Text written in october 3th, 2015. By Claudia Santiago
Esse texto possui versões em inglês, espanhol e francês.
At this moment I’m on an airplane going back to Rio after a day of hard work in Goiânia with my coworker Arthur William. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I should be at home, really mad at Vito because I had just spent another weekend by myself while he was crossing Brazil’s sky telling the workers that a political party without a newspaper is like an army without guns.
It was always like that. Every time he traveled, this scene repeated. First I used to fall in tears, but it quickly turned into happiness because I knew how important his job was.
He used to phone me all the time. Sometimes I was nice, shared his happiness of being with the working class, helping the class struggle. He was never tired. Never said no. He stood lots of hours in airports during flight scales. But he was always vibrant with the people from Maranhão, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe, Piauí, Pernambuco, Ceará. With people of all the five Brazilian’s regions.
Other times, when he called me, I was upset. Barely answered his questions. But when he arrived at home, all the sadness disappeared and I started counting in my fingers how many days I was going to have him here. Those were the happiest days of my life. Sleep and wake up beside him. Always talking. I used to say: “- When we become old, maybe we won’t have sex anymore, but we will always have things to talk about”.
We didn’t always agree about politics. Sometimes I was more radical, sometimes he was. He always said that I have the mind of someone who belonged to the “PCB” (Communist Brazilian Party). But it wasn’t just the “PCB”. The 20 years I spent in CUT (Workers Union Center) taught me to live harmonically with all the political forces inside the left field. And I don’t know how to live in a bellicose form inside the left field. In my job, I had respect and admiration for all the political forces.
I brought this mark to the Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação, that we created together in 1994, just after we met. And Vito loved this plurality.
A man with an ample and airy vision, reader of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa, Alexandra Kollontai, Gramsci, Wilhelm Reich, Bordiga, Heleieth Saffioti, Étinne de la Boétie, Angelo Gaiarça, Heloneida Studar. Author of more than 30 books about unions, worker’s history e communications.
He was a feminist that reaffirmed many times that the man’s oppression by the man starts whit the woman’s oppression by the man.
He was critical of the capitalist model of family, but extremely connected to his suns, André and Taiguara, and his stepdaughter, Luisa. Defensor and part of the sex revolution. Being his lover during 23 years was the best of the worlds. He was a generous man, worried about his love’s pleasure.
And that was how he lived the second half of his 50 years in Brazil. Like a crazy in love with the workers communication. He taught how to speak, to write, to design a newspaper, how to use photos and illustrations. He walked through all the left political forces in Brazil with a lot of generosity. Like he used to say: “from the light pink to the almost purple, they are all my friends”. The employers are our enemies, like the United States of America and the “Rede Globo”. And it was against these three that he fought politically.
In respect to me, he respect the Brazilian Communist Party e understood the support that the party gave to Joaquinzão against the Metallurgical Opposition, group that he was part of. But never accepted his relationship to Luis Antonio Medeiros.
With the “PCdoB” (Communist Party of Brazil) he never had bigger problems. He understood everything from those who had been part of the “Guerrilha do Araguaia”, although he had never been a follower of the time policy.
Vito believed that the working class should be convicted. “Do you want to make the revolution?”, he asked and answered: “So do I. But before we need to convince a lot of people about that”. That was why, with me, he created the Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação and after that a bookstore called Livraria Antonio Gramsci. That was also why he spread for the entire country the idea that we have to use the union communication to hegemony’s dispute. As the MST (Land-off Workers Movement) was his party, every week he distributed the newspaper called Brasil de Fato at Saens Pena Square, Tijuca, just as he always said we should do. And he did it until July 23rd. He died in July 24th.
Vito was always a leader. That kind that was the first to arrive to lead the troupe. A leader more than respected, beloved. Lovely, respectful, brave, a man who fought with love and joy. For him, friends like Paulo Cézar and Cícero de Crato, and so many others, would do anything. They used their bodies as shields against the clubs of those who were along with de employers and that had Vito as a target. Today, they cry like orphans of their older brother.
When working in factories in São Paulo, Vito was hardly chased by the employers. It was the dictatorship. And, as the coordinator of the Metallurgical Opposition, was arrested by the “DOPs” (the dictatorship’s police). For that, in 2011, Vito was political amnesty. Immediately after that, he gave up of his salary in Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação. And it was the money of this amnesty that allowed him to have a worthy health treatment in his last year of life.
Rio de Janeiro’s slums
After 10 years in Rio, fighting, writing, giving classes, lectures, being part of all the demonstrations that happened in his days without travelling, he discovered the slums of Rio de Janeiro. It was right after a big killing that happened at the Borel slum. Together, we created the Popular Communication Course of NPC and our life changed. Our friends were no longer only the union people or the intellectuals. From that moment, we started to share our life with young people from Maré, Santa Marta, Cidade de Deus, Jardim América, Manguinhos, Jacaré, Campo Grande, Alemão, so, from all over the city.
A bit of fresh air threw us in the routine of the Rio de Janeiro’s slums. Whit its food, music, happiness e incommensurable pains that result from the violence against the population.
That’s was when he fell in love with the funk of MC Leonardo and Mano Teko, with the hip-hop of Rapper Fiell and the Bonde da Cultura. And also with the samba of Marina Iris, Tomaz Miranda, Manu da Cuíca and with the guitar played by Mauricio Massunaga, the japanese, as he used to call.
He read Cid Benjamin’s book, “Gracias a la vida”, and wanted to meet the “Barbas”, a carnival group of people that takes the streets during the carnival; o “Bip bip”, owned by Alfredinho. But he had just a few more time of life when he understood the left militants from Rio de Janeiro. The carnival he understood fast. He went to the “Cordão do Boitatá” ball, at Praça XV, in 2015. And the last one was the “Comuna que pariu”, at Cinelândia, with a unforgettable feminist samba. Feminist like he was his all life.
Vito was young, larky, in love with life, vibrant. A man that had only one sadness: the way that the Brazilian policy was taking. The triumph of the right field hurt him. A lot. That’s why he celebrated with Lula, Correa, Evo, Cristina, Chavez, Dilma and Mujica. Especially Chavez. He admired him a lot. But I have a surprise for you: he admired deeply the president Dilma Roussef. Disagreed of the political decisions, but admired her as woman. He loved her firm way to handle things.
Suddenly, everything changed. After feeling bad sometimes, his cardiologist asked for a head exam. And there it was: a brain aneurysm. And, in May of 2014, our world collapsed. After a well-done surgery, he had two strokes e recovery himself. But soon a hernia, that was waiting it’s time to be taken out, started hurting him and he had another surgery. It was a success, especially for a patient that was taking some many pills.
2015 arrived and we celebrated. We were alive, happy, and more in love than ever. As we always loved parties, we said that in july we were going to throw a party to thank those who stood by us in 2014.
We had no doubt we were winners.
Until July 23rd. He took me to the airport, bought me a coffee and wished me a good job. I rarely gave courses without him. We could be in different classrooms, but we were in the same place. That day I went by myself.
My last word to him were: “How am I going to live without you for four days?”.
I´m not going to live any day without you, my love. I will be accompanied by our kids Luisa, Sheila, Marina, Gustavo, Eric, Tatiana, Gizele, Raquel, Alan, Renata, Augusto, Lidiane, Fiell, Julião, Rita, Pablo, Camila, Katarine, Matheus, Kátia, Mario, Well and so many others that I should stop now. I won´t live not even a day without you.
And you are never going to die. I will talk about you for lots of people, so that your history spread itself across the globe, as the history of the solidarity and happiness’s revolutionary. The history about the man who became seed.