A-Infos (en) US, BRRN: V. Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira - Brazilian Anarchist Coordination V. (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

1. Can you begin by describing the origins of CAB and various iterations 
that the project has gone through, starting back in 2002? Would you 
detail the differences between the 'forum' stage, the 'coordination' 
stage, and perhaps what the future trajectory will be?
CAB: The changes CAB has undergone over time reflect the challenges of 
finding a common path for action in a country as vast as Brazil. This 
trajectory began with collaborations among diverse groups in Brazil, 
guided by a shared initiative: to build a framework for anarchist action 
grounded in collective organization and a direct connection to the 
struggles in the territories and spaces built by its activists from a 
perspective of popular and autonomous organization.

The formation of a Forum of Organized Anarchism (FAO) was realized based 
on the experience of these diverse organizations, seeking to understand 
how to pool their capacities to propose an analysis of the current 
situation and joint action with tactical and strategic frameworks, 
articulating the needs of various struggles and the understanding of 
Brazil as a diverse yet singular whole. At that time, the Forum already 
had broad representation from various states spread across Brazil's five 
regions.

Common understandings regarding the interpretation of the Brazilian 
political and social moment, as well as the need for joint articulation 
of political lines and tactics for each moment of transformation, were 
gradually built within these national spaces, which evolved over time 
into increasingly solid agreements and a search for more concrete 
standards for membership processes, forms of social action, and the 
construction of a "militant profile" and propaganda capable of 
presenting anarchism as a force for transformation within our context.

Each of these agreements, with varying degrees of influence on the 
day-to-day operations of the organizations, gradually shaped new 
organizational stages that were distinguished by different names, such 
as "Construction," "Forum," or "Coordination," the latter marking the 
organizational form by which we identify ourselves today. Gradually, the 
cumulative processes in the formation of nuclei, decision-making 
structures, and the establishment of executive and deliberative bodies 
allowed us to build a network whose scale has consolidated a national 
presence. Our plans include even more defined coordination agreements 
among each of our local chapters, the expansion of the organization 
throughout the national territory-ranging from more central cities to 
less populated and more rural areas-and the solidification of an 
ever-greater coordination with the organizations of our sister countries 
in Latin America.

Beyond these gains, an important task for a political organization 
swimming against the tide would also be to build the political 
relationships and capacities of its activists, and to allow such efforts 
to generate accumulated strength over the long term, despite the 
difficulties that political regimes and the mode of production impose on 
all of us. We have persisted and insisted on this task for over 30 
years, which has taken on the significance of a historical process of 
uninterrupted construction of organized anarchism in Brazil, and, 
specifically, we have now been part of CAB for 14 years.

2. CAB is made up of several organizations in the various states and 
regions of Brazil. How were these regional organizations established?

CAB: Initially, each of these organizations was established through its 
own dynamics, by individuals and collectives who came to learn about and 
study anarchism separately throughout their lives in their respective 
regions. From groups fighting to preserve the student structures that 
guarantee access to higher education in Brazil, to groups of workers 
organized to fight for labor rights, in general the first groups 
encountered anarchism through study groups on possible ways to confront 
capitalism and through inspiration from experiences such as those of the 
fAu, FAG, the Spanish Revolution, and the Organizational Platform, which 
were studied and discussed through dialogues among these activists. 
These ideas became the driving force behind organizing these people into 
an organic structure.

Throughout the organization of the CAB, there were various efforts to 
find groups of individuals in other locations with the same desire to 
organize. Each of the organizations focused on a specific geographic 
region to engage in dialogue and form small groups with the potential to 
build new local organizations. Today, we continue to seek to organize 
new groups, either actively, by seeking to bring together and organize 
anarchists in their territories through CAB nuclei, or by welcoming 
people and groups interested in our organizational strategy.

3. What areas of social movement organizing does CAB strategically 
prioritize? In other words, what areas of work are militants of CAB 
involved in?

CAB: The three main areas of struggle around which the people in CAB 
organize are labor, student, and territorial movements:

By labor struggles, we refer to organized groups of workers who fight 
for rights related to their workplaces, such as better wages, shorter 
work hours, and safety guarantees in the workplace, among other issues.

Student struggles generally bring together higher education students 
around issues such as ensuring the continued operation of public 
universities-whose budgets are frequently threatened by neoliberal 
governments- investment in improving spaces for the development of 
knowledge and science, as well as public policies to enable students 
from working-class and low-income backgrounds to remain in university, 
with assistance for food and housing.

In the territorial sphere, activists are united in the struggle to 
guarantee access to land, whether to work independently, preserve 
traditional ways of life, or ensure decent housing and access to 
community public services, such as healthcare, public transportation, or 
urban infrastructure. This field brings together agrarian reform, 
indigenous movements, neighborhood movements, community libraries, 
popular education initiatives, the struggle for reproductive justice, 
community radio stations, and urban art groups.

An important characteristic is the solidarity among these fields of 
struggle. Various spaces share an understanding of the struggles to be 
waged together and seek to coordinate their demands. Furthermore, CAB 
advocates for the creation of these spaces in close alignment with the 
construction of an anti-racist and anti-patriarchal society, seeking 
mechanisms to combat these forms of oppression on a daily basis within 
the spaces where we operate.

4. The Platform document published by Dielo Truda is now 100 years old. 
Is the framework put forward by the document still relevant in 2026? How 
does CAB relate to the ideas put forward in it?

CAB: There is a widely held view in Latin America, supported by 
historical records, that the concept of "especifismo" was an original 
creation of the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation, aimed at coordinating 
the specific anarchist organization with the region's social movements 
within a model of horizontal struggle, in which the influence of the two 
levels would be mutual and continuous-a concept that could be described 
today as "Organizational Dualism."

Throughout the development of anarchism on our continent and through 
contact with new translations of documents from various languages, 
anarchist researchers and activists could not help but notice the 
similarities between our development and the ideas and formulations 
proposed by the Dielo Truda group.

In recent years, an increasing number of activists and organizations 
have come into contact with the Portuguese translation of the 
Organizational Platform, which has had a significant impact on 
understanding the historical paths taken by various anarchist activists 
in different locations and has brought us closer to organizations with 
similar proposals around the world. The text is frequently studied and, 
along with Juan Carlos Mechoso's book The Strategy of Especifismo, has 
become essential reading for understanding the propositions and paths of 
anarchism's organizational strategy.

5. How does CAB coordinate and communicate with its sibling 
organizations across the South American continent? What work do you 
undertake together?

CAB: The history of anarchism in Brazil is closely linked to 
organizations across our continent. The influence and support of the fAU 
in Uruguay, our ties with the Anarchist Federation of Rosario in 
Argentina, and all the other organizational initiatives that have 
emerged over the years are inseparable from the history of the CAB.

The goal of this coordination, now embodied in the Latin American 
Anarchist Coordination (CALA), is to share an understanding of the 
political and social moment of our continent in relation to the world, 
the relations of exploitation organized by the bourgeoisie among our 
countries, and an active interest in supporting and structuring new 
organizations in every country and every place where there is a thirst 
for struggle for social transformation that guarantees us a socialist 
and libertarian society.

6. The current of 'organized anarchism' appears to be growing across the 
world, including in Latin America, what do you think accounts for this?

CAB: The advance of capitalism and its increasingly frequent crises 
impose a necessity on the peoples of the world: to create tools to unite 
our forces and fight for a new world.

A world with greater economic, gender, and racial equality among 
people-in contrast to the capitalism, racism, and patriarchy in which we 
live. A world whose relationship with the earth is one of care and 
balance-in contrast to the destruction of biomes and indigenous ways of 
life, and to mining and hydrocarbon extraction that pollute rivers, 
lands, and air. A world with guarantees of comprehensive and broad 
education, where access to art and leisure is not a luxury, where life 
is joyful and dignified.

In Latin America, these dreams have been persecuted and crushed over the 
past century by dictatorships imposed by the state and the bourgeoisie, 
terrified by the people's ability to organize and demand this necessary 
transformation. We are witnessing a major setback in the process of 
organizing anarchism and other strands of socialism on our continent.

Over the past 40 years, following a long period of resistance to 
dictatorship, clandestine organization, and the building of underground 
networks, anarchism has had the opportunity to resume propaganda and 
publicly debate its ideas. During this period, anarchist organizations 
have openly resurfaced, a long and ongoing process of reconstruction 
that continues to this day. There has been no shortage of opportunities 
to put these ideas into practice. We have waged immense struggles, such 
as the anti-globalization movement of the 1990s, the rise of 
neoliberalism, and the repeated attempts to destroy everything that was 
built as a collective guarantee-such as our public education system, the 
Unified Health System, public energy and water distribution networks, 
and even the high-tech industry, where unions have significant influence.

The struggles over the years have strengthened the capacity of 
anarchists in Brazil, Latin America, and the world to confront the 
oppressors-those at the top-through the initiative, effort, and 
organization of the oppressed, those at the bottom.

https://www.blackrosefed.org/platform-100-interviews-vol-1/#coordenacao-anarquista-brasileira-brazilian-anarchist-coordination
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