MPL takes to the streets in São Paulo after the announcement of a bus-fare hike. The banner reads, “Three bucks is stealing.”
Brazil’s Movimento Passe Livre (MPL, aka the Free Fare Movement) is a nationwide, semiorganized army of young protesters demanding that the government create free-of-charge national public transportation.
The MPL prides itself on being completely leaderless, decentralized, and nonpartisan, and they are single-mindedly fanatic about the transportation issue in Brazil. The group is mostly made up of high school students who, over the past few years, have been protesting—some would say rioting—in the streets and have subsequently been tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, and beaten by baton-wielding plainclothes cops. Despite being referred to as hooligans in the mainstream media, the MPL has had at least one notable success: In 2005, the government canceled a planned increase in bus fares because of massive protests.
The MPL’s 2011 campaign started on January 3, as students began protesting a 20-cent bus-fare increase in Salvador, the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia. The protests lasted for three days, reminding many of Salvador’s last “Bus Riot,” in 2003, which shut down the city for ten days and quickly spread throughout the rest of the country.
In June, an MPL faction in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo shut down three cities for three days. Piles of tires burned in front of government buildings, avenues were cordoned off, and, predictably, the police cracked down, firing thousands of rubber bullets and arresting 30 people.
Later that month the MPL also rose up in Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, where the approval rating of Green Party mayor Micarla de Souza (who nicknamed herself “the Butterfly Mayor”) hovered around 10 percent. Protesters marched for five miles before setting up camp outside of the city council building, pitching tents and preparing for a long stay. Curiously, joints and used condoms suddenly appeared in the camp just before local TV channel Ponta Negra (owned by Ms. Butterfly Mayor, naturally) arrived to cover the uprising. Despite the negative media attention, protesters remained nonviolent.
In August, it was Teresina’s turn to play host to the demonstrations, and this branch of the MPL was much less committed to nonviolence than their cousins in Natal. Over five days of protests, the number of protesters grew from 2,000 to 15,000 as young people responded to the cops’ tear gas by throwing rocks and sticks and setting fire to barricades and buses. After the smoke cleared, the city agreed to reduce bus fares—a clear victory for the MPL.
The mainstream international media has largely ignored the MPL. Perhaps that’s because the movement’s concerns are local to Brazil, or maybe protests over transportation-fee hikes are far less sexy than other forms of riotous behavior currently exploding around the world. But if there continue to be protests of this magnitude and violence, everyone is going to be hearing a lot more about these Brazilian high schoolers in the months to come.
Bumming a Ride
