Liga Operaria: Get the Military Police out of schools! Defeat the “civic-military school”!

We share an unofficial translation of an statement by MOCLATE found in Liga Operaria.

Last week, all Minas Gerais state school systems unexpectedly received a list of approximately 700 schools that could potentially become civic-military, stating that such a “decision” must be “voted on” by the “community” between July 5th and 17th. The claim is to make schools safer, but this is not true. It’s a lie disguised as a good deed.

The government doesn’t have the money to pay teachers’ minimum wage, but it does have the money to pay the police to monitor education workers and all positive and critical student activity. And why so suddenly, when even the federal government has already opposed this measure?

We ask: why are there so many attacks on education? It’s because of the critical thinking that can be developed within schools. Schools are a favorable environment for debate and the development of students’ critical thinking, enabling them to acquire class consciousness. In schools, children, adolescents, and young people can learn that they are part of the working class, not the reactionary ruling classes that exploit and oppress the people.

It is in this place where we can clearly see the forces at work in society and what they represent for each of us inside and outside our homes, as individuals and as social and collective beings in a class-divided and extremely unequal society. And what better way to curb or repress such discussions and reflections than a police presence inside the school?

And why the police and not psychologists and social workers? since countless students suffer from various disorders, syndromes, losses, which generate psychological shocks and most do not have the means to seek treatment.

Why not other healthcare professionals like doctors, dentists, and ophthalmologists? We teachers know that countless students have vision problems that are often only identified thanks to the attentive eye of education professionals.

Education is the cornerstone of a society that wants to be taken seriously! Treating education as a police matter is fascist! A decent education that truly serves the people can reduce delinquency among children, adolescents, and young adults. Of course, this should be coupled with a decent healthcare system, housing, and sanitation, as well as sports and leisure activities for all. The children of workers, who are truly the ones who build everything and sustain society, have no right to any of this! And to prevent them from rebelling and fighting for their rights and social transformation, the far-right government of Mr. Romeu Zema (NOVO) wants to turn schools into prisons. Students and teachers will not accept this, and protests have already begun throughout the state, such as in Vespasiano and Juiz de Fora.

And why engage in military intervention in schools if the problem predates them? If children and adolescents had access to education, healthcare, leisure, sports, arts, science, etc.—that is, if schools fulfilled their role of serving the interests and meeting the most pressing needs of the people—we wouldn’t need to worry about spending so much on security. Much less consider situations such as violence among students and/or against education workers. This is unthinkable outside of the current shameful situation of disrespect on the part of the state government of the reactionary Romeu Zema (NOVO).

The government is the one that must be monitored, pressured and forced to comply with what is established by educational legislation, particularly in the investment of public resources, by the Statute of Children and Adolescents and by the federal and state constitutions.

There would be fewer young people involved in delinquency if there were a full-time, vocational school, concerned with meeting the needs and rights of children, adolescents and young people.

And what about the possible implications caused by the presence of one of the most lethal police forces in the world inside the school, in a country where the genocide of poor, black youth is a state policy?

It’s a vicious cycle: the child/teenager has nothing to do (gets involved in drug trafficking/violence), but they see and experience it. It’s the law of survival: parents leave early for work (they don’t have time to guide their children on the right path), and these parents often fall victim to this same vicious cycle. Children, adolescents, and young adults who are involved in this perverse means of survival or who live in areas where retail drug trafficking is prevalent suffer daily from police repression. This is the system’s “education”: “Hands on your head, spread your legs, you bum!” while in upscale neighborhoods, gated communities, etc., it’s “no sir, yes sir!”

And how can we place all the responsibility on parents? If their absence stems precisely from having to leave before their children wake up and return after they’re already asleep. Parents who waste three hours commuting to and from work and arrive exhausted from a 6-to-1 work shift. How can people care for and actively participate in their children’s education under these conditions?

It is we, working parents, with the support of schools and their education professionals, using our tax dollars, who have the right to guide and protect our own children! We do not need and do not accept the Military Police in our schools!

We demand culture, sports, education, health, and leisure! We DO NOT ACCEPT military personnel patrolling, monitoring bodies and minds in an environment that should, a priori, be secular, democratic, creative, and liberating.

Education workers and school communities, let us unite and defend public schools and the freedom to teach and learn, freedom of expression, assembly, organization, protest, and strike!

MOCLATE – Class Movement of Education Workers / Workers’ League