MST

On February 20th, 2008, I had the opportunity to visit a community of the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra), or the Rural Landless Workers Movement, in Brazil. For me, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. When I was in my senior year at Bates College, I wrote my senior religion thesis on the MST, the role of the church in the movement, and how the MST gives Christians a new model how to live out their faith in community today. In the conclusion of my thesis I wrote, “The community is united in its poverty, living a life of liberation theology’s praxis, and working towards their own liberation. The MST is working for God’s kingdom – the brotherhood of all humanity.” The moment that I started to learn about the MST, I had the desire to experience an MST community, to more fully understand what it means to be in community working for the kingdom of God. And on February 20th, 2008 my dream came true!
I visited a community of 106 families, with 2,011 acres of land in the Paranã province of Brazil, outside of Santa Helena. The trip to the community was an experience of its own. I was driving with several agricultural technicians from an NGO based in Marechal C Rondon, Brazil, Centro de Apoio ao Pequeno Agricultor (CAPA), or Support Center for the Small Farmer, that works with small farmers on sustainable, organic farming, who work with some MST communities in the province. As we drove from Marechal C Rondon to the community, we passed by soy field after soy field, cornfield after cornfield. My eyes were opened to the reality of how large agro-business of the U.S. and other countries is ruining the entire ecosystem of Brazil and the world. Currently, less than 3 percent of the Brazilian population owns two-thirds of Brazil’s arable land! The MST is a movement that was created by the rural poor, with the support of the Catholic Church, to change the land ownership and inequality issue in Brazil. This grassroots movement has proved to be a living model of liberation theology’s idea of a grounded, healthy, successful, and liberated community. Due to the work of the people of the MST community, by 2002 more than 350,000 families in three thousand settlements have won land titles to over 20 million acres – results that far surpass the Brazilian government’s actions for land redistribution.
When we approached the MST community, the agricultural climate around us changed from mono-crop fields to lush bio-diverse land. A sign marked the change, stating that it was an MST farming community and now part of what is the Brazilian agricultural reform. First, the technicians took me to the center of the community, where there is a space for the community to have monthly community meetings and a center for the farmers to homogenize the milk that their cows produce. From the center, I looked out and saw rolling hills filled with all shades of green and brown. I felt as though I had entered into an oasis. Before even having the chance to speak with any families of farmers, I felt a sense of God’s kingdom come in that moment.
For the rest of the morning, I spent time with a family of four, father, mother, son, and daughter, who told me stories about the community’s 10-year history and its struggle for land with the Brazilian government. As they told me their story, they offered me the organic peanuts from their farm and chimarrão, their traditional tea that is served in a large gourd with a metal straw, and passed in a circle. Then they took me on a tour of their farm, which had rice, beans, peanuts, squash, corn, bananas, grapefruit, green beans, sunflowers, peppers, grass for the cows, cows and chickens.
In the afternoon, I visited with another family, a mother and her children. What stands out to me from this visit with the mother is that at one point in her conversation I asked her if her life is better now that she is on the cooperative. She looked me right in the eyes and said, “100%.” She said that not only are her living conditions better, but that now she lives with dignity.
My experience with this community has confirmed that the MST is a community that can give hope to the landless, the poor. The MST stands up to the oppressive forces in today’s world and looks to a new way of being community, a new way of living out God’s promise of new life.


“The future of history belongs to the poor and exploited. True liberation will be the work of the oppressed themselves; in them, the Lord saves history.”
-Gustavo Gutierrez, liberation theologian



To learn more about the MST, visit: www.mstbrazil.org