come merry dol! derry dol!

iguesswe:

therewillbemorelove:

To anyone who’s reading this.

I’m a brazilian teenager and I really want to communicate to everybody what’s happening in my country right now: Youth has rebelled.

Everything started when the bus ticket fares have increased from R$ 2,75 to R$ 2,95 (But is being planned an increase to R$3,20). After the increase, protests started , specially in São Paulo then spread to Rio de Janeiro, Brasília ( the federal capital and seat of government) and the tendency is to protests spread to more states.

But why are we protesting over 20 cents? It’s not about 20 cents… the reason is more deep. People are sick and tired with the goverment neglect! The goverment is hidding, “applying make up” on Brazil’s true problems. While loads of money (our money) are being spent with overpriced public works (because of the World Cup and the Olympic Games) education is bad, the public hospitals are inefficient, politicians are corrupt, legislation is flawed (some who commit crimes aren’t punished,specially the rich politicians), violence is getting worse, the taxes are high, life cost is expensive and infrastructure is not good. In summary, our money is being spent without results.

Everything seems like a bad joke. The year of 2013 is being emblematic.This is the year when we’ve watched violence increase, people being burnt alive, women being raped inside the bus, people killed because of a cellphone , the new president of the human rights committee (Marcos Feliciano,wich is homophobic and expresses his anti human rights opinions widely) showing up and absurd law projects coming up ( like the ” Nascituro”).

Now we are shouting what we haven’t for many years, we’ve let problems grow too much. It’s time to be heard and how the police and media treats us? Like criminals! It’s true there were vandalism during protests but the vandals are minority! Many times peaceful protesters were beaten , treated with violence.

State governments are using and abusing the most violent police actions to suppress the demonstrations. The police are treating protesters as criminals, attacking, arresting. Many are “hunted” after the demonstrations. They’re trying to criminalize people’s right to speak!

We are Brazilians. These protesters are also fighting for our rights. We must join this fight. As a student and part of youth I want to help, I want to protest but for now I’m writing this text as an attempt to alert anyone who’s reading . Usually, I never speak my mind on tumblr but this time I hope I can alert people about the injustiçe which brazilians suffered.

I would like to ask people around the world to solidarize with the protesters , hope for the police to stop the unfair violence and also to be aware about what’s happening here.

Thanks for the attention!

This video shows more pictures about what’s happening : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SnKe6TND58

Also look at this:

http://iguesswe.tumblr.com/post/52916722763

http://iguesswe.tumblr.com/post/52945095821

http://www.melhorquebacon.com/24-momentos-protesto-sao-paulo/ (it’s in Portuguese, but i think google translator might work)

If you want to help us, there is something, even if it’s little, you can do:

http://www.avaaz.org/po/petition/Revogacao_do_aumento_da_passagem_de_onibus/?twi

Emphasis on this being not about bus fees anymore, please. Thing is, while I am completely horrified by the response being given by the government (they’re constantly claiming that no uncalled acts of violence are being performed against the protestors by the police, even though we’ve been shown more than enough evidence that most times it is the police themselves that start the confrontations, as in following orders to restrain possible acts of vandalism [but still, you know, you’d think they’d coerce the so said acts of vandalism, but no. there is no distinguishing between those damaging public patrimony and those protesting peacefully, and I asure you the latter is the vast majority]. And they also try to deceive the majority of the population on what’s going on down in the streets where people are raising their voices against [again] not only the taxes that are raising once more, but also against completely insane laws that e.g. give privilege to rapists, the unabashed corruption that runs through the various government organizations and etc, turning all that struggle into the so called ”youth movements” or whatever the shit that is. This is no youth movement. There are people of various ages, of various social classes, and of various political backgrounds that are raising their voices against a corrupt and flawed system that responds to each and every thing that goes against it with brutal militarized acts), I am far more horrified by the representation this is getting in the Brazilian media.

The media here is completely and unabashedly bought. They’ve sold themselves, right from the start, and they work for a minority that is privileged against imagination (really, you would not believe how unequal this country is when it comes to income distrubuction. And not only that, all mediums of information here [tv and radio, and papers too] are controlled by a few families and organizations aiming, not surprisingly, economical gain, the all day capitalized business of damaned system). They’re sold, and they don’t even try to hide it. In the latest soccer game for the Confederation Cup (which took place in Brasilia, our capitol), the president, when she appeared to open the games oficially, was mocked nationally, and what did the media do afterwards? They didn’t air that bit. Not immediately. They waited the government’s response first, and only then did they start talking about it, because you see, what happened during that game was another act of disatisfaction towards the government and their treatment of current affairs. To sum it up: media here is also corrupt. They do not care about accurate representations, they distort things and change roles. Tonight, during a noticiary which airs nationally too, there was a special feature about the protests which occurred this afternoon in Rio (and which, you know, was received once again with more brutality. This time the police did not even try to aim at the protestors specifically, those were forced to go into a public park, in order to scape the crackdown, a park where families were having a day off [like it is traditional in that area] and the police ran after them right into the park. With gas bombs and all. Result: there were children intoxicated, and people who were not even protesting got in the middle of the gas, fainted and whatnot) and the channel chose to portray the police as the victim. I just…

We are all fed up. We are fed up of polititians who promise us things six months before the elections, never to actually fulfill their promises. We are tired of the media underestimating our intelect, we are tired of being told that we are taking arms with no purpose in mind (believe me, there are academics who are against the protests, because they simply do not see any generalized reason to protest at all. Or that they do not believe the movement is organized enough. To hell with organization. To hell with strong enough reasons. We’ve been disorganized for more than decades now, we need action before organization. We need to make the government see that we are disatisfied, and that we have the power of response, and whether they will listen to us or not is not for negotiation. My own education has been delayed because throughout my years of High School I’ve been through two strikes, which cost me almost a year of delay. And all because the government refused to listen (and lmao High School here is so damnned it’s laughable. If you’re poor and can’t pay for decent education, you have to study in public schools. And believe you would not want that. Not here. Not in this part of the globe). Now either they listen, all the image that they are trying to preserve (that WOW how incredible this country is, how happy is its people, and weathy and well administrated!) will slowly, but steadily, bit by goddamn bit, be deconstructed). And about strong enough reasons: we’ve had many of them for more than 500 years now.

This week there are countless more protests already planned. Not just in Rio, not just São Paulo. Even in the northwest of Brazil, there are people going to the streets in favor of those fighting for more clarity, for more honesty, for more fairness, and for more efficiency. I’ve not yet gone to the streets, but I’m going to a protest this week too (I don’t live in neither of those two cities, but here in my city we’re already organized to perform an act of support to those in SP and Rio). Hell, for all over Europe, we’ve got people suporting us.

Honestly, the thing I most fear is that this entire movement, which has been happening for almost three months now (there were protests in the southmost states during March) gets weaker and the people behind them dispersed once more. Because the government and the media will do everything to preserve the imaginary they’ve worked so haaaaaaaaaaard to build and sell throughout the years. Anything. And I fear the population not engaging in the protests might simply turn their backs against us, because the majority of the population here in Brazil have only the media to inform them, that is, to fool them. And that’s why we need everyone to spread the word of what is really going on, that it is not about twenty cents any more, that it has never been about that. That’s what media is trying to fool people into thinking, and that’s absurd. People are going to the streets raising the Brazilian flag and singing the national anthem and claiming for a governement less corrupt and deceiving. If we cannot change anything now, I fear we never really will.