Crevices of Solidarity – Part IV- The passion of Efigenia

When I remember Efigenia on those tiresome weekend trips, hauling her artisan craft materials and readymade pieces such as handbags and sandals to sell, I wonder if she was driven by political convictions and a sense of solidarity or if there was some other, very strong, ingredient in the mix which made that young lass carry all those heavy bags all the way from the Cidade Industrial, suburb of Belo Horizonte to Linhares Penitentiary in County of Juiz de Fora.

When I think back on that tall, skinny, pretty, long hair and pony tailed, simple, elegant, friendly and always with a smile on her lips girl, I remember the love she felt for Gilney. Every Saturday she arrived around noon and left on Sunday. She slept at Carmelo Convent and had built a strong relationship with Sister Terezinha. She became such friends with Geninho that it was starting to make me feel jealous even.

Our group caught on to the handicrafts being made by the prisoners as well. Itamar and Neide were in charge of sales and they also became very attached to Efigenia, who in addition to her many qualities was very charismatic. Time went by and these stories and affective bonds linked to the Linhares prisoners were being left in the back door, at first as a security imperative, then because of the directions our lives were taking, changing our target communities.

But one day… in 1996, in Cabo de Santo Agostinho, state of Pernambuco, an exciting and fruitful reencounter took place. I worked at the Solidary Community Council, a federal agency in Brasilia, where the first lady at the time, Dona Ruth Cardoso, asked me to go visit some projects around our Brazil abroad which she considered to be exemplary. One of the projects she chose was the Women’s Center of Cabo and instructed me that I should make a surprise visit in order to learn about the real functionality of the project. I showed up by surprise, asked to speak with the President and wouldn’t you guess it: Gilney’s Efigenia walked up to me at once.

I know you! I know you! Remember me! Remember me! We hugged, cried, walked, talked and the best part of the story is that I was even able to help the organization which was created and run by her. Right then and there I phoned the Bank of Brazil Foundation who worked in a very close relationship with the Solidary Community and suggested that they pay a visit to the Women’s Center.

Not many days went by when I received a telephone call from Efigenia, overjoyed with the news that the Banco do Brazil Foundation had sent someone over and approved a grant for their space to be used as a nursery home. I believe she continues to live in Cabo and I still want to return there one day to hug that smiley and friendly girl from the 70’s, the artisan peddler for the political prisoners of Linhares.

Prison lights shine through the crevices of solidarity

Solidarity, as an ethical principle and value in human relations is a two-way street. Solidarity has in itself the remarkable power to create new values and point the way for the advancement of historical processes and of human consciousness in its highest dimensions, not unlike political awareness.

We owe much to the prisoners of Linhares in regards to their solidarity network’s stance towards the elections of 1974. A stance that ended up contaminating a large part of the democratic resistance movement in Minas Gerais, especially the student segment which, in 1974 nonetheless, vacillated between voting for MDB, the Brazilian Democratic Movement, which occupied an important political arena, and repeating the senseless null vote of the 70’s. Those were different times.

I believe that this wording “vote for MDB,” counted on the argumentation strength of a natural born mineiro from the city of Teófilo Otoni, and former inmate of Linhares prison, Nilmário Miranda. The prisoners and their families with whom we had closer contact, always cited Nilmário’s assessments in pro MDB theses.

I believe that there is something in the mineiro DNA linked to an atavistic commitment to democracy, even if in a “reformist” or “bourgeois” conception (jargon from that period). Without a doubt, this impetus to vote and overthrow the dictatorship through institutional conduits pulsed in that journalist’s good fighting spirit with such virulence that he quickly contaminated his fellow prison mates, poisoning our solidarity network, which was geared towards influencing the juizforanian and mineira youths to overcome the “lefties” political stance and, in our case, the inconsequential null vote.

We went body and soul into the MDB’s campaign, supporting Itamar Franco for Senate, with the “Up to the challenge”, Tarcisio Delgado for House of Representatives, with “Tarcisio, your vote speaks” and kept the space guarded and under the influences of the “Partidao”, historical nickname of the Brazilian Communist Party, for Marcos Tito, “A vote for freedom.”

It seems like it was just yesterday… Geninho and I went to DCE headquarters, the Central Directory of Students of UFJF, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, in the Central Gallery, on Rua Halfeld, chaired by Celso Pimenta at the time, our friend and best man, and told him about the “commands” that we were getting from the political prisoners of Linhares, to not just vote for MDB, but to also lead the student movement to an effective participation in the campaign. We sat down right then and there and wrote and dispatched a letter to all academic directories of Minas Gerais, urging their vote for the MDB. Good times those were when we were making history…

We had a very intense participation and leading role in the MDB’s campaign. Under the baton of the student leader Luiz Sérgio Henriques, we were able to host radio programs and back youths to defend the thesis that we believed should be broadcasted. Maria José Feres was one always on the radio who, in addition to her baggage in national affairs, expressed herself with mastery. Whenever the radio station would announce our candidates or our young collaborators, Luiz Sérgio came in with a recording of his masterful and unmistakable voice: “LET’S RAISE THE LEVEL OF DEBATE.”

In the context of the MDB’s campaign of ‘74 in Juiz de Fora, and in the increasingly growing spectrum of our solidarity network and complicities, I remember: Ivan Barbosa, Beth Palheta and Eduardo Salazar, Frederico Crespo, Áurea Celeste, Lucilia Neves, Reginaldo Arcuri, João Cesar Novais, José Carlos Sá Fortes, Leninha Crivelari, Ivan Mehry, Jubel Barreto, Helena Mota Sales, Gilvan Procópio… and many others committed to democratic freedoms and the democracy already preannounced to us, although paradoxically, as a means and as an end.

Good times those were, I say, where we made history and upheld endless political conversations and ideological policies that ran through the cold mornings in the land of the labor fighter Clodesmidt Riani and the poet Murilo Mendes.

Conclusion

I understood, once and for all, that to live is to be free and be free is my way of life. To organize and rouse up that solidarity network for the political prisoners of Linhares in the early 70’s had its price. Yes, a high price for Geninho and I who went to the recondite corners of our filing cabinets but not to oblivion. But that’s another story! History, above all is what I honor and take pride in because it is consistent with my vocation and saga for liberty.

Denise Paiva. August, 2012. Rio de Janeiro