not the motorcycle diaries

I always find it hard to keep a straight face when people ask me if Australia has ’sem-terra’, i.e. landless families who occupy land. I try and explain our ‘relaxed and comfortable’ mortgage culture, and the relative concentration of people in cities and suburbs. Interestingly, one thing people do seem know about are indigenous land rights struggles in Australia, so that is sometimes a departure point for the Brazil/Australia comparison conversation - particularly because there is some history of mutual support between indigenous land rights movements in Brazil and sem-terra action.

In related news, I had an encouraging conversation with a visiting public servant this morning, who passionately advised me that I was right to want to talk to people at ‘the grassroots’ of social movements, because the leaders and bureaucrats will always have agendas. Just your average breakfast conversation with a guy you met five minutes ago, and a welcome relief from the usual hordes of military police - who I could almost take seriously, with their spanky uniforms and big guns, if they were’t also wearing shorts.