Occupation ends in success at rector's office of University of Sao Paolo

My journal entry from a few days ago:

Sao Paolo is the fifth biggest city in the world and only 18 years away from a dictatorship. Definitely an interesting place. It kind of has the feel of New York (at least from what I can remember from 5 years ago). Lots of people on the streets, lots of motorcycles. Tons of tall buildings. I haven't been to the favelas yet, though, where most of the city lives. My hostel is in a fancier part of town, right near the Centro. Of course, even in the fanciest parts of the town there are homeless people sleeping on the streets and piles of trash collecting flies. Yesterday, based on a tip from a fellow journalist staying in my hostel room, I decided to head out for the Ciudad Universitaria, the campus of the University of Sao Paolo (USP), home to 80,000 students. Over there, an occupation was supposed to be happening at the building of the rectora (university president). Along the way, I was able to get a nice bus tour of the streets of Sao Paolo. Lots of awesome graffiti. Political and non-political. Legalize abortion now! Feed your soul - no to capitalism! Entering the university, the graffiti increased. Signs of the occupation were everywhere - newspapers, stencils, bulletin boards covered in propaganda.

I started to ask around about the occupation and luckily I ran into one of occupiers. He told me that the occupation had actually ended a few days ago when demands were met and there was consensus to leave the building after 50 DAYS(!) His English and Spanish weren't too great so we walked together over to another part of the university where he introduced me to other participants in the occupation.

The occupation started when the right-wing governor of the state, Jose Serra, issued several executive orders that attacked the autonomy of the universities in the state of Sao Paolo. They told me that they had about 100 constant participants and 500 people who were in the occupation at one point or another. They formed different committees to organize and maintain the occupation - security, media, culture, etc. The culture committee showed political movies in the occupied building (pretty huge building - about 4 stories high with tons of offices). Another group was responsible for installing Linux on all of the computers in the building! (the administration later claimed that data was deleted in the process, regardless I think this is a first for occupations!) In solidarity with the occupation, the students from several departments went on strike as well as the professors and workers at the university. Beyond the demand to retract the executive decrees, the students had several other demands to be met before they ended the occupation - reconstruction of old "temporary" buildings that had been there since the 70s, the building of three new residence halls (students I met with lived there for free), changes in admission criteria that is primarily based on a standardized test, no punishment for the participants in the occupation and the hiring of more professors. Halfway through the occupation the governor retracted the decrees but the students stayed.

Inspired by the occupation at USP, students at the other two universities in Sao Paolo occupied buildings on their campuses. Finally the rector caved in and agreed the rest of the demands. The strikes ended and the occupants decided to end it. There was a big party on the last night and the next day the corporate media showed up in droves to cover the de-occupation. Angered at their appearance after months of disparaging the occupation, the students blasted the corporate media with hoses. Afterwards, the corporate media took interviews in soaked business suits.

They shared with me how the occupation had brought together a disparate student movement that had been stalled for the past few years. Students here (and in the rest of Latin America and Europe) study only in their department during their time at the university. No GEs, no electives, just their field. So many of the radical students at USP never knew each other during their entire stay at the university until the occupation.

Since the end of the occupation, the student organizers have been trying to maintain the energy and momentum that has been built. One department tried to shut off an empty space that students have been using for their own means for years. Students arrived and pried off the bars and now they will use the space for political events. There is talk that Lula, the president of Brazil, will try to implement the same university reforms that would chip away at the autonomy of the university so there is that potential battle in the future as well.

All in all, the student organizers I spoke with seemed very positive about the prospects for the student movement in the future. One interesting aspect of the organization of the occupation was the decision-making structure. The participants created an assembly that was made up of members of many different political organizations and also autonomous or non-affiliated people. Decisions were made on consensus and there were no leaders or elected spokespeople. This structure seems very similar to the way that the APPO was organized in Oaxaca and I believe is another indication of a worldwide shift from old ways of organizing social movements (top-down, undemocratic, party-based organizations) to a new style that incorporates lessons learned in the past.

Here are some pictures that I took around the campus.

Municipal police off the campus