Paulo Freire’s role and influence on the praxis of popular communication in Brazil

Abstract

The article approaches the relationship between the aims of Paulo Freire’s education for liberation and the praxis of popular communication in Brazil. The goal is to understand the extent to which aspects of Freire’s thoughts can intersperse with concepts and practices of popular, community, and alternative communication in Brazil. The study is based on bibliographic research on Freire’s work while reflecting on some of the principles of the education for liberation, particularly those embedding the praxis of popular communication in social movements. This paper concludes by arguing that principles such as ‘communication as dialogue’, ‘critical consciousness’, the ability to become a ‘subject’, ‘education as a practice for freedom’, ‘connection to reality’, and ‘social transformation’ lie prominently in the concept and practices of popular and community communication.

Keywords

Introduction

Despite recent controversies in Brazil involving Paulo Freire’s body of work – namely, the criticism from President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 and 2019 – one cannot erase Freire’s legacy, nor the freshness of his contributions. These contentious attacks are largely unfolded by Silvio Waisbord (this issue). Therefore, I jump to identifying the role and the potential influences of Paulo Freire on popular communication, that is, the degree to which aspects from Freire’s thoughts dialogue with key concepts and practices seen in popular, community, and alternative communication research in Brazil. The study draws on literature reviews of Freire’s work. The references found herein are based on case studies relating to the following social movements, that I have been studying in the last years: The Union of Borborema (Borborema region, state of Paraíba), the União da Vitória Agricultural Production Cooperative (COPAVI – a settlement of the Landless Rural Workers Movement based on the state of Paraná), and the Community Movement of Heliópolis (UNAS), in the city of São Paulo. In spite of being based in Brazil, the scope of these mobilizations could apply to movements elsewhere.

Paulo Freire did not dedicate proper efforts to study communication, but his ideas have resonated in it, especially in the framework of social movements and affiliated collectives. Even if indirectly, it is possible to assume that his views have inspired the creation of communicative concepts and practices. Freire did not research the field, but he has approached communicational problems. He has put communication at the heart of the so-called teaching-learning process. That is, the existing dialogue that underscores his method of knowledge generation. This factor is crucial for the relationship between the teacher and the student, being relevant to human relations in general. For example, between who owns the technical knowledge to lead and those with whom one interacts at the level of institutions and social movements. For Freire, communication means interaction, exchange, reciprocity, dialogue. It does not mean unilateral acts of transmitting information or knowledge.

What is the purpose of education?

The dominant elements from Freire’s influence over popular communication begin from his ideas on the pedagogy that surrounds the education for liberation. The pedagogy of liberation counterposes what he defines as the ‘banking’ concept of education, that of the traditional educational systems.

According to the banking concept of education:

Education thus becomes the act of making deposits, in which the students are the depositories cash, and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués, and ‘make deposits’ which the students patiently receive, memorise, and repeat. This is the ‘banking’ concept of education (…) In this conception, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider knowing nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of enquiry. (Freire, 1979: 79)

To the banking concept of education, Freire stresses the aims of the pedagogy of liberation, in which the pupil becomes a student. This is a ‘problem-posing education, which bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thereby responding to the vocation of men as beings who are authentic when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation’ (Freire, 1979: 81).

Freire (1979) sheds light on this educational perspective – which exists both inside and outside the school – he conceives it as a critical entity, which recognises people as beings to become; they are unfinished, incomplete individuals. He also sees them as conscious of their incompleteness, and as such, they are able to mobilise as subjects and develop in wisdom. This conception of education appears in the Brazilian context of the 1950s and 1960s, which continued in the following years. It has inequality and social injustice (poverty, illiteracy, and the rule of political oligarchies, disinformation, etc.) as a backdrop. As he grows unhappy with this situation, Freire proposes a kind of social transformation that begins with the democratisation of society and culture, alongside education. On the other hand, he does not promote any model of formal education, but ‘education as the practice of freedom’ (Freire, 1981), as one of his book’s titles state.

In 1964, the political environment found itself in turmoil with the establishment of the military dictatorship (1964-1985). At the time, the social contradictions grow strong, as though the state increases the control of politics and ideology while repressing its citizens. At first glance, all forces of resistance were silenced. After a decade, civil society starts to re-organise. It is in this milieu that Freire’s ideas begin to flourish again. It is fair to say that Freire has first developed his methods with eyes to improving literacy rates among adults. It initiates with the production of keywords, or ‘generative themes’, which are part of students’ reality. It is through them that one problematises reality. It is more than teaching them how to read and write words but improving one’s ability of reading the world. In his own terms:

The process involves the critical understanding of reading. Reading does not consist merely of decoding the written word or language; rather, it is preceded by and intertwined with knowledge of the world. The reading of the world precedes the reading of the word (…). (Freire, 1982: 11)

It is about reading the reality, not for the sake of contemplating it but to enable a comprehension that envisages transforming the conditions of oppression and injustice.

Regarding his inputs in the field of Education, that is, the pedagogy of the relationship between teacher-student, his literacy method, etc, he discusses the dialogical communication; the democratisation of culture (i.e. the recognition of people as producers of culture); the necessity of social change; the critical consciousness (to know how to read the world as a personal discovery of one’s knowledge). This condition demands that one stops thinking with somebody else’s head, that is, no longer being a shadow and becoming a subject). The education of the masses (the necessity to reach those who are out of school in a way to make them subjects and leading them out of disinformation and ignorance), among other assertions. These assumptions seem to guide many of Freire’s concepts of the education for liberation.

On the one hand, Brazil’s official and formal educational system has never incorporated Freire’s literacy methods. In reality, the country has only adopted a few of these imperatives along with those of other thinkers, such as Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori and Célestin Freinet. His thoughts transcend both the formal education policies, as much as they escape the social practices that compose non-formal¹ and informal² education guidelines. In the latter type, it is where forms of social intervention championed by civil society occur. I set my interest in this environment of communities and social movements, observing the subtle resonance of Freire’s thoughts. It is an understated form of influence because it takes place during the period of exception in Brazil’s history. In other words, not to mention Freire was to be cautious. Over time, some of his ideas have become naturalised.

Paulo Freire was concerned with those who had no conditions to attend a literacy school. To that purpose, he has developed the ‘Circles of Culture’ – centres for the adult literacy – to promote the increase of rates. The military regime has interrupted his project. However, his ideas continued to influence many levels of citizens’ organisation and mobilisation. This brief perspective has sought to inform how I identify the principles of the education for liberation in the praxis of popular communication.

The communication for transformation

In advance of the fall and ultimate end of the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985, social movements and other civic actors re-assembled. Both of which were deeply engaged with the struggle for democracy and search for solving social issues. In their processes of consciousness-organisation-action, these actors have included the need for communication. This concern becomes a stepping-stone for the processes of resistance above. These efforts have given shape to what I call popular communication – or the people’s communication. Subaltern classes are those that have joined these segments. They have organised in resistance and become protagonists of their forms of communication.

Therefore, popular communication can also configure ways to participatory, dialogic, community, group, horizontal, alternative, and educative communication, as well as communication for social change. It thrives in a broader scene of social mobilisation in which it aims to claim rights to existence and primary conditions of life. These causes include granting rights to the land, labour rights, respect for the environment, human rights, and participatory politics.

As Gohn says, social movements are collective organisations that:

present a socio-political character. They allow for distinct ways through which people can organise and express their demands. (…) According to history, movements have always existed, and we believe they always will. This faith stems from their representation of organised social groups; because they amalgamate with people but not to count them in as numbers, but as part of a social experiment and these activities generate creativity and socio-cultural innovations (…) Movements have got their view about social reality to build their proposals. As they act within networks, they forge collective actions that resist exclusion and fight for social belonging. (Gohn, 2011: 335–336)

To this article’s purposes, popular communication appears in the context of this kind of social movement. At this level, popular communication acquires an emancipatory quality by representing organised civic actors from subaltern classes. The expression ‘popular communication’, seen as a whole, suggests resistance. At the same time, it shares with proactive movements a sense of calling for social change and the recognition of rights. If seen broadly, popular communication accommodates other historical communicational branches, like those seen as community or alternative. These categories have slowly shown their specificities according to the content and theories associated with them (see Peruzzo, 2012). Despite limitations, popular communication can come up as a relevant factor to education and citizenship. It expresses the ‘people’s struggle’ while favouring an emancipative and critical content. Popular communication is the space for democratic expression; it embraces entire segments of the population as its protagonists. It becomes pivotal for the communication of subaltern classes, as they externalise their protests to ensure their struggle for rights is accurately perceived (Peruzzo, 2004: 124–128).

Since a long time ago, popular communication articulates through accessible ways. It follows the means of the groups it relates to and their communicational needs. Whether by incorporating face-to-face, interpersonal, group communication or via approximative or artisanal outlets, such as banners, theatre, poetry, bulletins, they engage with printing technologies, electromagnetic and the digital tools of the Internet age. On the other hand, one should consider that the expression found in popular communication does not happen in unison. It forays a series of communicational processes. Besides these phenomena, it represents other manifestations, as though it has interfaces with folklore and other cultural expressions, the so-called popular ones. And yet, popular communication can highlight specific aspects of mass media programmes, such as those of bizarre or sensationalist attractions, which bear massive audiences. And yet, they might align with the poorly educated populace and far from the said ‘high culture.’

Otherwise, the principles of Freire’s education for liberation analysed herein do not apply to every popular communication initiative. It belongs only in those projects to follow a praxis that contributes to transforming the social and civic fabric. It is in this kind of practice observed in social movements, and conceived as ‘counter-communicative’, that I focus my reflection regarding intersections with Freire’s principles. It is necessary to find other parameters than those that judge popular culture and the mainstream media, e.g. entertainment and sensationalist journalism. The popular communication, that I approach here, is the one in which social movements and communities design critical contents from the margins of society, taking themselves as source, highlighting their life stories, claims, and proposals, according to their world vision.

The intersections between the principles of the education for liberation and popular communication

There are five principles from the pedagogy of the education for liberation, which have appeared more clearly in the concepts and practices of popular communication (see also Peruzzo, 2017). I highlight them in the following sections.

Communication as dialogue

Paulo Freire has developed the concept of communication as a dialogue with a view to the proximity between subjects. For him:

Dialogue is the encounter between men [meaning people], mediated by the world, in order to name the world. (…) This dialogue cannot be reduced to the act of one person’s ‘depositing’ ideas in another, nor can it become a simple exchange of ideas to be ‘consumed’ by the participants of the discussion. Nor yet is it a hostile, polemical argument between men who are committed neither to the naming of the world, nor to the search for truth, but rather to the imposition of their own truth. (Freire, 1979: 83–84)

By discussing the communication between subjects, Freire fortifies his proposal for dialogical communication. He underlines the communication between subjects as opposed to that between emitters and receptors which position in separated locations, with the former ultimately appearing as a superior entity. In the universe of popular, community, and alternative communication, this argument echoes both practice and theory. At the theory level, there is a sharp absorption of democratic ideals, which embed notions of effective participation, horizontality, and communalism. This stance englobes Latin American authors such as Mário Kaplún (1985), Luis Ramiro Beltrán (1981), Juan Diaz Bordenave (1988), José Martinez Terrero (1988), Moreno Alfaro (1988), Jorge Merino Utreras (1988), and this article’s author (Peruzzo, [1988]2004, 1996, 2008), among many other authors.

Mário Kaplún (1985), for example, stays among the first to speak of horizontal communication in which emitters become receptors (so-called Emirec), and vice-versa. He does so to indicate the change of roles and the sense of a subject. This mind-set reaches all the actors in the process of popular communication. Kaplún (1988) also teaches the pedagogy for participative communication, based on Paulo Freire and Célestin Freinet.

Juan Diaz Bordenave has brought up a robust impact on the field of popular communication by focusing on the relationship between communication and education, rural communication, planning and participation. Some of his main works are ‘Estrategias de enseñanza-aprendizaje’ (strategies for teaching-learning), ‘Comunicación y Sociedad’ (communication and society), ‘Participación y Sociedad’ (participation and society), ‘Planificación y Comunicación’ (planning and communication), and ‘Qué es la comunicación rural?’(what is rural communication?).

Luis Ramiro Beltrán’s article ‘Adeus a Aristóteles: Comunicação Horizontal’ (1981) argues for the democratisation of communications based on access, dialogue, and participation. This change would allow for a genuine kind of horizontal communication, founded on equality of the involvement in the communicational ecology.

José Martinez Terrero (1988) documents experiences of group education for liberation, as he defines it, in countries such as Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela etc. Terrero also draws contributions to the ‘communication for liberation’, as he develops a specific pedagogy for communication in groups aimed at creating socially transformative protagonists.

Moreno Alfaro (1988, 2000) has equally contributed to the field of popular communication. Moreno has researched the importance of education for mass media consumption, the social participation involved in these outlets, and the communication for development according to citizens’ perspective. She has observed the changes in this kind of communication over time.

I have sought myself to understand the configurations of social movement’s communication through the eyes of participative initiatives. I have recovered (Peruzzo, 2004, 2010) the levels of participation retrieved by Merino Utreras (1988) from reports of self-managed media in Belgrade, in 1977. During the Latin American Seminar of Participatory Communication in 1978, promoted by Ciespal/Unesco,³ I have amplified these results grounded on practices of popular and community communication (see Peruzzo, 1988, 2004). In sum, the participation word could signify a simple motto or still mean a valid form of popular engagement in communication. It can happen at elementary levels (in interviews, communiqués etc.) and advanced levels (production, diffusion, decisions on content, planning, evaluation, and management of communicative outlets). This meaning will depend on the degree of consciousness and ability to mobilise shown by the involved actors and the participative strategies put in practice. To participate is a political issue and relates to how one forges the involvement of citizens in the different stages of the communication process possible.

On the social practices level, there are many experiences in Brazil and other Latin American countries in which these notions of active and effective participation among the groups, communities, and social movements in the processes entail communicative practices. The democratic participation of members from these collectives has become a foundation and a strategy for mobilisation and action. So much so to conceive the communication outlets as beyond ‘instruments’ for the diffusion of information and content. These outlets rise up as means – or mediations – of processes of social intervention. However, efficient participation does not translate as having all members together in all phases of planning, production, diffusion, and management. There are channels of representation for this purpose. Social practices ‘echo in different regions and experiences; they exist while attached to values of dialogue, popular leadership, horizontal participation, criticality and emancipatory education, mainly, with regards to non-formal and informal education’ (Peruzzo, 2017: 8).

One should also emphasise that Freire’s ‘communication as a dialogue’, as Venício Lima (2011: 102–103) puts it, overcomes the traditional view according to which dialogue is an interior action and product of a me-to-you relationship (Buber, 1977). Freire reflects on dialogue as ‘social action’, which he directs to social transformation. By connecting this point to the ‘world-mediated dialogue among people’, the importance of dialogical communication as a form of raising consciousness about reality and how to deal with that becomes clear. The above Freire’s quote illustrates what he means by ‘world-mediated’ relationship. This dynamic exists in popular communication, but only if we take into account that this process happens at the heart of social movements, which established dialogues with reality all the time. Other than that, it is not reflective of a kind of communication only based on diffusion, or on outlets dedicated to this, which would not prioritise face-to-face, interpersonal, group, and action planning that could prioritise horizontality.

The human being as the subject

To Paulo Freire (1979: 34) ‘education should consider the ontological vocation of men [humans] – the vocation to be the subject – and the condition in which one lives: in such place, in such moment, in such context’. Freire believes in the ability of the human being for emancipating from manipulative traps and political or ideological subjugation. According to him, humans can transform themselves and the oppressive reality. While being coherent with his literacy methods for adults, he teaches that effective change will be possible only according to the reality in which people live and as long as the people are open to it in a reflexive manner and the relationship to each other. Then, his vision of human being as ‘the being of relations not only the being of contacts’ who not only lies in the world but is with the world (Freire, 1981: 81).

In these conditions, the human being is able to be the subject of his or her own history. He or she plays an active role in society; does not allow himself or herself to be manipulated and does not set relationships of dependence so as to abandon the intrinsic condition of a human. It means being able to quit being a shadow of others (Freire, 1981: 113), for instance, when one overcomes illiteracy – by reading and writing but understanding the world. In his words, ‘being able to read and write only liberates us from being a shadow of the others when, in a dialectical relationship with the “world reading”, we achieve the re-writing of the world and its transformation as a result’ (Freire, 2000: 88). At the same time, in this dialectical relation of being ‘with’ the world, one generates knowledge. According to Freire (1977: 27), ‘[i]t demands critical reflection from each of us about the act of knowing’. Communication in the context of social movements is intrinsic to the process of generating knowledge, which the participative rituals of the latter can offer. These rituals constitute the learning exchange and the generation of new expertise based on this praxis. As Washington Uranga argued:

Community and popular communication are meeting places in everyday life, among those who pursue different practices. It is a place of dialogue and exchange where knowledge emerges. In that sense, community communication is also a political vocation to, since its outset, enable people so they can socialise knowledge, convert it into political nourishment and fuel for action in the public space. (Uranga, 2009: 182)

The assumption that sees human beings becoming subjects resonates from the praxis of popular communication concerning the aspects above tied to community leadership and social movements’ communication. Whenever these entities start to represent themselves, based on their problems, needs, and interests, the collective subjects empower themselves through communication. Therefore, they seize the role of emitters and receptors for themselves, as Kaplún (1985, 1988) proposed.

Communication as a practice for freedom

As far as Paulo Freire champions ‘education as a practice for freedom’ (1981), popular communication has also incorporated this notion as it becomes a cry for emancipation from civic leaders and those tied to organisations and social movements. In this way, I refer to freedom of expression, and more than this, the right to communicate (Peruzzo, 2005). Every time that new forms of communication and technology favour the empowerment of social movements and their resistance, they perform vis-à-vis to an expectation of battling for individual and collective rights which stem from a will to dignity, equality, and political participation. Popular communication subscribes to this level of social struggle, whether by claiming this right to communicate as a human and citizen’s right or by putting it on the same level of the rights of the individual.

Life’s fulfilment and the right to happiness are the most significant reasons for one to exist and for societies to thrive. It is a right of everyone and not only those who bear a set of physical traits or financial assets. Thus, the struggle against inhuman conditions of living leads to the right to intervene in public policies. It is about laws and actions of the State, if they are in favour of minorities and oppressed majorities. These points are legitimate and oriented to the public interest. Communication that surges from these processes can only be for liberation. It does not happen as an isolated phenomenon, as there are broader actions for transformation that also guide the active participation of individuals and the diffusion of civic-oriented citizens’ voices. In this universe, one witness to non-formal and informal education intertwine, as education and communication are indivisible.

Connection to context

The principle of adherence to reality or the connection to context relate in a robust way to popular communication for liberation. Mainly because these principles are crucial for Freire’s literacy methods for adults. Being in tune with the reality of groups, social segments, social movements, and communities is critical for the popular communication praxis as it needs to be a communicative-educative and organic route to reality. It is possible to criticise popular communication (the issues, difficulties, and conquests), as one departs from it to communicate within it, following its languages and demands. Especially when other publics are concerned, and there is the need to establish their public relations and find a position in society. In this principle, one finds the value of the effective participation of groups and social movements, as the popular wisdom is revamped and recognised as a valid and vital form of knowledge.

The idea of reading the world, and not only words, is aligned with the ‘See, Judge, and Act’ method, which cardinal Joseph Cardijn,⁴ the founder of the Worker’s Youth Movement (Movimento Juventude Operária, JOC), has further developed. The latter method was already in implementation in the 1950s and was later largely employed by the Movement of Basic Education (MEB), created in 1961 by the National Bishops Conference of Brazil (CNBB), and the Basis’ Ecclesiastic Communities (CEB)⁵ in the 1960s, in which many social leaders have emerged. This method contributes to the development of critical consciousness based on the understanding that transforming the reality requires knowing and judging it – analysing and discerning it under the inspiration of Gospel, as it emerged within the Catholic church. This is the context in which popular communication emerge as well. It had a backdrop of class contradictions on the rise, socioeconomic inequality, but one also sees the build-up of collective initiatives in favour of justice and citizenship. They took place both on the stage of the conquest of rights and of the obligation to intervene for the sake of justice and public interest.

Social transformation

As earlier said, the social transformation issue exists since the foundation of Freire’s thoughts. It is about oppressive realities and the need to change it. Progressive social movements, which encase very well many examples of popular communication, want to transmute the conditions that have led to their existence into practical actions. The abolishment of unfair circumstances and the respect to people’s rights by the state are social movement’s and affiliated collective’s raison d’être and, therefore, social transformation becomes a vital principle to pursue.

Hence, popular, community and alternative communication that stem from social movements contributes to concrete goals based on their allegations and claims. As a result, these revindications will inevitably become public. For example, the construction of a school, the halt of a dam construction that would lead to flooding a community, the legalisation of a land settlement, the establishment of child-protection laws, etc. This kind of social transformation can also shift people’s conduct to developing their intellectual abilities. It facilitates people to get into politics by sensitising the parliament, the executive and the judiciary and put pressure on public policies. Accordingly, the principles of the education for liberation also contribute to the communication for liberation because it encourages people to become subjects and join the construction of society.

Final considerations

This article has sought to bring the education for liberation closer to concepts of popular, community and alternative communication. I have focused on the study of communicative practices that combine with those of social movements that intervene in society through socio-communal activities. I have argued that the principles of the education for liberation have contributed for a model of emancipatory communication because it motivates action, creation, and transformation in favour of the subalternised segments of the population. One can develop a better grasp of this process by taking into account the values of education for liberation. Freire’s ideas convey values such as those of dialogue, critical consciousness, the ability to be a subject, education as a practice for freedom, critical connection to the reality, and social transformation. All of which are essential to weave the main lines between social movements and popular communication. Whether directly or indirectly, I have sought to gather concepts that unite both theory and practices of popular communication.

This kind of reasoning – in which every action is political – comes from raising the consciousness of the local mediating leadership. These actors are the ones which learn at the heart of social struggles, often rising from CEBs and other progressive social or political movements. Thus, it is not about employing Freire’s literacy method on its entirety, but some of its philosophical and educative principles. These thoughts inspire successful communicative concepts, and the practices staged in community and social movements. Eventually, after four decades, one can see meaningful advances in citizens’ rights in Brazil, which arise directly from social and civic participation.

Since January 2019, the arrival of conservative forces led by Bolsonaro government has suggested a severe setback for these developments. The examples are already visible. The intervention from this government over public policies that ensured citizens’ representation at the councils that oversaw the management of public departments is one of the examples. Others include the promotion of state violence to fight crime; the tolerance of racism and homophobia; the weakening of policies that protected the indigenous and the environment and so forth. These positions, among many others that taint social advances, also touch on the permission for the use of forbidden pesticides, the break-up of democratic rules to elect Vice Chancellors for public universities, the budget cuts for education and scientific research, and the moral criteria associated with the ministers chosen to run the country’s cultural policy. These are not accidental measures. These facts constitute the government vision, which unmakes many of Paulo Freire’s ideas, at least at the level of those in power.

The President’s statements confirm his aversion to Freire since the 2018 electoral campaigning. His government agenda ended up reverberating with his allies and voters. In a way, there is a shared sensation that we are living again a remarkable moment of Brazilian history. Last century’s dictatorship had already suppressed thoughts that favoured equality, popular sovereignty and democracy and had their accusers arrested, banished, or executed. Paulo Freire had himself to seek asylum abroad. Nowadays, as we start the second decade of the 21st century, such ideas are back to bother us, as far as some political groups still keep their resistance to them.

Some questions pertain to this scenario. One could perhaps respond by citing the freshness of Paulo Freire’s work and its potential to lead to change once again. Like in his time, today’s problems seem unresolvable, the class contradictions persist, despite recent advances in income distribution, public policies implementation, and the right to citizenship sponsored by last governments. To the degree that civil society is strong enough and new mechanisms of participation exist today, it is no surprise that some might want to undermine such democratic gains and progressive ideas. Back then, to achieve an upheaval in the historical background that saw the majority of the population excluded from social development, one had to bet on raising the consciousness through successful Freirean strategies. To that matter, these changes are not welcome for the politics committed to conservatism, which seeks political and ideological control founded on outdated traditions. Likewise, that also represents the extremes of economic liberalism which these groups project for Brazil. Here, a fairer and more democratic society is something to fear.

In any case, history has its dynamics and is plenty with processes of affirmation and negation of the old and the new. Often, at the same time. Segments of society who identify with the struggle for equality, the respect to human rights, and the protection of other forms of life in the planet remain active. The dictatorship has silenced many voices. In spite of this, pro-democracy echoes have endured, and a sequence of mobilisations have achieved the re-establishment of reasonable democratic levels in Brazil. A similar trend continues to this day. While one sees a loud clash between conservative and progressive forces, between advances and setbacks, part of society goes on fighting for civility ideals and rights for all. Social movements and civic actors carry on their combative and purposeful trajectory by amplifying the perception that one needs citizens’ rights and civic culture. At many levels, there is a strong antagonism but not enough to stop social movements and progressive members. These individuals can generally see further ahead, pointing to a better future. They are entrepreneurs of change that work towards specific segments of society but in benefit of all humanity.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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