Benedita da Silva: an Afro-Brazilian woman's story of politics and love

New Internationalist, June, 1998

as told to Medea Benjamin and Maisa Mendonca (Food First Books(US)/Latin America Bureau (UK) ISBN 0 935028 70 6/1899365214

We are constantly informed by our bland, `modernizing' leaders that all is for the best in our cosy, deregulated global market-place. Like a chorus of latter-day Dr Panglosses they tell us that a casualized, low-wage economy and crumbling, privatized infrastructure run for the profit of the few, are all that is on offer.

Well, like the boy in the crowd who saw what the Emperor's clothes were really made of, John Pilger is here to say it ain't so. From the democracy movement of Burma to the Liverpool dockers, the freedom fighters of East Timor to the shantytowns of South Africa's Eastern Cape, Pilger hears and reports the voices that are filtered out by consensual newsmaking. Names such as Jose Ramos-Horta and Bishop Bello, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mordechai Vanunu are rightly prominent, but they are not the only heroes here. Pilger's work celebrates and honours the resilience and courage of all those throughout the world whose solidarity and grassroots organization is, in Colin Ward's memorable phrase, `the seed beneath the snow'. Ordinary people's determination to resist oppression and to `speak the truth to power' is the dynamo that drives his passionate journalism.

There is a sense in which Pilger, as with that other great scourge of establishment mendacity, Noam Chomsky, is constantly re-writing and updating the same book. Hidden Agendas draws on its predecessor Distant Voices which was itself an extension of his 1986 book Heroes. Is this a criticism? Only if you are naive enough to believe that politicians have become paragons of virtue in the last dozen years and take them at their word when they claim an `ethical' foreign policy yet say they cannot, for commercial reasons, stop the export of jets to the murderous Indonesian regime.

What galls the directors of New World Order Plc is that Pilger listens to what they say and also watches what they do and then, cool as you like, has the audacity to compare and contrast the two. His books, articles and films shine a light into the corners that arms dealers, corporate overlords, hypocritical politicians and craven media propagandists would rather we didn't see. This is a wonderful, incisive book. Read it.

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Someone who definitely qualifies as a `seed beneath the snow' is the remarkable Benedita da Silva, or Bene as she is more affectionately known. The first black woman to be elected to Brazil's Senate - where 90 per cent of senators are white males - she was raised in a Rio favela and continues to live there.

A politician telling their own story runs the risk of sinking into selfpromotion. But, thanks to her emotional candour, Benedita by and large avoids this. What comes across is her deep passion for social justice and total commitment to the community she comes from. She's a tremendous survivor, continuing to live while those she loves drop like flies around her, but she's vulnerable too and admits it.

As a story of political activism - Benedita is a feminist, campaigner for street-children and founder member of the Brazilian Worker's Party - her narrative is an inspiration.

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The capacity to describe hardship with humour is a rare talent. But it's one that the protagonist of Viramma: life of an untouchable clearly has. This autobiography is the product of ten years' worth of conversation between Viramma, a 60-something illiterate dalit, and fellow, albeit middle-class, native Tamil-speaker Josiane Racine. What makes it exceptional is that Viramma is such a wonderfully earthy, witty story-teller. Her life is undoubtedly tough, and she does not gloss over the brutalities and hypocrisies of caste, class and gender repression in India. But she approaches life with such a robust, raunchy humour you can't help but smile. This book's a delight, buzzing with raw energy and authenticity.

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