Ignorance, Indignation, and Power Games – Ignorância, Indignação, e Jogos do Poder

Nearly everyone loves the World Cup, not everyone knows what it takes to produce it. Some people still watch the Olympic Games but forget about the massive public investment required to produce them or the nebulous and contradictory legacies left behind – new transportation systems, public debt, elite sporting facilities, high maintenance costs, gentrification, residential displacement, developing of a tourist economy, loss of authenticity, market opporutnities, commercialization of public space, the list goes on.

After the series of talks I have just given, I am more convinced than ever that the current model of mega-event installation is more destructive than constructive for social relations and urban structures. The absurdly optimistic discourses about development and market share increase do not allow for the insertion of other possibilities. Does the possibility that that the tourist numbers might not be met ever enter the consciousness of even-promoters? Does it matter? Do the decent individuals within the corrupt NGOs responsible for the production of these events really believe what they say or are they willfully ignorant of the Brave New World they are intentionally producing? Once we stop taking the soma pills of developmental sporting discourse it is but a short leap from ignorance to indignation.

Brazilian journalists are stopping their medication. Pedro Peduzzi  has a very good article in the Journal do Brasil about the Maracanã and the total disrespect shown towards Brazilian football tradition, the fans, and the major problems involved in constructing stadiums with public money given to private contractors that have very cozy relationships with elected officials. Fernanda Odilla in the Folha do São Paulo investigated the economics of producing the World Cup stadiums and concluded that even with significant participation of private companies through PPPs (Public Private Partnerships), the three stadia using this model will be financed through at least 60% public money before being handing over to private concessions for up to 35 years. AS I have been saying all along, the private sector is not entering into the construction of stadia and/or mega-event infrastructure because it is not a viable investment and because they don’t have to, the state has it covered (by law and by contracts with the IOC and FIFA).

There is so much capital flowing through mega-event structures that the political figures and intrigue will make for a very good movie someday. I’m still working on the idea of the World Cup and Olympics as seasons six and seven of The Wire, mixed a bit with Deadwood. The plot, already very complex, is taking some sharp turns as the national and international media are hot on the trail of Ricardo Teixeira (Dr. Jowls). The good Andrew Jennings was in Brazil recently drawing attention to the criminal activities of the CBF. The irrefutable evidence being complied should make for some major shifts in the way Brasil 2014 is unfolding, if, if, if Dilma has the courage of her former convictions, which is so doubtful that I’ll throw in another and bigger IF.  

The Olympic power structure is also increasingly clear with Henrique Mirelles (former chief of Brazil’s Central Bank and a Harvard –educated economist [read: neo-liberal]) stepping away from the hot-seat of the Public Olympic Auhtority to preside over the Olympic Council. In his place was inserted Márcio Fortes, former Minister of Cities, who is going to be the one who takes the heat for the success or failure of the Olympic infrastructure plans. The editors from terra.com.br had a good time with the photo for this story, making it slightly difficult to tell which character is Fortes. I hope it’s the guy on the left. Of course, Fortes defended the RDC program which allows for the “flexibilization” of normal contracting process that I talked about a few posts ago.

Hopefully in the coming months geostadia.com will be able to get interviews with these power brokers to find out how much soma they have been ingesting. 

What is certain is that the presidency of the APO has been a political hot-potato. Recognizing the extreme political exposure of a position that will be responsible for a budget that is beginning at R$29 billion and urban projects that will change Rio de Janeiro forever, Mirelles went up a level to the Olympic Consular position. He, along with Rio’s Mayor (El Principe) and Govenor (Deputy Dawg Cabral) will have the final say on everything. This will be an interesting relationship to watch as El Principe has already made several failed movements to limit the power of the APO. However, this was when Mirelles was slated to take that position and now that things have changed, again, how these three megalomaniacs get along with the size-defying egos at the IOC and COB to continue the implementation of Gestapo tactics to produce the Olympic City will be fascinating and terrifying to watch.

Oh, some of the Maracana urbanization project has finally been approved. R$117,9 million to build a couple of footbridges. While this hardly qualifies as an “urbanization” project, it will create a new link between the stadium complex and the Quinta da Boa Vista. Now that the pesky Favela do Metrô has been wiped off the map, this project will be much easier to think about. [editor's note: only some houses in the Favela do Metro have been destroyed].

2014 World Cup Stadia Cost per seat index sets world record!!!!! Tweet!

The Fonte Novo goes down

The Castelão, no more

     city        R$million   R$/seat

Belo Horizonte	743,4	10,6
Brasilia	696,0	9,9
Cuiaba	342,1	4,9
Curitiba	222,0	5,3
Fortaleza	532,6	6,7
Manaus	499,5	11,1
Natal	400,0	8,9
Porto Alegre	270,0	4,4
Recife	532,0	11,6
Rio de Janeiro	1100,0	14,5
Salvador	1605,0	29,2
São Paulo	1070,0	22,3
average	667,7	11,6

I have the nagging fear that I am repeating myself here at geostadia. The complexity of the World Cup has become so ordinary that I'm not able to tell the tale of crime, obsfucation, robbery and incompetence any more simply unless I get some inputs from other people. Fortunately, there are many of you out there reading the blog and thanks to your input I've got another spin on the 2014 World Cup stadia disaster: cost per seat.

I launched a larger version of the above table at the ABRAJI conference in Sao Paulo last week. The complete table shows that there has been a 170% increase in construction costs since 2009, with no ceiling in sight. The longer the stadiums get delayed the more they will cost to finish. We know already that the stadiums in Manaus, Natal, Brasilia, and Cuiaba will have no functional sporting use after the event. What I have isolated above are the construction costs and the costs per seat.

Thanks to Ian Nuttall from stadiumbusinesssummit I received news that RCD Espanyol in Barcelona recently constructed their 40,500 seat stadium at a cost of 1850 Euros, or 4162,5 Reales per seat. The above table shows that only the stadiums in Cuiaba and Porto Alegre come close and the former is an intentionally manufactured elefante branco. The average for the 12 World Cup stadiums is nearly three times that of the Barcelona stadium where surely things like concrete, land, and labor are more expensive than they are in Brazil. Hmmmmm...If I were a federal prosecutor it would be hard to know where to start: collusion, theft, nepotism? Can you sue people for gross incompetence? Even the US$1,15 Billion Dallas Cowboys' stadium managed to keep the cost per seat at around U$10,450 (R$16,200). Wembley, the most overblown budget of all time was around R$22,000 a seat - exactly what Corinthians new stadium will cost. How is this possible?

The ABRAJI conference brought together a slew of investigative journalists working on exposing the horrors of mega-event planning in Brazil. Foremost among them were Andrew Jennings and Juca Kfuri, both of whom are working hard to expose the inner workings of FIFA and the CBF. Juca is under continual legal attack by the CBF and Andrew's long and dedicated work has started to unravel the FIFA family at the highest levels. We can only hope that someone will be able to get to João Havelange before he dies so he can spend his remaining years behind bars along with Ricardo Teixeira and the rest of the FIFA "family".

The very notion of the FIFA and IOC family was discussed by Jens Anderson of the Danish-based NGO Play the Game. In his talk at ABRAJI, he noted that we should think of sport as a community which would open things up to discussion and debate, remove us from patriarchal systems of historically situated privilege and eliminate the closed nature of international (and national) sport governing bodies. (the following is my interpretation of Jen's talk, and are not quotes attributable to him) When the IOC comes to town, they will have exclusive "everything" for the "Olympic Family" - meaning that if you've got the right blood or have somehow pushed your way in, you get the keys to the safe and the city. FIFA is a known international criminal organizations - their dirty laundry has piled up in the Swiss courts for a long time and may be aired fairly soon. The Olympics and the World Cup being emotion and excitement every so often, but wherever they touch down, the wreak debt, delusion, and devastation (not to mention amazing real-estate deals).

Laws, Speculation, Eminent Domain, Stadia

The scenario – in Brazil it typically takes about 38 months for a government-funded project to go from approval to payment for services. The bureaucratic hurdles to implementing infrastructure projects and social programs are so formidable that even the gods of Olympus would have to take a few extra running steps to clear them. The three year delay between approval and implementation has the house of FIFA in a fine lather, so Dilma’s left-center government has come up with a solution to the bureaucratic bottleneck: RDC.

The RDC (Regime Diferenciado de Contratações Públicas / Differentiated Regime for Public Contracts) is a fundamental element of the Medida Provisória 527, a Provisional Measure that comes from the Executive branch and requires approval from both houses of the Legislature. The original purpose of MP 527 was to create the Ministry of Civil Aviation, but as it was moving through the halls of Brasilia it picked up the RDC.

The alteration of “normal operating procedures” is a hallmark of mega-events which install states of exception and emergency in the cities and countries where they pass. The time pressures of the event and the contracts signed with Swiss-based NGOs allow for the dribbling of democratic processes and the installation of extra-legal authorities that disappear after the events, leaving no one accountable for the wreckage and debt left behind. Greece is burning in large part because of the huge debt spending for the 2004 Olympics, but no one points the finger at the IOC, the government, or the sponsors of the event. No money left in the public coffers? Austerity for the people. 

There are conflicting needs expressed in the RDC and MP 527. Brazil is woefully late and staggeringly over budget in the production of facilities for the 2014 World Cup. There is a need to have a mechanism that lowers, or at least controls, the costs of stadium and infrastructure projects at the same time that the contracting and payment process can be accelerated. There is also a need for greater transparency in the bidding and contracting processes. The problem with "acceleration" or "differentiation" is that it opens the possibility for even more corruption than usual. The main concern of those opposed to the RDC is that it will make secret the price of the projects until after the projects are awarded. This information will be “secret and will only be available to internal and external organs of fiscal control”. Basically, this means that we will never be able to find out how much projects cost.

Worse, these budgets can be kept from public scrutiny forever if they are considered to be relevant for “state security”.

On the bright side, it appears that the “super-powers” of FIFA and the IOC which would have allowed them to demand significant modifications to projects after the contracting process, potentially increasing their cost. Also on the side of transparency and democracy was the inclusion of Federal financial control organs in the list of agencies that could have access to the budgets: Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), Controladoria-Geral da União (CGU) and Ministério Público (MP).

The Senate should vote on MP 527 this week and there may be some alterations to the final version, so more on that soon. The extreme content of MP 527 has generated significant debate about the role of transparency for mega-event installation. This is a good and necessary debate, but again, one that should have begun back in 2007 when Brazil was first handed the task of preparing for the 2014 World Cup.

See, we're sending those poor people to the puta que pariu!

In Rio, the real-estate speculation boom continues apace. This week, the city announced the winner of the Porto Olímpico contest, a massive re-urbanization prject that will bring millions of square meters of office space and upper middle class residences to the Zona Portuaria. Of course there are the normal references to the “inspiration of Barcelona” and the role of the Olympics in revitalizing the port area. Left out of the celebrations are the reports that many of the Zona Portuaria's traditional tenants and residents are being forced out to make way for the “revitalization”.

One of the most egregious examples of the approach the city is taking in their maniacal desire to re-make space and culture is the expulsion of the Samba schools that have traditionally occupied the region. Twelve schools will have 30 days to leave the area which the Porto Olímpico project will occupy. Out with the old and traditional, in with the new and consumerist. In addition to the samba schools, families and small businesses that occupy the old Federal Railway Depository (RFF) will also have to find somewhere else to go. This is all directed by CDURP, the private enterprise that is responsible for the “re-urbanization” of the Zona Portuaria with R$ 7.6 billion in stimulus from the Caixa Econômica (in addition to several billion more from the FGST, a public workers pension fund). That is to say, uma porrada de dinheiro público para lucros privados.

Speculation and "Re-vitalization", the winning project for the Porto Olimpico

To round off the post, there is a report in today’s Valor Econômico (1.7.11, A7) about the financing of São Paulo’s World Cup stadium, the Itaquerão. In addition to the low-interest R$400 million loan from BNDES, Corinthians (Lula’s team) will receive hundreds of millions from the city as well as a R$30 million exemption from ISS (Taxes for Services Provided). The cost of the stadium, which a few weeks ago was R$700 million, has jumped to R$ 1,07 billion. The city is only guaranteeing financing if the Itaquerão manages to attract the opening game of the cup, further politicizing the already highly charged relations between the CBF and the host cities.

Back in Action

After nearly two weeks away, much has changed in Rio but everything continues along the same trajectory.

A new UPP was installed in the Mangueira favela, closing the “security belt” around the Maracanã . Many communities are clamoring for the installation of UPPs, but some places are more critical than others to mega-event security and those receive military occupation first. Even O Globo can be heard to clamor for more rapid investment in urbanization and social programs to accompany the changing of one form of martial law for another.

Did you understand what our world cup symbol means?
 They're going to steal public money?
Eiii! Whose hand is this without a finger?

The Federal Government is trying to hide the real costs of mega-event construction at the same time that the tight relationships between Rio governor Deputy Dog Cabral, Eike Batista (the richest man in Brazil) and Delta Construction (recipient of more than a billion in tate contracts in the last 3 years) were revealed because of a helicopter crash that killed the girlfriend of Cabral’s son on the way to a private party in Bahia state. Batista gave R$750,000 to Cabral’s re-election campaign in 2010. Delta is part of nearly all public works projects in Rio de Janeiro. These insider relationships and the closing off of mega-event budgets to public scrutiny because they are considered “state secrets” has not done much to improve public opinion about how, where, why, and how the tens of billions of public R$ are being spent.

On the good side, there is an increasingly coordinated public movement against the autocratic turn in Brazilian politics. On Tuesday (tomorrow) there is a rally in front of the Municipal Government to call for a CPI (Parliamentary Inquisition Commission)  to investigate the forced removal of thousands of homes and the destruction of communities and livelihoods that have been the subject of so much national and international media attention. As ever, Eliomar Coelho is at the front of this movement and is struggling to get a few more city council people to get on board. The majority of the city council is in the pocket of El Principe (mayor Eduardo Paes) and are undoubtedly making tons of money.

The international NGO Witness was in Rio a few weeks ago and produced this video about the removals in the Favela do Metrô, which is being destroyed to make way for a parking lot for the Maracanã. There are a series of videos about other communities in Rio that can be linked to from this youtube clip.

Festa Juninho (Pernambucano)

Here’s a big post to give everyone something to chew on for a couple of weeks.  I will be giving talks at:  Duke University in Durham, NC on June 22 (@ the Haiti Laboratory, Franklin Humanities Institute, Bay 4 Smith Warehouse, noon), The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism in São Paulo on July 2, and Intel in Santa Clara, CA on July 11. Details forthcoming.

Starting from the top down in classic mega-event style:

Leonardo Martins in Jornal do Brasil wrote,  “As UPPs são, antes de tudo, um projeto de poder, de controle de um espaço tradicionalmente submetido à opressão. Os novos Capitães, que comandam as UPPs são os novos “donos do pedaço”, em substituição aos traficantes que ali se encontravam. Autorizam bailes, mandam baixar o som dos moradores, escolhem as músicas que os moradores podem escutar, determinam horário e condutas pessoais, intimam e intimidam àqueles que tem uma opinião mais crítica acerca da função da polícia, como por exemplo o fechamento da rádio comunitária do Andaraí, pela Polícia Federal, sobre o pretexto de rádio pirata e atrapalhar o tráfego aéreo."

“The UPPs are, above all, a projection of Power, for control of a space that has traditionally been oppressed. The new Captains that command the UPPs are the “owners of the land”, substituting the drug traffickers that were there before. They authorize dances, tell the residents to turn their music down, choose the music that the residents can listen to, determine the coming and going and conduct of people, intimate and intimidate those who have a more critical opinion of the police function, as for example the closing of the closing of the community radio station in Andaraí by the Federal Police on the pretext that it was a pirate radio station and it interfered with air traffic.”

I haven’t been back to visit and UPPeed communities in awhile, so I don’t have much more to contribute to the debate than I had a few weeks ago. I hear adolescents around town say “UPP é o caralho” and have seen that succinct and poignant phrase scribbled on walls.

Mayor alert! EP twisted his ankle in a political minefield, but don’t worry, he’s going to be ok. O Principe’s attempts to manipulate the infrastructure of the Olympic machine didn’t sit too well with people more powerful and experienced than he. In trying to limit the powers of the APO, EP threw a few one-liners into the City’s Olympic act that he then had to beg some legislators to erase and pretend to everyone else that he wasn’t trying to maintain as much power for himself as possible. The story is much longer than that, of course, but takes a doctoral thesis to sort though. Fortunately, those are available.

Transoeste disaster

According to sources buried deep within the international press corps, The IOC has had all of their questions answered in regard to forced removals for Rio’s BRT lines. The Trans-Oeste BRT (Blown Right Through) is moving people out of the way faster than a turd in a hot tub. The results are shit.

Picture of housing demolitions carried
out by Rio's Housing Secretary along the Trans-Oeste BRT line, April 2011.
Nelma Gusmão de Oliveira foto.

Last one standing, Zona Oeste
Rio de Janeiro. Nelma Gusmão de Oliveira foto

Mayor alert! O Principe tried to stick the Olympic golf course in a closed condominium complex where the cheapest condo goes for R$2.1 million. Unfortunately, the land that he wanted to put the course on has been stuck in the judicial system. Apparently the news took the condo residents by surprise.  The is the kind of “planning” is happening on a metropolitan level, not just with the Olympic golf course.

According to the Union of Externally Controlled Federal Auditors (AUDITAR), “the new model of contracting banked by the base of Dilma Rousseff’s government in the house of deputies is going to make the public works for the World Cup and Olympics much more expensive.” This is not at all surprising given that the new laws are designed to “flexibilize” normal contracting processes.

Compounding the problem is that those who frequent stadiums end up paying for them three times. Once for construction. Twice for higher ticket prices. Third for world-class maintenance costs.  Even our illustrious Federal Deputy Romário is calling the stadium budgets into question.

The CBF brought their team back to Brazil for the first time in a long time to prepare for the Copa America in Argentina. The ticket prices were staggering and the games were seen as test venue for the CBF to employ private security guards (as will be the case during the World Cup). The Prossegur rent-a-cops did not take kindly to the unfurling of a banner by the ANT-GO crew and gave them some rough treatment for unfurling this lovely banner. Congrats to these brave formigas!!!

Ricardo Ali Baba Teixeira, OUT! For decades Brazilian football has been in the hands of incompetent and corrupt
officials, we demand the democratization of decisions related to Brazilian football with the participation of fans!
Neither FIFA, or the CBF, or Football is of the People!
National Fans Association

Here are the attendances and financial details from those matches:

Game	Paying Public	Gate Receipts	Average Ticket	Free tickets
BRA (0) x HOL (0)	36.449	R$3.120.625	R$85.81	7.000?
BRA (1) x ROM (0)	30.059	R$4.357.705	R$144.90	9.000?
	66.508	R$7.478.330	R$112.44	pqp

It’s impossible to tell how many tickets the CBF gave away to itself and to its sponsors. Interestingly and stupidly, the first match in Goiânia, resulted in Ricardo Teixeira (Mr. Jowls) promising a Copa America 2015 match to that city, even though they are not hosting any World Cup matches.  In Rio, tickets for Copa Libertadores matches in 2010-2011 started at R$75. In three hours of football,  the CBF made off with R$7.5 million and scored one goal. How expensive will tickets to the World Cup be? How expensive will the stadiums be?  This is a link to a professor from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas who is criticizing the Maracanã budgeting process. We have seen a 170% increase in construction costs since 2009. This is without multiple labor shifts, without increased raw material and labor costs, without counting the subsidy for imports, without counting the no-bid conracts, without the time crunch, etc.

But, this will give Brazil (and Rio in particular) the MOST MODERN STADIUMS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!

maracá mais moderno do mundo

What does it mean to have the most  “modern “ stadium in the world? The continual search for and production of the modern in Brazil has had very mixed urban, social, and environmental results. When the Maracanã was constructed, it was the most modern stadium in the world, was it not? Will not the host of the 2016 European Championships have the most modern football stadiums in the world? Why bother calling it the most modern stadium in the world?  It’s a stupid and completely relative question.

Modern could mean functional but certainly means secure and comfortable and bougie, but in the context of Brazil’s mega-events “modern” has become more associated with overspending on monumental mistakes that are guaranteed to bring diminishing economic returns in an attempt to appear modern for and to foreigners. The stadium, as such, does not have to be submitted exclusively to economic metrics as a measure of its value. In addition to agreeing to build economic black holes, the cultural costs have not been calculated in the production of the twelve stadiums for the World Cup. The Mané Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia had bleachers so well-made that it took three attempts to demolish them with explosives. They are installing an expensive house of cards in his place.

FIFA has chosen Rio de Janeiro as the host of the International Broadcast Center for the World Cup. It will, of course, be in Barra de Tijuca at the Rio Centro complex. This is interesting (though not surprising) for a couple of reasons. One is that it will develop further Barra’s emergent position as the high-tech and media production center of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. Why? Because in order to install something as sophisticated and grandiose as an IBC millions if not billions of fiber optic cables need to be stuck into the region, creating an information infrastructure that augments already profound structural inequalities within the city.

Secondly, the increasing and repetitive investment in communications infrastructure in Rio de Janeiro (and São Paulo) is consolidating the position of those cities in the hugely unbalanced urban hierarchy of Brazil. The choice of Rio will guarantee that it grows its media and communications industry at the expense of Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Porto Alegre, etc. Of course, wherever this kind of investment happens there are knock on geographic effects. However, the overwhelming Federal investment in Rio de Janeiro (at least R$100 billion between 2010-2016) is going to have long term consequences for a more balanced urban system. The FIFA media release is worth a read.

The Secretary of the Fazenda of Rio de Janeiro is trying to find ways to raise R$4 billion to finance public works for mega-events. His primary obstacle, according to Oh, Globo is the Law of Fiscal Responsibility (LRF), which prevents cities from emitting bonds while they are in debt. O Principe is still waiting for his R$ 2.5 billion loan to come in from the World Bank and until that happens, Rio is prohibited from borrowing more money. The strategy therefore is to wait until Henrique Mirelles (O Neo-Libertador) finally gets into power and then they’ll talk about how much debt they can saddle Rio with. This quote I found rather touching: Do ponto de vista político é muito delicado (mexer na LRF), mas do ponto de vista econômico, faria sentido", ressaltou a secretária. (From the political point of view it’s very delicate [to mess with the LRF) but from the economic point of view it makes sense). Head, shoulders, knees, and toes! Get flexible people!

Dilma and the PT get to work on the law

Did you know that trees are as flexible as stadia? Well, the revisions to the Forest Code that are getting crammed though the senate is going to surprise you, or not. The Amazon is being picked apart by agri-business, timber, and mining interests and the Worker’s Party is doing everything it can to hand the country over to capitalists. The passing of the mutilated Forest Code and the mega-event flex-laws are the priority of the new Minister of Institutional Relations. If Dilma’s government were any more flexible they’d call the county Shavasana.

Tudo bem vs. tudo ruim

Final, Copa do Brasil, ida

It’s now official, Eduardo Paes (EP) and I do not agree on anything but our football team. The following are quotes taken from an interview published yesterday with the around the rings website. Below each of the quotes is a recent quote from geostadia.com or the indicated publications.  

EP: Things are going very well.

Geostadia: I would like to write about all of the good news related to the top-down installation of mega-events but am having trouble finding any. 

EP: Infrastructure-wise, the biggest project for Rio is a transportation overhaul. Paes says everything is “fine” on that front. 

Geostadia: The forced, violent removal of people and homes in preparation for the crashing wave of mega-events has begun.

EP: I think there are no more differences between the IOC vision and the city’s vision. 

Geostadia in Reuters: "This is very authoritarian, top-down, with no public audiences, no democratic participation — and it's going to change the city for ever,"

EP: It’s going to be a tough thing to get on time but I think we’ve got the right schedule. By 2016 everything is going to be ready.

Geostadia: The city government is operating with a heavy, autocratic, and brutal hand as a slew of international media reports have recently shown. Last week the UN commission on housing rights and evictions paid multiple visits to communities that are being brutalized by the city. The tactics are Machiavellian, the results Dickensian. People throughout Rio de Janeiro (and the rest of the World Cup cities) are living in fear and insecurity. When the SMH comes with their spray can, the scarlet letters do not indicate a brighter future but imminent removal at the hands of an authoritarian state whose strings are being pulled by huge white men hidden in small black boxes.

EP:Maracana is going fine. The World Cup is much much easier to do than an Olympic Games, at least from a city point of view…But I mean it’s a fact there are some delays because of different levels of government in different cities. 

Geostadia in the New York Times:  It’s just one reform after another without anyone ever doing any kind of research as to what the people who actually use the stadium want.

EP: In Rio things are fine. I don’t see it as a problem concerning the Olympics. Actually, I think it’s a big asset for the Olympics because the mistakes that were done in the planning of the World Cup are not being repeated in the Olympic Games. And that’s good. It’s going to be perfect.

Geostadia in the Guardian: None of these projects have taken off because all of the money is coming from the public sector; a very, very good indication that they are not financially viable,

EP:  I think the World Cup has a communication problem. We are talking about 12 cities, Rio is on time. We have some problems with the airport but it will be ready on time. The problem with the airport is much more services than infrastructure. I think the problem of services will be okay by ’14.”

Geostadia in the Shin Guardian: Two of the major infrastructure works being planned for the World Cup have been paralyzed for lack of transparency in their contracting process. Rio Metrô has had their Linha 3 project stopped and São Paulo’s Garulhos (international) Airport has been halted. The latter is perhaps the most critical link in the entire World Cup construction process as São Paulo is the main point of entry to Brazil. Will Brazil be able to pull all of this together in time and if they do, what will be the cost, and who will pay? If it results in anything like what happened in South Africa, the outlook for Brazil is not encouraging.

Could we be doppelgangers? Can we both be right? Were we separated at birth? Will we find each other on LinkedIn? So many questions.

Monthly readership is hovering around 3,000. Thanks for all of the positive feedback and connections. If more people start to listen to my answers than to EPs then we can perhaps start to make some progress instead of increase to ingressos.

The Good News

I would like to write about all of the good news related to the top-down installation of mega-events but am having trouble finding any. It’s pretty clear that one has to look at the micro-level to see anything positive as the recent FIFA embarrassments were given a healthy scrubbing by the IOC. It is a sad day indeed at FIFA house when Jacque Rogge has to come across the country to give the IOC’s five fingered seal of approval. The despicable shenanigans at FIFA are nothing new. On the bright side the swirling corruption claims may have opened up a corner of the black box, potentially ushering in a call for change. On the other hand, 186 of the 208 member associations voted for Herr Blatter in the uncontested election. FIFA runs on a fear-based economy and the national associations act like sniveling sycophants.

In Rio, the installation of mega-event infrastructures is happening at various paces. The Maracanã is dead, and the process of creating the Novo Maracanã has to wait until the roof is taken off the old stadium. There’s no real hurry, as long as the stadium is ready six months before the World Cup, no one will much care. The budget for the stadium has already tripled from the initial projections in 2009. My estimate is that the Novo Maracanã project will cost 2 BILLION REAIS (US$1.25 b).

View of the deceased Maracanã from Parque Nacional da Tijuca, June 5, 2011

The average monthly salary for a fireman (bombeiro) in Rio de Janeiro state is R$950. No surprise then that the Rio Bombeiros took collective action to demand improvements in salary and working conditions. They invaded their own headquarters last week, occupying their place of work in order to negotiate with the government. The governor’s reaction: send in BOPE (the black hooded killing squad that usually invades favelas). The scenes were as lamentable as they were preventable; children getting tear gassed, police forcing public servants to the ground with machine guns, massive arrests, general jack-booted thuggery. The governor has no problem spending billions on a stadium that was already functioning but when essential public services like firemen as for a raise he sends in a death-squad.

The stories coming out of the Zona Portuaria, Jacarepaguá and the Zona Oeste are equally discouraging. The SMH, municipal housing secretary, continues to use the most incredible tactics to remove people from their houses. The stories defy belief. The jist is that the SMH, at the behest of the mayor, is denying communities the right to collectively bargain, arriving in some cases with unmarked bags of cash and handing thousands of R$ to people who may have never seen that much money before. In other cases they force children to sign documents in the name of their parents. In other cases they simply intimidate, in others they deliberately deceive and mis-represent. The asymmetry of information is complete. The very threat of forced removal is a form of terror that violates basic human rights. Even with a very powerful telescope, Jacque Rogge and the IOC couldn’t see these things happening from Mount Olympus.

The Brazilian national team is back in country for the first time in a long time, playing a series of friendlies leading up to the Copa América. There was a poor performance against Holland in Goiânia the other day. However, the Goiânians were so well behaved that the CBF promised them that they would be able to host games for the 2015 Copa America. Hold on. We are constructing 12 new stadiums for the World Cup, none of which are in Goiânia. In fact, the only reason that the seleção played there was because all of the major stadiums in Brazil are under construction. Of course the Copa América won’t be played in Manaus, Curitiba, Natal, or Cuiabá, because no one would go. Why are those cities building World Cup Stadia?

ANT-SP is organizing a protest against the CBF and their absurd and corrupt regime for the seleção’s game against Romania at the Pacaembú in São Paulo. The cheapest ticket is R$140 and for a seat it’s R$800. The game will, naturally, start after the novellas on Tuesday night at 9:50pm. So by the time the game is over the metro will have stopped and the bus service diminished. In Rio, Super Via managed to provide special trains to bring people from the Zona Sul to the Enenhão for the Paul McCartney concert last week, but insist that they can do nothing about the over-crowded, un-air-conditioned cars that sometimes make it to their final destination, much less provide special cars to get people to the Engenhão for a football match.  

As I have mentioned in innumerable posts and interviews, the installation of mega-events in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro allows for the acceleration of the deployment of neo-liberal tactics of governance. States and cities of exception produce highly territorialized and militarized spaces of exclusion where democratic and human rights are available to those who can afford them. As Mirelles (head of the Public Olympic Authority and former Central Bank head) said the other day, “the Olympics are a symbol of the growth of the country”. This is undoubtedly true. But this growth is coming at a tremendous cost and mega-events, with all of their symbolic, cultural, and poltical powers, allow us to crystallize our thinking about the kind of society we want to develop. The good thing is that the Gestapo tactics of the government are showing what Brazilian “development” is really all about. This is helping social movements across the country to articulate in ways that might not have been possible without the events. Thus, the very things that are accelerating the implementation of rapacious regimes of capital accumulation through the deployment of jack-boots and surveillance cameras is also allowing for the contestation of those systems. The bad news is that tens of thousands of people are going to lose their homes, have their communities divided and dispersed, and have their children tear-gassed in the struggle for a living wage.