On November 4, 2021, when the Favela Day is celebrated, children and teenagers from some schools in the Maré region were surprised by a strong firefight. Cornered in classrooms and administrative spaces at schools, teachers, staff and students were caught in the middle of an armed confrontation between two armed groups operating in the region.
We draw attention to the unacceptable fact of the terror that took hold and the extent to which the school work process was interrupted with much material damage, but mainly with the suffering and illness of the people who were there at the time of the confrontation. A 20-year-old boy was hit by a firearm in front of one of the schools where the shooting took place. It is very sad to think that employees of these schools had to wash the blood from the sidewalks of educational institutions before the students left and had to step onto a floor that witnessed what had happened. Undoubtedly, a fact that shows the banality of violence.
There were many critical situations of fear reported by school professionals: a student locked himself in the teacher's locker, repeating at times that he did not want to die, the rush of having to gather the children and lie down in fear of a bullet reaching one of them and thinking about how to leave school after the event, among other issues. Scenes like these express the fear experienced on a daily basis by slum dwellers, and make many people feel that it is not possible to change this context. It is a feeling of impotence shared by the population in general, but also by professionals who work in different public facilities such as Family Schools and Clinics, for example.
Therefore, it is necessary to reflect deeply on what we need to do, collectively, to change the situations of violence and violations of rights that occur in the group of favelas in Maré. We have to reflect on the process that brought us to where we are, and understand that the suffering of favela populations as a result of military violence has its origins in the historical negligence established for these city dwellers.
The conditions of control and coercion established by different armed groups reveal a reality of insecurity for favela residents, in general, and reveal a certain naturalization of violence on the part of government officials and even residents of other regions of the city. This can be seen in the fact that police actions in the 16 favelas of Maré, for example, which are supposed to protect the local population, usually leave a trail of even greater violence, with a very different way of acting from what they do in other areas of the city. In addition, the occurrence of clashes between armed criminal groups in the dimension that is given says a lot about how the public security apparatus has dealt with and operated with these networks.
The perplexity in the face of the phenomenon of armed violence reaches two distinct points: the first moment is that of revolt in face of the State's inertia and inefficiency in providing public safety; the second, of criticism when faced with the possibility that the inertia of public authorities is an omission by unofficial interest to maintain a context that supports their actions, obviously outside the logic of respect for a part of society, in the case of slum dwellers, about their right to public security.
As it has done in all cases of violations of rights in the region, whether caused by security forces or armed civilian groups, Redes da Maré repudiates this episode and joins everyone in the search for strategic and structuring solutions to transform this context.
This type of violence, which once again affects the residents of the 16 favelas of Maré, in addition to depriving the region's population of access to basic rights such as education and health, has decimated generations in the popular areas.
Foto © Naldinho Lourenço
Redes da Maré
Rio de Janeiro, November 7, 2021
