A-Infos (en) Brazil, CAB, Bandeira Negra: Report and photos of the VIII Soiree First of May (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In its eighth edition, we held another Soirée 1º de Maio. This year, the date 
fell on a sunny Sunday, which brought together dozens of people within the 
Association of Residents and Friends of the Itinga Neighborhood (Amorabi) and 
warmed our hearts and bodies that danced to popular culture. ---- This year, we 
remember the importance of the arts for our experiences and rebellions, that we 
are cultural beings, despite the bourgeoisie seeing us only as pieces of 
machinery that only produces. On another 1st of May we said no, we resisted the 
daily life of the capital that crushes our dreams, our leisure and our art, we 
were strong, united and we played on the 1st of May.
It is important, however, to remember the lives that were gone, victims of a 
genocidal State, which seeks profit instead of life. For the companions who 
departed, we keep their memories alive. From the Chicago martyrs to the family 
and friends killed in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

United, in memory of comrades, and celebrating life among our peers, we sing with 
the presentation of Eu Also Sou Zé, we vibrate with the Palhaça Tulipa, we 
celebrate with the Poems Lagunáticos, we dance with the Baque Mulher, we play the 
Integrative Capoeira and we share food and emotions.

Below, we leave some photographic records of this Soiree that warmed our hearts 
and brought us together in class solidarity. Further down, we also share our 
opening letter and the Lagoon Poetry recited in the activity.

We continue in the day to day struggle. LONG LIVE ANARCHISM! FIGHT, CREATE, 
POPULAR POWER!

The photos are by @cassi.reis.olhares.

Opening Letter of the VIII Soiree First of May
Hello, good afternoon to all the fellow people present.

It is with a joy intoxicated by love and rebellion that we, from CABN, COLETIVO 
ANARQUISTA BANDEIRA NEGRA, member of CAB, COORDINAÇÃO ANARQUISTA BRASILEIRA, 
idealized, and now happens, the EIGHTH SARAU FIRST OF MAY.

This is our day, of those who care daily in different places of residence, work, 
education and leisure, in urban and rural areas. This is not a day to celebrate 
work, but it is a time to cross our arms and look at our stories of struggles, 
defeats and victories against the entire ruling class, which imposes a cruel 
world with its different forms of oppression and exploitation.

This is the time to remember our sisters and brothers who died during the 
pandemic managed by genocides, such as Bolsonaro, Johnson, Putin, Trump, Biden, 
Moises and Adriano. These are the faces and voices of the time to rule according 
to the political and economic interests of a richer minority that continues to 
profit from the pandemic, leaving more than six hundred and sixty thousand dead, 
in Brazil alone.

Now, please, to the people present, we ask for a moment of silence for the bodies 
that have become absent in the context of the pandemic, but that are still 
present in our memories and hearts.

The First of May is the day to turn mourning into struggle, but not the struggle 
proposed by those above, with their profitable wars that pit the people against 
the people. It is the day to stand against the war machine and organize to 
sabotage it, whether that of the Russian State, NATO or the Military Police.

It is the day when we face the challenge of intensifying even more the work in 
our bases, putting forward the fight against hunger and precariousness that has 
been hitting increasingly hard on the impoverished people, in peripheral regions, 
occupations, schools, neighborhoods, in the fields and in the forests. This is a 
day to put ourselves in the mobilization for the urgent exit of Bolsonaro and his 
cronies and, regardless of the results of the polls, compose the trenches that 
build local struggles, ensuring victories through self-organization.

CABN seeks to contribute to the construction of a rebellious identity, making use 
of the memories and histories of the oppressed classes from places near and far 
from here. Since 2015, we have chosen to build a public space for the 
organization to involve each and every member of the militancy, anarchists or 
not, but who are committed to popular struggle and organization. We want to 
socialize the different expressions of art and culture that we make, but that 
capitalism forbids us to make public. After all, for the capitalist system we are 
just parts of a gear that produces.

The name of the space is SARAU PRIMEIRO DE MAIO. The day's choice is to bring to 
our eyes, ears, minds and hearts how today's date is a key milestone for the 
working class. As the chronicler Carlos de Oliveira wrote:

"May 1st is the day to remember and give importance to all workers in the world. 
A day to dedicate and honor the Chicago Martyrs. Eight people who were killed by 
the government and bosses.
Everyone who, today, still needs to devote his efforts to enriching a few, should 
dedicate at least one afternoon a year to Albert Parsons, Louis Lingg, Adolph 
Fischer, George Engel, August Spies, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe."

And from our martyrs in Chigado we set out to add to the streets taken by 
barricades from the Paris Commune of 1871, to the various Brazilian cities with 
the resistance and workers' organizations of 1917. We took part in the intense 
days and nights of the Social Revolution in Spain of 1936 , to the worker and 
student uprisings in Prague, Paris, Mexico and São Paulo in 1968. Against high 
prices and the increase in the cost of living, for those on the front lines for 
health and those fighting for a decent life.

This year, after two digital editions broadcast on YouTube, on the channel of the 
Brazilian Anarchist Coordination, we again held the soiree in person, at Amorabi 
and we bring as the theme for this eighth edition the "ART AND POPULAR 
ORGANIZATION OF REBELDIAS".

In the day-to-day rush of the capital that crushes us, we end up prevented from 
thinking about our rebellious practices. And yet, when the topic comes up in our 
debates, it is usually in a tone of condemnation of rebellion. In the speeches of 
the ruling classes, when they realize that they can't against our rebellious 
acts, they try to erase our voice, which is only summoned to print advertising 
pieces in the name of profit and a bourgeois democracy. But behind the scenes of 
life, they continue to disrespect our rights to health, food and leisure.

We are anarchists! We do not believe in a society based on hierarchy and 
exploitation in the name of the bourgeois class with its racism, machismo, 
LGBTQIphobia, colonialism and all forms of oppression. We feed our imaginations 
already looking for a future in which all oppressed people can, together with 
their community, create a new world, in which the State is overcome by 
self-management, freedom and equality. Our rebellious actions are like a farmer, 
who, in his trade, when removing seeds from the little shabby packet, looks at 
the handful, already imagining the countryside in abundance of food for all the 
peoples of the world.

Between the act of producing in the countryside and in the cities, many of us, in 
secret, or in a discreet way, create rebellions. We are like the caboclo 
population of a little over a hundred years ago, which occupied the soil of what 
is conventionally called the border between Paraná and Santa Catarina, but which 
our memory of struggle calls Contestado. A population abandoned by the republican 
State, exploited by large imperialist companies and welcomed by a popular hope of 
a paradise, gathered its forces to, in solidarity, work in the neighboring 
fields. And at the end of the collective journey of hope, the songs were created 
by popular artists with weather-hardened hands and shovels, hoes and machetes. 
Right there, they made their dance, their music and their art.

When we look more closely at our surroundings, from the past to the present, it 
is possible to understand that art is not separate from other instances of life. 
It moves us, and with love and rebellion, it nourishes who we are today to 
achieve, with careful and firm steps, the society we want tomorrow.

That's why, after two years of doing the soiree virtually, we return with great 
joy to this face-to-face edition of the soiree 1º de Maio. In recent years, 
especially, much has been denied us, and in many moments our rebellion has been 
suffocated by mourning, isolation and economic difficulties imposed by those 
above. Even so, we do not fail to mark and claim on this important date. The 
Soirees of 2020 and 2021, despite being virtual, brought flashes of hope, love 
and rebellion in the face of the harshness of everyday life.

It is symbolic that our face-to-face return is made at AMORABI, a space for 
popular struggle that has resisted in the last two years carrying out actions of 
mutual support and solidarity. We want to thank AMORABI, not only for welcoming 
us to this space, but for having, in these difficult times, kept the flame of 
popular struggle lit. Whether in welcoming the most basic needs, in popular 
education projects or in art.

With this soiree, we want to feed this flame and ignite the hearts of those who 
fight with love and rebellion. While the institutional left hammers home that the 
only way out is to take away the voter registration card, we believe that the way 
out is in the popular struggle. Organizing in unions, popular movements, 
residents' associations, schools and territories. No, it is not enough for us to 
change who is at the helm of the power structure, we want much more. We want a 
strong people, organized from below and on the left. We want the end of capital, 
the State and all structures of oppression and exploitation. We want a new world, 
where all worlds fit. It is with these goals in mind that we declare the 
beginning of the eighth soirée 1º de Maio!

LONG LIVE ANARCHISM!

ONLY THE FIGHT CHANGES LIFE!

FIGHT, CREATE, POPULAR POWER!

https://www.cabn.libertar.org/relato-e-fotos-do-viii-sarau-primeiro-de-maio/
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