Originally, I was going to write about the mini skirt debacle, the attack on Caetano, or why Madonna in Brazil terrifies me, but all that will have to wait until tomorrow.
Last night, a massive blackout hit south and central Brazil, including the states of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, DF, Goias, and Espirito Santo. Later reports included other states as well, including Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Parana, Mato Grosso, Pernambuco, and Bahia. Rio, however, was the worst hit.
Something, though it's not clear what, happened to the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, one of the largest in the world, that provides electricity for a large portion of Brazil as well as Paraguay (there was a power outage in Paraguay, too). Coincidentally, the blackout occurred days after a 60 Minutes report about two power outages in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 believed to have been caused by hackers.
People joked around on Twitter, saying it was a marketing ploy for the movie 2012, or that Madonna was to blame. But the truth was that it was really scary, with the two largest cities in the country plunged into darkness, especially during the beginning of the summer with high temperatures. Early reports claimed that there was a total outage at Itaipu, and that it was caused by some sort of "accident" or "disruption." Another report claimed it was related to bad weather. A source at BBC claims a short circuit in Sao Paulo (?) caused the blackout.
In the meantime, reports from Rio claimed thugs were taking advantage of the darkness to mug people left in the streets. The governor allegedly sent both the police and SWAT teams (BOPE) into the city to ensure order (que pena he doesn't do that on a regular basis when there is electricity), and several BOPE teams were sent to man two of the major highways. In Sao Paulo, city officials suspended the usual traffic arrangements of rotating license plates, and urged people not to go out in the morning. Supposedly, people stranded in Sao Paulo crowded bus stops, and those who couldn't get onto the buses hitched rides on the backs of trucks. The Globo website was down during and after the blackout.
Interestingly, Itaipu started a Twitter account last night after the blackout and started following people who had mentioned it. They released an official statement declaring that the cause of the blackout did not originate at the plant itself, and that it was probably due to an accident that affected the plant's energy transmissions. They were quick to point out that in the 25 years of its existence, Itaipu had never had all 20 generators completely shut down. This, somehow, was not particularly reassuring.
While some will be quick to accuse Brazil of having vulnerable technology, this is something that could have happened anywhere. What's terrifying is how a single power plant could affect so many people, and how dangerous a prolonged blackout could be. This incident should be a warning to every country about just how vitally important power grid security is.
But if one positive thing came from the blackout, it is most definitely this.
Two incidents involving sexual harassment and assault took place in Brazil and the U.S. this week, shocking each nation. Though both were seemingly isolated incidents, part of what made them so horrifying was the thought that these terrible events could somehow reflect on the people of the respective countries. I'd like to think that they were, in fact, isolated incidents, but the events are undoubtedly telling.
In Brazil, a female college student at a respected university was chased by a mob shouting and cursing at her and threatening to rape her, supposedly because she was wearing a very short skirt to class. She barricaded herself inside a classroom and was escorted off the campus by military police. Several videos of the incident were floating around the Internet this week, though most have been removed (this one seems to be working). It seems as if a few reactions to the woman's attire sparked a mob, consisting of both men and women accusing the woman of being a whore. The incident provoked outrage all over the country, with many shaking their heads at what was perceived as evidence of a machista society. [From an outsider perspective, the irony of this terrible incident is that it debunks the gringo myth that Brazilians love nudity and approve of wearing little clothing in everyday life, as opposed to just at the beach].
I take your mob and I raise you something infinitely worse.
In California, a fifteen year-old high school student left a high school dance intending to go home, and instead went to drink in an alley behind the school. She wound up getting drunk, and was attacked by around ten male students who gang raped her for nearly three hours, while allegedly around a dozen other people stood around watching and did nothing. Several of the attackers have been arrested (they are being tried as adults even though they're minors), though police are still looking for more suspects, including those who watched and failed to call the police or alert authorities. The girl was found later in critical condition, and only was released from the hospital three days later. All over the U.S., people expressed outrage and disbelief that such a large group of people could watch such a brutal crime and refuse to stop it.
Both incidents forced both countries to reflect on issues people neither want to think about nor acknowledge. In the case of Brazil, some claimed that the victim "asked for it" because she provoked her fellow students with her "lewd" clothing. In the U.S., there's likely a minority who blame the incident on immigrants, since the arrested suspects are Latinos. But fundamentally, the large majority in each country tried to reconcile how something so unthinkable could happen in civilized places in this day and age, how as a part of a crowd, seemingly normal individuals could become monsters.
Newspapers around the world splashed news of violence in Rio in the headlines, citing the battle last week in Zona Norte as an embarrassing reminder of Rio's security threats. But the truth is that though it was indeed scary and tragic, it wasn't really out of the ordinary in terms of violence in Rio. This type of thing happens sporadically, but the international media doesn't tend to pay attention. I suppose this is an advantage of the Olympics, since now Rio will be under a lot more pressure to implement real, lasting measures to combat violence.
But here are two pieces of news you may not have heard, that are much more telling.
Here's the good news first. Thank you to Luiza, who has Conjur on her Google Reader and spotted this small but hopeful little article to create an Olympics watchdog committee of district attorneys who work to protect the environment and consumers. The committee, which was formed within the Ministerio Publico, will track not only Olympics expenditures but also World Cup ones as well. Since there was out of control spending during the Pan Am Games in 2007, the committee hopes to ensure that spending is kept within the bounds of the budget, estimated at R$50 billion. The committee intends to protect the people of Rio, rather than the drooling contractors, politicians, and businessmen--or so we can hope.
The second piece of news isn't so good, but is much scarier in terms of violence in Rio. Favela battles tend to be confined to the favelas, keeping the residents of other neighborhoods relatively untouched. Even though police may be gunning down traffickers a half hour away, the residents of Ipanema or Gloria may as well be in another country. But this news is one of violence downtown, and it's unclear what really happened.
A social activist, Evandro João da Silva, who worked at AfroReggae, one of Rio's biggest non-profits that works with children in favelas, was shot to death during in a mugging in Centro last week. He was out with his friends at a bar, and at first glance appeared to merely be the victim of an armed robbery. But then, someone leaked security tapes that caught the murder on camera, and things got a lot more complicated.
The footage shows Evandro being approached by two men, the men tackling him to the ground, and the fatal shooting. It then shows the two men removing Evandro's jacket and shoes and running off. But then, a military police cruiser appears, in plain sight of Evandro dying on the ground. Instead of getting out of the car and rushing to his aid, the police cruiser keeps going as the officers confront the robbers. Instead of cuffing and arresting them, they let them both go. The video shows one of the robbers walking away calmly just a few minutes later. Then, the footage shows one of the officers with Evandro's belongings, confiscated from the robbers, which he puts into the police car. And then the police drive away, leaving Evandro bleeding to death on the ground just feet away.(His body was later discovered by other police officers.) Later, it was discovered the confiscated items were never given to Evandro's relatives and were kept by the police officers (after the news came out, the belongings were returned). The two police officers are now under investigation.
Was it a hit? Or was it just another horrific incident of violent crime and police corruption? Either way, this is the story the media should really be interested in.
I've put together a bunch of articles from the past couple weeks about Brazil in the news. Sometimes I wish I were a college professor. I'm getting a little ahead of myself, I know. Anyhow, here are a few very interesting pieces about the Olympics, the economy, democracy, and social change. Oh, and a tasty little morsel at the end about Maradona.
Excerpt: "Mention Brazil today and adulation follows. Its fight
against poverty, its growing middle class, and its emergence as an
economic powerhouse are all being studied as models to be applied
elsewhere...
Men earn 30 percent more than women of the same age and
education level in Brazil. In Bolivia and Guatemala, that gap is
essentially zero. Compared to Mexico, the other economic engine of the
region, Brazil also stands out: Men in Mexico earn just 7 percent more
than their female peers. The same gaping divide appears in Brazil when
comparing wages for whites and minorities – a blow to a nation where
half the population considers itself black or mixed race and prizes
itself on being 'color blind.'"
Excerpt: "The pro-Olympics lobby tends to downplay the disadvantages. Building in
the host city may push up wages and prices and crowd out investment
elsewhere. Hurrying up building projects raises costs. What suits the
games may not be best for the city afterwards. Not every visitor during
the games is an extra one; tourists may time long-wished-for trips to
watch the sport. Crowds or inflated hotel prices may deter others from
coming."
Excerpt: "'Poverty is not an excuse for anything,' Mr. Brown, 46, said on a
recent gray afternoon here, his eyes shielded by a pair of oversize
sunglasses. 'Poverty is an opportunity.'
Mr. Brown — a singer,
songwriter and percussionist who is one of Brazil’s best-known artists
— once made music banging on the water barrels that he used to carry
home to his mother, who earned a living washing clothes. Back then, his
neighborhood, Candeal Pequeno, or Little Candeal, had so many fruit
trees that a kid would go hungry only if he could not climb."
Excerpt: "Holding the games will require effort and expense on a scale that Rio,
a problem-studded metropolis of 12m (half of whom live in the city
itself), has never seen. Apart from new stadiums and other sports
facilities of all kinds, the plans call for new bridges and roads, and
a doubling in the number of hotel rooms. To revamp a chaotic transport
system, engineers will blast through granite mountains to extend the
metro from Ipanema to Barra da Tijuca, 13.5km (8.4 miles) away. Tens of
thousands of athletes must be squired to scattered events through some
of the worst traffic in the Americas."
Excerpt: "When the matter is democracy, Brazil is not on the top of the class in Latin America, it's barely a C student. And it's well below countries like Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, according to the just-released annual report Latin America Democratic Development Index IDD-Lat 2009."
Excerpt: "This decade, Argentina has suffered through its worst financial crisis in a century, and more recently it has been plagued by incessant strikes by farm groups. The government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has scared away foreign investors with untrustworthy economic figures and heavy subsidies for food and fuel, and it has moved to exercise more control over the media. Then there is the nagging sense that neighboring Brazil, which has discovered vast oil deposits and won the 2016 Summer Olympics, is becoming an ever more important global player while Argentina is lagging behind, political analysts and sociologists said."
In case you're wondering why I haven't written about the Goldman case in awhile, it's because nothing is happening. Again. Once more, the case has hit a plateau where nothing seems to be moving, though the appellate court had promised to rule in late September on the decision to send Sean back to the US.
TRF-2, I've got news. It's September 28th. E ai?
Sadly, this isn't at all surprising, given the well-documented slowness of the Brazilian judicial system, and the incredible amount of heel-dragging that has gone on in this particular case. But since it's been out of the news, most Americans familiar with the case assume Sean was sent home, and Brazilians assume he is staying in Brazil indefinitely.
The truth is that he's still in Brazil, and there really doesn't seem to be any timeline for when or if he will be returned to his father. Meanwhile, Brazil's international relations concerns have multiplied and intensified: pre-salt madness, the Honduras crisis, and the 2016 Olympics bid. The Brazilian government has all but forgotten about the case, and it seems the US government has, too amidst many, many domestic woes.
The only positive news I can give you is that this Saturday, October 3rd, the BSH Foundation will hold a fundraiser to defray the costs of Sean's abduction and (hopeful) repatriation, considering David has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal and travel costs. Some of BSH's most important supporters will be there, including Congressman Chris Smith, and it's possible David himself will make an appearance. If you're interested in donating, you can do so online. It's for a really and truly excellent cause.
When there is definitive news, I'll be sure to give everyone an update right way. But there's no telling when it will be.
Though there are a variety big issues in Brazil right now, mostly involving the Sarney corruption scandal and the Senate's Internet censorship during the upcoming elections, there is another issue, one of President Lula's pet projects and evidently one of the federal government's top priorities: oil.
Petrobras, the state-run petroleum company, has long been a leader in the oil industry and one of Latin America's largest and highest-grossing companies. It has offices all over the world and not only explorations in Brazil, but also in the Gulf of Mexico. This week, statistics released by consulting company Economatica indicate that during the third trimester of 2009, Petrobras showed the second highest profits of all companies in the Western Hemisphere. It is posed to be the leader in explorations of the Tupi oil field, with recently discovered reserves that could make Brazil one of the world's oil giants.
Now, President Lula wants to reform how Petrobras is run, which in the past has allowed 60% of its shares on the market with considerable foreign investment. He's seeking much tighter federal control over the oil reserves and the company, which would reduce shareholders' stakes and also state-based oil revenues (it's no surprise that Rio de Janeiro's governor is opposed to the reform). He has promised to funnel the profits into social welfare projects so that the fruits of Petrobras' labor will go to the people, and not the government (or the politicians' pockets, where it has a nasty habit of ending up). Incidentally, Lula's also promoting his own Chief of Staff, Dilma Rousseff, for president in 2010; she seems poised to push the reforms, and it's no coincidence that she spent much of her political career as MInister of Mines and Energy (for the federal and Rio Grande do Sul governments).
So I'd like to take a look at a couple of strategies the Brazilian government and Petrobras have been dealing with the oil issue, very much on the offensive in the international media and blogosphere.
Most notably, President Lula launched a blog this week, inspired by Obama's internet success. But as it turned out, the blog wasn't so much a blog as a series of articles to promote Lula's projects (there are no comment sections), and Lula doesn't actually write it (it's run by a team of "bloggers"). The first week, the blog was full of articles about the new oil legislation and the pre-sal, the layer Petrobras will have to get through to get to the oil, with titles such as "Pre-sal is the future of the country" and "Pre-sal: patrimony of the Union, wealth of the people, and future of Brazil." An excerpt:
"With the
pre-salt, Brazil has a promising future ahead of it, but it will only
come with the best use of resources that are created by Petrobras'
recently discovered large petroleum and natural gas reserves. Ministers Dilma Roussef (Chief of Staff) and Edison Lobão
(Mines and Energy) affirmed in their speeches during the announcement
of the new pre-salt regulations, that it is necessary to guarantee that
the profit created is used as a priority to combat poverty, education,
scinece, technology, and environmental sustainability."
In this month's Foreign Policy Magazine, which is a series of articles about oil entitled "Oil: The Long Goodbye," there are a few mentions of Brazil's oil potential and of Petrobras' role in the industry, but not much beyond mentions. However, the Brazilian government took out a twelve page advertising section with "articles" about Petrobras, the oil question, the Rio 2016 Olympic bid, and other promotions of Brazilian industry, including the ports and construction. It also features interviews with Rio's mayor and governor, as well as business leaders.
This, in contrast to the edition's op-ed piece about oil, written by Moises Naim, the editor in chief of the magazine, entitled "The Devil's Excrement." A Venezuelan who attests to the curse oil becomes for oil-rich countires, he provides a warning about the dangers of oil wealth:
"Perhaps even more significantly, the oil curse also nurtures bad
politics, and herein lies its autoimmune nature. Because governments of
such countries do not need to tax the population to amass giant fiscal
revenues, their leaders can afford to be unresponsive and unaccountable
to taxpayers, who in turn have tenuous and often parasitic links with
the state. With their ability to allocate immense financial resources
pretty much at will, such governments inevitably grow corrupt.
Once in power, oil-rich governments are deadly hard to dislodge. They
stick around by spending their vast public resources to buy out or
repress their political opponents. Statistically, it is far less
probable that an authoritarian oil country will transition to democracy
than that a resource-poor autocracy will. Oil-rich governments
spend two to 10 times more on their militaries than countries without
oil and are more prone to go to war. Most oil-exporting countries that
do not have strong democratic institutions before they start exporting crude inevitably create an inhospitable environment for democracy."
While Brazil has relatively strong institutions and democracy, as well as being one of the highest taxing governments in the region, this may not be a problem.
But unfortunately, the Brazilian government is in fact riddled with corruption, and that includes Petrobras. Accused of tax evasion and funneling charity money to political croonies, Petrobras has started a corporate blog entitled "Facts and Figures" to lash out at Brazilian journalists accusing the company of wrong-doing. SImilar to Lula's blog, it's more of a one-way dialogue, and has been accused by some as a way of intimidating the media. [On a side note, from my experience with NGOs in Brazil, the word is that Petrobras does in fact furnish funds to worthy NGOs but more often than not use political ties as a prerequisite.] MSNBC reported:
"[CEO] Gabrielli says he personally signs off on many of the company's daily
postings on the blog, which is published only in Portuguese. The idea
is to rebut what he calls "false information" in the Brazilian press
about the company. But the site, which has had more than 1.5 million
visitors, is raising questions about whether one of the region's most
respected state-run companies is harming its reputation by being so
combative. "We're going to defend ourselves," Gabrielli told a reporter
from leading newspaper Folha de So Paulo in late June, in a Q&A
posted on the blog. "Attacking is also part of defending oneself."
Though Petrobras has had a relatively good track record, the reforms and the subsequent exploration projects could be a real test of Brazil's still fragile democracy. The Economist summed it up best in today's article about the new policy:
"...Brazil is better placed to deal with them than many other
countries. Still, as Lula pointed out, what looks like a winning
lottery ticket can all too easily become a curse. Anyone who has been
following the recent corruption scandals in Brazil’s Congress will know
that such a disaster is well within the powers of the country’s
lawmakers."
For a long time, I've been contemplating why it is that corruption has flourished with relative or extreme impunity in the Brazilian government and in American corporations. Why is it that corruption has long blossomed in the opposite sectors of society in both countries? And why, after all this time and so many scandals, are the same crimes perpetuated?
And the best conclusion I came to was the same for both: history.
Now, this generalization isn't based on the fact that corruption doesn't occur in Brazilian corporations or American government; quite clearly, it sometimes does. But it's no coincidence that each country's most famous documentarians (Michael Moore and Jose Padilha) are currently working on films about business and political corruption, respectively. And unfortunately, impunity is a widespread problem in all sectors in Brazil, but it is most apparent in the political realm. And luckily, sometimes, there are exceptions, like in the case of US business corruption, the harsh (and just) sentencing of Bernie Madoff.
So here's my theory.
In Brazil, in its early colonial days, the country was ruled by coronéis, local strongmen with land, money, and political power. These were sometimes also slave owners, who had an even more iron grip on the populace. They also were backed by military support, armed men loyal to the local leader. Indeed, it was a feudal system. As Brazil was transformed from a colony to an independent monarchy to an independent nation, this system evolved into a modern federalist government in most of the country. But in the Northeast, including the Amazon and sertão (a desert-like region), some of the most inhospitable, poorest, and in some cases less populated areas of the country, the old system persisted. To this day, some of the country's most corrupt politicans come from the Northeast. Like in the days of yore, these men still have an inordinate amount of power--sometimes even in Brasilia--and most of all, inspire fear through intimidation.
Unfortunately, political corruption is so widespread that being a politician has practically become synonymous with becoming a businessman (a salient example is that of former Minas governor Newton Cardoso, who is accused of accumulating billions of reais through illicit means). Also, a legal stipulation gives immunity to members of the Brazilian Congress, allowing them to remain free of criminal charges. And often, when the extent of a politician's corruption is revealed, the media is intimidated or censored (usually on the state and city level, though more recently on the national level), and the accused goes unpunished, keeping his stolen money and status. Worst of all, some of the worst offenders are even re-elected, or go on to different posts within the government. Impunity is driven by fear.
Meanwhile, in the US, our revolution was inspired on the basis of taxation. The country started off with a dislike for British bureaucracy and "big" government. As a result, the government was founded on the idea that government itself was a necessary evil. While federalism was cobbled together, business became something of a sanctified realm, something not to be tampered with in order for it to grow and function well. As the economy thrived, American economic power helped build the government's military power, and this only helped justify the previous theory.
After the Great Depression, there was recognition that government should take on a bigger role in the economy, but business was still treated with a special sacredness. Many Americans believe the government should be small and do less (one of the most irritating parts of the health care reform debate today), and that business must remain separate from government and that it should have its own set of rules.
As a result, we have had generations of infamous corrupt businessmen, from the gangsters of the 1930s to the Italian mobsters to Enron to Bernie Madoff. Again and again, businessmen cheat in order to make the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time, and often, they get away with a slap on the wrist. But in my opinion, it's not just the high-profile executives who get caught and sentenced who are the criminals. Some businesses themselves cheat Americans and get away with it scot free, since a good portion of the country subscribes to the sacred economy theory. There are thousands of scams that continue unabated with executives unpunished, despite watchdog groups and websites, leaving gullible Americans in debt. There are companies and indeed entire sectors of the business world that operate on the notion of providing the least amount of benefit to the customer and the most amount of profit to the company (case in point, health insurance companies). A lack of stricter laws and enforcement allow dirty businesses to get away with some truly terrible things.
Here's hoping that eventually, both types of institutionalized corruption will be where they belong: in the past.
