Markkinadiktatuuria ja fasismia vastaan - Face Fascism and Market Dictatorship
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Fabio Picchi - yksi englanninkielisen Ympäristö Vastavirta webinaarin alustajista on ammatiltaan ohjelmoija ja Brasilian Causa Operária - työväenluokan vallankumouksellisen puolueen jäsen. Picchi on syntynyt São Paulossa, Brasiliassa jossa hän asui, opiskeli ja työskenteli kunnes muutti pysyvästi Helsinkiin tammikuussa 2019.
Fabio Picchi kiinnostui politiikasta Brasilian kasvavien poliittisten taistelujen myötä, jotka johtivat vallankaappaukseen presidentti Dilma Rousseffia vastaan. Siitä alkoi Picchin tie kohti jokapäiväistä poliittista aktivismia ja puolueen jäsenyyttä. Tänään Picchi rakentaa puolueen kansainvälistä toimintasolua ulkomailla asuvien brasilialaisten kanssa.
Vapaasti englanninkielisestä haastattelusta suomennettu ja lyhennetty
Bussilippu-vallankumous
Taistelu julkisen liikenteen hintojen korottamista vastaan aloitti Fabio Picchin poliittisen työn ja vei hänet heti kaduille ihmisten joukkoon.
- Minun ensimmäinen käytännön poliittinen toimintani alkoi São Paulossa vuonna 2013. Tapahtumat veivät minut kaduille muiden nuorten ihmisten kanssa protestoimaan julkisen liikenteen hintojen nousua vastaan. Poliisi tukahdutti väkivaltaisesti tämän liikkeen, mikä vain kiihdytti asiaa, joka lopulta uhkasi paikallishallintoakin, sanoo Picchi
Porvarillinen diktatuuri
Presidentti Dilma Rousseffiin kohdistunut vallankaappaus avasi Fabio Picchin silmät sille mitä politiikka käytännössä tarkoitti. Picchille oli vallankaappauksen jälkeen päivän selvää, ettei Brasiliassa ollut demokratiaa.
- Elämme porvarillisessa diktatuurissa. Ilman laillista perustaa poliittinen eliitti kumosi 55 miljoonan brasilialaisen äänet. Tämän tilanteen keskellä ja kun otetaan huomioon edellinen poliittinen polarisaatio vuonna 2013, opin, että poliittinen valta on taistelun tulos, ja että jos jää vain kotiin tarkkailemaan tilannetta, kaikki meidän oikeudet otetaan meiltä pois, kuvailee Picchi
Pabio Picchi on Brasilian Causa Operária - työväenluokan vallankumouksellisen puolueen jäsen. Puolue on hyvin organisoitunut ja sen jäsnet tietävät hyvin tehtävänsä.
- Minusta tuli jäsen puolueen yhtenäisen ajattelun vuoksi. Pyrimme työväenluokan itsenäiseen poliittiseen voimaan. Muiden vasemmistopuolueiden yhteistyöpolitiikka sai minua etääntymään heidän tavoitteistaan. Puolueen omalla medialla on tärkeä paikka : sanoisin, että meillä on Brasilian vakiintunein partisaani-lehdistö, jossa on digitaalinen ja painettu sanomalehti ja 24 tunnin YouTube-kanava, jossa on useita uusia ohjelmia päivittäin.
Brasilialaisen puolueen kaikilla jäsenillä on kolme keskeistä perustehtävää; sanomalehden myynti, osallistuminen viikoittaiseen osaston kokoukseen ja jäsenmaksun maksaminen joka kuukausi.
- Ensimmäiset askeleeni ennen kuin aloitin yhä enemmän toimintaa, olivat kolme asiaa, jotka jokainen jäsen tekee; myy puoluelehteä, osallistuu osaston kokouksiin ja maksaa joka kuukasi jäsenmäksun Näiden perustehtävien jälkeen olen alkanut avustaa puolueen lehdessä kirjoittamalla artikkeleita ja lisäksi olen auttanut tekniikan kysymyksissä
Minusta tuntuu siltä, että mitä enemmän osallistun, sitä helpompaa minun on puhua ja ajatella politiikkaa. Minusta tuntuu, että mitä enemmän panostan puoluetyöhön , sitä enemmän haluan sitä tehdä, koska olen vakuuttunut, että rakennamme tehokasta työkalua, jota voidaan käyttää työväenluokan taistelun hyväksi.
Puolue yhdistää työn ja yhteistyön toveriesi kanssa. Kokemukseni muiden Brasilian vasemmistolaisten puolueiden kanssa oli, että he eivät olleet kiinnostuneita työstäni tai ajatuksiasi: he halusivat vain joka toinen vuosi vaaleissa minun ääneni, kritisoi Picchi.
Kansainvälinen kampanja - Fora Bolsonaro
Fabio Picchi on yksi Fora Bolsonaro -komitean avainaktivisteista Helsingissä. Kampanjalla vastustetaan Brasilian uusliberalistisen presidentin politiikkaa. Tällä hetkellä Suomen lisäksi Fora Bolsonaro -komiteoita on Ranskassa, Portugalissa, Isossa-Britanniassa, Itävallassa ja Saksassa. Aktiivisia tovereita on myös Japanissa ja Yhdysvalloissa.
- Mitä tulee täällä Suomessa sijaitsevaan komiteaan, kamppailemme edelleen jatkuvan toiminnan aikaansaamiseksi, ja minun on sanottava, että olen saattanut ottaa liikaa lautaselleni kerralla. Mutta minusta tuntuu, että meillä on vähintään 20 edistyksellisen brasilialaisen verkosto, jotka ovat aktiivisesti mukana kampanjassa ja toivottavasti voimme jatkaa toimintamme entistä paremmin ensi vuonna. Taistelu Bolsonaroa, vallankaappausta vastaan ja Lulan poliittisten oikeuksien puolesta jatkuu edelleen, vakuuttaa Fabio Picchi.
Face Fascism and Market Dictatorship
In “Environment Counter Current Webinar” related to environment, human rights and the fight against far right brazilian activist and party militant Fabio Picchi opens debate about alliances made with far ringt, currently important questions like how the progressive forces are struggling against the far-right and what is the importance of standing for "Fora Bolsonaro" and the restoration of Lula's political rights right now.
The Environment Counter Current webinar 5.12. at 16.00 O'clock CET
You can join the debate in FB through this link
Speakers at the English - language webinar will be Liisa Taskinen, Vice - President of the Communist Party of Finland, Olga Athaniti, actress and radio producer, leader of the European Left Migration Working Group and member of the Greek left - wing party SYRIZA and Fabio Picchi Programmer and Worker's Cause Party (Partido da Causa Operária - PCO) militant. The facilitator of the event is Tiina Sandberg Secretary General of the Communist Party of Finland.
Fabio Picchi – one the key speakers at the Environmen Counter Current webinar is a programmer and Worker's Cause Party (Partido da Causa Operária - PCO) militant. Born in São Paulo, Brazil. Lived, studied and worked there until relocated permanently to Helsinki on January 2019.
Fabio Picchi got interested in politics with the growing political struggles in Brazil that led to the coup against president elected Dilma Rousseff. Since then he got closer and closer to politicsa and Worker's Cause Party until he decided to become member of the party. Now Picchi is working to build international branch of Worker's Cause Party with Brazilians living abroad.
Bus Ticket Revolution
Fight against higher public transport fares started Fabio Picchi´s political work and took him among the people into the streets.
- On 2013 I had my first practical political activity and took it to the streets with many young people to protest against a raise in public transportation fares in São Paulo. That movement was violently repressed by the police, which caused a popular explosion that ended up threatening the local government building, says Picchi
According to Fabio Picchi the movement was cooped by right-wingers willing to seize the Worker’s Party government and Dilma. Picchi explains that a local protest in São Paulo was artificially expanded into a nationwide protest against the Dilma’s government.
- There were even vague demands against the World Cup (in the country of football!). It was the sign of a new way for Brazilian conservative politicians to do their politics
The movement was about public transportation fares became a media boosted campaign against corruption which would plague the 2014 elections, in spite of Dilma’s victory, and would end up in the coup of 2016.
Bourgeois Dictatorship
For Fabio Picchi the coup was a major point in his understanding of politics. It finally became crystal clear to Picchi that there was no democracy.
- We live under bourgeois dictatorship. Without any legal basis, the votes of almost 55 million Brazilians were overruled by the elites that did not care anymore about the appearance of a Constitutional Regime. Amidst this situation and given the previous polarisation in 2013 I finally learned that political power is the result of a struggle and if I comfortably stayed at home and watched that situation, every right we had was going to be taken away, explains Picchi.
Fabio Picchi is member of Workers Cause party (Partido da Causa Operária - PCO) well organized militant organization where member know their tasks.
- I became member because of our coherent position. We strive for the independent political power of the working class. I was a bit thrown away by the class collaboration politics of other left parties. Our press was also very helpful: I would say we have the most well stablished partisan press in Brazil with digital and printed newspaper and a 24h YouTube channel with several new programs every day.
But other than that, and, most importantly, we are a militant organisation. I would say that this is what made me stay. There is a lot of work for the militants and we have to take care of our own funding. I can really feel our revolutionary party being built!
In Workers Cause party every member has 3 duties; selling the newspaper, participating in the weekly branch meeting and paying a monthly contribution.
- My first steps before I started taking more and more activities were the three things every militant is doing; selling the newspaper, participating in the meetings and paying my monthly contributions to the party. After that I have been writing articles to our newspaper and helping with technology.
I felt that the more I participated, the more it was easier to talk and think about politics. From my perspective, the more I contribute, the more I want to do because I really feel that we’re building a powerful tool to be used in favour of the struggle of working class.
I feel that what ties a party together is work and collaboration with your comrades. My experience with other parties in the Brazilian left was that they didn’t want neither your work nor your thoughts: all they wanted was your vote every 2 years, criticizes Picchi.
Communist and Internationalist
Fabio Picchi is working to build PCO international branch with Brazilians living abroad.
- This is a very tough mission. It still looks quite hard to accomplish but we’re getting there, step by step. I believe that there are close to four thousand Brazilians living in Finland according to the last census but I feel that there are many more to come! Since I moved, I know of at least four Brazilian friends that came to work in the game industry!
Since I didn’t know the community that well, I tried to interact with people I didn’t know through Facebook. Step by step we’re trying to solidify our group here to denounce the coup and Bolsonaro’s policies in Brazil but it is a challenge to gather everyone around the topic since it is so far away. Whenever possible, I try to connect it with Finnish politics.
Workers Cause party (Partido da Causa Operária - PCO) stands for independent, revolutionary working-class politics as the means to overthrow the capitalist system that more and more struggles to justify its existence.
- Our next steps are still the same as the previous steps: growing the party. More specifically, as of now, we are trying to absorb the people that came in touch with us willing to become militants. We are still very small (we have close to 2 thousand militants) but our organisation is reaching a tipping point in which we need to be able to grow sustainably without losing our internal cohesion. So, I guess that, in the short term, our efforts will be on sustainable growth.
We believe that class consciousness, in the context of the class struggle, is the result of the workers struggling for their own interests. In that sense, I feel that both for me and many others the events I described in 2013 and 2016; Lula’s arrest in 2018; and the ongoing coup in Brazil are a school that made the situation clearer. The more polarised politics are, the better it is for the revolutionary party: our politics become self-evident, says Picchi.
Meaning of Revolution
Fabio Picchi thinks that revolutionary means that people defend the dictatorship of the proletariat, as opposing to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in which people are living right now.
- By being revolutionary we mean that we stand for the absolute power of the working class and the abolition of the private property of the means of production. Of course, that does not mean expropriating your local bakery (even if I think that this will eventually be surpassed by a superior form of social production) but it means expropriating the big monopolies, imperialism, a force that acts as a parasite in our current society.
It is a matter of survival and it is becoming more and more evident in the covid-19 times. The working class displays its power spontaneously all over the world and the only missing part for a revolution to take place is the construction of an International Workers Party that can organise and synchronise these efforts. We strive to build that. As Trotsky put it: “The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership”, says Picchi.
EU and Austerity
Fabio Picchi has been living in Finland since 2019. Not long time ago there was a manifestation against EU. It was organized by far right and nationalists. Also, some leftist protesting EU took part in the demonstration.
- I have noticed that some members of the left shamefully protested against the EU with the far right hahaha, yeah - in our understanding this is terrible politics. However, one must not flee from the debate: the EU is an imperialist organisation and it is a powerful class tool being currently used to crush the living conditions of the European workers.
Our critique of the EU is diametrically opposed to the far right one, but if the far right is the only one addressing the issue, the revolutionary movement can lose a lot of ground. We must learn the lesson from Jeremy Corbyn’s evasive position regarding Brexit pressured both by the liberal sector of Labour and by the likes of Nigel Farage. Just because the far right says something it doesn’t mean that we can’t say it, after all, our positions and theirs are only superficially the same.
The far right here looks quite scary for me, especially with the Nazi symbols. The True Finn’s Party is actually a dangerous development as well. I was at an antifascist protest last year and saw their supporters carrying torches (and people told me they weren’t even the real far right).
So, I would say that the right is much more prepared than the left on that end. The liberal politicians in power have already announced austerity for the next periods and they do nothing about the job cuts.
I would say that the classist left movement must reconnect with its origins and struggle for: less working hours (essential to currently fight against unemployment), mandatory equal pay to locals and immigrants (to remove the poison in the relationship between international and Finnish workers) and also for the companies to show their accounts before cutting jobs (if jobs are being taken, we demand to know that there was no other way).
There are other examples, but I feel that we must present an alternative for the current situation that most affects the working class, otherwise our existence does not justify itself.
Of course, the youth is another important aspect as they younger have not taken created roots in this putrid system and are naturally willing to put up a fight against it, says Picchi.
This is how fascism should be faced
Radical left declares itself always as internationalist and because of that it is always urgent to look for progressive news in the global left. Fabio Picchi says that we are living in mixed situations.
- In Brazil, we have what we like to put as “Biden politics”. The parliamentary left is joining forces with the traditional right-wingers that gave rise to the coup and to Bolsonaro in a popular front against Bolsonaro. They are attempting to use the disease to cure the disease.
In a much better shape are the forces of Bolivia and Chile. However, due to the lack of leadership, their movement is struggling to meet it´s goles.
Evo Morales is still not allowed to return to politics pretty much in the same way as Lula in Brazil, and the masses were handed Lucho Arce which will be way more moderate than Evo was. In Chile, the proposed Constituent Assembly was assembled with the consent of the right wing and two thirds of the votes are required to approve anything. That means that the politicians that are still a legacy of the Pinochet years have veto power. What we see in Latin America is that, where the masses have moved, they are being manoeuvred to an institutional dead end.
In other words, we totally support the popular mobilisation and feel that this is how fascism should be faced. However, one must not fall for the trap of the “democratic” right-wing (that actually gave birth and supported fascism!). Independence in classist politics is key, underlines Picchi.
International campaing - Fora Bolsonaro
Fabio Picchi is one of the key activists in Fora Bolsonaro Committee in Helsinki. Currently besides Finland there are Fora Bolsonaro Committees in France, Portugal, UK, Austria and Germany. There are active comrades as well in Japan and in the US.
- As for the Committee here in Finland, we’re still struggling to get continuous activities and I must say that I may have taken too much into my plate at once. But I feel that we have a network of at least 20 progressive Brazilians that are closer and hopefully we can resume our activities in better shape next year! The struggle against Bolsonaro, against the coup and for Lula’s political rights still goes on, convinces Fabio Picchi.
Environment Counter Current speakers
Olga Athaniti
Actress and radio producer. Born in Athens, Greece. Member of the Central Commitee of SYRIZA and the Executive Board of the European Left Party.
Liisa Taskinen
Medical Doctor, Activist and Vice-Chairperson of the Communist Party of Finland
Fabio Picchi
Programmer and Worker's Cause Party (Partido da Causa Operária - PCO) militant. Born in São Paulo, Brazil. Lived, studied and worked there until relocated permanently to Helsinki on January 2019.
Counter Current Events Organizers
Different civil societies organizations (NGO`s), activists, artists and individual actors together with the Democratic Civic Association (DSL) European Left (EL), The Communist Party of Finland (SKP) and Tiedonantaja newspaper open progressive debate and Counter Current thinking on peace, culture and environment. Events take place in Finland and seminars take place in web
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Counter current means progressive Initiatives, panel discussions of anti-austerity policy – alternative European voices for peace, culture and environment. Counter Current challenges current hegemonical thinking, militarism, commercialism and political elites' tools to combat climate change.
Counter Current strengthens voices for peace building and alternative European antimilitary appeals for societies without weapons of mass destruction and wars. Counter Current strengthens voices for antiracist initiatives and participatory democracy for societies where citizen rights are real human rights. Counter Current strengthens voices of artists and cultural workers for societies where culture contributes to everybody's wellbeing, and is collectively created.
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