2023-07-08 00:04:30
Dirceu Travesso, Didi, will be one of the honorees on the Day of Workers’ Struggle, on July 9, at a political event in São Paulo, and the PSTU wants to thank the organizers of the event for this tribute.
By: PSTU National Directorate, Brazil
Didi, who died of cancer on September 16, 2014, was an extraordinary fellow socialist, revolutionary and internationalist. Anyone who has had the privilege of acting alongside Dirceu Travesso at some point knows that when we say that he stood out, that he was extraordinary, we don’t utter clichés or idle words.
Didi was a colleague with a lot of courage, a lot of conviction and great political capacity, for strategic and tactical formulation. A leader of important struggles, which he led very firmly; but also someone who saw far away, who never disconnected the immediate from the mediate, the everyday from the historical, in a concrete way. He was not the man of struggles and of socialism in the abstract, but the man who always sought the connection between the daily struggle, the political denunciations and the strategic objective of socialism. The one who looks for the threads that make possible this connection between the spontaneous and the conscious, between what is and what can become. He had an extremely dialectical reasoning and an enormous vivacity, in each spark or spark that arose in the class struggle in which he glimpsed the opportunity to fight the system, to advance in workers’ democracy, in the organization of the working class and in the connection and bridges with the strategy of socialism and proletarian internationalism. He grabbed that with energy, determination and with every movement that became necessary.
A restless mind, which always thought about the possibility of revolution, of socialism, of the contradictions of reality and the need to update the program and the responses.
He built the revolutionary party in Brazil and in the world with joy, initiative, intervention in daily struggles or rebellions, and he also knew how to do a lot of propaganda. He was a great friend and companion also in other aspects of life, at parties, in soccer, in commemorations.
He knew how to trade unionism, but he was not just a trade unionist, he was a revolutionary and a socialist. He managed to have the respect and friendship of leaders of the most diverse organizations, and carry out various necessary agreements and negotiations, without compromising principles, political, programmatic or organizational positions.
Clear! He was human he had his flaws and mistakes like everyone else and he knew it. But he also possessed great generosity, a capacity for self-criticism, and impeccable revolutionary morale. The oppressed sectors had a permanent ally in Didi, and when he himself was wrong, he recognized it.
A figure who dedicated his entire life to a collective project. The individualist ideology imposed by capital leads people to dedicate their lives to getting a job, an apartment, or a car. But, fellow militants like Didi manage to make sense of their lives for having lived a great fight to change the world.
In the greeting recorded by Trotsky for the founding conference of the Fourth International, he said:
“ Yes, our party takes us whole. But in compensation, he gives us the greatest happiness, the awareness of participating in the construction of a better future, of carrying on our shoulders a particle of the destiny of humanity and of not living in vain..
How many of those who dedicate their lives to buying things, getting jobs, can look back when they get close to death and be proud of what they did? Didi could, and it gave her the composure and courage with which she faced her death sentence from cancer. She helped build the PSTU, the LIT, the CSP-Conlutas, the International Solidarity Network. By being part of this collective struggle, she was also aware that she had not lived in vain.
the militancy
Didi began his military service in 1977 at the Federal University of São Carlos. He was a student leader in the mobilizations at the end of the dictatorship, being included in the National Security Law. He worked in a factory in Volta Redonda, the center of proletarian resistance. He became a banker. He was a leader of the big bank strikes of the 1980s and also of the struggles of the 1990s and from the 2000s. He was a member of the national leadership of the Socialist Convergence and also of the PSTU, of which he was one of the founders. He was a candidate for the party in the city and state of São Paulo, on several occasions. He was a member of the CUT Executive and director of the São Paulo Bankers Union; he was the founder of the CSP-Conlutas.
In those years he earned the admiration of generations of fighters, and the respect of his opponents. It was no coincidence that the act of farewell to him was held in the space of the São Paulo Bankers Union, with the presence of the National Bank Strike Command and the USP Strike Command [Universidad de São Paulo], who interrupted their meetings to fire Didi. Also, in addition to the PSTU and the leaders of the CSP-Conlutas, representatives of practically all the main union and popular organizations and parties of the Brazilian left were present.
Didi was an internationalist militant. A central part of his activities was proletarian internationalism. Even in recent years, already very ill, he was in Tahrir Square in Egypt, in occupied Palestine, in the marches of the Indignados in Spain, and in many other conflicts. He was the creator and one of the main organizers of the Alternative Trade Union Meeting that brought together dozens of trade union organizations from European States, America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, from nearly 30 countries, in March 2013 in France, and organizer of the International Solidarity Network.
It is no coincidence that emotional messages from many countries of the world were read at his farewell.
The PSTU is proud and grateful for the homage and recognition of Didi and his contribution to the struggle of the labor movement.
The initiative, to pay homage to several fighters, including Didi, is from the CSB, CTB, Intersindical, Forçaa Sindical, NCST, UGT, PÚBLICA, CSP-Conlutas unions, and the mandate of state deputy Donato (PT). The objective is to highlight the fighters who contributed to the defense of the rights of the class and to the struggle of the labor movement.
The event will be held in the city of São Paulo, at 9:00 a.m., at Alameda Prado, 474 – Campos Elísios, remembering July 9 of the workers, a day of struggle for the labor movement.
¡Didi, present!
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
#Memory #tribute #Didi #forget