Right lost shame after June 2013, says sociologist – 06/16/2023 – Politics

Sociologist Maria da Glória Gohn, a retired Unicamp professor and a reference in social movement studies in Brazil, says that the June 2013 protests profoundly altered the forms of mobilization and reconfigured the public debate.

“More structured groups of the left experienced a certain disarticulation and, on the other hand, there was a significant advance of groups of the right and conservatives, who lost, as some said, shame and took to the streets, because before there were almost no protests from this field” , she says to Sheet.

According to the professor, June bequeathed the rise of activism —more autonomous, with networking and valuing bodily experience in the defense of causes—, as opposed to the militancy model —made by movements and unions, with more vertical structures and predictable agendas.

The new scenario led to the proliferation of collectives of the most varied themes, in the opinion of the researcher, who scrutinized the phenomenon in books released in the last decade. “With the collectives, a new political culture was established in the field of social participation.”

Continuous and undeciphered process

For Maria da Glória, the impacts of June 2013 on the political, social and cultural system are still being mapped and discussed.

“And we are still under its effects, far from being fully understood. The demonstrations impacted society and the government’s agenda. After a decade, they are still an enigma to be deciphered”, he says.

“There are different interpretations of June 2013, ranging from exaltation to total condemnation”, she continues, mentioning currents that link the episode to demonstrations exploded abroad since 2008, the emergence of dissatisfied conservative middle layers and international cultural wars.

“In this dispute over meanings, I join the current that saw the demonstrations as a contradictory and differentiated phenomenon according to the region of Brazil, but an important milestone in the Brazilian sociopolitical scene of protests and public demonstrations for new forms of action, performance, strategies, repertoires, organization possibilities and intense use of new technologies via social networks and blogs.”

New forms of organization

“That changed the scene of associativism”, summarizes the academic. The new environment “helped renew popular movements and interfered in forms of political participation and citizen involvement in the debate”.

“The picture changed and began to highlight activism as central, in an organized participation through digital channels, and not traditional militancy, with face-to-face and planned relationships, as was the case when acting in parties or unions.”

Maria da Glória recalls that horizontal structures with an autonomous profile, such as the one used by the MPL (Movimento Passe Livre), emerged in 2013.

“This activism is very different from militancy in which there is a hierarchy, a president, a series of previously planned actions to be developed. These new activists defend causes, value experience, want to experience everything bodily”, he explains.

Proliferation of collectives

The context led to the formation of collectives, an organization format that was favored mainly by the youth that awoke at that time, in contrast to the model of classic social movements.

“With 2013, a new political culture was established in the field of social participation. Many young people got to know the collective form by participating in the June demonstrations”, she analyzes.

The collectives, he adds, “are easy to create, predominate in universities and have given shelter to identity and gender causes, in addition to themes such as the environment, urban sociability, entrepreneurship”.

Others settled on the right, in the wake of groups such as the MBL (Movimento Brasil Livre) and Nas Ruas.

The next step was the migration of participants from collectives to political-electoral life. Maria da Glória cites the cases of Bancada Ativismo, in São Paulo, and das Graças, in Belo Horizonte, with collective candidacies aligned with identity agendas. “There are several examples of activist groups that started to innovate in the public sphere, in the field of so-called contestatory associations.”

Who went and who stayed on the streets

The teacher emphasizes the strong presence of young people in June. Other segments stood out, such as representatives of the middle class and the “precariat”, the mass of informal workers without social and labor rights.

For the specialist, June 2013 led to the resumption of the use of public space by right-wing forces. The opposite side initially experienced a retreat.

“More structured groups on the left experienced a certain disarticulation and, on the other hand, there was a significant advance of groups on the right and conservatives, who lost, as some said, their shame and took to the streets, because before there were almost no protests from this field. “

Maria da Glória cites sparse articulations from previous years, such as demonstrations by the União Democrática Ruralista with the banner of the right to property, in the 1980s and 1990s, and the Cansei movement, in 2007, a reaction to the chaos in the air system, to corruption, to violence and, indirectly, to the Lula government.

“They were punctual, rare things. After June 2013, the most frequent thing ended up being this. Every day you see these conservative manifestations”, she adds, referring mainly to the recent period, with the mobilizations of supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

violence and coup

The professor sees the demonstrations of ten years ago as a sign of a resurgence of violence, to a greater or lesser extent, in the political struggle.

“Violence appears in the streets, with the black blocs, and then the anti-democratic acts from 2016 refer to the construction of an identity in which antagonism and hatred are important ideological factors to create unity and identity”, he says.

“The attack on the Brazilian State, on January 8, by conservative groups, was a demonstration that the policy of antagonism and hatred developed in recent years was strongly present, demonstrating that the current social conflict is very different from that of June 2013 and leagues away from the social conflicts in the era of popular participationism in the 1980s.”

Maria da Glória is related, however, to the connection of the facts that unfolded in the last decade. “Today there is a whole current that tries to say that, with that enthusiasm of 2013, the beginning of the strengthening of anti-democratic groups was not seen. I do not agree with that. I think that 2013 is not an isolated cut, it is contradictory.”

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X-RAY | Maria da Gloria Marcondes Gohn, 76

PhD in political science from USP, did a post-doctorate in sociology at the New School of University (New York) and worked as a researcher in Italy, Chile, the USA, Argentina and Spain. She is a retired professor at Unicamp and a senior visiting professor at UFABC. She has published more than 20 books on social movements and has addressed June 2013 in her most recent works, such as “Participation and Democracy in Brazil: From the 1960s to the Post-June 2013 Impacts” (Editora Vozes)