It was when the tear gas canister rattled around at her feet and a masked young man picked
it up and tossed it back at police that kindergarten teacher Andrea Coelho decided she was
for him and his fellow Black Bloc anarchists. ---- Coelho was one of thousands of teachers
marching through central Rio de Janeiro to demand better wages and school conditions when
police decided to disperse the demonstration. A few nights before, striking teachers
occupying the city council building were beaten and dragged out by officers. ---- "It was
the Black Bloc that protected me in that protest," Coelho, 47, said at the beginning of a
march last week that again descended into fighting between anarchists and police. "The
police came in firing tear gas, hitting us with clubs. A young Black Bloc stepped right in
between me and the police. If it weren't for them, the police would have destroyed us."
That sentiment has helped turn the anarchists in Brazil into a driving force behind
protests in recent weeks. The demonstrations have lessened in size but not frequency since
masses took to the streets in June, fed up with a litany of problems that mostly center on
corruption, woeful public services, and big spending on the upcoming World Cup and 2016
Olympics.
More protests erupted Monday as demonstrators railed against a government auction of a big
offshore oil field, which petroleum unions think should remain completely in Brazilian
hands, and the anarchists rallied in Rio's historic center to support the strike of the
teachers and oil workers.
Black Bloc is a violent form of protest and vandalism that emerged in the 1980s in West
Germany and helped shut down the 1999 World Trade Summit in Seattle. It's clear that the
masked, young Brazilians are following the main anti-capitalist tenets of earlier
versions, smashing scores of banks and multinational businesses during demonstrations and
directly confronting riot police.
The twist in Brazil, experts say, is that the tactics haven't been quickly rejected by
more mainstream protesters as they have been in places like Mexico, Chile and Venezuela.
That could allow the movement to grow significantly.
During a protest in Rio last week, one young anarchist sprinted through a haze of tear gas
as his throat burned and ears rang from a series of stun grenades police unleashed moments
before.
Taking cover behind a battered metal newsstand in Rio's historic Cinelandia district, the
25-year-old dread-locked man steadied himself, tightened the straps of goggles he was
wearing, and yelled to a cluster of 30 black-clad demonstrators facing a line of riot
police half a block away.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" he screamed amid one of Brazil's most violent protests since June.
"It's all going down right now!"
The protesters hurled rocks at police. The officers responded with more stun grenades and
tear gas, scattering the adherents of Black Bloc.
"People are fed up, and because of the police violence against peaceful protests, the
Black Bloc returning that violence has become a way for people to express their
indignation," the young man said at the end of the protest. Like seven other Black Bloc
adherents interviewed, he wouldn't give his name, citing fears of arrest and the tactic's
hallmark anonymity. "I don't expect a majority of people to support it, but I know they
understand the anger."
Black Bloc jumped via social media from the developed world to places such as Egypt and
Brazil, where experts say it's potentially more explosive because it feeds off deeper
social unrest. It's almost certain to affect Brazil's World Cup and Olympics.
"The police, violence, poverty, hardship of life and economic inequality in Brazil can
radicalize the situation to a greater degree," said Saul Newman, a professor at Goldsmiths
College in London whose research has focused on anarchism. "It's hard to predict, but
because of these conditions and because it's new in Brazil, it could grow."
In the interviews with Black Bloc adherents, all repeated what's been heard in the U.S.
and Europe before: They have no leaders, they operate in anonymity; there are no lists of
demands for the government to meet.
Wearing black and covering their faces to make it hard for police to identify them, they
head to demonstrations armed with slingshots, Molotov cocktails and homemade wooden
shields with "BB" printed in white. Many look to be in their mid-to-late teens.
Their aim is to use action like destroying the property of multinational companies and
confronting riot police to disrupt a political system they say doesn't allow for their
participation and only represents entrenched economic interests.
But as in Egypt and elsewhere, the Black Bloc in Brazil says it also exists to protect
other protesters from heavy-handed police tactics.
Brazilians widely consider their police poorly trained and violent, a force that is
infamous for extrajudicial killings. A 2008 United Nations report said Brazilian police
were responsible for a significant portion of the country's 48,000 homicides the year before.
There have been no reliable public opinion polls on the Black Bloc in Brazil and it's
difficult to gauge wider perceptions about it. Politicians and local media condemn the
vandalism its adherents carry out, smashing up scores of banks and other businesses in
major cities.
Yet the tactic is clearly growing in cities like Rio. Six weeks ago, perhaps 50 people
clearly identifying with the Black Bloc appeared in protests. At the Oct. 15 march by
teachers, about 400 black-clad demonstrators were in the streets. Facebook pages dedicated
to the tactic are increasingly rallying adherents.
"The Black Bloc is important for me. It's shown me I can resist in alternative ways," said
Gustavo, a 17-year-old anarchist at last week's protest who said he lived in a violent
slum in western Rio. "I can't accept that I will live my entire life in a country that's
so unjust. Until now, I've seen no other way to make real change and wake people up."
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