00:00And we stay in Brazil as the nation approaches General Election Day questions
00:04over the country's political future and the role of youth are taking center
00:09stage. To go deep into the significance of this process we invite Celia Aldrich,
00:15Brazil-based experts in international cooperation and also youth. Hello Celia,
00:21welcome to From the South.
00:25Hi, thank you very much. Celia, how the campaigns have been targeting the youth in the midst of
00:32everything that is happening in Brazil, how they are also speaking their language,
00:37capturing their attention? Yeah, I mean they have lots of different mechanisms of course and
00:46this is something that's not new to the elections in Brazil right now but it's something that the
00:52far right has been working on and networking around and financing for a long time. So a lot
00:57of online engagement, a lot of very provocative and deliberately shocking material that's being
01:04shared. We know that in these kind of post-truth era the more that fake news and lies are repeated,
01:11the more that this information is integrated into sort of common sense discourse. So there's a lot
01:17of that around capturing youth. There's also the sort of physical visibility of right-wing candidates
01:24and a far right candidates. They of course have a lot more financial resources than the left and so
01:30there are a lot more visible in terms of their streets, you know, banners and flags and etc. And so
01:37that's one of the, that's one of their ways as well. We know that, sorry Celia, can you hear me?
01:52Can you hear me? Well we were speaking at this hour to Celia, he was an ex, she is an
02:01expert in youth
02:02regarding the, what it's at stake for the people of the younger generations in Brazil. We go back once
02:10more to Brazil with Celia, she was addressing, Celia you were addressing the, how the campaigns were
02:18targeting younger generations but also I wanted to ask you more and more young people are becoming
02:25disengaged from politics. What is at stake and taking this, this reality into account? What is that challenge
02:32for, for the outcome of these, of these elections?
02:38Yeah, and it really is a challenge. We know that youth are becoming bored, becoming disengaged, becoming,
02:47having lack of interest and lack of motivation. A lot of young people have decided not to
02:56not to request their election titles or their election documents so that they can vote this
03:03time around. Other youth do have their documents but they have said at least that they won't vote
03:09this time around. We feel like four years ago during the presidential election there was a lot more effort
03:15from the left to really engage with youth and to make sure that they got out and voted. And one
03:20of the
03:20challenges we have was we feel like the far right has actually kind of taken over that space, filled the
03:26gap
03:26in terms of youth engagement. We do of course have mechanisms. You know on the left we've been as
03:36candidates, as activists, we've been going to where the youth are trying to build bridges with young
03:41people. So going into schools and colleges and other institutions to kind of bridge that gap and to
03:48discuss with youth to really listen and to really try and integrate into you know our political
03:54projects, what the youth experiences, what they're saying to us, what they're feeling, what they're
03:59demanding. So these are some of the mechanisms trying to create safe spaces as well. Also thinking
04:05about young women, so adolescent girls, young women, how they also engage with online and offline spaces.
04:13We know that online there's a lot of misogyny, there's a lot of you know all this mass mass
04:19sphere that they're talking about, the red pill. There's a lot of sexism and a lot of misogyny online
04:25that young women are subject to every day, not just at election time of course. But we feel like the
04:31far right has really capitalized on this mass mass sphere, this idea that young men particularly are
04:42disengaged, are not you know a board or they've been sort of brought into this right-wing conspiracy
04:50theory sort of space online. And we're really thinking about so then how do we keep young women and
04:57young girls safe as well within these online spaces but also offline in the spaces where they
05:03choose to spend time and to come together. So those are some of the mechanisms that we have. But we're
05:14also thinking about well what should we be doing between elections. Here in Brazil we have elections
05:19every two years either at municipal level or right now at state and congress and presidential level,
05:26which means we're often in a campaign season. What we're trying to do as well is to really think
05:32about what between campaigns, between elections, how do we engage youth, how do we interest them
05:38again in politics right, in the system, how do we move beyond this idea of identity politics which has
05:45come back sort of into fashion, it was something that we thought we'd got over about 10 years ago,
05:51but it's come back and it's dividing youth and also us adults you know in different categories and
05:58and how do we come back and really think about the system you know the capitalist patriarchal racist
06:02system, how do we think about how that is molded and shaped by the elites in order for us not
06:09to
06:09engage right. So you know thinking about how do we take back our language, our culture, our music,
06:17our organizing, our socializing, you know what fun can we have together as well which we really believe
06:24is part of the struggle. So there's some of like our strategies that we have to really try and engage
06:32with youth and to bring them back to organizing spaces. Thank you, thank you very much Celia for your time
06:39hearing from the south for helping us understand deeper what is at stake for the youth, the Brazilian youth
06:47in these important elections for Brazil. Thank you for your time.
