Thefighttoremain

80 years after Dona Orosina built her shack on Morro do Timbau and asked Getúlio Vargas to leave her in peace, free from threats and fee demands by military personnel in the area, community mobilization is still the biggest and best tool residents have to win the right to remain where they live and to secure improvements in their territory.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the seaside fishermen's houses and villages in Bonsucesso and Ramos began to be regarded and treated by the State and the press as a favela. The region was quickly occupied by more shacks and stilt houses, becoming a target of the criticism and stigmas directed at the poorer populations.

Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph showing a community located near a body of water. The image features several wooden houses, raised on stilts, with corrugated tile roofs. On the right, three people are in a small boat, apparently carrying out some activity related to the water. The houses are arranged in an organized manner, with some leaning backward, revealing a simple and functional housing structure. In the background, other buildings can be seen, suggesting a nearby urban area.

Throughout the first decades of its existence, residents of the favelas of Maré suffered persistent eviction and removal attempts, living with the permanent threat of losing their homes at any moment. Even Nova Holanda, built by the Brazilian State itself to house those removed from other favelas, was named the Provisional Housing Center, emphasizing that it could be shut down at any moment. Eliana Sousa Silva, coordinator of Redes da Maré, recalls that her first term at the Nova Holanda Residents' Association, in the early 1980s, was centered on the favela's urbanization and raising residents' awareness of their right to remain there and fight to improve the place.

In those conversations with the residents, they would bring out the document they had received during the removal, with the house falling apart. And they would say: "we don't fix it up, because at some point we might have to leave here, we'd be wasting our money." So, my fight, the thing I'm most proud of, in my first term, was exactly that. Making people understand, making them believe that the house was permanent.

Image description: This is a photograph of a modest house in an urban setting. The image shows a wooden structure with a sloped roof and open windows. On the left, there is a small area with green leaves from a plant, possibly a banana plant. In front of the house, there is a clothesline with clothes hanging, including colorful items in yellow, green, and white. On the right, there is a white box fixed to the wall. The ground appears to be packed dirt, with pieces of wood scattered about.

But the collective effort to build a place to live — including houses and streets — by the hands of residents predates Eliana's work with Nova Holanda. Parque União, for example, emerged in the late 1950s on the initiative of a group of activists such as Antoine de Magarinos Torres — a lawyer and communist militant, linked to the struggle of favela dwellers in Rio for land ownership and against evictions. Trying to prevent the place from having a stigmatized image of a favela — so common at the time — the group named the place "Bairro Desembargador Magarinos Torres," in honor of Antoine's father.

The construction of housing for the poor population by activists, some of them communists, became the target of attacks in the early 1960s, under the government of Carlos Lacerda — one of the most notorious anticommunists in the times of political radicalization prior to the civil-military coup of 1964.

Image description: The image is a black-and-white newspaper. At the top, there is a large bold headline that reads "GOVERNOR RENEWS OFFENSIVE AGAINST FAVELA DWELLERS." Below, there is a detailed text about events that occurred in a neighborhood called Desembargador Magarinos Tôrres, near the Ilha do Governador bridge. The text mentions the arrival of Honório Mantel, head of SERPHA's Favela Inspection and Removal Service, who arrived with the Military Police to tear down shacks. Led by João Alexandrino da Silva, the residents protested against the violence. The text also mentions that the governor ordered the favela's destruction and that the lawyer Magarino Tôrres Filho took on the defense of the favela dwellers.

Aristênio Gomes, a former resident of Parque União, in his history undergraduate thesis (UERJ), "The construction of Parque União: the collective actions of residents for the improvement and permanence of the favela between 1959 and 1969," presented a news report on the mobilization of residents in defense of their homes, following the announcement that the state government would carry out the removal of the favela (which the report placed in Ramos):

Morador de Ramos apela por barracos: Mil e quatrocentas famílias residentes no Parque União, em Ramos, foram ontem à Assembléia Legislativa pedir ao Presidente da Casa, Sr. Raul Brunini, que sejam sustadas as demolições dos seus barracos. A Comissão de moradores considera uma violência do executivo a demolição, “já que todos os moradores são trabalhadores honestos, e que construíram seus barracos com muita dificuldade”.

For a long time, academic research attributed a prominent role to Magarinos. Without disregarding the lawyer's importance in the fight for land ownership and the right to housing, Aristênio highlights the residents' leading role in defending their own right to remain in the place:

Essa resistência não possui uma característica passiva, resistindo apenas em ocupar um local e esperar que as violências e tentativas de remoção cessassem, mas pelo contrário, um tipo de resistência ativa, protestando e buscando garantias pelos meios legais, pressionando as instituições públicas responsáveis. É o que marca a História de permanência da favela do Parque União, evidenciado através de inúmeros protestos reportados por jornais na época.

Margô, a resident of Sem Terra (the newer part of Parque União), recalls how the occupation of the area happened and the residents' struggle to remain there:

E aí veio a invasão: "vai invadir Sem-Terra, vai invadir o Sem-Terra". Aí, eu também corri para a invasão. Fui eu, o presidente da associação, outras pessoas, né. […] Quebrei o muro do Sem-Terra, cavei buraco para passar aqui, marcamos nosso pedaço. Um grupo de 15 mulheres! Cada uma nos seus quadrados, para guardar aquele lugar ali, para quando viesse dar a senha, cada um pegar o seu, receber o seu pedaço de terra. E ali ficamos 21 dias. Deu polícia, deram tiro…