The "rolezinhos" (mass gatherings of young people in shopping malls) accuse us: we are an unjust and segregationist society.

The phenomenon of the hundreds of "rolezinhos" (mass gatherings of young people) that occupied shopping malls in Rio and São Paulo has given rise to the most disparate interpretations. Some, from the acolytes of neoliberal consumer society who equate citizenship with the ability to consume, usually in the major newspapers of the commercial media, don't even deserve consideration. They are of an analytical poverty that is shameful.

But there were other analyses that went to the heart of the matter, such as that of journalist Mauro Santayana from JB online and those of three specialists who assessed the irruption of the "rolês" (street gatherings) into public visibility and the explosive element it contains. I refer to Valquíria Padilha, professor of sociology at USP in Ribeirão Preto: "Shopping Center: the cathedral of goods" (Boitempo 2006), to the sociologist from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Jessé Souza, "Brazilian rabble: who they are and how they live" (UFMG 2009), and to Rosa Pinheiro Machado, a social scientist with an article "Ethnography of the Rolezinho" in Zero Hora on January 18, 2014. All three gave enlightening interviews.

For my part, I interpret this eruption in the following way:

First of all, they are poor young people from the large peripheries, without spaces for leisure and culture, penalized by absent or very poor public services such as health, education, sanitation infrastructure, transportation, leisure, and security. They watch television whose advertisements seduce them into a consumption they will never be able to fulfill. And they know how to use computers and access social networks to arrange meetings. It would be ridiculous to demand that they theoretically address their dissatisfaction.

But they feel firsthand how wicked our society is because it excludes, despises, and keeps the sons and daughters of poverty in forced invisibility. What lies behind their irruption? The fact that they are not included in the social contract. It is no use having a "citizen's constitution" that in this aspect is merely rhetoric, as it has implemented very little of what it promised in terms of social inclusion. They are outside, they don't count, they don't even serve as fuel for the consumption of our social factory (Darcy Ribeiro). Being included in the social contract means having basic services guaranteed: health, education, housing, transportation, culture, leisure, and security. Almost none of this works in the peripheries. What are they saying with their penetrations into the bunkers of consumption? "Look at us in the game"; "we're not standing still"; "we're here to have fun" (to bother). They are breaking down the barriers of social apartheid through their behavior.

It is an indictment of a highly unjust country (ethically), one of the most unequal in the world (socially), organized upon a grave social sin because it contradicts God's plan (theologically). Our society is conservative and our elites are highly insensitive to the passions of their fellow human beings, and therefore cynical.

We remain a Brazil-India: a rich Belgium within a poor India. The "rolezinhos" (mass gatherings of young people in shopping malls) denounce all of this, through actions rather than words.

Secondly, they denounce our greatest wound: social inequality, whose true name is historical and social injustice. It is important to note that with the social policies of the PT government, inequality decreased, since, according to IPEA, the poorest 10% experienced a cumulative income growth of 91,2% between 2001 and 2011, while the richest segment grew by 16,6%. But this difference did not address the root of the problem, because what overcomes inequality is a social infrastructure of health, education, transportation, culture, and leisure that functions and is accessible to all. It is not enough to transfer income; it is necessary to create opportunities and offer services, something that was not the main focus of the Ministry of Social Development.

Márcio Poschmann's "Atlas of Social Exclusion" (Cortez 2004) shows us that there are approximately 60 million families, of which five thousand extended families hold 45% of the national wealth. Democracy without equality, which is its premise, is a farce and rhetoric. The "rolezinhos" (mass gatherings of young people in shopping malls) denounce this contradiction. They enter the "paradise of goods" seen virtually on TV to actually see them and feel them in their hands. This is the unbearable sacrilege for the owners of the shopping malls. They don't know how to dialogue, they immediately call the police to beat them and close the doors to these barbarians. Yes, T. Todorov saw it well in his book "The New Barbarians": the marginalized of the whole world are leaving the margins and heading towards the center to arouse the bad conscience of the "happy consumers" and tell them: this order is order in disorder. It makes them frustrated and unhappy, filled with fear, fear of their own kind, which is us.

Finally, the "rolezinhos" (informal gatherings of young people in shopping malls) don't just want to consume. They aren't hungry little animals. They are hungry, yes, but hungry for recognition, for acceptance in society, for leisure, for culture, and to show what they know: singing, dancing, creating critical poems, celebrating human interaction. And they want to work to earn a living. All of this is denied to them because, being poor, black, mixed-race without blue eyes and blond hair, they are despised and kept away, on the margins.

Can this type of society still be called humane and civilized? Or is it a disguised form of barbarism? The latter suits it better. The "rolezinhos" (mass gatherings of young people in shopping malls) have stirred up a rock that has started rolling. It will only stop if there are changes.