Nova República: a violência patronal rural como prática de classe

Abstract

Durante a Nova República, disseminou-se junto às associações e sindicatos patronais rurais a certeza de "uma verdadeira guerra no campo" e a "inevitabilidade" da violência como única medida eficaz para conter as ações de ocupação de terras e a demanda por uma reforma agrária. O objetivo deste trabalho é mostrar, tendo como fonte o debate na grande imprensa, que a defesa e a prática da violência pelos grandes proprietários de terra e empresários rurais é estruturante e reflete um habitus que encadeia o passado e o presente numa mesma realidade. A violência revela-nos o conteúdo das relações de classe e expõe os componentes de velhos e novos padrões de conduta. Nos anos 80, ela funcionou como reforço à solidariedade e ao sentimento de pertencimento e serviu também para fortalecer ainda mais a convicção da superioridade dos proprietários sobre os trabalhadores rurais. Não se trata de um ato individual e esporádico; é uma violência ritualizada e institucionalizada, que implica a formação de milícias, a contratação de capangas, a lista dos marcados para morrer e os massacres. E nesse contexto, pouco se distingue o novo empresário do latifundiário tradicional, ou a voz "civilizada das urbes" da "rudeza dos grotões".

Revisiting Agrarian Reform in Brazil, 1985–2016

“…In response to the re-emergence of rural mobilization for radical agrarian reform, the old and new landholding class joined forces to defend their interests by strengthening the anti-agrarian reform forces inside and outside the ANC, in particular the vociferous UDR. Ultimately, the UDR became a powerful political machine capable of effectively stalling agrarian reform (Bruno, 2003).…”

Land Inequality and Rural Unrest

“…Take for example, the municipality of Sertão in Rio Grande do Sul. In the aftermath of democratization, a small number of landowners with sprawling properties organized under the Pacto de União e Resposta Rural (PURR) to repel land invaders and protect their property (Bruno 2003). As a wave of neighboring land reforms in the late 1990s and mid-2000s threatened to catalyze nearby land invasions, these landowners successfully repelled local invasions to their property via the PURR.…”

“…When the impulse among landowners to organize to repel invasions is triggered by nearby reforms that threaten to spill over into land invasions on their property, we therefore anticipate that the hypothesized link between land inequality and higher conflict will flip: large landowners in highly unequal municipalities will coordinate to fight off an imminent threat of land invasions. Common tactics to repel invasions include organized violence and intimidation (Bruno 2003), leveraging influence with the police or judiciary to break up squatter settlements and make land invasions more costly and difficult, and campaigns of disinformation about the effects of land reform (Costa 2012). In an egregious recent case, the son of Senator Ivo Cassol used a helicopter of the state government to shoot at a settlement of 200 families squatting on land near his property in Alta Floresta (Costa 2012).…”

Reframing agrarian citizenship: Land, life and power in Brazil

“…The link between land possession and political power has been a formative part of Brazilian society since the colonial period (Brannstrom, 2001;Bruno, 2003;Faoro, 2001;Freyre, 1953;Holston, 1991Holston, , 2008Leal, 1977Leal, [1949). As a result, full appreciation of the new forms of agrarian citizenship emerging in Brazil today requires a reflection on how territorial administration has been related to citizenship status, the exercise of political power and access to material and political rights in Brazil's past.…”

“…Civil rights were granted to landless populations not by the state, but by the senhores da terra (landed elite) through the social relation of ''coronelismo'', or the hierarchical political relations between the rural elite and other rural people, especially those without land. Coronelismo emerged as a combination of violence and patronage as a way to control labor and votes, enforcing widespread exclusion from land ownership and active political participation, and leading to the social exclusion of a reserve labor force comprised of freed slaves and dispossessed peasants lacking capital to invest in expansion (Bruno, 2003;Faoro, 2001;Leal, 1977Leal, [1949; Mendoça, 1998).…”