Commentary:
My approach to politics was influenced by my family.
My mother was responsible for the Ministry of Labor in 32 municipalities in the state of Santa Catarina. My stepmother was the secretary-general of the Workers’ Party city hall in Blumenau. My father had political ties to the Democratic Labor Party.
My political involvement began with the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, and I received political training at the Teotônio Vilela Institute. When I became a student leader in the architecture department, I was drawn to the Brazilian Green Party, which was the political party of architects.
My first contact with political-bureaucratic processes occurred at my first job as a design apprentice at the age of 15, at the main construction company in the city of Joaçaba, Engendraría Dagostine Ltda, where I saw the political movements related to sectorization.
Thanks to the excellent recommendation of my industrial training teachers at SENAI, at the age of 17, I was hired as an urban designer at the Planning Secretariat of the Municipality of Jaraguá do Sul, a political position because I was not old enough to be legally employed.
From there, I started noticing the political influence related to urban sectorization and the availability of public services, and how this method was used to either isolate or include populations with political views opposing the oligarchy.
The modernist trio: Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier, revolutionized urban planning by changing the urban layout, allowing the oligarchs to isolate the poor from food-producing regions, wealth-generating areas, and entertainment centers.
When I entered university at the age of 18, in the neighboring city of Blumenau (FURB 1995), architects were seeking to extend their influence in the municipal government. The director of the architecture program, who was also the provincial president of the Green Party, was appointed as the Director of Urbanism in the municipality.
Once I joined the Green Party and the municipal government, I designed the expansion of the city's main road, which ran along the river, using construction techniques from my island-city of Florianópolis, which involved large buildings near the sea. I also worked on public transportation improvements.
Since then, I had issues with architects from the oligarchy who controlled public construction contracts, such as the Odebrecht construction company, and my name became marked. I made no efforts to get off this blacklist and proudly converted to Islam.
Experience in urbanism is a way of preparing professionals for large-scale planning, with many resources, interdisciplinary projects, and relatively long completion times, managing a large number of interests.
Urbanism is the physical design of people’s lives: it is a design that is more influenced by politics than by pencils. Due to this preparation, left-wing urbanists have played an important role in the development of socialism, from the post-WWII period to today.
The prestige they gain, such as Cuba’s healthcare, China’s 5G technology, and Russia’s military technology, shows that well-planned products, works, and technologies share their prestige with the regime that made them possible.
I was a cartoonist for left-wing newspapers in the 1990s and a commentator on radio stations connected to left-wing unions in the 2000s. My last role was in editing the first video for Lula's 2022 campaign. My connection with the Workers’ Party (PT) was through Rosa and the organization of popular committees.
Planning only has value when done well. Generally, any planning is better than acting on impulse. Good planning is better than bad planning. When planning is excellent, the result is hardly ever bad.
From my perspective, the main problem of industrial evolution is not the activity itself, but the environment. The issue is creating an environment free from colonialist oligarchies that cling to power by exploiting the working class, either intellectually or physically.
For example, Argentina’s reconstruction project appears unfeasible because it involves oligarchic families who sabotage the government in order to cling to power, and they only accept government jobs that benefit the oligarchs.
I hope to have the opportunity to work in your country, where the fight for freedom is far ahead of other countries in the region.
