his speech to these events.
Neoliberalism Is the Father of ‘Penal Populism’!
The use of ‘tough on crime’ penal populism is shown to be an effective card up the right’s sleeve. In all opinion polls released after the operation (even though there are questions how many of these surveys were done) support for it proves to be in the majority. Likewise, it is a majority which support the tightening of criminal laws, especially when linked, rhetorically, to the “fight against criminal factions”.
The ground for this support has been prepared for years. It happens, especially, from the retreat of social rights, with decades of neoliberal policies that attack the public services and the rights of the country’s popular classes. The space left by the capitalist destruction of social infrastructure is taken up, among others, both by the criminal factions (some arising in the security forces themselves) and by state violence. Squeezed between the violence of organized crime and the everyday reality of a precarious life as a result of austerity policies, the population tends to have the illusion that, with such operations, “something is being done”.
However, once the illusion wears off, the forces in conflict will be replaced by others, whether that is a new faction moving in, or their “recruits”. Thus, the “war” continues. Supposed, this is a “war on drugs”, but in the end, it is simply a “war on the poor”, which serves as a veritable slaughterhouse of young black people in another macabre chapter of the country’s structural racism.
A World Drowned in Military Conflict and “War on Narcoterrorism”
The flag raised today by the Brazilian right has an international aspect. Donald Trump has been escalating his interventionist threats toward Latin America with his rhetoric about the “war on drugs.” Already at the beginning of his mandate, Trump threatened harsh measures against Mexico. Now he carries out military operations in international waters against Venezuelan vessels, with more than 60 killed, executed summarily without any evidence. Meanwhile Trump has authorized operations on land by the CIA against the Maduro government. Likewise, it has included threats to Gustavo Petro in Colombia. No wonder we heard Senator Flavio Bolsonaro (son of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro) invite Trump to bomb boats in Guanabara Bay.
At a time of military escalation in various parts of the world, the war on drugs will serve as a pretext for attacks. Hence also the use by both Trump and Castro of the term “narcoterrorism”, unifying two great bogeymen raised by imperialism to justify its violence.
Lula’s Mistaken Capitulation to Cláudio Castro
We need independent organization of workers, black communities and other oppressed sectors for the construction of another public security policy.
Certainly, a public safety policy is needed that tackles the problem of organized crime and urban violence in general. However, firstly, any measures that start from the legitimation of the barbarism of summary executions start in the wrong way. It is simply disgusting that mainstream media coverage of the massacre is simply around the efficiency or not of the fight against organized crime in the country. Likewise, Lula’s federal government is deeply mistaken in approaching, even if in a mediated way, Cláudio Castro in this regard, when they are jointly part of an emergency office to combat organized crime.
Any concession to this path prevents real solutions from being debated with the population and confronting the backward consciousness generated by years of neoliberal onslaught. As much as fear is easily mobilized in politics, public safety features alongside access to rights such as education, health, retirement and decent work follow as important concerns. Likewise, it is possible to build effective social relationships that make community bonds stronger, building other aspects of consciousness. It is a fact that conservatism grows as neighborhood organizations, youth, social movements and trade unions weaken.
The federal government now tries to show initiative on the issue by driving public safety reform. But the solution to crime can’t be reduced to more effective coordination among police. The government also does not confront the regressive and militarized character of the police, which lacks real democratic control by the community. It will take a policy of public investments in housing, health, education, transport and jobs in the peripheries, to give hope for a future to the youth. But for this it is necessary to break with the austerity policy of the government’s Fiscal Framework. Moreover, it is not necessary to say much to demonstrate how much the right and the far right have little to offer on the subject. To do so, it is enough to see the existing political mess provoked by the federal deputy and security secretary of the state of São Paulo, Guilherme Derrite, who drafted the bill that aims to combat criminal factions.
Independent popular organization is the way for the left to win the debate and make its own program for public safety, not only as something palpable to the population, but as a practical reality. Crime arises from a society marked by structural racism and growing inequality. We need to build a socialist alternative that attacks the roots of the problem. Among other measures, we in LSR understand that this program involves:
- Demilitarization of the police, now! Policing under the control of deliberative, democratically elected and organized civil councils in an open and public way!
- Justice for all victims of state violence! For an immediate investigation into all reports of violence, torture and deaths, under community control, unions and social movements.
- For an end to the so-called “war on drugs.” Combat the lobby of drug traffickers and their organic links with the financial market, Faria Lima and political institutions. Users need access to care in freedom and public health, plus jobs, education and housing – not prison!
- Confront the right and defend rights! No support for the measures of Cláudio Castro! For health and education in our communities, not police!
- End austerity and budget cuts. Tax the fortunes and profits of large companies to fund an investment program in the peripheries, with housing, transportation, public services and job creation
- For and end to racial oppression and capitalist exploitation. For a socialist society free of racism!
