Tear gas is a
magic potion. Those who launch it are weakened while those forced to inhale it
are strengthened. The temporary blindness caused by the gas allows for
thousands more to have their eyes opened, while police and politicians continue
in their myopic pursuit of “order and progress”. The temporary dispersions
provoked by tear gas bring together multitudes the next day. The bombas
de efeito moral (percussion grenades) erect a moral platform for
protests while eliminating the legitimacy of the state. Pepper spray in the
faces of children guarantees the pursuit of social justice in the face of criminal
actions committed by those who are supposed to protect the common good.
The only way to
explain what happened around the x-Maracanã yesterday is through video. This Al
Jazeera piece by Gabriel Elizondo and Douglas Engle captures things nicely.
It is, of
course, much worse than this as there is no way to effectively show the
spectacle of consumption that was going on inside the x-Maracanã at the same
time the state was violently repressing peaceful protestors. The World Cup
project at the x-Maracanã has resulted in a sanitization of the urban space
around the
stadium where there are no street vendors, no public bathrooms and
kilometers of concrete that will create blistering heat islands that will force
fans into the stadium as quickly as possible. The sterilization of urban space
comes with a commensurate sterilization of social actors – when the two things
do not conform, in come the police to make sure that nothing gets in the way of
the smooth delivery of the event.
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| Truth in advertising |
A few weeks ago,
Valcke (VP of FIFA) was again honest in his desire that FIFA have ~clean~
stadiums for the Cup. Of course, the stadium does not end at the end of the pitch
or on the bottom side of the stands but is connected to the urban and social
environments. So a clean stadium means clean streets and clean access and a
clean conscious. Yesterday, we saw that this process of cleansing is going to
be very messy.
Speaking of
Messi, Rio`s mayor gave an interview last week in which he said that if
Argentina won the World Cup in Brazil, he would commit suicide. There has been
a marked increase in the number of Argentina
jerseys in Rio as well as a facebook movement
that has more than 10,000 followers.
The Copa das Remoções
on Saturday was a great success. A video link to the story (Portuguese):
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