The state of the protests

The protests are small and I hope the rest of the world is not disappointed. There are many contradictory forces that have kept the middle class protesters of 2013 off the streets. I’ll try to put a bit of perspective on them here before trying to get a plane to the waterpark of Natal for USA x Ghana.

Police violence. The police are under very clear instructions to tolerate nothing and to react with maximum force. We saw this on the opening day in São Paulo and it was repeated again last night in Rio. A group of 200+ protesters was met with twice as many police, helicopters, dogs, mounted police and live ammunition. The videos are frightening. There is nothing more likely to keep disenchanted middle-class people off the street (and to keep their kids at home) than the imminent threat of injury.

It´s the World Cup. We´re all on holiday, there is a party raging and Brazilians are very hospitable. As with everyone else, Brazilians have been waiting for the World Cup for four years and despite the corporate sabotage of FIFA and the Brazilian elites, it´s still the World Cup. Brazilians want to enjoy what will certainly be the last World Cup in South America for many years. While the distance between the World Cup as culture and World Cup as corporate spectacle has never been greater, it is important to reclaim the former and to being the process of re-appropriating football as the people´s game.

The media. OBobo controls the tv, internet, and print media to such a degree that the counter-narratives to the World Cup are very difficult to find. Brazil is still very much a visual and oral culture and the critical media presence is limited to a few programs and newspapers. When such a powerful media force drives the discursive framing of the event, it keeps public opinion moving in the direction they want.

There is a lot of protesting to come. The social movements behind the protests in 2013 have a long road ahead. When the police are out in such force and with such a mandate to repress, it doesn´t make too much sense to go out with the same message. The politicians won´t be listening until after the Cup, if then. The years of protest have had some positive results, but there are times to get the message out louder and more forcefully and it doesn´t make sense to try to compete with the circus.

Tiredness and the existential condition of the left. Combined with all of the above, it would appear that a certain organizational fatigue has set in amongst some of the social movements. The big gatherings end up being organized by a handful of people, time after time, and that gets quite tiring. In the face of the Cup, the typical organizational practices yield less and it appears that everything is more difficult than normal. Added to this is the slight ridiculousness of saying “Não Vai Ter Copa!” when the ball is rolling. Add the traditional fragmentation of leftist movements and the difficult of putting together a unified front and a clear message and the protests are smaller and smaller.

While it is dispiriting to see that the protests are so small, it is important to check one´s disappointment against the perspective one is bringing. Just because there were massive protests last year and smaller ones this year does not diminish the value of what happened or signify that Brazilians are no longer furious with the state of the country.

We are seeing that the fires of discontent are still very much alive but that the forces of the state, capital and the pull of the circus are keeping the flame on a lower burn. Those who are out on the streets are further to the left or right of the political spectrum than those who were out last year and are risking their lives for the right to confront the spectacle.

Everything is going great

The violence that permeates daily life in Brazil is becoming more visible as if the stresses of preparing for the World Cup are making people, infrastructure and institutions crack. In the past few weeks we have had a series of horrors that I refuse to ignore. A woman (Cláudia Ferreira) was shot in the chest while going to get bread for her four kids. The police that shot her, who between them were responsible for scores of deaths, threw her into the back of their SUV and as they drove away the door opened and she was dragged hundreds of meters down the street in front of her friends and neighbors. There may have been more scandal about O Bobo´s terrible coverage of the incident than the incident itself. 

In another act of daily horror a BRT Transoeste feeder bus came too fast around a corner, lost control, jumped the road divider and killed three children and woman that were waiting to cross. The lack of urban planning and the general insanity of the bus system are responsible for this daily violence that people have to face in Rio. These people died because there are no over or underpasses and there had been no intervention by public authorities to reduce the public risk on what locals called “the corner of death” . When the Brazilian media reports on these accidents they are mostly interested in how long it takes for the traffic to start flowing again. 

Today is the anniversary of the 1964 CIA-backed Military Coup. The violence is getting to the point where I have heard numerous people declare that the only way “to bring order back” to society is to have a dictatorship. It would seem that many are getting their wish as the expansion of military counter-insurgencies continues in Rio.  The saudade for the military dictatorship always comes from the very people who benefitted from it the last time around and who are also benefitting the most from Brazil´s spiraling ascension (or decline) into a well-behaved global economic player. There are, of course, millions and millions and millions of Brazilians that have fought long and hard to bring about democratic conditions and the rule of law, but they are fighting an uphill battle against a rising tide of neo-liberalism. This rising tide has all of the delightful aromas and flavors of Rio´s barely functioning sewage system where when we spoon through the fetid stew we find that there are pervasive notions about the rights of individuals that would be more appropriate under the Talban than the PT. 

Haven´t heard about this one? A study by IPEA showed that 65.1% of Brazilian respondents, men and women, agreed partially or in full that women who dressed provocatively “were asking to be raped.” An anti-rape campaign emerged with the hashtag “I don´t deserve to be raped.” This is a necessary, logical and correct response. However, in a machista, violent, and conservative society the reaction was not long in coming: death threats, rape threats and intimidation forced the organizers of the campaign off social media sites. This was the same week in which reports came out about the daily sexual violence that women experience on overcrowded buses and trains in Brazilian cities. To confirm the general acceptance of this in Brazil, advertisements on the metro are promoting a drink called SYN whose mascot is an alien (read: gringo) that “abducts” Rio´s provocatively dressed, tipsy, black and mulata women. The message: rape away boys, most people think it´s ok. 

The World Cup would be a welcome distraction from the daily violence except that yet another worker has died in São Paulo and work on the stadium has again stopped (gasp!). There will probably be a few more deaths as the time pressures grow. No one is to blame as the World Cup functions like an extensive shell game of interests that leaves vacuums of responsibility, exposing the least protected to the greatest risk. Of course, the “real risk” is to the World Cup which is why the government puts on massive security performances to show foreigners that they are getting tough on crime and that critical infrastructures will be protected. The occupation of Maré this week was nothing more than that. The media in Brazil crowed about how the military were able to occupy the whole complex in 15 minutes without firing a shot. Never mind the year´s long notice that the occupation was going to happen. This triumphalist discourse ignores the fact that hundreds of thousands of shots have been fired in and at Maré over the years and that last year during the Confederations Cup, this same “pacifying” force massacred eleven people (some with bayonets). So while the World Cup will have little or no impact on Brazil´s economy (according to Moody´s), in a country where black kids are three times as likely to be shot as all other groups, it is extremely disturbing that we are spending R$1.9 billion on security measures that will increase the likelihood of their deaths. 

Brazil has come a long way since the end of the dictatorship in 1985, but there are many generations of work to be done to make this a more just and democratic society. Facing the legacy of the dictatorship on its 50^th anniversary has to be more than just remembering how bad things were. The national leadership has only taken tentative steps towards truth commissions and is repeating some of the same tactics with their pursuit of draconian laws against social movements and protests during mega-events (including new “terrorist” laws). Part of the reason for the continuity of ideologies between the dictatorship and neo-liberal democracy is that the economic and political agents that dictate public policy in Brazil accumulated their wealth and power under the military regime. Granted, the PT has to work within the given structure but they don´t seem keen to change things as long as they can keep their hands on the tiller and in the till. With the World Cup hurtling at us like an unavoidable meteor it is important to remember that “the political use of football by dictatorships, military regimes and authoritarian governments dos not neutralize the spaces and practice of football for acts of resistance.”

Tired Resignation

It should be clear by now that Rio de Janeiro does not have the capacity to host its own population, much less a never ending series of mega-events. During a week of record heat there have been widespread power outages, water cuts, transportation breakdowns and absurd scenes of violence. All this while Lord Mayor Paes is off in South Africa taking over the the C40 mayors´ conference from Billionaire Bloomberg. The list of insanities in Rio these past weeks has combined with the incredible heat to make me even more irritable than usual when talking about the city. But let´s go by parts.

First, the city has been made hotter and hotter by its horrible architecture, dedication to the car and lack of connectivity with the water. The most recent horror in the infinite list of heat creating buildings is by the recently deceased Oscar Niemeyer. The picture says almost all you need to know about this new monstrosity at the Fundação Getulio Vargas on the Praia de Botafogo. A big black glass box reflects

Hotter than Hades, uglier than sin. 

afternoon sun onto a treeless esplanade of white concrete. The red sculpture out in front is a reminder that Niemeyer was an expert at creating heat islands unfit for human circulation. Even if it were humanly possible to deal with the space, the kind folk at FGV have made sure that no one can enter it by erecting fencing on the access routes and posting private security 24/7. This kind of building and urban design is so common in Rio as to go unnoticed most of the time – but then no one asks why we have power outages after we cut down all the trees and cram ourselves into air-conditioned boxes that cut off external air circulation. I know ol´ Oscar was a decent enough fellow, but he has really made life a living hell for generations of Brazilians. With one of the most iconic views in the world, he opted for a building with no windows! The heat index in some parts of Rio was 57 celsius yesterday.

Second, violence, violence, violence. Brazilians love them some violence. MMA is one of the most popular sports and much like American Football can be considered a cultural representation of how the country functions. Remember when Eduardo Paes had his bodyguards hold back a disgruntled citizen so he could punch him in the face? This is an interpersonal reflection of the obsession with MMA and the normal way that people in Rio try to resolve their anger. Get on a city bus and see what I mean.

Another example? On one of the wealthiest streets in Flamengo there has been increasing insecurity due to a number of robberies committed by young kids. Part of this insecurity comes from the abandonment of the Edificio Hilton Santos which was previously occupied by live people but has been turned into yet another festering element of Eike Batista´s crumbling empire. The area in front of the building is deserted, and poorly lit and overgrown, making it an ideal place to steal cell phones and wallets. Of course, the police are never anywhere to be seen, busy as they are sitting in their cars with the engines running to escape the heat. So a group of middle class vigilantes decided to take matters into their own hands. They chased down a young black kid, stripped him naked, cut his ear with a knife and locked him to a light post with a bicycle lock – around his neck.  The case has been alternatively celebrated or decried in government and media. Just what Rio needs are gangs of upper-middle class men acting as judge and jury over the lives of poor black kids. Oh wait, that basically describes the justice system anyway.

More violence? How about the invasion of a hospital by armed gunmen who robbed patients in their beds! How about the invasion of the Morro do Juramento by the Rio Military Police that left 6 “suspects” dead. The motive was payback for shots fired against the UPP units in the Complexo de Alemão. The Guarda Municipal of Rio continue to beat up street vendors in the city center in preparation for the World Cup.Want more? How about the video showing police beating up a fan in the bathroom of a stadium. Or the 100 Corinthians fans that cut through the fencing around the team´s training site and invaded practice, throttling several of the players. There are widespread reports of inhumane conditions for Haitian workers at the Manaus World Cup stadium. Yesterday there was yet another death on Rio´s BRT Transoeste line.

Add to this the power outages and water shortages all over Rio de Janeiro and one wonders what the city´s top executive is being lauded for in South Africa this week.

Fim do ano, fim do mundo

The end of another year of football in Brazil exposed the putrid state of every element of the game. This video explains some of it:

The Vasco x Atletico Paranaense match was held in the city of Joinville in Santa Catarina State because Altético´s stadium is under construction, and massively delayed, for the World Cup. Vasco needed to win in order to avoid relegation, but their team is so devoid of talent that staying in the first division another year would have been a sporting injustice. Why are Vasco so bad? Anyone out there remember Phillipe Coutinho, now starring in midfield for Liverpool? Ex-Vasco, he was sold to A.C. Milan on the day he turned 18. Vasco´s youth system has been condemned in the courts and the few times they do manage to produce talent, the boys are sold off to the highest bidder. This is same reason for which Fluminense was relegated. They decided to sell their two best players, Wellinton Nem and Thiago Neves, in mid season and brought no one in to replace them. The political-economy of Brazilian football continues to benefit agents and directors at the expense of clubs and fans.

However, the causes for the scenes above have much deeper roots than just the emptying of talent pools and managerial incompetence (read: Vanderlei Luxemburgo). The torcidas organizadas have long standing relationships with club directors. This is not new or surprising in Latin America. However, the fact that there had been violence between the torcidas of Vasco and Atletico PR and that the Military Police decided not to patrol inside the stadium, leaving it up to a private security force, on a day when the Torcida Jovem of Vasco was likely to be at its most aggressive because of the impending relegation…that is another kind of violence in and of itself. The inability of the state to anticipate pre-announced conflicts or of the responsible football authorities to ensure the safe realization of a game is exactly the kind of violence through absence that has as its inevitable counterpoint a boot in the face and a nail-tipped club in the head. Violence permeates Brazilian football at all levels so why are we so surprised when it breaks out in the stands?

Naturally, in Brazil, no one is going to assume responsibility for any of this. The clubs cannot be held responsible for their permissive relationships with the torcidas, the PM´s hands off attitude may be criticized but not investigated, the CBF is tone deaf, blind and unmoving. The only thing that will happen is that both Vasco and Atletico will receive punishments of short duration that will not significantly alter the status quo.

A number of important Brazilian footballers have started a movement to reform Brazilian football from the inside. Good Sense F.C. is calling for a reorganization of the football calendar and for a declaration of labor rights for football players. They issued a note regarding yesterday´s violence saying all culpable parties should be found out. This includes the CBF, the Military Police, the private security firm in charge of the internal policing, the emergency personnel, the board of directors of both clubs and the torcidas organizadas. 

A Calm Between Storms

I took the header photo at the São Cristóvão metro station in between waves of assaults by the military police on peaceful protesters. Those familiar with Rio’s geo-political scenario will probably get the implication. C.V. stands for Comando Vermelho, Rio’s largest drug trafficking faction. So far, they’ve been quiet, as have the P.C.C. in São Paulo. It is good to remember that earlier this year there was a massive, diffuse and deadly conflict in São Paulo between various police factions and the P.C.C. The C.V. has lost much of its most valuable territory in Rio’s zona sul with the UPPs. The majority of Rio’s western suburbs are under the control of milicias. It is impossible to know what kind of agreements have been made between the powers that be and those that sometimes are, but if, for some reason, the drug factions or milicias want to break the status quo as much as those they sell drugs to…

It has become clear that the protests were infiltrated from the very beginning by police, right wing loonies and paid vandals. In all the looting and vandalism that happened on Thursday night in Rio, the police only managed 6 arrests. If they had any interest at all in stopping it, they could have done so quite easily. The systematic attempts to de-legitimate peaceful, democratic protests by those in power and the fringe elements that want to push Brazil back into the 17^th century are supported by the very same people that held power way back then! Chega. Como dizen los hermanos, “Que se vayan todos”.

The city government has been criminally negligent in the handling of these protests. None of the people I talked to during or after saw any sign of emergency first aid services. There was a group of young doctors and medical students who volunteered, but that was it. The government knew very well what it was going to do and to whom. Paes and Cabral willingly endangered the health and safety of citizens without providing any kind of service for when their pre-meditated violence actually worked out in practice. This is as reprehensible as it is incomprehensible and I would very much like to hear the opinion of the Pope on this subject, as we prepare to receive his millions of minions in July.

The news from Brazil is big everywhere in the world with the exception of the United States. Uncle Sam is again too busy staring at his bellybutton. The Obama Administration appears to be snowed-in (ahem) by a mound of neo-liberal snarky powder. Hope went to Nope and then Dope too quickly.

The protests in Brazil are not static, nor are they diminishing. Today saw more violent clashes outside of stadiums and in city centers. The number one goal of this movement, rebellion, collective shout, occupation, bananada – should be to rip out the putrid insides of the Brazilian political and economic systems and replace them with something new. This, of course, is the work of decades. Unfortunately, in Dilma’s wobbling, cold and hollow speech on Friday night, she gave no indication that she has any intention of moving in this direction. The lack of viable alternatives and the increasing presence of neo-Nazis and other loonies may convince people to stop their nascent militancy.

In the blah, blah, blah response of Brazil’s politicians there has been almost no mention of police violence. During his press conference, Rio’s mayor began listing what had been vandalized in the center of the city yet never mentioned the 80+ that had to be taken to the hospital as city hall was “defended”. These barbarities and barbarians stand in stark contrast to the dignified, necessary, peaceful, tasteful, and orderly expression of civil and human rights exercised by the overwhelming majority of protesters.

The World Cup will happen in Brazil. It is surprising that there have not been many calls for FIFA and their partners to pay taxes on profits made in Brazil. In London, so many people boycotted the Olympic sponsors once they discovered that they were tax exempt, that McDonald’s and Cocaine-Cola agreed to pay up. This hit the sponsors in the only place it hurts.

For more info, check the Media link above and follow @geostadia.

Chega de Bullying

The lines to buy Metro tickets were impossibly long. It was not, I thought, an accident that the increased demand for public transportation to get to Rio`s biggest protest in a generation had not been anticipated. The unusual presence of Military Police at the station entrances gave an unmasked vision of the hooded cowards that would be waiting a few hours hence. I walked towards downtown, eventually entering the metro in Catete.

My fellow passengers were dressed for a walk in the park, not a military confrontation. They carried poster-sized banners, handbags, cell phones. One of the better posters read “Se Pelé é Rei, eu sou jacobino” (If Pelé is King, then I´m a Jacobian). Coming from the zona sul, the attitude was light, festive, but different from Carnaval. There were small groups of friends, couples and individuals – mostly in their late teens, twenties and thirties heading to Candelaria to start the long march to the Prefeitura.

A carnaval-style sound car led the way, with chants blasting over the throbbing mass. This gave the procession a familiar air, but there was no dancing, no gyrating and skimpily clad women to ogle. The sound car moved slowly as a human tide rose behind it.

Several political parties (or unions) had their banners out: UNE, CTB, AMES, PSB, PSTU, ANEL. Compared to the march of 100,000 on Monday, this showed a jockeying for position among vested political interests, exactly what the majority of the protesters don`t want. Later, I heard that the CUT and PSTU groups had their banners shredded. The ANEL banner was prescient (At least on the night):  “Isso aqui vai virar a Turquia” (This here will become Turkey).

In the middle of a crowd it is impossible to determine its dimensions. In order to get some perspective, I ran forward to overpass that links the Prefeitura building with the Cidade Nova metro. I arrived to find the metro access doors closed. 150 people, journalists and photographers, PM and Metro security were inside. 5 minutes later the journalists were gone.  

Looking back towards Candelaria, some 3km distant, a human wave rolled. Directly below me, the vanguard had arrived and was dancing underneath the overpass. The Maraca é Nosso flag whipped through the air as the songs and rhythms from the x-Maracanã made protesters jump and chant as if they were watching a game unfold.  Hundreds had pushed forward towards the front of the Prefeitura building (aka Piranhão, or big brothel). The mass of the protest was still coming but had slowed. Fireworks. Bap bap bap, boom. Cheers. Military helicopters swooped. Jeers.

Bap, bap, bap, Boom. Cheers. Elderly people huffed up the stairs to get into the metro. Security told them it was impossible. Como pode? We heard that BOPE was going to enter the station. Bap bap, Boom. Cheers. Journalists climbed up for a better angle. The stairs were crowded in order to see the impure spectacle. Below, the growing chorus  bellowed stadium chants. The most popular “Não vai ter Copa! Não vai ter Copa! “

History stretched, ran here and there. 500,000? 600,000? During Carnaval, O Bobo inflates counts. There was light conversation in an atmosphere of civic solidarity and pride.

Boom. Boom. Crack crack crack. No cheers. The air filled with tear gas as people sprinted towards the oncoming hundreds of thousands. I was stuck on the stairs, with my back protected and seemingly out of the line of fire coming from city hall. Crack crack crack. More gas canisters flew into the streets, chasing those who are already running. Brave young lads picked them up and threw them back or kicked them in the canal. Someone with his face covered smashed the bus stop. I can`t decide if that is a satisfying sound.

Minutes extended as I judged a good time to run in front of the rubber bullets and tear gas canisters to get away from city hall and back towards the crowd. More gas flowed  through and we choked and coughed and spit and cried. I try not to rub my eyes, sprayed some vinegar on my mask and rode out the wave of pain. Three guys with medic coats came up and offered a spray of milk of magnesia  - a base substance to rub around the eyes. I felt horribly for these people with me on the platform. They were all overweight and scared and in the right place with a wrong government.  

The front of the crowd was chased away and in their place came the tough young guys with masks and muscles to throw things back at the PM. More bombs, more smoke, more anger, more vandalism. I decided to run for it as a rainstorm of tear gas canisters falls from the top of buildings, or helicopters, or who knows where. Blinded again, I ran towards the crowd retreating along Presidente Vargas. A small group sprinted down a side street and was confronted by shock troops. They retreatd  around a corner, but they were prepared with Molotov cocktails and bombs. One cocktail exploded in someone`s hand, catching his hair on fire. Será que valeu a pena?

Caught between two side streets where the shock troops laid down constant tear gas and percussion grenades, we were pressed from behind by the PM which had been systematically following the salvos and establishing the new front. Again, I timed a run and was again caught in a world of tear gas. We were up against the Canal do Mangue, a putrid, open sewer that would eat through a tennis shoe faster than a taser. The PM continued launching gas into the slow moving crowd. Como pode?

For an hour we were pushed back with gas and bombs and bullets. The crowd walked quicker, with small groups occasionally running to get out of the way of falling canisters. When they fell at my feet again I was blinded, but not as much as the person to my left. I wrapped my arm around him leading him forward as quickly as possible. He was helpless. I was not much better. Minutes later the torment passed and we were again walking with the masses, beating a new path to the state legislature building. The beer vendors were out. Antartica has never tasted so good.

Near the intersection of Rio Branco, it seemed that the crowd had moved on. Explosions and sirens punctuated an eerie silence. The scene was one of Holywoodian destruction. The PM was 100 yards distant. The menacing force stood shadowed by clouds of tear gas and black smoke, the red lights of their trucks making scary shadows. Dozens of people sat down in the street. My friend and I joined them. BBC Radio called me for a live interview. The number grew to two hundred people, legs crossed, V signs raised.

The PM attacked from two sides: bombs, gas, bullets. Blindness, searing lungs and a full sprint into the side streets while trying to talk on the phone. I don`t know if the BBC aired the interview. I blindly jumped over broken trees, cobblestones and shredded metal while running forward, trying to explain what was going on. Bombs exploded all around and more canisters rained down. There were no machos here, just people running for safety.

I ended up on Rio Branco heading towards Praça Mauá. The vandalism was out of control, universally undertaken by young men with their faces covered. Then again in front of the Museu da Amanha, another attack from the police that sent us running yet again.

It was a long walk to the metro. PM roamed the streets like rabid dogs, guns pointed in everyone`s faces. Worse, they threw tear gas into restaurants. These are the same tactics employed in Turkey. Solidarity!

For my usual trenchant analysis you can find links to the million interviews on the media page. And if anyone heard that BBC interview, please send it along.

My banner choices of the day: Chega de Bullying; Mais Amor Menos Paes; Desigualdade social é uma violência estrutural

[p.s. I had it easy]

Violence, violence, violence...and more violence

You don't have to speak or read portuguese to get the jist of this video where the Municpal Guard of Rio attacks beach-goes in the form of a gang. It's incredible. This happened yesterday, October 9, 2012 because the Guardas apparently didn't like that some people were playing football on the beach. Who knows their motivations. Whatever they were, the reaction was right out of MMA or a crappy 1980s video game where you whack inert creatures with long sticks. International visitors, are you ready for this? Oh, and if you need to wash the blood off your cracked skull in the showers on Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, don't. It's untreated grey water, fecal coliform counts off the charts. Mmmm.



Remember, this is the "unarmed" police force of Rio. In Ipanema, on a Tuesday afternoon. As one of the mayoral campaign slogans quipped: Não Paz com Paes. 

Minha Preciosa / My Precious

When the Olympic Flag arrived in Rio de Janeiro, the mayor posed for cameras with a coy, obsequious smile as he stroked the wooden box which housed the flag. As he caressed the source of all earthly power, he touched the flag (made of Korean Silk!) with his bare hands: a violation of Olympic protocol equivalent to showing the soles of one’s feet to the King of Siam. The Lords were not happy. In the week following the arrival of the Olympic flag in Rio, the twenty first century equivalent of Cortez claiming Mexico for Spain, the mayor has triumphantly brought this sacred icon of the European aristocracy to Brasília (for the Queen of the Planalto), the Complexo do Alemão (occupied by the Brazilian military and symbolic center of power for traficantes), Realengo (the center of military power in Rio), the Palácio da Cidade (center of non-ecclesiastic power), and to Cristo Redentor (symbol of celestial and economic power). Now that we’ve all had the flag waved in our faces and are duly conquered we can send it to the cleaners to remove the fingerprints. Only if one is a Brazilian journalist working for a major outlet could one not notice the parallels between the way the government slobbers and slithers after the flag and the role of the Olympics in consolidating symbolic, political, social, economic and urban power. We are living in a city governed by Gollum! Five rings to rule them all!!!!

Three signs that all is not well under the developmentalist, consumerist regime that counts as public policy in Brazil: the grocery store around the corner from my apartment was assaulted at 6am Sunday morning. Upset that the manager didn’t have the code to the safe, the two assailants put something that “had the appearance of a grenade” in the mouth of the manager and kicked him in the face. Really? Flamengo is a middle and upper-middle class neighborhood in the center of town. Perhaps we should require that everyone wear five rings to work? The assailants escaped out the back of the store and the supermarket opened for business as usual at 11am.

Sunday brought Vasco x Flamengo to the Engenhão. On the way to the stadium a bus full of Flamengo supporters from Resende stopped at a gas station, were put into a rage after seeing some Vasco fans and started to break everything in sight. They then chased down, stabbed, shot and killed 30 year old Diego Matins Leal, who wasn’t wearing a Vasco shirt. 57 people were arrested. As an aside, there were only 19,469 people at the game and only 15,459 of them paid to get in, meaning that 21% of fans entered for free. The paying fans forked over an average of R$26 per ticket for gate receipts of R$403,835. Those who aren’t entitled to half-price tickets paid between R$30 and R$60, subsidizing everyone else. Between the latent, bubbling violence of the torcidas organizadas, the militarization of stadium space that does nothing to diminish the violence but treats everyone as a potential criminal, the high cost of tickets, the difficulty of access and the terrible Engenhão stadium (which I want to say, again, is no longer called Estádio Olímpico João Havelange, but Stadium Rio -  a fact continuously ignored by the media here) – is it any wonder that the biggest rivalry in Rio can only get half the average attendance of MLS's Seattle Sounders?

And to continue what has been a very depressing post…In the last week two kids have been killed by Rio’s security forces. One, a 15 year old male, was killed outside his home by BOPE as he bent down to pick up the keys that his mom had thrown from the upstairs window. Shot three times, his mother was forced to clean her son’s blood off the doorstep. Yesterday, a four year old girl was killed by Military Police during a raid. In the USA, people make tragic films about these events. In Rio, this is everyday news and a sign that not all is well. 

It would appear that the metrics of security for Rio de Janeiro are indeed linked to the ability of Zona Sul residents and visitors to walk around with an iphone on their way to get some frozen yogurt. For those who live outside the Olympic City, there are daily, deadly reminders that NOTHING FUNDAMENTAL HAS CHANGED. The appearance of new buildings, shopping malls, museums, ageing football stars and the occasional international celebrity only mean that there’s a chance for someone to make money, not that there’s any kind of meaningful wealth redistribution, or shift in paradigm. To the contrary, the wholesale capitulation of the Worker’s Party to private industry has stuffed private hands even further into public pockets.  Three absurd deaths in three days, a supermarket manager getting kicked in the face with a grenade stuffed in his mouth, endemic and systemic corruption, phantasmagoric mega-projects, the decline of popular culture and fawning fealty to a posse of high-handed moralists: the narcotic power of the five rings hides the violence from plain sight.

Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora / Police Pacification Units

UPPs

The continued installation of UPPs (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora / Police Pacification Units) in select favelas has had interesting and profound consequences in Rio de Janeiro. In recent weeks, I have visited three “pacified” communities and have come away with mixed feelings and impressions regarding the project.

UPPs are part of the state government’s response to the chronic problems of violence associated with drug traffic in Rio de Janiero’s favelas. Since the late 19^th century, favelas grew in number and extent as a response to increasingly scarce and expensive housing in Rio de Janeiro. Throughout the twentieth century, and especially in the 1980s and 1990s, the ever widening gap between socio-economic classes in Brazil made it increasingly difficult for individuals and families to enter the formal housing market close to centers of employment. The topography of Rio places limits on available space which, combined with highly concentrated wealth and service sector employment, made residing in the steeply sloped favelas (especially in the Zona Sul, though not all favelas are on hillsides) choices of necessity. In the City of Rio de Janeiro there are more than 1,000 favelas with more than a million residents – one out of every six people in the City of Rio lives in a favela. 

Drug trafficking and violence are essentially products of the same economic and spatial processes: a favelalógica.  This favelalógica is predicated on supply and demand, competition for geographic space, and market presence. These logics were (and are) complicated the lack of a consistent or coherent public policy to deal with the intersecting vectors of poverty, inadequate public housing, drug trafficking, police corruption, international arms trading, and violence. The concentration of wealth and disposable income in Rio’s Zona Sul localized the greatest demand for drugs there. The hillsides, already occupied by working class people, were taken over by drug trafficking factions (that grew into powerful criminal organizations, ie. Comando Vermelho, Terceiro Comando) that installed martial law in the favelas in order to defend their territory from which they met the drug demands of the wealthy (or wealthier). The absence of the state facilitated the rule of the traficantes, who financed basic services for the community, cementing their role as a parallel government. The evolution and escalation of the violence has been told in so many formats and with such detail and complexity that it can’t possibly be repeated here. Suffice it to say that the problems of violence were (and are) of stunning and chronic proportions. There is an endless list of resources to further understand the evolution of and proposed “solutions” to the “problem” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

UPP in theory and practice

The theory is that the installation of a UPP will remove the guns from the bad guys and allow communities to live in peace. The UPP maintains a very heavy military presence in the favela for an undetermined period, allowing for a freedom of movement and access that was not possible under the rule of drug traffickers. The concentration of lethal force in the hands of the state is not meant to eliminate drug trafficking, just to take illegitimate violence out of the picture. That is, “pacification” is initially secured through legitimate and state-sanctioned violence which is then maintained through long-term, military occupation. The stated goal is not to end drug trafficking but to install the state in a place where it had little or no presence.

A UPP typically consists of 200 members of the State Military Police (PM), lead by a contingent of BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especias). BOPE may be the best trained urban fighting force in the world, and is the subject of the film Tropa de Elite. Following a general announcement that a favela is going to receive a UPP, BOPE arrives in the early morning and replaces the martial law of the drug faction with the martial law of the state.  From there, the police circulate through the favela in search of arms and drugs, frequently finding fistfuls of both. On several occasions there have been gun battles on the way in, though the advance notice of occupation is generally enough to convince the armed drug traffickers that the battle is already lost.

Once a UPP is installed, the favela is considered “pacified”. From there, the hard work of winning the hearts and minds of the “natives” begins. Much of this work has been made more difficult by the very police installed as pacifiers as for decades, those living in the favelas have had to deal with heavy handed incursions into their communities, which not infrequently took the form of military helicopters raining down indiscriminant bullets. The stories of police atrocities are as numerous as the alarming body count. The police who are circulating through the favelas are not necessarily well-trained for their jobs and many residents complain that anything but total subservience to the new overlords results in a beating. The UPP is an occupying force and it will take time for both sides to find ways to negotiate the complexities of a new system of governance.

There are numerous sides to the numerous stories that the UPPs involve. The government of Sergio Cabral installed the first UPP in Dona Marta in Botafogo in December of 2008. Since then, UPPs have been installed in the following communities (see map, all communities below are hotlinked to the official state UPP website):

·  BABILÔNIA | C.MANGUEIRA

·  BATAM

·  BOREL

·  C. DE DEUS

·  P. PAVÃOZINHO | CANTAGALO

·  PROVIDÊNCIA

·  SANTA MARTA

·  TABAJARAS | CABRITOS

In my conversations with residents, explorations of the Morros de Providência, Cantagalo, and Chapeu Mangueira, and in a collective interview with the State Secretary of Security José Beltrame, these are the major debates that I see driving the discussion of UPPs in Rio.

Location of UPPs

Secretary Beltrame and Governor Cabral have been strongly criticized for the installation of UPPs in wealthy areas of the city. When asked about this, Beltrame did not hesitate in responding that part of the project was to secure the wealthiest area of the city first, as the Zona Sul accounts for a staggeringly large percentage of the region’s total economic output. Protect the wealth first, secure the space for further accumulation, and then worry about the other parts of the city. It’s a cruel but coherent logic.

The geography of UPPs has generally followed along the Olympic ring linking the International Airport with the Center, the Center with Copacabana and Ipanema, and those regions with Barra de Tijuca. Also included are the Maracanã / Tijuca region and the stretch along the Linha Amarela running north from Barra de Tijuca to the Airport. The occupation of Morro da Providência can be seen as an attempt to secure the Zona Portuária for the massive urban interventions being cogitated with the Porto Maravilha.  While the counter argument is that the UPPs are benefitting huge numbers of people throughout the city, it is impossible to accurately measure such things. For instance, the installation of an UPP in the Cidade de Deus does not necessarily benefit all of the neighborhood’s 38,000+ residents.

The reality is that the UPPs are part of a larger security imperative for the City and State of Rio de Janeiro ahead of the scheduled mega-events. No one wants to or can afford a repeat of the disastrous gun battle that occurred just before the 2007 Pan American Games where 44 people were killed in the Complexo do Alemão. Following this massacre, 17,000 extra police occupied the streets of Rio for three weeks. Not that erecting an even stronger police state to assure the free flow of people and capital doesn’t happen everywhere a mega-event occurs but in the case of the Brazilian World Cup and Rio Olympics, it is imperative that there be longer term solutions. Securing the Zona Sul and the mega-event transportation lines is the first priority for the State. The larger favelas of Maré and the Complexo de Alemão will receive UPPs in the coming months. These projects are more complicated but are also intended to secure the Linha Amarelha which connects the International Airport to the Centro and Zona Sul (also to prevent the threat of RPGs downing airplanes on their final approach).

Secondary effects: In addition to changing the control, flows, laws, and daily life in a favela,   the installation of an UPP has had numerous secondary effects. The most alarming effect has been that real-estate values have increased 400% in the favelas where UPPs have been installed (according to OGlobo, which proclaimed this fact in celebratory terms). This may eventually have the effect of pricing the poorest people out of the favelas in the Zona Sul to even more marginalized parts of the city. With an increase in rents, there will likely be indirect dislocation as well as direct dislocation as tenants are forced out of their businesses and homes to make way for a wealthier clientele. For the moment, this has not happened in significant numbers, but it is a distinct possibility.

If the goal of the UPP is to take the arms out of the hands of drug traffickers, there should be many more arms apprehended than has been the case. The drug traffickers have simply moved on to other parts of the city, taking their guns with them. There is a general consensus, supported by media reports, that other parts of the city are becoming more violent as traficantes are expelled from their Zona Sul redoubts towards the Zona Norte and the far western suburbs. There is no apparent effort to reduce demand, only to reduce supply, concentrating exchange value in the hands of increasingly fewer drug traffickers. This will likely increase the armed capacity of the traficantes in the Zona Norte who will be able to extend their rule of law in a part of the metropolis that is largely ignored by the government. The impression left by the state’s strategy of selective implementation is that relative location and relative wealth are more important than a general concern for the population at large. This is consistent with the development of an urban planning regime that is driven by mega-event production and consumption.

Pacification has brought about opportunities for those who are of an entrepreneurial mind. On the Morro da Babilônia, it is now possible for the middle-class to shoot at each other with paint-ball guns, where just months before the police were battling traficantes with live ammo. The fetishization of violence in a place that was so recently the site of real violence is an indication of the direction that the “market opportunity” of pacification will begin to provide.

There has been a rapid increase in tourism in these communities, which until very recently had almost no tourism of any kind (save for the jeep tours in Rocinha). The difference between tourism in a neighborhood like Ipanema or Botafogo, with wide streets, sidewalks, and apartment buildings that provide a degree of privacy is completely different from tourism in a favela where the streets and alleys are used as extensions of lived space. Notions of privacy and public life are completely different and negotiating the sudden arrival of picture-taking strangers into one’s midst is complicated. There is no indication that the various educational programs associated with the UPPs (limited as they are) will address these concerns.

If the opening of favelas to “outsiders” is an inevitable result of “pacification” then the state should be obliged to prepare residents for the change as well as prepare them to take advantage of emerging economic opportunities. However, it should not be incumbent upon residents to re-imagine themselves as entrepreneurs, tour guides, hoteliers, or restaurateurs. Entering into the service economy is not something that every citizen should aspire to. If the only presence of the state is behind the barrel of a gun then the UPP project will fail, just as the rule of the drug traffickers failed.

In two instances (Cantagalo and Dona Marta) investments in transportation infrastructure have aided access to communities. In the case of Dona Marta, a funicular carries tourists and locals to the top of the community. In the case of Cantagalo, a massive elevator opened in July 2010, eliminating the need to climb hundreds of stairs. Both of these interventions have accelerated the flows of tourists into the communities, something that has been welcomed by many residents, but not all. A similar project is underway for multiple favelas in the Zona Norte (telefêrico). However, without educational and training programs to accompany these sudden changes, residents will not be able to determine the conditions by which their communities are integrated into the city.

Negative elements of UPP installation

A UPP is a top-down response to a bottom-up problem. Brazil has one of the worst GINI coefficients in the world, indicating abnormally high levels of socio-economic disparity. There is a chronic lack of investment in education and public health in Rio de Janeiro. There is real poverty in the favelas, and while many have magnificent views of the city, the lack of infrastructure and access is a serious problem.  These are tightly knit communities, however, and there are myriad creative solutions to the systemic failures of Brazilian capitalism. The state needs to spend as much money on obligatory education as it does on forceful occupation.

The Military Police are aggressive and/or uncommunicative. In both Cantagalo and Providência I heard stories of police beating up people without due cause. When I was in Chapéu Mangueira, the police were all smiles, but carried big, big guns. There is no question that these are military occupations but as part of the process of gaining trust, the Military Police needs to train better their forces so that residents can live with the same rights and privileges as those who live in the “regularized” parts of the city (asfalto).

The symbolic economy of the UPP is stronger than the real economy of the favelas. The UPP in the Morro da Providência was installed on the first day of the UN’s World Urban Forum, held in the Zona Portuaria. This kind of strategic media show does little to increase the credibility of the government, which has come under repeated criticism for creating urban and social interventions that are “for the English to see”. That is, the government is keen to show an international audience that something, anything is happening in preparation for mega-events. These interventions range from the installation of walls along the highway to the megalomaniacal idea of a R$50 billion bullet-train linking Rio, São Paulo, and Campinas.

Positive elements of UPP installation

Peace and personal security have arrived for tens of thousands of residents. This cannot be underestimated. In Cantagalo, residents were marveling at the ability of their children to play in the streets without having to avoid heavily armed drug traffickers zipping by on their motorcycles. The military presence was light there and residents hoped that a multitude of positive changes and opportunities were opening. Residents are happy with the expulsion of armed drug traffickers, but have a long way to go before they begin to trust the police more fully.

There are educational programs and installations associated with the UPPs. In Cantagalo, Criança Esperança is a massive complex that is used by hundreds of children per week (though it could use a bit of maintenance). Senac Rio has begun educational programs in the Morro da Providência, though the UPP has centralized all of the activities forcing resident to go to the police to sign up for courses. Extending the course offerings to the community’s cultural center would facilitate access.

The pacification of favelas has begun a long desired process of integration between two very different worlds. The opening of dialogue and exchange provided by the UPPs, as well as increased opportunities for social, economic, and political interaction is something that will have positive effects for the city as a whole.

Uncertainties

How long will the UPPs stay in place? The UPPs are very much linked to the tenure of Sergio Cabral as Governor of Rio de Janeiro State. If Cabral were to lose the October elections, would his successor maintain the UPPs? If he wins the election, will his commitment to the UPPs remain the same? There is wide-spread sentiment that after the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics that all of the investments in security and infrastructure will fade, that maintenance costs will not be paid, and that the drug traffickers will be able to retake their territories. One of the fears expressed by several residents was that those who make an attempt to use the UPPs to their advantage, or who form partnerships or undertake projects with the Military Police, will be targeted for reprisal by the drug traffickers in the future. There is a long history of broken promises in regards to state-sponsored initiatives in favelas. While the UPPs have met with some early successes, their permanence is far from guaranteed.

Will other state-led projects arrive with the same kind of force? If not, why not? The drug traffickers filled a void left by the state. The sudden arrival of the state in the form of an occupying military force raises the same kinds of questions that the USAmerican invasion of Iraq did. If we assume that the destruction of infrastructure can be compared to its absence through neglect, the Brazilian state faces the same situation in rebuilding the favelas as the USAmericans did in rebuilding Iraq. Sending in troops is relatively easy, rebuilding infrastructure and community self-governance, while providing education and training in order to (re) produce a self-sustaining community (very different from “sustainable” which has lost all signification), is a much more complicated and expensive task. Once the UPPs have settled in, will there be a shock and awe campaign focused on education? Will the government install, quickly and expertly, health clinics throughout these communities in the same way they have placed the Military Police?

At this early stage there are more questions than answers. Nearly all of the candidates for public office think that the UPPs are a good idea, and it is true that something drastic had to be done to break the cycles of violence, to interrupt the terrifying game of cat and mouse played out among innocents, and to assert the presence of the state where it had no authority. One can only hope that those responsible for the installation of the UPPs have thought through their project more clearly than the organizers of the mega-events that precipitated their invention.