by La Voz de los trabajadores/Workers Voice
The struggle of the youth and workers against the increasing of the bus fare and police repression has taken over the major cities in Brazil.
The number of protesters is increasing day after day, fueled by the indignation provoked by the criminal activities of the police forces who has already injured hundreds.
The shocking images of repression had international repercussions and recalled the dark days of military dictatorship. Meanwhile, Fernando Haddad (PT), the mayor of São Paulo, and Eduardo Paes (PMDB), the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, both of them President Dilma Roussef’s supporters, insist on keeping the rise of bus fare.
Because of that the June 17th the major cities in Brazil were taken by what was surely the biggest demonstrations in Brazilian recent history. In the streets, the people are demonstrating that nobody is up to tolerate the indifference to public transportation, education and health, which are abandoned, as the government invests billions on overpriced stadiums for the World Cup and Olympic Games.
Not surprisingly, thousands of Brazilians were expelled from the country in the last decades one by one by poverty, economic conditions and a life without hope. They constitute part of the mass of immigrant workers that have unskilled labor jobs at US. We need to take the example of the Brazilians in streets and fight for our rights: full citizenship and rights for all immigrants!
Obama´s Immigration Bill doesn´t guarantee citizenship. It allows undocumented immigrants to apply if they pay fines, late taxes, meet several criteria and wait in line for 13 years! It reinforces criminalization, investing billions in border fences, police patrols and drones; expanding background checks for every small business (e-verify) and creating a system to verify passport visas.
In this way, Obama’s immigration plan is as much of an attack on the most exploited workers and oppressed livelihood, as much as the transit fare hires in Brazil are. And it is exactly because of that, now more than ever, it’s time for International Solidarity and to unify the struggles in an international scale! It’s time to raise our voices, all over the world to remind governments, bankers and bosses that the youth and the workers will not accept to pay for the crisis created by their endless greed!