| OAKLAND, CA - August 18 - Saying "enough" to widespread poverty and hunger, Brazil's most important grassroots movement, the landless workers movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra, MST) is taking charge of its own destiny by organizing thousands of Brazil's landless peasants to farm idle land.
The first book on the MST to be published in the United States, To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil closely investigates the history, the accomplishments, and the aspirations of the MST, Brazil's largest and fastest growing popular movement which rose from Brazil's poorest of the poor and has caught the attention of Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Christian Science Monitor.
From Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, to the poorest regions of the Northeast, To Inherit the Earth details how the MST has successfully occupied and farmed unproductive land, forcing the government to award more than 20 million acres of land to 350,000 MST families since the movement's founding in 1984.
"Although MST members often have had to confront seemingly insurmountable obstacles to gain land, the MST strategy of land occupations does not usually break the law but instead is based on forcing the government to comply with the law," said Dr. Angus Wright, who with Dr. Wendy Wolford, co-authored the book.
To Inherit the Earth describes how wealthy landholders grabbed land and sat on it, halting economic development and trapping millions in poverty. In response, Brazil enacted laws requiring that land "serve its social function" and the government promised redistribution to poor families. But these reforms were never enforced because of the tremendous power wealthy landholders held over the government.
"Faced with an intransigent government fencing for the landlords, the rural landless decided the best way to achieve land reform is to occupy the land," said Wright. "This forced the government to act on its 'social function' principle and hand over the land to the rural workers. Now significant agrarian reform has begun and is spreading throughout Brazil".
But all this has come at a cost. Many families who participated in land occupations not only have to face down the police and the military, but also gunmen hired by landlords. They have suffered imprisonment, beatings and murder, with several hundred MST leaders assassinated during these struggles.
Nevertheless the MST strategy has been successful. Now it is playing a key role in redefining the debate over land reform. The MST has gained considerable political power as well, helping to elect the former labor leader Luis Inácio ("Lula") da Silva as President of Brazil.
"The future is brightening a bit for the Brazil's poor and landless and while most MST settlers would agree that 'now's the time,' they also understand that this is just the beginning of the second step constructing a genuinely egalitarian Brazil," said Wright.
The book is published by the think tank Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy. For more information on the book, click here.
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