“I come to speak as a former landless peasant”; lawyer recounts her experiences in the MST (Landless Workers' Movement).

Do Brazil of Fact - The critical reaction to the report broadcast by TV Record this Sunday (11), under the name "The Controversy of the Landless Children", has been widespread. Opposition politicians and members of popular movements have shown solidarity with the Landless Rural Workers Movement and the children in their camps and settlements. Brasil de Fato publishes here the letter from lawyer Ariane Araújo, who was once a landless child, in which she defends the movement and its educational process.

Check out the full letter:

Yesterday, February 10th, Pastor Edir Macedo's television station broadcast a report about the National Meeting of the Landless Children, which took place in Brasília in 2018. They questioned to what extent a child should be involved in an organization with an ideological character. Well then:

So, I come to speak as a former landless child. I was born and raised in Bahia, within this organization, from a family of peasant origin from the interior of Piauí. From a very young age, I learned about the importance of sharing with other children.

I learned that toys, snacks, and clothes are things that, when necessary, should be shared. I learned that a soft bed to sleep in wasn't common in everyone's life; for some, it was a luxury, as was eating more than one meal. I learned that studying near where I lived was almost impossible. That, at that time, having a TV was the dream of many children. I learned to value everything I had and that nothing fell from the sky. That my parents worked day and night, spending weeks away from home aiming to improve the lives not only of our family but of others as well.

I learned that art, culture, and play were a right, a human need to make bitter days a little sweeter. I learned that that little bean seed we planted at school means caring for the land, cultivating food, sowing the grain.

I learned that, despite seeming like completely different worlds, many children in the city also lacked what children in the countryside longed for. That the food available in the city came directly from the hands of the people in the countryside.

Today, with these and so many other lessons learned throughout her life, the landless girl who previously didn't understand the world was able to study—even in schools considered "traditional and free from communism"—and was able to enter (along with others who were also landless) one of the most elitist academic careers, which once only educated the children of the wealthy.

Today, with a degree and bar exam, this landless girl can defend the right of every child to learn everything I learned, to have everything I didn't have, to smile, sing, and play as they should, and to have, just like me, every opportunity to paint the four corners of this country of people.

To what extent, then, should children become involved in an organization of an ideological nature? I answer: until it is no longer necessary to fight for what is right. That is how I learned and that is how I will teach all children, whether they are landless or not: that only struggle changes life.

Ariane Araújo, landless activist and lawyer, graduated from the Eugênio Lyra Law School at UNEB (PRONERA).