Workers' Party (Brazil)

Workers' Party (Brazil) Logo

Workers' Party (Brazil), or PT (according to its initials in Portuguese Partido dos Trabalhadores) was founded by Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Paulo Freire, among others.

Background

Excerpt from David Samuels' "From Socialism to Social Democracy: Party Organization and The Transformation of the Workers’ Party in Brazil":

"At its formation the party united a hodgepodge of Marxists of all shades of red, liberation theology-oriented Catholic base community activists, moderate intellectuals, and union and social movement leaders."

[...]

"Although the PT deliberately never identified itself with a particular “brand” of leftism (Partido dos Trabalhadores, 1991), it nevertheless “always defined itself as socialist” (Keck 1992, p. 246), and espoused many radical positions. For example, at Brazil’s 1988 constitutional convention, the PT advocated repudiation of Brazil’s external debt, nationalization of the country’s banks and its mineral wealth, and radical land reform. In addition, as a form of protest and as a signal that the party did not fully accept the “rules of the game,” the PT’s delegates refused to sign the draft constitution.

People

From the Workers' Party (Brazil) website:

• PT National President, Gleisi Hoffmann, Paraná
• Leader of the PT Bench in the Senate, Fabiano Contarato, Holy Spirit
• Leader of the PT in the Federal Chamber, Zeca Dirceu, Paraná
• Ariel de Souza da Silva, Amapa
• Camila Moreno, Minas Gerais
• Cricielle Aguiar Muniz, Maranhao
• Gleide Andrade, Minas Gerais
• Henry Donin, Rio de Janeiro
• Henrique Fontana, Rio Grande do Sul
• Humberto Costa, Pernambuco
• jilmar tattoo, São Paulo
• Joaquim Soriano, São Paulo
• Jose Carlos Becker de Oliveira e Silva, Paraná
• Jose Geraldo Torres da Silva, For
• Jose Guimaraes, Ceará
• Juarez Barroso Ferreira, Rio de Janeiro
• Luiz Dulci, Minas Gerais
• Maria do Rosario, Rio Grande do Sul
• Maria Regina Souza, Piauí
• Mariana Janeiro, São Paulo
• Markus Sokol, São Paulo
• Misiara Oliveira, Rio Grande do Sul
• Monica Valente, São Paulo
• Natalia de Sena Alves, large northern river
• Romanian Pereira, Minas Gerais
• Rui Falcao, São Paulo
• Sara Prado, bahia
• Sonia Souza do Nascimento Braga, Ceará
• Vera Lucia Barbosa, bahia
• washington quaqua, Rio de Janeiro

Paulo Freire and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Paulo Freire with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (L) with Paulo Freire

From the Socialist Worker:

During exile, Paulo Freire worked with the revolutionary nationalist leadership of Guinea-Bisseau and the World Council of Churches in Geneva, taught at Harvard, and built educational reform projects around the world. He returned to Brazil in 1980 and joined the Workers' Party (Brazil), or PT (according to its initials in Portuguese), as a founding member with, among others, former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. After the military dictatorship ended in 1984, the PT gained strength throughout Brazil. In 1989, the party's candidate won the mayoral race in Sao Paulo, and Freire was appointed secretary of education, a position from which he resigned in 1991. He is probably the best-known theorist of critical pedagogy in the world.

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, his most widely read work, Freire presents a theory of education and social change, arguing that education is inseparable from the struggle for what he called the "ontological vocation of humanity"--the completion of ourselves as human beings. When the book was published in 1970, Freire believed that a complete transformation of society would be necessary in order for this vocation to be realized. Capitalism--which is not organized to provide for, let alone encourage and develop, the overwhelming majority of the planet's people--prevents humanization. Consequently, it must be replaced by a system that allows for, as Marx put it, "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."