Pedagogia do Oprimido, Paulo Freire

What is lost during dictatorial regimes?
Freedom of expression, communication, production, social participation, democratic management and right to the city, the country. But not only.
In dictatorial times, the country turns against his own society. If, in Brazil 24 years ago, the Civil Military Dictatorship left irreparable losses related to the fight against illiteracy, exiling the educator Paulo Freire, in other countries, the exile still aborts political struggles beyond measure.

The year 2015 has barely begun and already is marked by countless deaths of citizens who try to cross the Mediterranean Sea escaping from dictatorships that devastate their countries. About 1.800 people, coming from Africa and the Middle East, died in the Mediterranean this year in an attempt to reach a “safe haven” where the right to life is respected. Men and women were forced to flee from countries such as Syria, Mali, Eritrea and Somalia, for example, expelled from their territory by war, political persecution, religious and ethnic.

According to data released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 218.000 refugees and immigrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea in 2014. The illegality of migration act of this huge number of people puts them in the category of refugees. Played on their own, they leave their countries in order to prolong their lives, threatened in their countries of origin. Situation similar to that experienced by Paulo Freire when he was forced to leave Brazil, in September 1964.

Paulo Freire, forced immigrant

Born in Recife, September 19, 1921, Paulo Freire has always been “very acclimated to the northeastern culture,” as his son Lutgardes Freire tells. At 10 years old, the educator moved to Jabotão and grew up there. He tells, in reports made to Moacir Gadotti, personal friend of Freire, that as he saw his body grow, also felt his passion for knowledge increase.

In January 1964 Paulo Freire launched in Brasilia the National Literacy Program – NAP (see more details in the Bulletin Unifreire edition 3 – 2014, the year of cinquentenários). The program was the translation of passions, of loveliness and solidarity of the teacher towards his homeland. It had previwed to achieve five million illiterated brazilians, however, 83 days after its signing, settled in Brazil the dictatorial regime and, with it, the persecution of all those who were engaged with ideas contrary to the order of the day. From April to September 1964, Paulo Freire was forced to go to the Rio de Janeiro to meet military police investigations. Thus, under threat of being arrested and tortured, the educator exiled himself in Bolivia at first.

Freire’s forced migration caused enormous and immeasurable losses to the social, cultural and educational evolution of Brazilian society. The political struggles of which he was in were abandoned and suffocated by Dictatorial Regime. The National Program for Literacy conceived and coordinated by Freire was annulled, passing Brazil to be directed by an authoritarian, violent government.

After a coup in Bolivia, shortly after his arrival, the teacher went to Chile, where he lived for five years with his children and wife. Freire also lived in America for eleven months, but was in Switzerland where he remained for more time to return to Brazil. He lived there for ten years. Despite the adversity, Paulo Freire followed seeking to transform reality, to transform the world. He worked on several projects. He was, among others, adviser to Desarollo Agropecuario Institute and the Ministry of Education of Chile, UNESCO consultant, university professor in the US, Special Adviser of the Department of the World Council of Churches Education.

By the World Council of Churches, he walked trhough Africa, Asia, Oceania and America, except Brazil, where he ran the risk of becoming a political prisoner. He developed projects in countries that had just achieved independence, such as Cape Verde, Angola and Guinea-Bissau. In Guinea he developed a youth and adult literacy project that significantly marked the educational process of the country, as detailed in Memory section of Bulletin Unifreire number 4, September 2014.

During the exile , Freire and colleague of IDAC developed an important adult education project in Guinea Bissau

The requirement to change country and adapt repeatedly to new languages ​​and cultures, imposed to the family of Paulo Freire not only abandoning their land and its people, but also the face of prejudice and discrimination situations. In talks with Frei Beto, Freire said that exile was deeply teaching. Being forced to live in other countries, the educator had a chance to understand himself and understand Brazil better. He reports:

“It was just getting away from it, worried about it, I wondered about it. And when he asked me about it, I wondered what they did with other Brazilians, thousands of Brazilians of the young generation and my generation. Was taking away what I did, to take the interim context, I could better understand what I did and I could better prepare myself to continue doing something out of my context and also I prepare for a possible return to Brazil. ”
Excerpt from a conversation with Frei Betto, taken from the book “The school called life” (pp 56-8.) – In Paulo Freire: A Biobibliography.

In the video below, his youngest son, Lutgardes Freire tells us about the experience of exile in a child’s perspective. It reports, for example, which was called “Lut – garbage” in the United States.

Relearning Brazil

“Sixteen years of absence require a learning and greater intimacy with Brazil today. I came to relearn Brazil. ”
(Paulo Freire, still at the airport upon his return to Brazil In Paulo Freire:. Biobibliography one.)

The return of Paulo Freire in Brazil was a historic moment for education in Brazil. After several attempts to get his passport in Brazilian consular representations in different countries, Paulo Freire finally gets the document thanks to a writ of mandamus.

In June 1980, at age 57, Paulo Freire landed at Viracopos airport in Campinas, definitely returning to the country he had left in 64, under the command of the military. His desire was to resume the functions at the University of Pernambuco, but the restrictions still imposed prevented. He settled in São Paulo. He accepted an invitation to teach at the Faculty of Education at Unicamp, in Campinas and soon after joined the Postgraduate Studies Program in Education (supervision and curriculum) at PUC / SP.

Newspaper story about the return of Freire .

Paulo Freire participated in the founding of the Vereda – Center for Studies in Education, also in São Paulo, whose goal was to develop research, provide advice and act in teacher education dedicated to the practice of popular education. He involves thus the movements of teachers, popular education movements and the struggle of the working class with young educators, valuing them and developing learning work together. He lived moments of great knowledge and productivity throughout her relearning of Brazil.

Veiled losses, forced departures

Impossible to analyze Freire’s exile in comparison to illegal immigration in the Mediterranean. The teacher returned to Brazil in 1979 and was warmly greeted by family and friends, with the task of “re-learn” their country, as reported at the time. But it is not the same way 1.800 people may have their destinations narrated. The brutality of authoritarian regimes in their countries, in addition to low travel conditions of this population led them to a path of no return.

For the 218.000 immigrants who have succeeded in their crossings by the Mediterranean Sea, it is not difficult to predict the course of their lives. With strong xenophobic wave plaguing Europe since the 2008 crisis, immigrants, legal and illegal, are considered strange beings to the territory, enemies, people who arrive in order to occupy jobs that could be filled by Europeans. Renegade and illegal, the 218.000 people who try their luck in foreign countries leave their past, their history, their training, their knowledge and often live as paupers in other lands.

Although course, different histories and conditions, a link joins Freire not only to 218.000 illegal immigrants who crossed the Mediterranean in 2014, but all who are expelled from their countries at risk of life: the political struggle.

Just as the exile of the popular educator was prejudicial to combating illiteracy in Brazil, this wound that is felt to date, the diaspora population characteristic of authoritarian countries has also sad consequences for their societies. The reading of the World and the wealth of knowledge that these immigrants bring with them to leave, are losses that set in large “gaps” in the political struggles in favor of the “ragged of the world.”

It is not possible to measure or to count how much each country loses in relation to social and educational development, if we consider the political struggles disrupted when leaders, like Paulo Freire, find themselves forced to migrate to survive.

(Paulo Freire, Genéve, 1971)

2014, the year of the fiftieth anniversaries

In ‘Community Highlight’ section of this bulletin, it was reported the arrival of the manuscripts of the book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” to Brazil. Paulo Freire outlined his writings while he was in exile in Chile in Santiago, during 1968. That same year, the dictatorship was installed in the country and, afraid that the manuscripts were confiscated by the militaries, since it was rumored that the Chilean government was looking for a “subversive and dangerous” text, the educator gave them to Jacques Choncol, director of the Chilean Institute of Agrarian Reform (ICIRA), where Freire worked. In the letter given to Choncol with the book, he refers to the stalker character of civil-military dictatorship that had settled in Brazil in 1964:

Dear friends , Jacques and Maria Edy ,

It has been exactly four years since I came to Chile . I left Elza, our children, I left a little old astonished lady at what seemed impossible to understand .

I left Recife, its rivers, its bridges, its streets with delicious names – Saudade – Union – 7 sins, Creoulas street, the Cry Boy street, Friendship

Street, the Sun Street, Aurora Street. I left the sea of warm water, the wide beaches, the coconut trees .

I left the sellers street: banana and guava candy! I left the smell of the land and the people of the tropics. I left friends, known voices. I left Brazil. I brought Brazil. I arrived (in Chile) suffering the split between my project and my country project.

I found you. I believed in you . I engaged with your commitment INDAP that you have shared.

I wish you received these manuscripts for a book that can not be worthy, but it embodies the profound belief that I have in men , as a simple tribute to whom I greatly admire and cherish .

Santiago,
Spring 68.
Paulo “

Today, fifty years after the establishment of the military government in brazilian territory and after the exile of Paulo Freire, the ‘Memory’ section of this bulletin reminds the educator’s trajectory during the moments preceding the coup of 64, it reminds also the institution of the National Literacy Program from Education and Culture Ministry which lasted 83 days.

The moments preceding the coup and Paulo Freire

João Goulart became president of Brazil in 1961, still in parliamentary regime. In 1963, a feferendum was approved the option of presidentialism and, from this point, a new ministry had been formed. “Jango”‘s mandate was marked, beyond the coup of 64, for policies focused at people considered of lower class. In reality, the early 60s was a hectic time, with fanfare of “subversion of order” made by the national and international dominant class, in face of demonstrations led by urban and rural workers and sections of the middle class, charge of “discipline and hierarchy break” inside the Army and “authority crisis”of the State itself. Amid the political and social upheavals in 1963, Paulo Freire applied, for the first time, his teaching method for young and adults people in Angicos, Rio Grande do Norte.

The experience was considered a success. 300 students were literate in 40 hours. In the presentation of diplomas, it was noticed the presence of General Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco who would have said to Calazans Fernandes: “Young man, you’re getting fat rattlesnakes in these hinterlands”. It was possible to noticefrom there the introduction of the “commonization” fear of the country.
Paulo Freire continued his journey in favor of liberating education, an education that not only literate the student, but also allows them to read the world where he belongs, because “it is not enough to read mechanically ‘Eva saw the grape’. It is necessary to understand what position Eva occupies in her social context, who works to produce grapes and who profits from this work” said the educator.
Thus, on January 21, 1964, João Goulart institutionalized “Paulo Freire Method” through the National Literacy Plan (NLP).

DECREE No. 53,465, FROM JANUARY 21, 1964. (Literal Translation)

It establishes the National Literacy Programme of the Education and Culture Ministry and other provisions.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC, using the powers contained in article 87, paragraph I, of the Constitution, and
CONSIDERING the need for a concertrated national effort to eliminate illiteracy;
CONSIDERING the efforts made so far have not matched the need for mass literacy in the national population;
CONSIDERING that it urges to call for action and to unite all classes of the brazilian people in bringing the alphabet to those most disadvantaged who still are unaware of it;
CONSIDERING the Education and Culture Ministry has been proving, through the Commission of Popular Culture, with the advantage Paulo Freire Literacy System in quick time,

DECREES:

Article 1º – It is established the National Literacy Program, by using Paulo Freire System through the Education and Culture Ministry.
Article 2º – In order to implement the National Literacy Program, under the preceding Article, the Education and Culture Minister is going to form a special committee and take all necessary steps.
Article 3º – Education and Culture Ministry is going to choose two areas in the National Territory for start of the operation of the program mentioned in this Decree.
Article 4º – The Committee of the National Literacy Program is going to call and to utilize the cooperation and services of: student and professional associations, sports associations, societies and neighborhood municipalists, religious organizations, governmental, civil and military associations, employers’ associations, private companies, agencies diffusion, teaching and all mobilized sectors.
Article 5º – It is considered relevant provided services to the mass literacy campaign conducted by the National Literacy Program.
Article 6º – The development and implementation of the National Literacy Program are going to be conducted by the Special Committee, mentioned in Article 2º.
Sole Paragraph – The Minister of Education and Culture will issue in due course, ordinances containing the rules and instructions for operation of the Commission, as well as for development of the Programe.
Article 7º –All opposing dispositions shall be revoked.

Brasília, January, 21 1964; 143º year of Independence and 76º year of the Republic.

JOÃO GOULART
Júlio Furquim Sambaquy

Paulo Freire in Angicos, 30 years after his experience. This photo is from “Photos” section of Paulo Freire Collection.
http://www.acervo.paulofreire.org/xmlui?locale-attribute=en

83 days of the National Literacy Program – the 1964 coup

The program has foreseen the creation of 60.870 culture circles, in all units of the federation, to alphabetize, in the year of its implementation, 1.8342 million illiterates, between 15 and 45 years. The project has actualized by pilot projects in the South, Southeast and Northeast. However, the states have barely initiated the actions of the National Literacy Program (NLP), the civi-military dictatorship was installed in Brazil in April 1, 1964. The military action happened in response to claims by socioeconomic changes that aimed at extending the democracy inside the State and reforms in national capitalism. The coup was supported by brazilian business community, formed by the industry, by the big mass media companies and multinationals, and some sections of the middle class, as small traders and catholic women’s organizations. The coup , which aimed to “restore order in Brazil” destroyed political organizations and suppress social movements. After 14 days of regime , the NLP was repealed.

DECREE N.º 53.886, FROM APRIL 14, 1964. (Literal Translation)

It repeals the decree n.º53.465, January 21, 1964, which established the National Literacy Programme of Education and Culture Ministry.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, as PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC-IN-OFFICE, using the powers set forth in Art. 87, paragraph I, of the Constitution and
CONSIDERING the need to restructure the planning for the elimination of illiteracy in the country;
CONSIDERING further that the material to be used in the National Literacy Population shall present clearly democratic ideas and preserve institutions and our people’s traditions;
CONSIDERING, finally, that the National Department of Education is the agency of the Education and Culture Ministry which is responsible, by law, for the administration of the education affairs,

DECREES:
Article 1.º – It is repealed the Decree nº 53.465, from January 21, 1964, which established the National Literacy Programme of the Education and Culture Ministry.
Article 2.º – The National Department of Education is going to collect all the acquis employed in the implementation of the National Literacy Program, whose resources are going to be also available to that agency.
Article 3.º – The Education and Culture Minister is going to approve the necessary acts for the implementation of this Decree.
Article 4.º This Decree shall enter into force on its publication date.

Brasília, April, 1964; 143º year of Independence and 76º year of the Republic.

RANIERI MAZZILLI
Luiz Antônio da Gama e Silva

The fiftieth anniversary

2014 is an emblematic moment for the freirian community and for Brazil. Five years after Paulo Freire’s official “amnesty”, we live the fiftieth anniversary of the regime that criminalized the educator and made him a political refugee. This year marks the 50th anniversary of both the implementation of the National Literacy Plan, which was based on the Paulo Freire’s experience in Angicos, and its repeal during the civil-military coup of 1964.

“Celebrating is to keep alive the fight and to announce achievements.” (Moacir Gadotti).

Paulo Freire in the Culture Circle in Angicos