During the night of May 2, the Palestinians Hasan Zarif and Nour, of Al Janiah restaurant –a cultural space and excellent restaurant employing Palestinian and Syrian refugees– were taken to the 78° Police Station, in Jardins. Under the slanderous accusation of “terrorist action”, the extreme-right group, which promoted the xenophobic, islamophobic and racist demonstration in Avenida Paulista (São Paulo) against the new immigration law in the country, did not hesitate in assaulting and criminalizing the Arabs.
By Maria Julia, in collaboration with Soraya Misleh.
This law, currently awaiting President Michel Temer’s approval, represents progress in relation to the old Foreigners Statute created in the bosom of the military dictatorship. That Statute, due to the period in which it was created, included fascist and unconstitutional inspirations that treated immigrants and refugees as an enemy of the nation, therefore requiring severe laws and limits regarding their rights.
The new law seeks to eliminate the discriminatory nature given by the Brazilian legal system to this individuals, replacing it with a set of laws that respects human rights and incorporates the international bases on the right to migrate, inherent to the human condition.
We must underline that in the whole making process of the new immigration law the role played by the institutions of civil society was indispensable, improving the debate about active participation regarding attentions to immigrants’ and refugees communities in the country. Thus, the positive aspect of these new rules cannot be denied, as they institutionalize rights and guarantees, like meetings and participation in political events, right to organize unions, access to health and education public systems, etc., currently denied to immigrants and refugees in Brazil.
Meanwhile, the whole question has been ignored by the government for a long time. Despite the PT [Workers’ Party] stated to be dedicated to this matter along the 14 years in the Planalto [seat of the Executive Power], there was no significant advance regarding the decriminalization of immigrants and refugees with irregular documentation in the country nor regarding full liberty of political rights, especially regarding right to vote, which is still summarily vetoed by the constitution.
Therefore, it is not enough to dictate a law that states which are the rights this group has: we must be aware that immigrants’ and refugees’ community in Brazil suffers a serious historical silencing process perpetrated by the State. In the present, we have no federal or state plan to implement public policies for the insertion and stability of these people, be it in the society as a whole or in the labor market specifically. The government delegates this hard work to the NGOs and entities linked to the church, which struggle to sustain the minimum conditions for survival for this segment of the population, so marginalized.
As Brazil only has a policy of “open borders” and “accessibility” but without responsible structure and commitment by the government to receive immigrants and refugees properly, leaving aside the particularities of each migrant group, its origins, culture, gender and race, cases like the one on May 2 have been frequently increasing. According to the Special Secretariat for Human Rights, in 2015 the denounces for xenophobia in Brazil increased by 633% in relation to 2014. In contrast, in terms of punishment for discrimination and xenophobic crimes, the number is inexpressive (only 3 lawsuits tried in 2014), which makes evident that the denounces in Brazil usually do not go to trial.[1]
It is not just about a government’s delay in attending this community; it is about a deliberated policy of minimizing these problems, increasingly silencing them. For example, the major of Sao Paulo, João Doria, eliminated the Secretariat for Human Rights –concerned with the demands of immigrants and refugees– at the beginning of his term, in 2017, merging it with the Secretariat of Policies for Women and Racial Equality under the same coordination.
In the international arena, Brazil always had the face of an exemplary nation for racial democracy, cordiality, hospitality and social peace, but it is responsible for promoting disgrace among the local populations from Haiti (for 13 years) and from the Democratic Republic of Congo, through military occupations by the Minustah and the Monusco respectively, forcing them to abandon their lands and families… basically, their lives.
Among the tragic historical examples of complicity, it is worth remembering Brazil presided, through the figure of Oswaldo Aranha, the UN General Assembly of November the 29th, on 1947, that recommended de division of Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State, which was a green light for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people serving the creation of the State of Israel on May 15, 1948. That hypocritical attitude encourages xenophobia by allowing free incitement of hate under the mantle of a “democratic country, in which everyone coexists harmonically.”
There are no differences between the way Brazil deals with racism and the “anti-immigrant” sentiment growing among the population and what is happening in the U.S. of Trump and the U.K. of Theresa May, or what it would possibly happen in a France of Marine LePen. Just look at what happened in Avenida Paulista.
Immigrant workforce represents, progressively, the largest segment of the labor market destined to the most precarious and overexploited activities.[2] One cannot ignore the key role played by immigrants and refugees in the productive chain within the capitalist system. As a consequence, especially given the current political situation, a strike or revolt of this group would have a high cost to the national and worldwide bourgeoisie. This is why the bosses all over the world use this segment of the population as a scapegoat and so dividing workers that are part of the same class.
Finally, we must stand side by side with immigrants and refugees in Brazil, and struggle for their demands. They are also facing hunger and unemployment. They will also be affected by the Labor and Social Security reforms, as well as by the new outsourcing bill. We have to fight every type of xenophobia, which separates this community from the society and avoids the acknowledgment of them as a part of the working class. More than ever, this union is indispensable to fulfill our project of society: a socialist world, fair and solidary.
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Translation: Guillermo Zuñiga.
Notes:
[1] The main reasons for such low number are victims’ fear and lack of awareness of their rights, as civil society institutions and other independent organizations have to inform, attend and shelter the entire immigrants’ and refugees’ community by themselves, with no response or support by the State.
[2] The number of Haitian and African immigrants in the outsourced cleaning category calls the attention; while Bolivians and Venezuelans work mostly in the textile industry, subject to a slavery-like work system in clandestine workshops; and immigrants in general in the construction industry, not to mention the countless informal jobs in services.