Struggles of the Roofless

Boulos, Guilherme

doi:10.64590/hnk

introduction: brazil

The homeless can be found in virtually every country of the world. But perhaps nowhere have they become a mass movement as significant as in Brazil. There, in the country’s largest city, they have found a leader of national impact in Guilherme Boulos. Running for president in 2018, he came tenth with less than 1 per cent of the vote. Running for mayor of São Paulo just two years later, he came second with over two million votes. A charismatic speaker and organizer, Boulos—aged 39—belongs to a generation that has not produced many examples of dynamism on the left in the North, where figures like Iglesias in Spain and Ruffin in France remain exceptions. He owes his ascent to the combination of his own gifts with the gravity of the plight of the ‘roofless’ and the cataclysm of health care in Brazil, under a ruler presiding over the second highest number of deaths from covid on the planet. Politically, the debacle of Bolsonaro’s tenure has redrawn the institutional map of the country. The alarm of middle-class layers who earlier supported the hard-right President is now turning normal bastions of the establishment into a disaffected fronde. The same Supreme Court which mandated the imprisonment of Lula has suddenly reversed itself to release him. Under threat of impeachment Bolsonaro, who once excoriated the marshlands ‘Centre’ of Congress, has turned to it for protection. With Lula currently holding an overwhelming lead in opinion polls for the 2022 presidential election, his former arch-adversaries of the psdb—Cardoso in the lead—have announced that their long-time bugbear is, after all, preferable to the incumbent, presaging the dangers of an embrace of the pt by the centre-right. The psol, of which Boulos is now the leading representative, has always been to the left of the pt, often fiercely so, but in this conjuncture is standing with no sectarian reservation firmly by Lula. The stakes in the outcome are high. Latin America has started to roll back the gains of the right of recent years, with the victories of López Obrador in Mexico, Alberto Fernández in Argentina, Luis Arce in Bolivia, Pedro Castillo in Peru, and the rise of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and of Gabriel Boric—of Boulos’s own cohort—in Chile. Lula’s return to power, and to his roots in working-class radicalism, on a popular crest could make the region a beacon of non-conformity once again.

Struggles of the Roofless

As a coordinator of Brazil’s homeless workers, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto, you are also a leading figure in the Party of Socialism and Liberty, one of the most dynamic sections of the Brazilian left outside the pt (Workers’ Party). As psol candidate in the November 2020 São Paulo mayoral election, you won over 40 per cent in the second round—some 2 million votes. Could you start by telling us about your background and political formation?

Iwas born in São Paulo in 1982, into a middle-class family. My father’s family background is Lebanese, my mother’s family is from Brazil’s Northeast. My parents are both doctors and teach at the University of São Paulo. They were political, with progressive ideas—they work in Brazil’s public-health sector, the sus, and always vote for the left—but not militants. That background gave me opportunities that most Brazilians lack. I didn’t have to start working in my teens; instead I was able to dedicate myself to my studies, to have access to books and, later on, to get a good university education.

My militancy began at a pretty young age. I would say it sprang from two sources. First, from my sense of indignation: in Brazil, it is enough to have eyes to be indignant about the gaping inequalities here. São Paulo, in particular, is a deeply segregated city, full of contradictions—on the one hand, a city of extreme wealth, where the bulk of Brazil’s gdp is concentrated; and on the other, of extreme poverty, of people living on the streets, of millions out of work or under-employed. This troubled me, it was like a call to action.

And second, my militancy came from reading, which led me, like many young people, to the left. I joined the youth wing of the Brazilian Communist Party when I was sixteen, while still studying at a fee-paying school. Then I moved to a state school, as a political choice, feeling that my commitment would make more sense in a working-class environment—it would be more coherent in terms of the positions I was coming to defend. At the new school, I worked with the other kids to fight for better teaching conditions. We organized groups—study groups, groups to demand a voice for students in the school board’s decisions. One time we organized a strike, when the school tried to impose school uniforms, but without giving the students the means to buy them—their families had no money. One day, the school barred entry to those not wearing a uniform. So we organized a student strike and succeeded in getting the rule reversed.

Could you describe how the Communist Party functioned?

When I joined, in 1997, the pcb had just been through a devastating split. It was founded in 1922, and for decades, up to the military coup of 1964, it was the hegemonic force on the Brazilian left. From the coup through to the 1980s, it was still an important reference point. With the restoration of democracy, it began to adopt increasingly moderate positions, until eventually the leadership changed the Party’s name and, in effect, refounded it as a different party altogether. A minority of members tried to maintain a formation in the tradition of the pcb. By the time I joined, it was a small organization, and the youth wing, the ujc, was even smaller. We were trying to rebuild a fighting party.

Why did you leave?

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