2023-11-20 14:25:12
By: Wagner Miquéias Damasceno, National Secretariat of Black Men and Women of the PSTU Brazil
On November 20, 1695, Zumbi dos Palmares, leader of the Quilombo dos Palmares, fell into the hands of mercenaries led by the bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho. With the fall of Zumbi, the Republic of Palmares also fell.
Zumbi had assumed the leadership of Palmares by dismissing his uncle, Ganga Zumba, after he had signed an agreement with the governor of the Pernambuco Captaincy. Zumbi knew that it was not possible to establish any pact with the slave owners, after all, the wealth of the slave owners required the enslavement of black men and women.
Obstacle to colonial slavery
Of all the quilombos that existed in Brazil, Palmares was the most important and one of the longest-lived: it existed for 60 years in a territory that covered the States of Alagoas and Pernambuco.
With a population of approximately 30,000 people, Palmares had become, in the words of sociologist Clóvis Moura, “in the most serious obstacle to the development of the slave economy of the region”. Its form of organization and the community economy of Palmares challenged the unequal colonial economy. For this reason, the ruling class mobilized enormous efforts to destroy it.
The memory of Palmares is not limited only to Zumbi. Among their leaders were Acotirene and Dandara, political and military leaders and expressions of the elevated role played by black quilombola women.
History manipulation
The slave-owning ruling class tried, at all costs, to completely erase the memory of Palmares, destroying the original territory, mass murdering the quilombolas and deliberately hiding its true history. The contemporary ruling class, composed of modern capitalists, many of them heirs of slave owners, does nothing less: it chooses the bloodthirsty bandeirantes as national heroes and finances politicians and writers to falsify the history of slavery and the struggles black for freedom.
Therefore, November 20 takes on a much greater meaning than a holiday for black people and the working class. It is a living reminder of the struggle of the exploited and oppressed for their freedom and for another society.
What lessons can we learn from Palmares?
One of the main lessons is that the achievement of true freedom can only come through the struggle of those who are exploited and oppressed.
A second lesson is that the interests of the exploited and the exploiters are always irreconcilable. Therefore, the exploited must guard their class independence. This was true during the four centuries of slavery in Brazil, and it remains even more true today.
In capitalism, the source of the wealth of the bourgeois comes from the exploitation of workers. Workers would like to live differently and enjoy all the wealth they produce. The bourgeoisie wants to keep things as they are and continue exploiting the workers. These are irreconcilable interests.
Who is afraid of the new Palmares?
Needless to say, Bolsonaro and his gang have a deadly hatred for black men and women. However, it is necessary to recognize that things did not change profoundly under Lula’s government. In March of this year, Lula said that slavery “caused something good, which was the mixture, the miscegenation” . A racist discourse, after all we know that miscigenation was the result of sexual violence practiced by colonizers against black and indigenous women.
And as if these types of statements were not enough, Lula’s government has been producing a series of measures that attack workers, especially black women and men. This is the case of the Fiscal Framework, which cuts investments in public services, mainly harming workers and blacks, those who need these services the most. This is the case of the Anti-Drug Law sanctioned by Lula himself in 2006, and which today is the main justification for the so-called war on drugs and the massacres that exterminate black youth in favelas and peripheries. This is the case of Federal Decree 11,498 of April of this year 2023, which expanded the privatization of public services to Education, Health and the Penitentiary System.
If Bolsonaro is openly racist and had no intention of hiding that he governed for the rich, Lula acts differently. While she shakes the hand of the bourgeoisie, she disguises these commitments by staging with the other hand for the workers and the blacks. If Bolsonaro personifies the cruelty of slavery, Lula personifies the betrayal of those who try to disarm the exploited and oppressed in the name of pacts with the ruling class.
This November 20, the black people and the working class must take to the streets to denounce all the violence suffered, demand the end of the genocide of the black and poor people, the repeal of the Anti-Drug Law and decree 11,498/23.
Palmares, fell. But his legacy and example of struggle remain more necessary than ever. It is up to us to complete the task started by our ancestors, to overthrow this capitalist system and build a superior society, a socialist society free of all exploitation and oppression.
* Quilombos are rural communities formed by descendants of enslaved blacks. These are towns that, in the period of colonial Brazil, were built by slaves who escaped from slave estates.
These people took refuge in rural areas, generally hidden in forests, mountains and places that were difficult to access, and welcomed other fleeing slaves, forming small villages.
The quilombos are a symbol of black resistance to slavery. The so-called quilombola communities exist to this day, composed mainly of descendants of fugitive slaves. They are considered traditional Brazilian communities.
The term quilombo means “place of rest and camp”, it is a word with origins in the Kimbundu language, which is part of the African Bantu linguistic group, predominant in the Angola region.
Originally, the word was only used to refer to a place used by nomadic populations or small merchant camps. But with the beginning of slavery, the blacks of Brazil adopted the term to refer to the place to which they fled, ndt (Fuente: www.significados.com.br)
Article published in www.opiniaosociaista.com.br8/11/2023.-
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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