Interview with Mauricio de Andrade,
General Coordinator of the Citizen’s Action Against Hunger, Poverty and for Life, Brazil

By Dada Maheshananda

Mauricio, you’ve been with this campaign since its very beginning. Tell us a little about yourself and how the movement began.
I was born in 1951 in the city of Recife in the Brazilian Northeast. My parents were Portuguese of the lower middle class. At the age of twenty I came to Sao Paulo where I attended university in economics. Then I worked for the government in the areas of agricultural reform and the people’s access to food.

In 1992 our country saw a gigantic mobilization against the corruption of President Fernando Collar. Betinho helped create a campaign called the Movement for Ethics in Politics that mobilized hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, many of them students and that contributed to the final impeachment. The leadership of this movement realized the importance for society to continue this energy. And so, with each one contributing his or her ideas, we evolved in April 1993 the Citizen’s Action Against Hunger, Poverty and for Life.

There is a happiness when we take on something that unites everyone, which was the question of hunger. I think that the ability and the leadership that Betinho gave to society contributed to the unification process, of businessman to unemployed, of leaders from different religions and different political parties. He brought to the collective consciousness that it is unacceptable, it is a disgrace to have someone hungry in a country like Brazil. We have so much wealth, so much accumulation of riches, it is a national shame to have 32 million people living in poverty and suffering because of the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the flight of money overseas.

You knew Betinho personally. What was it like to work alongside him?
Betinho had a quality that was fantastic in my opinion, because since my youth I have found it important to dream. He had the capacity to work with others who dreamed with him. I think this is fundamental, because one’s individual dream is selfish. When the people are not afraid to dream, they can realize much more. This was the major mark of Betinho, that he dared to dream publicly.

Though his dreams antagonized some people, his sweet manner allowed him to maintain friendly relations with many of those who opposed his actions. Another characteristic he had was to be flexible while maintaining his principles. The Citizen’s Action Campaign was not enough for him; in the last years he was constantly mobilizing new struggles to construct a country more just. Then there was his personal courage. Despite the AIDS and hemophilia that he contracted through blood transfusions, Betinho set an example of living for the people. He showed his personal life to the public, demonstrating a higher ethical standard for Brazil.

How has the campaign changed during these five years?
In 1993 and 1994 the campaign received 80 percent approval in the minds of the public according to an independent opinion poll. Then we called 1994 the Year of Employment. It was a more difficult period, because to call the people to participate in creating jobs is not the same thing as to ask everyone to bring a kilo of food. Even then, we have maintained some basic programs, such as the annual drive, "Christmas Without Hunger", which was launched in 1993 and has grown each year. In December 1997, after Betinho’s death, we distributed more than one hundred thousand baskets of basic food stuffs to needy families.

The composition of our members is another aspect that is changing. For example, in Rio de Janeiro during its first year, ninety percent of the committees were composed of people from the middle class and upper middle class. Today 95 percent are representatives of poor communities. The importance of this, which I think is fundamental, is that they themselves are becoming actors in this process of transformation.

Can you give examples of some specific committees and how they function?
In the Taquara slum of Jacarepagua in Rio de Janeiro a committee constructed forty strong houses, each with 40 square meters. Forty families are now living there with dignity and gradually paying each month a total of US$4200. Another committee on the outskirts of the city collectively organized the purchase of a tractor two years ago with our support that is used to plow all the land of the community. Many committees have cooperative tailoring shops and more than fifty committees are developing projects to generate income and create jobs.

I believe that the greatest returns are in the development of local leaders. Common people, some of them illiterate, are today organizing in defense of women’s rights, counseling teenagers, organizing participatory budget planning, and working as presidents of their committees. They are utilizing their voices for the empowerment of their communities.

My first time to meet Betinho and the campaign was in June 1993 when he started the Inter-Religious Movement of the Campaign Against Hunger. Catholic Archbishop Luciano Mendes de Almeida, then President of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, was the first of many religious leaders to sign the letter of support. Ananda Marga, the socio-spiritual organization that I represent, also signed this letter and we started doing weekly feeding of street people in Rio, São Paulo and other Brazilian cities. Later we organized as regular committees of the campaign and we continue to participate until today. Are you still receiving the support of different churches and religions?
At the beginning the inter-religious movement gave concrete and practical support to various projects and proposals. But after 1994, some organized sectors went back from the collective and continued their fight against hunger in their own spaces, trying to preserve their own identity. Today there is no active participation by the trade unions, political parties, business leaders or religious representatives, though members of each of these groups participate on a personal level.

What are the biggest problems that the campaign is encountering now?
It is the growth of poverty and misery. This is not a local situation, it happening world wide because of a global economy that excludes and marginalizes more and more people. We have a Minister of Labor whose own son will not have a problem finding employment, but who says that though the unemployment level has risen from 7.5 percent to 8.5 percent, this is natural increase. If this is natural, then it is natural that people are dying of hunger. It is natural that more people are excluded, living without hope. It is natural people are dying of dengue fever, tuberculosis, leprosy and other preventable diseases, and that there are more people forced to live on our streets.

Today these things are considered natural because I can pay to live in an apartment building that never allows a poor person to enter. When I was a boy, we knew the names of those people who begged alms and we knew what day and what hour they would come to our house. Today if you bump a beggar and he or she falls on the street, you don’t even say sorry. The problem is a decrease in the solidarity of our people, so that I feel today we do not have a Christian society, we have a society of money. The money is invested to satisfy ourselves, not as a responsibility to help others.

How would you respond to the criticism that the Citizen’s Action is not changing the structure of poverty and inequality?
I would reply, I’m doing my part, you do yours.

What is your vision of an ideal Brazil, of a Brazil with a better future?
It is fundamental that people believe that it is possible to try and they don’t stop trying. That they not be afraid to do things differently. The question of perspective in Brazil is that the people must increase opportunities and offer an invitation to citizenship and the exercise of citizenship. The people must construct a future that is a little different. Now for this it is fundamental that everyone continues to dare, and that everyone continues to do his or her part.

Contact:
Citizen’s Action Against Hunger, Poverty and for Life
Av. Marechal Floriano, 114 - 14 andar – Centro
Rio de Janeiro - RJ CEP: 20080-002, Brazil
Tel. (021) 276-4316, Fax. (021) 276-4560
Email: mauricio.de.andrade@infolink.com.br

Dada Maheshananda is a monk of Ananda Marga and a teacher of yoga and meditation. Email: amurt@ax.apc.org

Copyright Proutist Universal 1999