Mészáros: The 30th anniversary of Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil

[Mészáros at the ENFF (Florestan Fernandes National School) recieving MST’s hommage to his wife, Donatella Mészáros, in 2009, during his visit to Brasil for Boitempo’s II Margem Esquerda Seminar]

By István Mészáros.

This is István Mészáros’ message to the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brasil. Read the portuguese version of the hungarian pilosopher’s letter here.

My very dear Friends and Comrades,

You are celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Foundation of your Movement. This is a great achievement not only for the agricultural workers of your own country but for everyone in our troubled world.

The memory of my first experience in Brazil, in the North East in 1983, recalls some bitterly fought food riots there in the early morning of the day of my arrival. The painful exploitative conditions at the roots of such riots caused terrible suffering to countless people. Something had to be done to counter the intolerable misery. Your Movement was founded in 1984 and asserted itself with great dedication and sacrifices against the forces of exploitation and injustice. In these thirty years you continued to grow in strength, demonstrating to the world that you could manage your conditions of work and living with exemplary autonomy and success, to be emulated elsewhere.

You know better than I do how much more needs to be done to accomplish your great aspirations. A radical land reform is long overdue not only in your country but also in many other parts of the world where the agricultural population can and should take control of its own destiny. I wish you great success also in that respect in the very near future. 

My wife, Donatella, and myself always supported you in every way we could. We were privileged to celebrate the Twentieth Anniversary of your vitally important Movement together with you. Tragically, she is no longer with us. But you can be sure of my support, also on her behalf, for as long as I live.

My very dear Friend and Comrades,

May this Thirtieth Anniversary of your Movement be the signpost for a great advancement in our fully shared cause of a fundamental social change everywhere!

Yours ever,
István Mészáros

[MST demonstration on this thursday, 12.02.2014, in Brasilia]

***

István Mészáros é autor de extensa obra, ganhador de prêmios como o Attila József, em 1951, o Deutscher Memorial Prize, em 1970, e o Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico, em 2008, István Mészáros se afirma como um dos mais importantes pensadores da atualidade. Nasceu no ano de 1930, em Budapeste, Hungria, onde se graduou em filosofia e tornou-se discípulo de György Lukács no Instituto de Estética. Deixou o Leste Europeu após o levante de outubro de 1956 e exilou-se na Itália. Ministrou aulas em diversas universidades, na Europa e na América Latina e recebeu o título de Professor Emérito de Filosofia pela Universidade de Sussex em 1991. Entre seus livros, destacam-se Para além do capital – rumo a uma teoria da transição (2002), O desafio e o fardo do tempo histórico (2007) e A crise estrutural do capital (2009), A obra de Sartre, e O conceito de dialética em Lukács todos publicados pela Boitempo.