Thread by @BrianMteleSUR

The Koch-trained Free Brasil Movement (MBL) and Bolsonaro and his followers have spent years pushing to purge everything about Paulo Freire, the most internationally-cited Brazilian academic ever, from the Brazilian school system. Today marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Freire's 1968 book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" written during exile in Chile, after being arrested and imprisoned by Brazil's US-backed neofascist military dictatorship, it is still the 3rd most cited social sciences book in academia today.

One of the founding works of critical pedagogy, "Oppressed" compares traditional education with putting coins in piggy banks, with teachers depositing knowledge in their students' heads. Instead, Freire argues, teachers should treat their students as co-creators of knowledge.

Paulo Freire worked closely with the MST ( Landless Rural Workers Movement), jointly developing adult literacy methodologies which empowered millions of rural landless peasants to understand complex works of literature and philosophy and apply them in their daily lives.

I witnessed this first hand at an event in an MST settlement near Açailândia, Maranhão in 2010. I commented to a farmer that I was having problems understanding Foucault and received the clearest explanation of the key tenets of his philosophy that I had ever heard.

Why do fascists and neoliberals hate Paulo Freire so much? Here's a quote: "It would be naive to wait for the dominant classes develop a form of education that would enable the dominated classes to understand social injustices in a critical manner."

In an interview on @brasil247 yesterday, feminist academic @marciatiburi said, "Freire is attacked because critical thinking is the greatest enemy of facism."

During the dictatorship, Freire traveled all over the world in solidarity with popular struggles. He worked with the Sandinistas setting up their adult literacy program. He worked with Amilcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau and Oscar Lopez Rivera in Chicago's Humbolt Park community.

Alt-right late night talk show host Danilo Genilli, who the Guardian's Tom Phillips once bizarrely referred to as a social movement leader, spent years attacking Paulo Freire on national TV, but recently admitted he's never read anything by him.

When I was in Brasilia last week, covering Bolsonaro supporters rally and failed Supreme Court insurrection I saw this little mosaic of Freire on the Esplanade. 100,000 Brazilian fascists walked past it without figuring out who it was.

On Sept 17, 2021 a Rio de Janeiro Federal Judge issued an order barring the Bolsonaro administration ,as tax-funded representative of the Brazilian people, from, "attempting to damage the dignity of Paulo Freire." redebrasilatual.com.br/educacao/2021/…

As for Koch's MBL movement, it's SP City Councilor Fernando Holiday set up a snitch line for students to rat on their teachers for mentioning Freire in the classroom and barged into public schools, yelling at teachers over it for his Instagram channel. Has he ever read Freire?

So, on this 100th year since his birth, let's remember this Catholic, Marxist intellectual and 3rd World liberation activist, former São Paulo Education Secretary and founding member of the Brazilian Workers Party. Paulo Freire Presente!

Here is an interview with Paulo Freire, subtitled in English, conducted in 1985 ( 5 years after he returned from exile) at UNICAMP university.

Here is @LatuffCartoons new drawing honoring Paulo Freire's 100th birthday.