A term first coined by Henri Lefebvre (1996, pp. 63–184), the right to the city is an abstract formulation denoting an imperative for the city’s marginalized to become part of its production, and for urban development to meet basic social needs before serving in the interest of capital accumulation. In Brazil, however, this urban theoretical abstraction has been putatively grounded by an alliance of social movements, squatters, NGOs, and academics that ensured it was enshrined in the 2001 City Statute of Brazil’s constitution – a statute emphasizing democratic urban management, the city’s ‘social’ function as a priority for urban development, and the well-being of urban inhabitants. As utopian as this sounds, this constitutional protection of the right to the city emerged from the strange collision of neoliberalism and democratization that has been key to Brazilian developmentalism since the 1990s (Harvey 2012, p. xiv).
The expansion of political expression through Brazilian urban space took root much earlier, however, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when social movements in São Paulo and beyond brought residents from the peripheries into the political arena. Their appearance followed the ‘opening up’ or abertura of political debate in Brazil, where, after the 1964 military takeover, citizen groups disappeared. The process of abertura began in 1977 and mobilized diverse sectors of the population, including women’s groups and trade unions, to make their demands heard and generate spaces for opposition movements. Their mobilizations took to city squares, their claims for rights were incorporated in the constitution, and their ways of organizing became central to insurgent forms of citizenship that enabled a transition towards Brazil’s modern political landscape (Holston 2009). Social movements also provoked qualitative changes to urban space, forcing the expansion of infrastructures and public services.
Despite the ubiquity of urban political expression, as Caldeira (2012) affirms, such spatial movements have by no means been mainstream. Practitioners of these tactics typically constitute a minority of São Paulo’s residents, and by and large stem from the working class. In this regard, 2013 was quite different. Many saw the June protests as an inheritor of earlier urban movements and their spatial tactics, and some even believed that the manifestações were a prelude to a new workers’ struggle and movement in Brazil. However, the demographics of those taking part in São Paulo’s 2013 protests were radically different and counter this perception. According to Datafolha statistics, the relative majority of protestors were under the age of 25 (53%), over 88% were under the age of 35, 43% held a university degree (in a city where only 18% have been to university), and 80% were currently studying for a degree. Furthermore, about half of the protestors had a family income of more than 5 times the minimum salary and over 20% received more than 10 times the minimum salary. The manifestações’ agents were not the city’s marginalized and working class, but young professionals and students; they were part of Brazil’s expanding middle class forged by the social and economic reforms implemented during the two decades before before the protests by the Workers’ Party (see Chapter 9). The manifestações and their particular urban interventions, therefore, represent different class and generational participation than those previously associated with spatial and social tactics in Brazilian cities. As Sader (2013) wrote at the time, while Brazil’s social movements have traditionally been linked, primarily and above all, to the working class and marginalized, the 2013 manifestações ‘reveal a new generation and a new challenge.’
It must be stressed, however, that these demographics were not uniform throughout Brazil. As Chaui asserts, ‘the demonstrations were not homogeneous.’ Indeed, André Reyes Novaes and Mariana Lamego (Chapter 4) reveal that many students participating in the protests in Rio were not middle class but rather from poor, working-class backgrounds. Students from their own university who took part in the manifestações were born and raised in underprivileged areas of the city. As members of the Movimento Estudantil Popular Revolucionário (Popular Revolutionary Student Movement), these students had already taken part in numerous protests before 2013 and regarded the June Days as the ‘product of previous actions and mobilizations.’ The manifestações, then, were not a bolt out of the blue for all Brazilians. For some it was the outcome of dissatisfactions felt especially amongst young people, including the young working class.
In the early stages of the manifestações, the MPL’s demands were dismissed and their protests largely condemned. Journalists especially attacked the protests and labelled the demonstrators as terrorists. Politicians too denounced the demonstrations, with Geraldo Alckmin, the PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia Brasiliera – Brazilian Social Democracy Party) governor of the state of São Paulo, describing participants as ‘vandals’ and ‘troublemakers.’ Such condemnation exposed an authoritarian streak running through the Brazilian establishment. For many, this was confirmed on 13 June, when the state’s military police reacted to the mostly peaceful demonstrations with extreme violence. Using pepper spray, plastic bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades, the police indiscriminately attacked fleeing protestors and bystanders. They arrested demonstrators and hunted stragglers through the streets, injuring many, including several journalists, some of whom were shot. Police brutality fuelled protest on the streets, which escalated to incorporate grievances about the impunity of police and politicians, as well as a lack of investment in basic urban services – transport, health, education – at a time when overspending on mega-events was all too visible (Figure 1.3). The Brazil as an ‘emerging economy’ narrative was not incidental here, as people expressed frustration that they were not benefiting economically, thus connecting these global events to predatory forms of accumulation by dispossession that people, including the middle class, were beginning to feel (Harvey 2003).
Figure 1.3 ‘When your child gets ill take him to the stadium.’ São Paulo 2013.
The protests thus became diffuse and leaderless, coordinated largely via social media, thereby raising important issues around politics and representation in Brazil. Unlike the 1970s and 1980s, protestors were not united by party-political agendas or an ideology. In fact Brazil’s June Days signified a move away from party political organization. As Barbara Szaniecki (2013) has written, they articulated a collective desire for ‘direct democracy’ versus ‘representative democracy.’ They expressed popular discontent at an electoral politics that had alienated a ‘political class’ from the people. Given that the then governing Workers’ Party has a history of political organization that is so tethered to the street, this is significant. In 2013 the people on the streets were turning their backs on the government, on traditional party politics, and on representative democracy.
This rejection of traditional party politics, including the PT, was exacerbated by political corruption. In 2005, while Lula was in office, reports surfaced of payments made to deputies in return for a pledge to support the government with their votes in Congress. The votes-for-cash scandal, dubbed the Mensalão (big monthly payment), led to an investigation that uncovered a number of construction companies who had bribed or given kick-backs to politicians from numerous political parties in return for profitable contracts. In 2012, 25 politicians, business executives, and operatives were convicted of fraud, with 12 of them receiving prison sentences. By 2013 however, most of those convicted had yet to start their prison sentences, fuelling anger regarding political impunity. The ongoing trial for the Mensalão reached its zenith in the early months of 2013. The trial, which was widely televised, especially in its final stages, fed public unrest over fraud in Brasília, with anger particularly pronounced amongst the more educated Brazilians. In the first six months of 2013, the number of Brazilians who said they viewed corruption as the country’s most pressing issue tripled. This anger played a part in the protests of that year. Political corruption was cited as a key reason for the manifestações, with three-quarters of the 4,717 protestors interviewed by Datafolha on 7 July that year declaring that they wanted the prison sentences against the people convicted in the Mensalão scandal
