I've kept in touch with the Ballet de Santa Teresa, where I was a volunteer while I lived in Rio. They send me updates and keep former volunteers in the loop, which is nice to be able to see how things are going. But last night I received really bad news.
The staff sent out a series of images to the listserv, and this was the first one:
See where the blue table is? There used to be a wall and a hill back there. Apparently, the wall completely fell apart and there was a landslide, bringing down so much debris that the school had to be closed.
Classes are temporarily being held at a local cultural center, but they're hoping to find a facility to move to until they figure out what will happen to the wrecked school. Since as usual, funds are extremely low, they are currently looking for help, so the kids still have somewhere to go.
If you know of a potential facility that the ballet could use (ideally in the vicinity of Santa Teresa or Centro), or advice about how they should proceed, please email balletdesantateresa at hotmail dot com. I'm sure they'd welcome donations, too. Now more than ever, they are in desperate need of help.
Though journalists, international affairs professionals, travel lovers, and international businessmen are already well aware that Brazil is the country to watch, there are still many gringos who aren't tuned in to Brazil's ascent or don't quite understand the country's importance. This list is for those gringos.
10. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's cultural capital (but not the national capital - that's Brasilia) is an excellent urban case study when learning about the developing world. It shares certain characteristics with other developing cities that provides many important lessons and a useful perspective on urban conflicts, like inequality, violent crime, and drug trafficking, as well as positive changes like a growing middle class, increased purchasing power of the average consumer and social movements.
9. It's a quickly growing tourism mecca with 5.2 million international visitors in 2008, and it's hoping to attract travelers away from Mexico and the Caribbean to its world-class beaches, Carnival, and nightlife.
8. It's part of BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China), a term created by Goldman Sachs expected to have the largest economies in the world by 2050. Brazil, which already weathered the global economic crisis than most of the world, already has the largest economy in South America and the sixth-largest economy in the world. It has some of the highest-earning companies in the world, and rapidly growing industries across the board, from technology services to agriculture.
7. It has a growing middle class, one of the largest in Latin America, that has not only expanded in numbers but in salary level and purchasing power, making Brazil a much sought-after consumer base, for everything from deli meats to movies to Macs. Hundreds, if not thousands of international businesses have opened stores and websites in Brazil to attract customers, from European sports car companies to fast food chains (if you so chose, you can have a Big Mac in Manaus, shop at Armani in Rio, or get yourself a Lamborghini in São Paulo).
6. President Lula Inácio da Silva has become one of the world's most popular politicians, and though he's likely to run for a third term in 2014, 2010 is an election year with a variety of very different candidates who could change or continue Brazil's trajectory. Brazil's election will be the election to watch in Latin America next year.
5. Brazil discovered new offshore oil fields in 2007 which have been touted as a potential billion dollar industry. Though the country is already a major oil producer, and its state-run petroleum company, Petrobras, is one of the highest-grossing companies in the Americas and the world, the discovery could propel Brazil into OPEC and make it a major oil power. Since the oil is so deep under the ocean floor, it is still hard to tell how much oil will be accessible, so it's important to stay tuned to find out. Meanwhile, Brazil is also the world's second- largest ethanol producer and the world's largest ethanol exporter, and is on the forefront of alternative fuels.
4. Though it's common knowledge that Brazil will host the 2016 Olympic Games and the 2014 World Cup, Brazil has become host to a large number of international events, conferences, and meetings in recent years, from academic conferences to important diplomatic meetings to major business events. Chances are that if you work in a globally-connected industry, there's a chance you may have to travel to Brazil within the next few years.
3. Brazil has the largest population in Latin America with nearly 199 million people, and Brazilian tourists are flocking to the U.S. more than ever because of rising salaries, a cheap dollar, and better prices on consumer goods. They are also coming in large numbers as students and businesspeople. That means that the chances of meeting a Brazilian in the U.S., no matter where you live, is higher than before. And it seems to me, at least, that there are a growing number of Brazilian-American couples.
2. Because of so much increased contact with the developed world, many transnational issues have become much more important and more will arise in the next few years, from drug smuggling to immigration, from terrible tragedies like the tragic murder of Jean Charles de Menezes and the kidnapping of Sean Goldman, to wonderful partnerships, non-profits, and cultural exchange.
1. There is much, much more to Brazil than the international media would have you believe, beyond the most commonly exported images of the country . There's much more to it than Carnival, soccer, narcos, and scantily-clad beachgoers. And you can discover all there really is to know about Brazil right there.
When CNN broadcasted the 2016 Olympics announcement, an American friend pointed out that there was a single black person in the entire Brazilian delegation, which she thought was odd considering Brazil has the largest population of African descendants outside of Africa, not to mention many black athletes. I explained that this reflected the overall status quo in Brazil, and that black Brazilians, especially lower class blacks, don't have a strong voice or political power. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
I featured CatComm's project proposal two weeks ago, and thanks in part to my readers, they made it to the final round of the Idea Blob contest, and are up against seven other non-profits in competition to win $10,000. CatComm has worked with marginalized communities in Rio for a decade, and hopes to create a project to prevent favelas from being razed to make way for Olympic stadiums. The project would empower community leaders to make sure the world knows what's going on in Rio and to prevent human rights abuses from taking place. The communities in danger of being destroyed are some of the few in Rio with no drug trafficking, militia, or violence that have created their own social projects and their own infrastructure. They are essentially model communities that have achieved rare success on their own, and are at risk of being leveled to make room for a stadium.
That said, please take out a minute to vote for CatComm. The final day for voting is Saturday, and it only takes a minute to do!
Also, CatComm filmed some interesting videos about the project, including messages from community residents and an explanation (in English) about the project. Take it away, Theresa!
I found out that Rio had been elected by Forbes as the World's Happiest City when a Brazilian TV producer I know emailed me to see if I could shoot a segment they were doing about the announcement the following day. Even though I found the news infuriating and insulting, I knew it wasn't her fault, and politely explained I wasn't in Brazil anymore but I was grateful for her offer.
My knee-jerk reaction was that it was an obnoxiously typical American view of developing countries. Unworldly Americans are apt to marvel at how happy the locals are in the Caribbean and Africa, noting, "They're poor, but they're so happy!" Similarly, Americans often think of Rio as the party headquarters of the world, due to its reputation as the home of Carnival, which seems to make foreigners think that the city enjoys endless partying year-round. My suspicions were confirmed by the article:
"Ever since Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appeared in the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio, the world has been fascinated with Rio de Janeiro. Popular perception of the city is infused with images of starry-eyed youngsters dancing into the dusk, backed by imposing mountains and dark sea.
That view has propelled Rio to the top of our list of the world's happiest cities. Famous for its annual Carnaval festival (starting Feb. 13 next year), the second-largest metropolis in South America finished first among 50 cities in a recent survey conducted by policy advisor Simon Anholt and market researcher GfK Custom Research North America."
The second thing that irritated me is that I hate rankings like this based entirely on subjective opinions. I'm a fan of rankings based on hard numbers and facts, like the Human Development Index. This survey merely reflects one of foreigners' greatest misunderstandings about Brazil, and Rio in particular.
But the Brazilian media went wild with the story, another feather in Brazil's hat. The foreign media also celebrated the story, like this op-ed in Spain's El Pais entitled "Happiness is Brazil's natural specialty." The author claims that Brazilians' best weapon is their smile, and that their amiable nature and desire to please makes them a naturally happy people. Meanwhile, the comments on the article written by foreigners living in Brazil are much more telling.
The American media jumped on the story, too, as Oprah included Rio on an episode about four of the world's happiest cities. She interviewed two women: a wealthy housewife from Zona Sul who cited cheap plastic surgery and beach culture as the reason's for Rio's happiness, and her housekeeper from a favela. I can't find the video for the Rio segment, but from the article it seems to me that like Forbes, Oprah seriously missed the point.
When I sat down to write this, a reader sent me an op-ed from Estadao that said everything I wanted to say infinitely more coherently than I could. Lobao, a songwriter and musician, wrote an incredibly eloquent piece explaining "The risk of wearing the sash of the world's happiest city." He went on to explain that such self-indulgence is dangerous in a city plagued by so many complex problems, and that it only made Cariocas more complacent and less likely to take these issues seriously. Some of the best parts:
"Talvez essa tal felicidade esteja nos condenando à eterna permanência
da precariedade, pois aplaca nossa indignação, estupra nosso luto, mina
a vontade de sermos melhores, impossibilita qualquer tentativa de
engendrar profundas e necessárias transformações da imagem que temos de
nós mesmos e, infelizmente, acaba por facilitar a tal da
autofolclorização, caindo na gratuidade insólita, boba e até cruel da
carnavalização...
Torço também para que no próximo concurso o Rio se torne um campeão de
gentileza, um lanterninha da violência, um exemplo de elegância, de
qualidade de vida, que sejamos reconhecidos pela honestidade sem
esperteza, por sermos um povo que tenha uma autocrítica mais severa, um
povo de fibra que, sem perder suas belas características, seja também
cosmopolita, apto a se transformar, aberto para a cultura do mundo, um
povo que em sua retumbante alegria seja menos narciso e, de
preferência, mais sério."
"Perhaps this happiness has condemned us to eternally remain in a precarious situation, since it appeases our indignation, rapes our mourning, undermines our desire to be better, makes impossible any attempt to create profound and necessary transformations of the image we have of ourselves and unfortunately, winds up aiding autofolklorization, ending in surprising, silly, and even cruel gratitude of being "Carnivalized."
I also hope that during the next competition, Rio will become a champion of courtesy, in last place in terms of [levels of] violence, an example of elegance, of quality of life, that we are recognized by honesty and not ingenuity, for being a people that are much more critical of themselves, a people of fiber who without losing their beautiful features, are also cosmopolitan, able to transform, open to the culture of the world, a people that in their triumphant happiness are less narcissistic and preferably, more serious."
Though I couldn't have said it better, I'll take a gander at how I see it. Rio has long been a place where optimism and superficial happiness are the keys to survival, a place where it is easier to put on a happy face than to face the weight of decades-old conflicts that have no end in sight. It is a place that is so painfully beautiful that it seems unfair not to look on the bright side. It's a city where a large number of residents live in abject poverty and are resigned to their fate, and see small chances at happiness, be it a beer on a Friday or a day-long barbecue as a temporary respite. It is a place that banks on any opportunity to escape from reality, to relax, to forget about its problems. It is not in fact a 24/7 party (not any more than any other major city), and Carnival serves as a necessary pressure valve for the social conflicts weighing down on the city the rest of the year. If Rio seems happier than every other city in the world, it is only because it is overcompensating, desperately trying to distract itself from the problems it doesn't wish to acknowledge.
*Thanks to Emma, Mallory, and Kleber for sending over some of the news links!
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.
Today, I'm going to focus on one particular issue from the Olympics debate: communities under threat from being destroyed.
Though I haven't seen much in the media about the government's plans to raze several favelas to make room for Olympic venues, there has been lots of talk about turning all of the city's favelas into "real" neighborhoods. There's also a little story about how the Rio city mayor wants to construct sound barriers on two of the major highways in the city, including the one that goes to the airport, which happens to be lined by some of the city's worst slums. The structure of the story was interesting, describing how favela residents who live along the highways are up in arms and against the measure, while the city government is arguing that it has to do with actually trapping sound from the highway (they do it in Europe! they said), but the last two paragraphs of the story described how an American athlete who came to Rio for the PanAm Games in 2007 wrote on her blog that it was "the poorest city she'd ever seen." Interesting.
The one story I did actually find about communities under threat was a poorly written tale stuck in the sports section, about favelas which will be destroyed to make room for a new stadium. The residents will be moved to brand new housing, the city claims, where they will be able to pay for their homes in small increments through a new government program. The story makes it seem like everyone is happy about this, since they will become a "model community," despite the fact that the 40 year-old fishing community's few infrastructure achievements, like a park and a soccer field, will be destroyed, along with all of their homes. But since I can't find much more information on it, I'm not really sure how accurate anything is.
Enter CatComm, a highly-respected NGO in Brazil and the US, which has a new project underway to make sure favela residents are heard. (Incidentally, one of their main projects is sharing community-based solutions from around the world, which was a project I'd been thinking about for a new blog, but when I discovered them I realized it's already being done! Anyway..)
The project, which is being featured on IdeaBlob, needs funding to get underway, and you can help with a single click by voting for the project. It's the last day for voting, so please do the quick sign-up to cast your vote (it's free and very easy). Here's the plan for the project:
If we win the $10k, in 2010 Catalytic Communities (CatComm)
will train 200 community organizers across Rio's favelas to use online
networking tools including Twitter, Facebook and WiserEarth, to ensure
their voices are heard by authorities and the global community in the
years leading up to 2016.
An online community will be formed in each of these online spaces
where the general public can "hear" what leaders from the favelas have
to say, support them, and follow their work. Links will be made with
the press and the mayor's office.
We will then develop an online training program and continue face-to-face capacity-building in 2011 and beyond.
In other words, CatComm, which has been working with poor communities in Rio since 2000, will link up with favela leaders (that is, civic leaders, not drug traffickers) to make sure that they take a stand that is not just heard in Rio, but around the world, and is heard by decision-makers, as well. (On a side note, I'm not happy I just found out about CatComm just now, and not two years ago.)
If you have any information on other plans to raze favelas, or on other projects that involve working with these communities during the Olympics preparations, please leave a comment or email riogringaconsult at gmail dot com.
I've been ruminating on this Olympics business ever since the IOC announced that Rio would be the host of the 2016 Games, but I'm glad I waited to get this off my chest to put it into better perspective. One thing that helped a lot was seeing Capitalism: A Love Story, which was interesting but really bugged me in that there were so many problems presented with essentially no solutions. This, to me, amounts to complaining, and I much prefer to see things from a perspective that involves a problem and a solution.
So there's no sense in bemoaning the fact that Rio got the Olympics, because what's done is done, but what would be helpful is to take a look at some of the things that could potentially happen that we should all watch out for, in the hopes that they can be prevented from happening. So, in a sense, for all of us who care about Brazil to act as watchdogs in the coming years to make sure that the most positive outcome will come to fruition.
I thought I'd start with some of the more general points today.
The IOC doesn't care about Brazil, nor Brazilians, nor Rio, nor Cariocas, nor the country's most pressing problems nor human rights (case in point: the 1936 and 2008 Games). What it cares about is itself, making money, and making sure the Games go as smoothly as possible. The IOC only cares about the host country's problems to the extent that they interfere with the games, and as long as they don't, it could care less. This does not bode well for any Olympics city, and means that it is up to the country's citizens to ensure that the government acts responsibly and not at the total behest of the IOC. For this reason, I think a watchdog group (a more formal one than on this blog) is completely necessary to ensure that the Olympics don't get in the way of democracy.
Brazil, and Rio in particular, are the home of bread and circuses (more so circuses, though you could interpret Bolsa Familia as bread), where the government helps fund major public festivities like Carnival and New Year's Eve. Carnival, which has been historically used as a social pressure valve, is an excellent tool to keep the country's poorest citizens happy, distracted and placated. This isn't to say that Carnival alone is responsible for keeping Brazil revolution-free, but it is a powerful tool, along with other "circuses" (holidays, Globo, soccer) that helps distract the population from serious problems or events. With the World Cup and Olympics practically back to back, there is plenty of opportunity to keep people's attention diverted while the government gets away with things it shouldn't. It's essential to make sure people are in the loop and on their toes despite these major distractions, and the media has a big responsibility in this area.
Unfortunately, some things in Brazil, including the World Cup and Olympics, are events that don't necessarily reflect reality but are intended to put up a facade for the sake of outsiders; as the Brazilians say, "só para inglês ver" or "just for the Englishmen to see." The origin of this expression comes from mining towns in Minas Gerais, where the locals would hide or obscure certain things from the British bosses to keep them appeased. In the same way, "fixing" Rio up for the Olympics could potentially be to put a pretty face on the city, mainly the parts that the tourists and athletes will see, and let the rest of the city, which is already a mess, slide deeper into decay. The same goes for the the problems that plague Rio: violent crime, theft, drug trafficking, organized crime, and gut-wrenching poverty and inequality. While the focus of preparations might be entirely on aesthetics (especially in Barra, Ipanema, and Copacabana) and getting cops into the streets only when the events begin, these problems could stay the same or even worsen. Therefore, it's in everyone's best interest to make sure Rio's most vulnerable citizens, including those in the neighborhoods largely untouched by Olympic venues and those who could have their communities destroyed by the venues, make sure their voices are heard loud and clear over the next seven years, to make sure that the preparations for the games are for todo brasileiro ver. One project intended to do just this is already underway, which I'll talk more about in the next Olympics post.
