Chapter 6

The Coral-Colored Serpent

Once upon a time there was a coral-colored serpent and a little black girl. She lived in the middle of a dense jungle. The trees grew so high and the undergrowth was so thick that the way had to be hacked out with a bush-knife, after which the jungle closed in again. The strength of the sun and the sap of the earth were so strong that every trampled blade of grass and every cut-off branch grew back almost immediately. Wild animals, tigers, serpents, armadillos, monkeys and parrots inhabited the jungle; crocodiles lounged lazily in a wide muddy stream that wandered slowly to the sea.

Talinha, the black child, lived in this jungle. Her other had died at her birth. As the angel descended to carry her mother to heaven, she spread her wings over the new-born child, which made her invisible to human eyes. Even her father could no longer see his daughter. Sad because he lost his wife and daughter on the same day, he left his house and the jungle for good in order to live in a place where there were more people. Talinha, small and defenseless against the threatening jungle, stayed behind.

As the sun disappeared behind the treetops the animals appeared, surrounding the plaited hammock in which Talinha slept. When she began to cry because she was hungry and cold, a mighty growling and murmuring went through the animal world: how can we help the child? After long deliberations, the onca, the tiger-cat, said: I will raise her, give her milk to drink and warm her with my fur. I will show her which plants are poisonous and which are edible and which have curative powers. And I will explain to her how the strength of the sun and the moon are transmitted to the plants and the animals.

Thus Talinha grew up among the animals of the jungle. She jumped over streams, frolicked with the cubs, rode on the backs of the young oncas, swung with the monkeys from tree to tree. The only things the animal mother could not teach her were to walk upright and to speak. She grew to be a pretty young girl with brilliant eyes and a softly expressive mouth.

But she changed during her thirteenth year. She became thin and sad and her arms hung limply at her sides. All her high spirits and joy of living were gone. A meeting of the animals was called again and they deliberated long on what they should do. Finally they all agreed: the coral-snake must help.

The coral-colored serpent lived lonely and secluded behind the mountain. Three monkeys were appointed to bring her. Swinging from tree to tree, they soon reached their destination. "Cobra, cobra, come out, Talinha is ill!" The serpent slithered quickly out of her hideout and began her journey. It was high time, for Talinha lay completely exhausted in her hammock. As the coral-snake looked at Talinha with her glowing, powerful eyes, suddenly thunder and lightning raged through the bush and a cloud descended on the serpent and completely enveloped her. Then the cloud vanished and in the place of the serpent stood a young prince in a coral-colored, royal cloak. He said to Talinha: You have redeemed me from the enchantment. An evil magician transformed me into a serpent, so that I had always to creep along the earth. Now I can stand upright and have recuperated my speech. I can be human again.

Talinha suddenly understood her illness: she was born a human being but was not yet able to be one, for she lacked speech and an upright posture. The prince's words warmed her heart and filled her with joy. She spoke the first words of her life: And you, my Prince, have redeemed me and made me a human being. You have given me speech. Only now have I been really born.

They were so happy about the gift of speech that they decided to wander through the land and tell fairy tales. The were the first story-tellers.

Chapter 7

Social Development Aid – a Summing up

A talk by Francisco Juliao, leader of farm workers and lawyer of the northeast:

...I speak to the forgotten and to the abandoned in the jungles of the amazon and on the Babacú-settlements in Maranao, I speak to the workers in the palm-tree forests of Ceará, in the sugarcane fields of the northeast, in the coffee plantations in the state of Bahia and in the far south. I call the rice planters at Sao Francisco, the men who grow mate-tea and the men of the pampas. They are all hungry. They are all poor. They are all exploited by the land-owners. They are all slaves. They can't offer resistance to their misery because they are illiterate, because each knows only his own misery, because they are afraid. Therefore I appeal to them to unite like bundles of firewood and march for their rights. For when the masses unite they are so strong that not even the land-owners can withstand their might...

Development aid works on the premise that the problem of the poor in developing countries can be resolved by giving them food, perhaps also by building schools and hospitals. But the problem also lies in the fact that the lower classes are considered by the rulers to be objects and do not participate in the decisions about their lives.

And that isn't automatically achieved by giving the poor something to eat. Perhaps that's why communism is so appealing to many: it not only promises them bread, but also participation in government.

Suppose development aid achieves the following: agricultural counseling, construction of dams and irrigation projects, fertilizer, etc., an increase in production which would alleviate nutrition deficiency; industrialization and, with technical help, the creation of employment for people in distressed areas; trade and other schools which would prepare them for life in an industrialized country; controlling the population explosion through education.

Good, let us suppose that the poor gradually ease into a middle-class situation and lead lives that are relatively secure. Then we would no longer see people in rags as opposed to the privileged governing upper-class, but better dressed, moderately prosperous citizens. But the problem that they would still be without equal rights would remain. Once having escaped from dire poverty, would they accept being treated as children by a small clique of privileged people, to not have any influence on the political, economic and cultural life of their country? Not being fully occupied with earning their daily bread, would they be willing and able to revolt against this domination? Or would they feel so satisfied with their modest prosperity that they would not want to risk it by engaging in a revolt with unknown consequences?

The Londrina students believed a well-fed favelado does not rebel, that only one who is hungry is willing to risk everything because he has nothing to lose. Therefore for them development aid only delays the inevitable social revolution. Gifts soothe the consciences of the rich and dampen the poors' wish to revolt. Nevertheless, the students think that a push from outside is needed (the students themselves) because the poor, having to occupy themselves almost exclusively with obtaining food and clothing and the feeling, ingrained for centuries, that they are objects and not the acting subjects of their own lives, do not even think of rebelling. There are only occasional, quickly ignited and just as quickly dampened, disturbances when the droughts in the northeast impel them to plunder shops in the cities.

Is the Brazilian situation revolutionary? Objectively yes, subjectively no. The objective conditions for revolt are present: land distribution, accumulation of property and capital in the hands of few; wages which only guarantee a minimum existence (or not even). Education monopoly: Universities are almost exclusively attended by the wealthy; most farm workers have no schooling at all; the primary schools in the peripheries of the cities are inferior in the extreme; there are hardly any trade schools for workers. Political, economic and cultural power is concentrated in the hands of a minority.

However, the subjective conditions, except for small beginnings by intellectuals and students, are not yet present. The awareness of the necessity for change and the certainty of change being possible are lacking. The people are not yet conscious of the injustice and even if they were they would see no possibility for change. The following conversation with Dona Maria from our favela will illustrate this. We were coming out of a department store in which only the wealthy shop and I asked her, Doesn't it infuriate you to see how well some people live, who carry home baskets full of goods, who own apartment buildings and fazendas, while you can consider yourself lucky to have a job in order to eat rice and beans and have a wooden hut to live in?

No, I'm not angry. After all, the wealthy worked to get what they have. And my patrao, where I work now, is very nice and gives me a present now and then.

The answer is typical. She is neither angry nor envious because she doesn't see the connection. That her employer gives her used clothing because she can't afford them with her $25 monthly salary is, for her, cause for thankfulness, not for hate. She doesn't think about class differences, but sees the individual human being: here herself, there her employer, who treats her well and is occasionally generous.

The few on whom it has gradually dawned that the rich are rich at the expense of the poor shrug their shoulders and are resigned: what can a poor person do against the power of the rich? In the face of an injustice he acts as an individual, never in a group. He may quit his job, for example, but doesn't go on strike.

In my opinion, the favelado's situation is the following: As long as he has a roof over his head and he and his family don't starve, he is in equilibrium. Once one side of the scale is tipped more than usual due to circumstances beyond his control, the balance between life's burden and his subjective abilities is disturbed. The burden grows -- through illness, loss of work -- but the ability to bear these additional burdens is the same as before. He has neither outer reserves (savings), nor inner reserves (solid training in his trade). Additional burdens have him peering into the abyss on the edge of which he previously balanced. At this critical point the tendency is to fall. According to disposition, the reaction to misfortune varies. Either he unloads by drinking – like Virginia's father, who traded his horse and wagon, his means of existence, for pinga; by aggression and fury – like Irany's father, how took out his pistol and, in desperation, tried to kill his family; in apathy – like Otalino's mother, who, ill with schistomosis and completely worn out at 36 years of age, gave up. In all three cases the human being is no longer master of his problem, but the problem is master of the human being.

Or: On the scale of subjective reality there is such a strong vitality that it cannot be broken by any misfortune. Like Careca's mother. Her husband is operated on and can no longer work, she is expecting her tenth child. Despite the daily uncertainty as to how this family is to be fed, she is happy and full of the joy of living. She masters the situation in her own way.

Or again: she accepts the help of a third party who can increase the subjective ability and outer possibilities so that the increased burden of life becomes bearable. This is the starting point for all social work: stimulate the individual's own strength, create educational possibilities, supply new work, prepare social legislation, etc. This is partly a task that a simple social worker can take over, but it is mostly a duty of the state, which must first create the basis for a comprehensive social security system which embraces all classes.

The most appropriate moment to intervene is when this balance between the burdens of life and the ability to meet them is disturbed. Now, when his life's symmetry is destroyed by an unbearable burden, he is shocked, angry, indignant, also more open for something new. Anger and indignation provide an impetus that can have a positive effect as long as it channeled into group action. A gathering force must arise which moves people and encourages them to act in groups and which first thinks about the situation. Such lines of force, which transform a multitude of individuals into a group which is capable of acting, could be drawn by social workers. Emotional indignation must be followed by a situation analysis and an investigation into the causes. For example: Why am I unemployed? Why are my children always ill? Here the individual realizes that he is not alone with his problems. Previously each complained for himself without noticing that everyone around him struggles with the same difficulties. This is the first step to the awareness that: We in the favela are all in the same boat.

The social healing process that corresponds to this first step is the formation of practical working groups. Their themes are supplied by the foregoing situation analysis. For example: Why are my children ill? Because they have worms, etc. The result would be an information campaign about the contamination of water, the continual repetition of infections through parasites, viruses, etc.

Courses for children and adults could be organized, work-at-home promoted, youth groups with theater, sports, etc., founded, help with school work and much more. Tasks would be tackled which pertain to the favela as a whole. Besides mastering specific problems, the favela should grow together and the self-respect of the individual as well as of the favela as a whole would thereby be strengthened. The feeling of inferiority in respect to the wealthy would be gradually reduced.

At least in my field, work with children, I have tried to act according to these principles: not to be too accommodating, but to free their latent forces; to formulate a task that they already have the unconscious wish to perform and for which a working group is now formed; to encourage their creativity and then show the results in public at an exhibition. The profit from the exhibition is then returned to the community and not to individuals, which would only stimulate their egotism.

It sounds banal. But in practice social work usually proceeds from the patriarchal principle. If the wealthy or the government have guilty consciences, they give the favelados something,; for example, they build a modern laundry in a slum, which then shines there like a alien body. Then they wonder why it's not cared for and that after a week all the faucets have disappeared. Their conclusion is that it's a waste of loving kindness to worry about the poor. Such installations must grow from within, be wanted by the favelados and, if possible, be made with their help. Giving makes no sense, it spoils the poor and weakens their own will to act even more.

Once a community has been formed from individuals, when they are proud of what they have accomplished and have the feeling of being worth something, then you can go one step further: raise their indignation to a higher plane. Gradually they realize that countless favelas exist, in Londrina, in Paraná, in Brazil, in the world. They begin to see that their own poverty is immersed in a sea of poverty. Their indignation becomes an indignation for the generality. Poor of all nations, unite! And the super-personal indignation which arises from an analysis of the social situation expands to the deeper causes of poverty. Why does this gap between rich and poor exist? Why can't my children have a higher education? Why are my wages so low? etc.

Thus we integrate poverty into the whole social-political structure of the country and the world and begin to understand something about the oppression practiced by the ruling oligarchies on the unfranchised masses. A Dona Maria would then probably not remain so calm when viewing the riches of her patroa. And each one would no longer feel powerless and alone at the mercy of the wealthy, but would sense the strength that comes from the thousands who bear the same poverty.

How will this awareness manifest itself? As soon as the favelado no longer accepts his poverty as ordained by God, as soon as he realizes that change is necessary and also possible, then something must happen. The subjective conditions for transforming the social structures have been created. One can imagine that the poor would receive help from outside. For example, targeted development aid which would enable them to improve their lives. Schools and hospitals would be built, employment created, agriculture modernized, etc. By paralyzing the factories, public transportation and and commerce through non-violent resistance, massive pressure would be exerted on the government.

Help from outside would go hand in hand with domestic assistance from government offices; and development aid would only be granted when the poors' own efforts can be verified. The state would probably initiate partial reforms. Strikes would force the rulers to make life easier, by wage increases, school construction, cheaper medicines. But these are merely concessions, which would not resolve the problem in its entirety. It is not only that the favela people live on a bare existence minimum, but also that they are treated unequally.

The objective is that they become the subject of their own lives and the life of their country; that they participate in the country's political life, that they be represented in congress and in the government. Will the ruling power-groups voluntarily give up their key positions?