The Stadium as Disciplinary Space

Facial identification of fans to be installed at the Engenhão stadium in Rio

One of the terrifying elements of going to events like Soccerex and Expoestádio is that I get to see all of the new technologies being developed in order to control fans. As I wrote with Gilmar Mascharenas some time ago, stadiums are places of discipline, where everyone is watched, measured, evaluated, judged, reformed, controlled. The players suffer the greatest scrutiny, followed by the referee, the coaching staff, the fans. Going to stadiums is a contradictory practice. We go to public space to lose ourselves in the crowd, but at the same time we are controlled, shunted, forced, and watched over like never before. The seating arrangements determine our behavior to some degree, the way that space is structured in and around the stadium directs our movement, the police lord over the crowd, the advertisers target us, and we watch each other – 80,000 cell phone cameras record everything.  

With the arrival of the World Cup in Brazil, and given the recent events in Rio, all people want to talk about is “security”. The concept of security as it is used in the media and by football officials is woefully narrow, focusing solely on the physical integrity of the fan. The security to come and go from the stadium without suffering robbery, attack, or threat is a fundamental one but surely security pertains to much more than what should be a fundamental condition of citizenship. In Brazil, the Law of the Fan is basically a penal code that creates extraordinary statutes for violent acts that occur in and around stadia. The “rights” of the fan to be “secure” do not extend past the limited conception of physical integrity. We could also consider security to pertain to culture and social well-being:

Are we secure in the knowledge that our rights as citizens will be protected? How will the information gathered about fans be used? Is there security of information? Do we have guarantees that public money being spent on stadia is meeting social needs, or is the huge expenditure going to decrease social welfare?  What are the opportunity costs of hosting mega-events and do they contribute to social security other than an increase in policing (which is not, in Rio de Janeiro, synonymous with security)?

With all this in mind I was perturbed to read a press release from Axis communications expressing in very press-release terms that soccerex would host the launching of a new camera that would identify football fans’ facial features as they go through the turnstiles:

 “the prototype, developed in Brazil, will be presented a the BWA stand, a business that offers complete solutions for the control of access to events…as the fans approaches the ticket reader (electronic, with specific seat), they will have their image registered in high definition and stored in a data bank. In the case that something happens in a determined seat, it will be possible to immediately identify the face and the data of the fan that occupied that place…after Soccerex, the camera will be tested in various stadiums that will host the World Cup.”

Because none of the stadiums that will host the World Cup will be ready until 2013, the test is going to take place at Rio's Engenhão (Fechadão, Stadium Rio, Estádio Olímpico J.H.). It might be tested this Sunday as the stadium will be full to see Fluminense grab their first Brasileirão title in 26 years.

This new camera, combined with microphones that can pick up a conversation from 500 meters between two people in a crowd and the multi-billion real investment in security apparatuses for the mega-event city are all part of a larger disciplinary scheme that is making Rio de Janeiro and its stadiums, and its stadium cultures, ever more docile, ever more ready to facilitate the free flow of capital. The new model of fandom is well known in other parts of the world. Buy your ticket, pay to park, walk quietly to the stadium, buy some things at the shop, sit down, buy some food, applaud, control yourself (or others will), consume, get out, come back. Repeat.

In summary: Brazil 2014 is making the world safe for capital accumulation, one high-tech security apparatus at a time. 

Raining Toads

Tropa do Elite 2, Expo Estadio, Expo Urbano

Films are so powerful because the are able to bring us to times and places that we have never been (or never existed). I always suggest that visitors to Rio de Janeiro watch a series of films before they come so that they can educate themselves about the social, urban, and geographic contexts that they are about to plunge into: Bus 174 , Orfeu Negro, Central do Brasil, Cidade do Deus, O Que Isso companheiro? (Four days in September), Favela Rising, Blame it on Rio, Moonraker (rs), and Tropa do Elite I and II.

Tropa do Elite II debuted in Rio today, just after the elections. Poor timing but given the content of the film one can understand why it wasn’t released sooner. For those not familiar with the first, the Tropa movies take as their focus a Colonel in the Rio state government’s elite police force, BOPE. The first images that pop up on a search give a pretty clear picture of the tactics and mentality of the Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais.  The Rio State police forces do not have a good human rights record, a point that the film hammers on, but manages to complicate the discussion to the point where one gets an acute sense of the hopelessness of a “just” solution to the more generalized problem of corruption and violence that encompasses the whole of Brazilian society.

The basic story line is one that follows reality in nearly every detail. The absence of the state in Rio’s favelas created a power vacuum filled by drug traffickers. Not good. BOPE and the State invaded favelas both continually and from time to time, locking some people up, killing others, shooting down from helicopters into houses – a seemingly endless and deadly game of cat and mouse that was perpetuated by corruption all around. War is probably the most profitable human endeavor, after all. In the film, a decline in drug sales reduced the “rents” that the traffickers were paying to the cops. So the cops stepped in to run the other profitable elements of informal settlements: cable, gas, water, electricity. This was extremely lucrative and since the communities were “freed” of the drug traffickers, the cops could basically do as they pleased and got very rich doing so. Corrupt? Yes. Illegal? Yes. Control through violence and all its derivative forms? Yes. Better than the rule of the drug traffickers? Not really. The groups of cops and firemen who ran the favelas are known as milícias. Because the milicias are comprised of active duty cops involved in illegal activity, the conflicts become clear. However...

The favelas are and were places where the old clientelist political games of Latin America still hold steady. The milícias were able to deliver votes to politicians and received protection in return. Our good, yet deeply disturbed, BOPE Coronel begins to realize just how twisted the system is and he begins to fight it, trying to tear the entire apparatus down. Most of the political figures in the film are intended to represent their fleshy counterparts, in particular Anthony Garotinho, who was incredibly elected as a federal deputy this week despite being convicted and condemned to two and a half years in prison for the formation of an organized crime ring  As one person expressed to me this week, “the people get what they deserve.” Anyone voting for Garotinho deserves uma tapa na cara.

Tropa II hits all the right notes. It’s got good pace, good dialogue, good directing, good acting. When I left the theatre I was literally scratching and shaking my head at the intractable complexity of it all. And just yesterday I was nearly raving about Brazilian democracy. Oh well.

I went from the film directly to the Expo Estádio / Expo Urbano. I covered this same event when it was in São Paulo last year. In case you don’t want to go back and read that post, the Expo Estádio is a showroom for all of the shiny metal and plastic and membraney bits that one needs to put together a World Cup stadium. There was hardly anyone there. The Expo Urbano part was non-existent, I have no idea why that is there. Presumably, the polished interiors of a VIP box at the stadium are going to be the same kind of polished interiors in which “global clients” will be sucking down their imported vodka in their apart-hotels, nightclubs, condos, roof top flats, or restaurants (where they will only encounter people just like them or people who are serving them). Basically, the Expo is an opportunity to see, spread across a showroom floor, all of the component elements that go into constructing a very limited, air-conditioned, sanitized class world.

Of special interest to me was a booth specializing in work visas for foreigners. How long, typically? I was desperate to know.  30 days or less. [Inserir sequencia de palavrões aqui]. In order to capture my information, the guy at the booth leaned across with a scanner and zapped my name tag. I felt violated, somehow, and as I had nothing to zap him with I pulled out my can of mace and did by best Hunter S. Thompson impersonation.

Leaping three stairs at a time, I found the “information session” I had trekked to the Expo Estádio to see: Projects, Technologies, and Equipments for Mega-Events. I was ASTOUNDED to see that a Major from BOPE was presenting. I arrived a few minutes into the presentation and was one of 7 people in the room. Not long after I sat down the decidedly amateurish powerpoint started showing video clips of BOPE testing all of the different machine guns that they were buying in order to beef up security for mega-events. As the guns blew things apart, the major commented, “from England. This one’s German. This one is American.” Nice to see that the international arms trade is alive and well.

There wasn’t much information in the BOPE presentation that was new, but it’s always interesting to hear these things come out of the horse’s mouth. BOPE is installing a massive operations  center ("the largest and best in Latin America") near the international airport in order to “protect” the Linha Vermelha, Linha Amarelha, Avenida Brasil, and to be close to the center of “80% of Rio de Janeiro’s criminal activity.” Illegal criminal activity, that is. The public security budget is staggering. The PMERJ (RJ State Military Police): R$ 1 billion over the next 4 years. BOPE: R$500 million. SESEG (State Secretary of Security): unlimited? No one knows. People just want the problem of violence solved. Understandable, but is the total militarization of public space the best and only way to go about it? Apparently. That’s why Rio 2016 contracted Rudy Giuliani and Tony Blair, isn’t it? How else can you convince the public that buying surveillance helicopters and airplanes, plus “microphones that will be able to pick out a single person’s words in a stadium crowd from 100 meters”, and stockpiling advanced weaponry to ward of a non-existent terrorist threat is better than putting that same kind of money into education or health care or housing. Ah yes, the public does not need convincing. They’ve elected Garotinho and Chiquinho to do the thinking for them.

It’s obvious what I think, but this is what I think: There is a MASSIVE investment in weaponry and police training in order to securitize the public and private spaces of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil so that capital (symbolic, political, economic, and cultural) can flow more fluidly along fixed paths to strategic points of accumulation (Barra, Zona Sul). The investments in stadium infrastructure and security apparatuses on display at the Expo Estádio are intended to demonstrate to highly mobile and selective global clients that there are investments and profits to be made here. We are spending billions and billions on the construction of a kind of Bladerunner-esque class world that will be hyper-secure and very deadly for those who do not comport themselves properly within it or who threaten to interrupt the flow of capital from Brazil to gringolandia (esteja onde for), or from the povo to the elite.

The World Cup is a private event. FIFA takes control of stadiums, highways, airports, public spaces that are constructed and securitized with public money. South Africa lost US$4 billion during the World Cup. FIFA made US$4 billion. In a month! In reality, these are not events but decades’ long processes of constructing, sanitizing, and securitizing urban space for the maximum accumulation of capital in the shortest possible time frame.

No one disputes the fact that public security is an element of Rio de Janeiro that needs to be addressed urgently.  Tropa do Elite II shows just how complex that reality is. Expo Estádio, and the overblown events that it attends to, is stimulating the development of security apparatuses that will not serve the general needs of cariocas for safe transport, clean air, clean water, good schools, living wages, rights to housing and all of the other elements that comprise a more general conception of “security”. Just the opposite. Expo Estádio is furthering the production of militarized urban spaces that attend to the fetishized demands of a global consumerist/tourist class that will start raining on Rio de Janeiro like toads  at the onset of the apocalypse.

The Walls along the Linha Vermelha / Os muros da Linha Vermelha

A few weeks ago I posted about the walls that are going up along the highways that connect the international airport with the center and the future Olympic cluster. Yesterday I met with Eliana Sousa Silva of the Development Network of Maré and we went and had a look at the installations.

One of the reasons cited for putting up the walls is to protect the residents from the sound of the traffic. As this photo shows, there is a disconnect between the installation and official discourse.

A second reason for building walls along the side of the highway is for environmental  protection. Maré has one of the poorest air quality ratings in the city as it sits between two major highways. The prevailing logic is to hide the problem behind an incomplete wall, but even if the wall were complete, particulate matter doesn't have much trouble hopping over a five meter barrier. A more thoughtful solution would be more trees which would absorb sound and CO2, while providing shade and also accomplish the city's goal of hiding the poverty from plain view.


And finally, to show that Cariocas are on top of the political scene here, some images from the city center. The first says "I don't think, I don't exist, I just watch" with the head in the shape of the OGlobo television network. The second is a reference to the Choque do Ordem "Shock Order" that is molding the city into a well-behaved, orderly little fellow.

The ironic and tragic walls of Rio de Janeiro

Major newspaper editors generally lack a sense of irony. This is especially true in Rio de Janeiro, where the largest daily paper, OGlobo, is a hegemonic behemoth that controls the tone and content of most public discussion. OGlobo is much more than a paper, it is a huge media network that makes no secret of its admiration for the increased state control of Rio’s public spaces under the current government and the concordant installation of a neo-liberal economic regime (at the Federal, State, and City levels). I’m not sure if they have a slogan as irony-free as “all the news that’s fit to print” of the New York Times, in the case that they don’t I suggest something more truthful like: “making the city safe for capital” or "construindo a cidade de consumo".

Perhaps it is my own over-developed sense of irony that attracts my attention to the lack of it in the media. However, when I read the following in the November 29, 2009 edition of the OGlobo Magazine, I ran for the computer:

 - Derrubar muros é um assunto muito atual. O de Berlim caiu há 20 anos, o de Ipanema faz poucos dias. Espaços mais felizes tornam as pessoas mais felizes e propensas a melhor convivênica cidadã. Boa parte da acalmada alegria do carioca, que se sobrepõe a todos os problemas e maazelas da cidade, vem da experiência de habitar um local privilegiado pelas praias, florestas urbanas e outras belezas que cercam essa nossa Cidade Maravilhosa. Rui Campos, "Calçadão do Jardim Botânico", p. 21

    - Tearing down walls is something that is actually happening. The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, the wall in Ipanema just a few days ago. Happier spaces make people happier and more likely to live better together. A good part of the calmer happiness of Rio’s residents, that puts itself above all of the problems of the city, comes from the experience of living in a privileged place of beaches, urban forests and other natural beauties that surround our Marvelous City.

The article, subtitled "Fewer Walls, More Pedestrians", describes with a slate of urban reforms for the Jardim Botânico neighborhood, one of the wealthiest in Rio. The reforms will apparently open up space for people to live a happier, more convivial life, with access to better transport, beaches, and urban forests. This is a good thing and marks some major progress in the planning and organization of public space in Rio. However, while some walls are coming down in Rio, many others are going up - in inverse proportion to the socio-economic and geographic profile of residents. 

Last week, as I was headed to the campus of UFRJ, traffic was delayed due to the construction of a wall that will separate the Red Line highway from the favelas that flank it. The title of the article in OGlobo describing the project was “Menos Barulho” (Less noise). But the content of the article made very clear that this was not about noise reduction: A Linha Vermelha, principal acesso ao Aeroporto Internacional Tom Jobim, registra um movimento de cerca de 140 mil veículos por dia. Já na Linha Amarela, o volume de tráfego chega a 380 mil. Ao longo das duas vias, existem 37 favelas, a maioria dominada pelo tráfico. Da lista, fazem parte, por exemplo, o Complexo da Maré e a Cidade Deus, que receberão barreiras acústicas.

‘The Red Line, the principal access to the Tom Jobim International Airport, records about 140 thousand vehicles a day. The Yellow Line receives about 380 thousand cars. Along both of these lines exist 37 favelas, the majority dominated by drug traffickers. The Maré Complex and City of God are part of this list and they will also receive acoustic barriers.

The article continued with this quote from a coronel of the highway patrol: Os casos de violência se concentram principalmente nos acessos. Os bandidos podem abordar motoristas e fugir de carro ou a pé. É claro que, para a polícia, é muito mais fácil montar um cerco e tentar prender bandidos que estejam em algum veículo numa via mais movimentada do que localizá-los se estiverem a pé, podendo se esconder em qualquer beco.

"The cases of violence are concentrated in the points of access. Bandits can attack motorists and flee by car or on foot. It's clear that for the police, it's much easier to put up a wall and try to catch bandits that are in a car on a flowing highway rather than if they were on foot, hiding in some alley [in a favela]."

The short article concludes by noting that "all of the walls will be painted by artists from the communities as part of the social projects that will be brought to the neighboring favelas." 

The walls along Rio's principal highways will accomplish a couple of things and will not accomplish some others:

1) the barriers will block the favelas from plain view along the major routes of access between the International Airport and the Olympic Zone in Barra de Tijuca as well as to the Center and Zona Sul.

2) the barriers will further separate communites that are already divided by the highway. There are no pedestrian over or under passes. 

3) once installed, the walls will generate temporary employment for a few atrists who can decorate the cage within which their community has been contained.

4) the symbolic economy of the wall will serve as a futher reminder that people living in favelas are better unseen and unheard, augmenting the stigma of living in a favela.

5) will probably reduce the chances of motorists being hit by stray bullets, but will also reduce the escape routes for motorists in the case of a arrrastão, which is a generalized mob assault on gridlocked cars. 

6) eliminate or reduce the access to the highways for community residents  whose primary employment is selling food and water to motorists stuck in traffic.

7) will make it less likely that bandidos who rob a car can escape into a favela, but because the walls are so low, stopping the car next to the wall will make for a very effective ladder. 

These walls will not:1) significantly reduce noise levels because they are too low (bottom at right). Similar walls in the United States (top photo at right), specifically designed to reduce noise from interstate traffic are typically 7-10 meters high.

 2) reduce the access of bandidos to the highways, as they can stroll up the access ramps

3) generate long-term employment or contribute to solving the problems of Rio de Janeiro. 

The Problem with Walls

These are not the only walls under construction in Rio. In Rocinha, the largest informal settlement in Latin America, walls are going up in order to stop the spread of the community into the Tijuca Forest. In the favela Dona Marta in Botafogo, the city erected a wall around the community to "protect the environment" from the unwanted expansion  of the community. (Photo montage at left: Rocinha contained by wall)

Rio de Janeiro is one of the few places in the world where the construction of walls is understaood as a viable solution to environmental, social, economic, and security problems. The other locations are: United States - Mexico Southwest Border Wall; Israel - Palestine Security Wall  (at right, errily similar to the shape of Rocinha); Belfast, Northern Ireland; India - Pakistan Line of Control: Morocco - Western Sahara; Cyprus; Saudi Arabia. 

Are there similarities and differences between these projects and what is happening in Rio de Janeiro? I think that though the circumstances are different, the motivations for building walls are based in an economy of fear that seeks to stigmatize and isolate unwanted social groups (Mexicans, Palestinians, West African Migrants, Catholics, favelados), or to separate people forcibly while providing a security mechanism that augments the power of the state to control and monitor movement across geographic frontiers. In this way, the absurd travail of getting a visa to travel to the USA is augmented by the byzantine banality of the TSA who erect a virtual, global wall that is all too easy to get around (to wit: the underwear and shoe bombers). 

The International Court of Justice condemned the Israeli wall as a violation of international and humanitarian law, and Mexico has considered taking the United States to the IOJ over the Border Wall (though the USA does not belong to the organization, thanks Obama). Belfast was, until recently, a torrid war zone. India and Pakistan have undefined and contested frontiers. Saudi Arabia built a wall following the deteriorating security conditions in Paul Bremer's Iraq. Morocco built the "Wall of Shame" to control the mineral resources of Western Sahara. Cyprus is in a perpetual civil war. Rio de Janeiro is building walls to hide poverty from plain view. Soon, the highways of Rio de Janeiro will resemble the final scene in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" in which an endless series of billboards isolates the road. 

The idea that "good fences make good neighbors" does not apply in a geo-political context nor within the complex political and residential economy of a city as sharply divided along class and geographic lines as Rio de Janeiro.

To return to the article that brought me to this discussion it is sufficient to note that in some parts of Rio de Janeiro, walls are coming down in order to enhance the quality of life. In other parts of the city, walls are going up for very different reasons. The generalized rationale and effects of Rio's walls are the same as those in every other society that erects physical barriers in order to accent and re-enforce difference. The government's claim that these walls are meant to protect the environment or reduce noise pollution is an absurdity matched only by the lack of irony in the Brazilian media.