Mônica Benício's tiredness is noticeable in her eyes, but not in her voice, which remains unwavering when she repeats the same question she has been asking since March 14, 2018: Who ordered the killing of Marielle Franco, her partner, and because?
Four years ago, Brazilian politician and activist Marielle Franco was shot dead.
To this day, her death remains unpunished.
After her murder, Benício (Maré, Rio de Janeiro, 36 years old) decided to put aside her career as an architect and focus on politics and activism.
Since last year she has been a councilor in her hometown, occupying the position that Marielle left after being murdered.
Benício says that her new purpose is to keep Marielle's legacy alive.
Something that, according to her,
it is of vital importance in a country where the current president preferred to have a dead son than a homosexual son.
He is now campaigning for former President Lula da Silva to be re-elected in the October presidential election.
However, she warns that she will fight for it to be a government that represents her: “I want Lula to be president, but I also want him to comply with the progressive agendas that he contemplates: that he dialogue with the feminist movement and the LGTBI population, that we not stay on the margins of a great political debate, as has happened at other times”, he points out.
Ask.
How did you experience the murder of Marielle Franco?
Response.
I went through a period of mourning, which has not ended four years later.
It was a period of great pain, but it was made even more difficult by the lesbophobia that I had to face.
They tried to erase my place as Marielle's partner, they didn't want to recognize me as the legitimate widow of a woman who was brutally murdered.
Even today, attempts are being made to erase this important part of Marielle's memory: the fact that she chose to start a family with a woman.
This in itself is one more act of violence against her.
Q.
Two men have been arrested for having executed Marielle and her driver, but they remain untried.
Four years after the double murder, what has been the investigation of the case?
R.
The murder of Mariele was a political feminicide, in which an attempt was made to silence everything that she represented, as a black, socialist woman who came from the favelas and who defended the rights of the LGTBI collective.
It is a very dramatic situation because unfortunately it was a very sophisticated and very well executed crime.
But it is important that we continue to fight for Marielle and that we continue to ask: who ordered the murder and what were the motivations?
Because in a democratic state of law we cannot allow a democratically elected parliamentarian to be executed and the state not to respond.
The lack of response indicates to Brazilians and the international community that today in Brazil there is a political group capable of murder as a way of doing politics in the certainty of impunity.
Q.
Why is it important to keep his memory alive?
R.
Demanding justice for her is also a way of demanding that democracy be restored in Brazil.
As long as they don't tell us who ordered her murder and why, we will be accepting that democracy and barbarism walk side by side in Brazil today.
Q.
After the murder, you decided to take on Marielle's struggle and make the leap into politics.
What has it been like continuing her legacy?
R.
Mariele and I had a very similar political thought, that of two feminist women, who love women and who want to see a better world.
Therefore, continuing his legacy has been a natural process.
Being a councilman, I unarchived several of his projects.
For example, at the moment I am representing one of them: a lesbian visibility project.
She submitted it in 2017 and lost.
I presented it last year and lost, but I present it again this year.
It will be voted on now in August and I will continue to present it until it is approved.
But I also consider that her legacy is not only what she left, but also taking it further, forward.
So that is my commitment to my partner: to carry forward what we had in common, including building a world where there is no LGTBIphobia, where there is no racism,
Tattoo of Marielle Franco on the forearm of Mônica Benício. INMA FLORES (EL PAIS)
P.
Being a lesbian woman and daughter of the favelas of Brazil, her body has always been politicized.
How has she dealt with it her whole life?
R.
The favelas are a very sexist, misogynistic, LGTBIphobic environment, and it was not easy to understand myself within that environment.
And now, being a lesbian woman in politics, I face a very similar environment within the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro.
We are 51 councillors, but only nine of us are women, and I am the only lesbian woman.
So it's a very violent environment.
But I maintain that the body is the main political tool for transformation that we have in society.
The fact that a lesbian woman exists is already an act of resistance.
P.
There will be many people who see it as a threat to the
status quo
, to the established order, which is patriarchal and LGBTIphobic.
How do you make them understand and value your point of view?
A.
They only consider us a threat because they know how great our power is.
The point is that they don't want to leave us room to move forward in a patriarchal society.
It is very important for them that women remain in a place of submission, as it is also very important that the LGTBI population does not acquire the same rights as the heterosexual population.
So it's not about how we can talk to them and dialogue, showing that our point of view is important.
They know it, but they don't want to accept it, precisely because it is a threat to maintaining their power.
Q.
So what is it about?
R.
Continue resisting, because we are not asking you to clear the way.
We are going to open it.
It's just a matter of time.
Precisely for this reason, the activism of a feminist woman, of a lesbian woman, is considered a threat.
I'm not asking for a favor.
I'm not asking permission to pass.
I'm going to pass.
P.
In Latin America you can never take anything for granted, but all the polls indicate that Lula da Silva will be the next president of Brazil.
What kind of relationship do you have with him?
R.
I am campaigning for Lula, but I do not have great expectations about this new government that he will form because nobody governs alone.
Look at the vice president that Lula has chosen: Geraldo Alckmin, a man directly linked to Opus Dei.
This is a warning sign.
But indisputably, although there have been many problems and I have many disagreements and disagreements with his party, I know that Lula is the main path we have today as a possible solution for this dramatic moment that Brazilian politics is experiencing.
P.
In a recent interview with an Argentine media, you said that you will continue to be the opposition even if Lula is president.
R.
I also told Lula.
He is a very dear person, with whom I have a personal relationship, and I told him: “President, I am crazy for you to win the presidency, because as soon as you win and the hangover from the celebration passes, I will return to the opposition.”
It was a joke, but I was referring precisely to what I just said: I really want Lula to be president, but I want her to be a president who represents me.
And that he represents me as I think politics should be, which is further to the left than his own party is unquestionably.
I want it to develop policies for the LGTBI population, policies for the feminist movement, such as having a debate on the legalization of abortion.
This is more than urgent in Brazil.
P.
In Brazil abortion is only allowed in cases of rape, in which there is no other way to save the life of the mother and in which the fetus has anencephaly.
R.
But we are seeing cases of girls who are being persecuted for wanting to abort after being raped.
There have been two recent cases: that of an eleven-year-old girl, who was raped and the judge tried, during the interview with the girl, to induce her to continue with the pregnancy and then give the child up for adoption.
In the case of another ten-year-old girl, the Brazilian Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights, Damares Alves, tried to prevent her from having an abortion.
Isn't that violence?
P.
But Lula has been in favor of abortion being a right, following in the footsteps of countries like Argentina or Colombia and turning his back on the setbacks in countries like the United States.
R.
What we see in the United States is very worrying, but it is important that neighboring countries like Argentina inspire us, because in Brazil we are also seeing a setback.
Efforts are being made to make it impossible to even abort in cases of rape.
It is a reason for us to sound the alarm and feel real fear.
But the feminist movement is organized and has to remain strong.
I hope that Brazil is closer to Argentina than to the United States, and not only physically, territorially, but politically.
Mônica Benício, at the headquarters of the December 26 Foundation, last Tuesday. INMA FLORES (EL PAIS)
P.
And the rights of the LGTBI collective are also under threat in Brazil.
Given this context, they launched a web platform called "LGBTs Contra Bolsonaro" last month.
R.
Yes, the idea is to bring together LGTBI people inside and outside Brazil who want to participate in this campaign against Bolsonaro, ahead of the elections.
We want to organize, educate and raise awareness among LGTBI people so that they understand that they cannot vote for Bolsonaro, that Bolsonaro is our enemy.
We cannot accept a president who wants us dead.
So, the goal is that no LGBTI person in Brazil votes for Bolsonaro.
P.
What would you say to the people of the LGTBI collective, inside and outside of Brazil, who are in a situation of vulnerability?
R.
These last four years, after the murder of Marielle, two movements have really welcomed me: the LGTBI movement and the feminist movement.
Thanks to them I learned that the process of individual evolution is also a collective process, that you cannot evolve as an individual alone.
Organizing myself with the LGTBI population and with the feminist movement is what has kept me going these last four years and what has given new meaning to my life.
Therefore, the only thing I could tell you is that there is no LGTBI person who is alone, as long as I am here to fight for them.
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