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.
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!
I've always loved stories about people moving to other countries, and I certainly appreciate those stories much more now. Here are some books I've read recently that I highly recommend.
Waiting for Snow in Havana: The best out of all of these, this is the memoir of a Cuban man who came to the US right after the Revolution, starting from his romanticized childhood as an upper class city boy to a penniless immigrant in Miami and Chicago. Though the story is absolutely fascinating, the writing is also amazing.
Shanghai Girls: I never really appreciated how much Asian immigrants have struggled in the US, and this book really opened my eyes. It tells the tale of two Chinese sisters who flee their upper-crust lives in Shanghai during World War II and end up in a slum in California in arranged marriages.
Strength in What Remains: Though I think Tracy Kidder is incredibly overrated as a writer, he is a good storyteller, and this tells the story of a refugee from Burundi who escaped genocide in Rwanda and in his country. It also tells the story of his troubled, impoverished childhood and the horrors of war, and his miraculous adventure of an immigrant in New York.
No exilio: Written by Clarice Lispector's sister, Elisa, this is her heart-breaking memoir of escaping the pogroms in the Ukraine and ending up as a Jewish refugee in Brazil. The book focuses on the struggles of her family and of the Jews, though the overall theme is the universality of human suffering.
De Oiapoque a Chui: I actually read this awhile ago and probably wrote about it already, but it's my favorite book about Brazilians in the US. It's dozens of short stories about Brazilians living in New York City, from supermodels to illegal laborers. The author also happens to be a lovely Jewish Brazilian journalist who's lived here for awhile, and the book is a great read.
Slowly but surely, Eli has begun the process of Americanization. I'm not necessarily happy about it, but it's inevitable to a certain degree.
He's been speaking English a lot, though he still speaks to me in Portuguese unless we're talking in a group with other people, but I'm selfishly thankful for that because I really don't want to lose my Portuguese. Nevertheless, he'll throw in English words when we're talking in Portuguese all the time, and he'll surprise me with random big vocabulary words I didn't know he knew.
He's been watching a lot of [American] football. He claims he's always loved the Giants, but now he watches all the time, even if there are other teams playing. And the funny part is when he shouts or curses at the TV, he does it in English, even though when he watches soccer, he yells in Portuguese. That makes me smile.
The other day, he left me a voicemail on my cell phone. I thought about it, and I'm pretty sure it's the first time in the 3 years we've been together that he has left me a voicemail. Voicemail is not big in Rio - I didn't know anyone who had an answering machine on their home phones - and he most certainly never used it. I was so happy when he did.
Luckily, because of his personality, he's already a highly punctual person, and is always early or on time. Ironically, because there are so many recent immigrants in New York, he's sometimes the first one to show up. (For example, he's been playing soccer with a group of Ecuadorian and Colombian guys.)
He jaywalks. All the time. He sometimes agrees to eating raw vegetables without being drenched in oil or dressing. He learned how to play baseball. He loves Oreos and marshmallows. He wears Yankees shirts all the time.
He's still very much Brazilian, but he's adapting in different ways than I expected.
I'd been following the Honduras political crisis with mild interest, sensing that something wasn't quite right, especially since I take Latin American news perspectives with a grain of salt coming from the American media. But then this week, it took an interesting turn and sparked my interest.
Manuel Zelaya, the president of the small Central American country, was deposed in late June in what many labeled as a coup, since the military forcibly removed him from Honduras. The immediate response from the US government and international media was one of an outcry, the horror that there could be a coup in our backyard after so much supposed democratic progress in the region.
But I did some research, and what I came up with, as the Brazilian expression goes, doesn't smell good.
First, a little background: Zelaya comes from the country's wealthy elite, and from an interesting family. In 1975, his father was convicted along with seven other people of being responsible for the Los Horcones Massacre, in which fifteen priests, social activists, and farmers were murdered near the Zelaya family farm. He was later given amnesty.
Skipping ahead--the reason Zelaya was deposed with the support of many in the Honduran government was that he was trying to change the constitution to give himself more terms in office, and even issued a referendum asking voters to create a constitutional assembly to write a whole new constitution from scratch. Fearing that Zelaya was planning on dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court, and trying to create a Chavez-like dictatorship, the Honduran military packed Zelaya off to Costa Rica. A Honduran polisci blogger in favor of his expulsion explained his opinion:
The expulsion of Zelaya was a crime, but it was through that crime that
the current legal order was saved. This would not be the case had
Zelaya fulfilled his intention to convene a Constituent Assembly, and
to dissolve the Congress and the Supreme Court. This is a case
analogous to the principle of self-defense in criminal law. In
expelling Zelaya the system acted in self defense for its own
self-preservation.
Meanwhile, I checked in with an American blogger who has lived in Honduras for years and follows politics closely. As it turns out, Zelaya and his family have millions in offshore bank accounts, and in the aftermath of his removal from power, authorities found that surprise, surprise, Zelaya had been stealing from the government and using public funds for, including but not limited to: helicopter rentals, wine, cigars, jewelery, a caretaker for his horse, oil paintings, a car stereo, motorcycle repairs, and sculptures. Sound familiar?
But here's where Brazil comes in.
After traveling for fifteen hours, Zelaya and his wife were smuggled across the border into Honduras on Monday, where they took up residence at the Brazilian embassy. The Brazilian government has been quick to deny any funny business, and Zelaya told the Brazilian media that he was the one who approached the Brazilians, though he doesn't intend to ask for asylum. The Honduran military surrounded the building, and the embassy's electricity, water, and phone lines were cut, though last night they got their water and electricity back. The Brazilian government is now worried about its staff, who fear the Honduran military may take violent action. Meanwhile, a poll shows that Hondurans are strongly against Zelaya's presence in the country, which they do not believe will help solve the crisis.
Brazil may seem like a logical choice for a safe haven, given its position as Latin America's most powerful country and Lula's diplomatic position as the mouth piece and representative for the developing world. Also, Brazil has traditionally been a mediator in Latin American conflicts, and manages to be both an ally of the US and a friend to the Castros and Chavez.
But I'm convinced the US is behind the whole thing.
President Lula and his Foreign Affairs Minister just so happened to be in New York this week for a UN meeting and for Lula to accept an award from the Wilson Center, and Lula has a very good relationship with President Obama, who was also in New York this week.
Robert White, President of the Center for International Policy's op-ed in the LA Times gives an important clue:
"Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has already threatened military intervention to
restore democracy to Honduras. If the U.S. continues to sit on the
sidelines, Chavez could cobble together a coalition to reinstall Zelaya
and create an anti-American client state in Honduras that might serve
as a political and economic beachhead for Chavez's Iranian, Chinese and
Russian allies. Millions of people in Latin America would suddenly see
Chavez, not the United States, as the guarantor of democracy and
freedom -- and be willing to turn a blind eye to his abuses and his
unsavory friends.
Obama needs to recognize that, in Honduras, democracy and his
administration's credibility are on the line. By making a stand there,
the president can ensure that greater threats to democracy and American
security never develop at all."
So why make the US look like the bad guy, as it often is in Latin America, and give Brazil the dirty work instead? It's no secret the US tends to work behind the scenes when it comes to political crises in Latin America, and this one seems no different. Letting Brazil get Zelaya in the country and waiting to see what happens before officially supporting him in his return to power keeps the US at a safe diplomatic distance, while it puts Brazil in the hot seat. Zelaya may be a corrupt and inefficient leader, but that is not necessarily an impediment to US support. Keeping a firm grip on the illusion of democracy in the Americas has always been a big priority for the American government. They'll worry about another Chavez when they see one--until then, no coup will go unpunished.
O Brasil não tem conflitos raciais mas, ao ficar falando de racismo e
estimulando as pessoas a se identificarem racialmente, você arriscam
criar conflitos que nunca existiram.
Minha opinião é oposta: acho que a falta de conflitos raciais é um dos grandes problemas do Brasil.
Muito estrangeiros consideram os Estados Unidos, por exemplo, uma
nação fraca por causa de seus conflitos internos. Do ponto de vista,
digamos, de uma nação pacífica, como a Arábia Saudita, os EUA são um
poço de crimes, contradições, ódios. E eles têm razão. A diferença é
que os conflitos são a fonte de força dos EUA, não de fraqueza.
Sociedades
que não tem conflito são em geral estratificadas e anti-democráticas.
Não existe conflito porque uma classe social, etnia ou grupo religioso
está totalmente sob o controle de outra, especialmente se essa
superioridade já está culturalmente introjetada. As mulheres africanas
não se revoltam contra a circunsição feminina porque elas sabem que são
naturalmente mais propensas ao pecado e que o prazer sexual só serve
para estimular a luxúria. Como poderia haver conflito nesse cenário?
Dear Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, and Democratic Members of Congress:
I'm writing to you today to commend you on your excellent efforts on health care reform and your earnest attempts at participatory democracy. But today, I'm going to beg you, with a little bit of Brazilian-based wisdom, to please stop pandering people who refuse to listen and get the legislation over and done with.
1. Chega! Enough! Please stop trying to convince people who refuse to listen. It's like banging your head against the wall - it will not get you anywhere. When a small child refuses to eat his vegetables, you don't try to explain the nutritional value or why he needs to have a balanced diet or how nutrition affects growth. YOU TELL HIM TO DO IT. (Did I just compare the American people to children? Why yes, yes I did. Because an embarrassing number of them are acting like babies.) This may not sound very democratic, but as our elected representatives, we expect you to do what is best for the majority to ultimately benefit us and our country's future, and most certainly not to do what enables the greatest profit for sleazy corporations.
2. Obvio. It is beyond obvious that our system needs a complete overhaul. Those who disagree do so for one of two reasons: 1, they stand to benefit financially, professionally, or politically from the status quo and from powerful, unrestricted health insurance companies or 2, they lack education, information, experience, or perspective, but mainly the ability and/or desire to acquire accurate information. The constant attempts to educate people who refuse to be educated is not doing any good, and is mainly irritating the rest of us who see this as beating a dead horse that is very clearly gestorben. But since you ask, here's my story. Just to help you beat the horse a little more.
When I moved back to the US from Brazil in May, I did not have health insurance. My parents' coverage ended as soon as I graduated from college. I applied for a state-based, discounted insurance program that gives "cheaper" HMO rates to low-income New Yorkers (since I'm self-employed earning very little, looking for a full time job, but not eligible for unemployment). However, in the first two months I was here, the second of which I had insurance, I spent $600 out of pocket on two emergency procedures, and since June I have spent $900 on premiums. But as it turns out, the HMO had failed to inform me that I was to be given a substandard plan that comes with the state program, and I soon found that my doctors didn't take the insurance, and few did in my county.
So I decided to switch HMOs within the program, and consulted both the program and the HMO for the best way to go about it. I sent in my application on time, and waited and waited. I called, panicky, but they said they had no information on my file and would I please call back next week? Finally, on August 31st, I received a letter in the mail with my application and a letter informing me that my application was denied because they needed one more document for proof of income. I could appeal the denial but coverage would only start in October. (Never mind that my phone number and email were on the application, or that I had sent it at the beginning of the month. No no. That would be too easy). As you are reading this, I am on my way on a thirty mile trek to hand in my application in person to the corporate office, since an extremely kind person at the HMO agreed to override the denial as long as I handed in the missing document and the correct premium (which by the way, has increased by $10 since July). I am praying that the man's promises will actually be fulfilled and that my coverage will in fact start today, so that this month I can get standard care that is two years overdue. And that I will have health care at all. My husband, in the meantime, has no insurance at all, and the stress is weighing down on both of us.
3. A very wise man once said, "O povo sabe o que quer. Mas o povo também quer o que não sabe." This translates as, "The people know what they want. But the people also want what they don't know." This should be your new motto.
We elected you to do what is best for the country and for my generation's future children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are simply clueless about what "the best" means. I, however, do know. We did not elect you so that you could buy mansions or yachts or overpriced furniture or vacations for CEOs. We elected you to DO YOUR JOB, which is to make sure the American people are in fact entitled to the right of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Personally, HMOs are currently impeding my right to all three, as they are for millions of Americans. It's time to get into FDR mode. Like him, you have to stand up to the sacred Corporations when they go too far, when they begin to infringe on democracy, which they most definitely have. Like many others, my husband and I decided to make the US our home so that we could have a better way of life here, because we trust in the democratic system, the government's ability to protect its citizens and the ability to use our tax dollars wisely. So go on with it, already. do your jobs!
Thank you and for the love of God, pass the bill already. Já basta. Enough is enough.
