The Horse, the Witch, and the Child – Folha de S. Paulo, May 22, 1980

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

I doubt the political party I suggested launching in my latest article, POTWCT, is gaining traction among Folha’s wide readership. Many people, like me, are unable to think clearly because of a lack of information. They are common across all political parties. Furthermore, they make up the vast majority of those who prefer not to join any party. The point is, to join POTWCT, someone must be free of vanity. The POTWCT is the “Party of Those Who Cannot Think,” and it wounds the vanity of every man and woman to admit they cannot do something. Even when that thing is as unprofitable and underestimated as thinking is today.

For my part, even without joining that party, I still insist that I can’t think without information. I’m not ashamed of not having this information because the public and private entities responsible for providing it don’t make it easy or convenient for me, as a voter, to access. So, what can be done? Think without being informed? That, yes, I would be ashamed of. And how!

However, today, everything is turned upside down. Because of this, many people are not ashamed.

For example, there’s a lot of talk about land reform, and I notice significant unacknowledged misinformation among those who discuss it.

Starting with the CNBB, whose document “The Church and Land Issues” I am currently studying. Misinformation about Brazil’s reality is present throughout the document. The few sources mentioned do not cover the full range of statements. The document approved in Itaici avoids confronting concrete reality and instead recycles unfounded assumptions, such as vague or ambiguous generalizations, all in an effort to raise pointless “awareness” (to use the jargon of the basic ecclesial communities). Yes, pointless because our people, who are much more intelligent than the drafters of the document approved by 170 bishops think, do not accept nonsense unless it is to make jokes.

I say all this with my eyes fixed on the concrete statements in their document, titled “The Church and Land Issues.” In passing, I want to mention that I noticed many signs of Marxist influence from a doctrinal perspective, as well as implicit misinformation (to say the least) of Catholic doctrine.

How this contrasts with ecclesiastical documents prior to the conciliar era!

I notice the same misinformation about concrete, tangible, measurable, “computerizable” facts amid the noise about land reform. Are these misinformed and talkative people aware that they are playing with Brazil’s future? And that a land reform carried out in the air, with mere sculptural intentions, can pose more economic risks—and, by extension, social and political risks—than a hydrogen bomb?

For example, land reform advocates have long hoped that Brazil would adopt a single type of rural property: small farms managed solely by the owner and their family. This should apply to both agriculture and livestock farming, regardless of the different soil types across our 8.5 million square kilometers of territory.

If we now have a country rich in diversity resulting from nearly five hundred years of persistent, adaptable, and successful efforts, then all of this—including success—should lead to a nation shaped like a massive block where everything is equal: wealth, power, education, and so on. Just as Marxist doctrine teaches.

What experiences and statistics can demonstrate that this tyrannical form of egalitarianism can produce better or at least equal results compared to the current regime? The land reformists do not say it.

When asked this question, they often respond with typical clichés and insults: those who oppose land reform are unconcerned about the thinness and malnutrition of northeasterners and the subhuman conditions faced by many rural workers throughout Brazil, etc. To make everyone prosperous, everything should be shared among all. Anyone who disagrees with this is simply a selfish capitalist or a despicable scribe funded by multinationals operating in agriculture.

However, none of this constitutes a response, let alone a conversation. It is simply name-calling in its purest form, aimed at silencing the opponent. An interesting detail: usually, it is precisely the land reform advocates who are—frequently—very eager for dialogue… with communists.

Let’s consider that someone stubbornly objects and asks, for example, whether the same leveling agrarian structure works equally well across different lands, climates, and crops. Or whether, instead, common sense and experience show that property sizes—like everything else—should match the specific conditions in which they exist. The land reform supporter would then have only one option: to drown the opponent in irrefutable statistics showing that agriculture and livestock farming defy concrete reality and succeed equally well under all conditions. However, no one can produce these statistics. As for the experience of communist countries, it has clearly demonstrated the failure of agrarian equality. In a new, sensational book published in France, Richard Nixon claims that the ultra-radical and collectivist Soviet agrarian reform led to one of the greatest genocides in history. Yet, whenever someone raises this issue, they risk facing another wave of insults.

With the organ grinder gone, one question still weighs heavily on land reform advocates: what do they truly know about the real experiences of small farms across Brazil? Are these properties more profitable—for the farmer and for the country—than medium-sized or large estates? What statistics or analyses do they provide to support this claim? None are available to the average citizen. And the answer, once again, remains the same: keep turning the crank.

This is how the pro-agrarian reform discussion typically unfolds among most uninformed citizens in this country.

Clearly, the only beneficiaries of this are supporters of socialist and confiscatory land reform. In our country, misinformation spreads wildly, unleashed like an apocalyptic horse. Riding this horse is a witch: socialist and confiscatory agrarian reform. She travels everywhere, carrying a small child she nurses tirelessly: communism.