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]

A Revolta do Vinagre

Yesterday`s march of 100,000 cariocas occurred almost 45 years to the day as the famous march of the 100,000 against the dictatorship in 1968. That movement was led by very strong student organizations and was a brave confrontation of the status quo. A second protest a few days later resulted in 28 deaths and the jailing of hundreds of students.  The dictatorship lasted until 1985.

Throughout Brazil, hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets in what is being called A Revolta do Vinagre. The Vinegar Revolt refers to the arrest of a São Paulo journalist that was arrested for having a bottle of vinegar in his pocket. Vinegar is used to minimize the effects of tear gas. Yesterday one banner in Rio read: Liberté, egalité, fraternité, vinagraté.

The Vinegar Revolt is a reaction to the total absence of quality in public services and the deteriorating condition of institutional democracy. The protest began as a response to an increase in bus fares. The increase in bus fares has been constant and as I have been cataloguing here for years, service has not improved in the least. To the contrary, everything in Brazil is much more expensive with no increase in quality. Traffic is worse than ever, public transportation is completely inadequate. The government is spending tens of billions on mega-events guaranteeing profits for the rest of the world while ordinary people struggle to get from A to B. Their children struggle to get from A to Z.

This is a general revolt of the middle classes who are thoroughly disgusted with the country`s direction. They see incredibly high taxes going into the pockets of corrupt politicians that have never opened up any meaningful democratic channels. The Brazilian president, Dilma, is authoritarian and detached from reality. After some initial positive steps to combat corruption she stopped. Her lack of political capacity has ruined economic growth. The taxes we pay here disappear into a black box that is sometimes put on four wheels, stuffed with people and recklessly driven around cities.

Brazil is emptying its coffers to FIFA and the IOC, with little chance of them being refilled. The hosting of the various megas means that the city streets are more for tourists than locals and when locals try to take the street back, they are met with violence. It was no accident that Dilma was booed off the stage at the opening of the Confederations Cup.

Public education is terrible, so the middle class feels like they have to send their children to private school. Public health care is also terrible, so those who can pay for private care. Public culture is increasingly commoditized and branded, given over to private interests. Iconic football venues have been “transformed” into shopping malls with no public consultation. There are infinite public projects para o ingles ver: tramlines, UPP, choque de ordem, blinged-out stadiums that attend to the desperate needs of VIPs to pretend they live in Europe. The only way to carry this off is through violence, or the threat of violence, which amounts to the same thing. These are not growing pains, this is pure sacanagem.

As yesterday’s Al Jazeera piece clearly demonstrated, the Brazilian police are absolutely un-prepared to deal with peaceful demonstrators. If you need more evidence, check out http://copaemcuiaba.com.br/ and draw your own conclusions. Not only do the police receive terrible wages, they are stuck in a corrupt system that has never had any significant reform in ideology, functioning or control. Never. Not before the dictatorship and not after the return to democracy. There were several reports yesterday that indicated the police wanted to be out protesting as well, but alas, duty called. There were also confirmed reports that police were using live ammunition against protesters in Rio. It is also likely that the vandals involved in yesterday`s protest were acting on behalf of the government in order to de-legitimize the protest.

Here is a Brazilian explaining the general context very clearly:

Tear gas is a magic potion

Tear gas is a magic potion. Those who launch it are weakened while those forced to inhale it are strengthened. The temporary blindness caused by the gas allows for thousands more to have their eyes opened, while police and politicians continue in their myopic pursuit of “order and progress”. The temporary dispersions provoked by tear gas bring together multitudes the next day. The bombas de efeito moral  (percussion grenades) erect a moral platform for protests while eliminating the legitimacy of the state. Pepper spray in the faces of children guarantees the pursuit of social justice in the face of criminal actions committed by those who are supposed to protect the common good.

The only way to explain what happened around the x-Maracanã yesterday is through video. This Al Jazeera piece by Gabriel Elizondo and Douglas Engle captures things nicely.

It is, of course, much worse than this as there is no way to effectively show the spectacle of consumption that was going on inside the x-Maracanã at the same time the state was violently repressing peaceful protestors. The World Cup project at the x-Maracanã has resulted in a sanitization of the urban space around the

Truth in advertising

stadium where there are no street vendors, no public bathrooms and kilometers of concrete that will create blistering heat islands that will force fans into the stadium as quickly as possible. The sterilization of urban space comes with a commensurate sterilization of social actors – when the two things do not conform, in come the police to make sure that nothing gets in the way of the smooth delivery of the event.

A few weeks ago, Valcke (VP of FIFA) was again honest in his desire that FIFA have ~clean~ stadiums for the Cup. Of course, the stadium does not end at the end of the pitch or on the bottom side of the stands but is connected to the urban and social environments. So a clean stadium means clean streets and clean access and a clean conscious. Yesterday, we saw that this process of cleansing is going to be very messy.

Speaking of Messi, Rio`s mayor gave an interview last week in which he said that if Argentina won the World Cup in Brazil, he would commit suicide. There has been a marked increase in the number of Argentina jerseys in Rio as well as a facebook movement that has more than 10,000 followers.

The Copa das Remoções on Saturday was a great success. A video link to the story (Portuguese):

http://video.br.msn.com/watch/video/copa-popular-contra-as-remocoes/kpx5x5pc?from=

Inverno Brasileiro (The best new Brazilian porn)

The collective, public expression of righteous indignation in response to a twenty cent increase in bus fares has led to massive police repression in a number of Brazilian cities in the past week. On the eve of the Confederations Cup, meant to be a systems test for FIFA and a small showpiece event for Brazil, this latest revolt against public transport has caught the world`s attention. Back in March, there was a similar protest about the poor ferry service in Rio. Last year, there was a revolt against the State Transportation Secretary`s criminal negligence in the case of the Santa Teresa tram, the military occupation of the Complexo do Alemão happened after cars and buses were torched. 

As I tried to point out in my last post, there are a number of similarities between what is happening in Brazil and in Turkey, and throughout much of the world. Brazilian journalists are being attacked with rubber bullets and tear gas. Press reports are explicitly linking the #Taksim and #Gezi struggles with that of #passelivre which has expanded to six major cities.

The ongoing protests and violent responses are about much more than a fare increase or the fate of a vital public space. These are responses, in part, to the systematic erosion of public life and culture that come with the two step movement to empty public coffers into private pockets. These movements are fundamentally about a fight to maintain rights as citizens versus privileges as consumers.

Unfortunately, the governments` responses in both Turkey and Brazil are as violent as they are predictable. In both cases police have been instigators of violence and perpetrators of vandalism. In both cases, the major media outlets have walked hand in hand with the government to try to discredit these movements and to call into question the rights of citizens in a democracy to take to the streets to demand their rights. In both, journalists have been arrested, shot, silenced and hassled. Unarmed people are met with lethal force on city streets, escalating crises of governance.

One major difference is that in Istanbul, football fans have been politicized even more than usual, coming together to lead the fight. In Rio, the torcidas organizdas have been anesthetized, depoliticized and co-opted for so long that they are completely irrelevant.

Below is a press release for the Copa Popular, an initiative of the Comite Popular da Cope e das Olim-piadas that will draw attention to the forced removals undertaken in order “to prepare” the city for mega-events. Hopefully the international journalists covering FIFA’s party will pay attention to the realities beyond the air-conditioned, securitized and segmented off-worlds in which they circulate.

Residents of communities threatened with removal compete at the “Popular Cup” this Saturday

- Tournament represents a different form of protest against forced removals and the exclusion of low-income residents of Rio de Janeiro

- Official launch of Saci Pererê as the popular mascot

Far from the billion-dollar marketing campaigns and overpriced stadiums of the Confederations Cup, Brazilian and international audiences will be able to follow a different championship that is taking place this weekend. On Saturday (June 15), communities being threatened with forced removal will gather for the “Popular Cup” at 10:00am in the Port Zone of Rio de Janeiro. The initiative—organized by “Popular Committee for the World Cup and Olympics”—will show that soccer should be synonymous with fun and integration, as opposed to with alienation and tragedy. Men’s and women’s teams from diverse communities including Morro da Providência, Santa Marta, Salgueiro, Vila Autódromo, Indiana, and others, will compete for the Cup, while simultaneously and symbolically protesting the city’s exclusion of low-income residents in the name of huge sporting events. 

In addition to the players, the “People’s Cup” expects the presence of other residents from the communities who will both support their teams and tell personal stories facing the threat of removal. The intention of the event is to show that behind the soccer festivities of the Confederations Cup, the government is committing a series of irregularities and human rights violations. In Rio de Janeiro alone, more than 11,000 people have already lost their homes and another 29,000 are being threatened with removal, based on the false justification that this is necessary for the World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016). While the country spends R$ 15.8 million (about US $7.4 million) per game of the Confederation’s Cups(R$ 252.5 billion in total; US $118.4 billion), families are displaced, receiving tiny compensation which does not allow them to find adequate and dignified housing. In a city where the average square meter costs R$ 9,000 (according to a study by the Institute of Economic Research, FIPE), forcibly displaced families are receiving sums as low as R$ 10,000 (about US $5,000), which cannot even pay for two square meters of property in Rio de Janeiro. There are also cases of families that are removed and have spent two years waiting for any reparation from the government. 

Saturday will also be the official launch of the Popular Mascot of the Cup, “Saci Pererê." If soccer is our rightful heritage, we cannot accept that companies are owners of the symbols of the sport. As such, the image of Saci, which will be on the front of the teams’ t-shirts, will adhere to the rules of “copyleft,” and can therefore be used by any people or vendors wanting to reproduce and sell the t-shirts on their own.

Information about the communities and the teams on the field can be followed in real time through the Facebook of the Committee: www.facebook.com/ComitePopularCopaRJ

 Event information: https://www.facebook.com/events/354614781332029/

The matches will be played in Quilombo da Gamboa, an area of land taken over by the population in order to construct affordable housing—well in the middle of the Port Zone, which is undergoing a process of real estate speculation with the "Porto Maravilha" project. All are invited for a true democratic celebration of the sport.

Copa Popular - Contra as Remoções

Quilombo da Gamboa - Rua da Gamboa 345, Rio de Janeiro

Starting at 10:00am

Comitê Popular da Copa e das Olimpíadas

Information for the press

Kate Steiker-Ginzberg (21) 8369-0077

Mario Campagnani (21) 9849-2025

Renato Cosentino (21) 8267-2760

  

Aldeia Taksim

Having heard rumors that a new breed of white elephants had emerged in Turkey, I took to the hunt. To my surprise, I encountered with Brazilian consultants and architects who had perfected the murky techniques of pachyderm insemination.  While promising that the Brazilian variety (loxodonta brasilense) would bring infinite returns for those who financed them, these same professionals had mastered the art of depoliticizing the authoritarian use of public money to ensure private profit. These post-modern fakirs go to great lengths to disguise the wrapping of concrete and steel in high-tensile, translucent membranes (manufactured and maintained by foreign companies) as a necessary passage towards modernization and return on investment. Public space has no apparent financial returns and could be used more profitably if given to developers so it is “natural” that this happen.

Except it isn’t natural at all.

After the conference as I walked around one of the great football and stadium cities in the world, I came across the Hippodromo where 30,000 chariot fans were once slaughtered for being on the wrong side of a political debate. In the Byzantium city of the Greens and the Blues, Circus Factions could determine the fate of Empire.  1500 years later, the fans of Beşiktaş welcomed the rival fans of Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray as they organized to protest the Erdogan government in the streets around their stadium. 

Don`t cry for me...Brazil?

The battle for Taksim Square is as much about symbolism as it is about the functional use of public space and the future of Turkish democracy. By eliminating one of the few remaining green spaces in central Istanbul, The Turkish government wants to rebuild an Ottoman-era (read: pre-secular Turkey) military barracks that will then be transformed into a shopping mall. There was no public consultation and the NGO established to preserve the park was violently ousted by riot police. This kicked off the larger protest that has engulfed Turkey over the last week.

As the Rio state and city governments showed in the struggle for the Maracanã, the Turkish state has shown itself willing to use maximum force to eliminate peaceful, public dissent and the right to public assembly. That both police forces use tear gas manufactured in Brazil is an ironic coincidence. That these struggles have as their flash points the authoritarian appropriation of public space and culture to produce symbolic spaces dedicated to conservative and consumerist ideologies is sadly consistent with larger governmental trends in both countries.

Putting down the violent rebels in Istanbul

...using the same perfume and good sense as in Brazil. 

We can see in the recent history of the Aldeia Maracanã he same kind of struggle being played out over Taksim Square. The major difference is that in Rio, no larger protest emerged over the loss of the city`s most iconic public space. Reading the news reports of the Maracanã‘s official opening (Brazil x England) I saw no mention of the years’ long struggles to keep the stadium in public hands. As we know, once the lights are on and the ball is rolling, no one remembers the past. This is a major genetic flaw in the White Elephant.

The extent to which the state will use violence to protect the interests of private capital has been demonstrated time and time again as Brazil prepares to host the World Cup and Olympics. Istanbul, until last week, was the leading candidate for the 2020 Olympics and Turkey will host the U-20 World Cup in July of this year. The Turkish state has demonstrated quite clearly that they too are willing to intercede violently in the pursuit of conservative consumerism. We will find out in September what impression this leaves on the IOC.

As the Turks battle for their public spaces and democratic rights, Brazilians (and everyone else) should pay close attention to what is happening. Brazilians should remember that there is always a chance to raise a collective voice over what has happened in the name of the same kind of governmental regime that the Turks are fed up with. This is especially true in Rio where the mayor reacts to public criticism through personal acts of violence (he punched someone in the face after being called a piece of sh*te). The mayor`s personal actions are a perfect expression of the way he handles the government and this should be reason enough for large-scale protest.

For those with the stomach of an elephant the following shows disturbing scenes from the last week of protests in Turkey.

Brazilian Porn redux, with Mr. Balls!

There was a brief moment when I allowed myself to believe that the perversions of Rio’s mad rush to privatize life might have hit a democratic roadblock.

After the May 9^th “revelation” that the Maracanã was being awarded to the same company contracted to do the economic viability study, on May 10^th Judge Gilsele Guida de Faria suspended the decision. In her ruling, the judge pointed out a million obvious things wrong with the contract including the lack of transparency, the conflicts of interest, and the huge loss of money for the public.

The most shocking piece of datum was this: the economic viability study suggested that the private management company would make approximately R$157,025,000 per year while paying the state a rent of R$4,500,000 (2.86% of profits). If this isn`t a direct transfer of wealth from public to private hands, then there are still WMDs in Iraq.

Mr. Balls enters the running for FIFA uber-mascot.
Once he parachutes into the stadium, a thousand
Fulecos will roll out of the ruptured scrotum.  

Beyond the financials and complete ludicrousness of privatizing one of the world`s most famous stadiums (after having totally disfigured it), the troubling element for Cariocas and Brazilians should be the fact that their democracy has been kicked in the Mr. Balls so hard that its growth may be permanently stunted. What we saw here was a state level judge identifying potential illegal activity on the part of the executive and sending down a ruling to stop the loss of public goods. The executive branch then cranked up its lawyers, went to the president of the tribunal to say “this will be a grave threat to public order and economic stability”. The president of the tribunal, Leila Mariano (who will no doubt have received future political or current financial benefit), ruled last night to suspend the suspension, allowing everything to fall into place so that public culture and a fledging democracy can be pulverized, put into pipes and smoked.

This ruling represents the end of checks and balances in Rio de Janeiro`s democrapitalist system. The Maracanã, tortured into submission will likely spend the next 35 years as a pet monkey held on a leash held by Brazil`s biggest capital interests. The novela of the Maracanã will continue but as with all porn flicks we know the sticky, unilateral ending.  

Pornographic Brazilian Pornography

There was yet more death and mayhem on the streets of Rio as another cyclist was killed. This time (as opposed to the triathlete killed in Leblon) there will be no solidarity cycle and no collective gnashing of teeth  as the cyclist was working, delivering water and gas canisters along impossibly crowded streets in the Zona Norte. The second paragraph in the ever-sensitive O Bobo was dedicated to the traffic problems caused by the accident. An excellent mapping initiative that will register crimes committed against cyclists has come of these recent deaths, but Rio remains an insanely dangerous place to ride a bike.

Following the death in Leblon, O Bobo revealed that on average, Rio’s buses accumulate traffic fines like the Guarda Municipal collects crack addicts. One bus on the line that killed the triathlete had 136 infractions in four years.  There have been innumerable fawning media reports about Rio’s intelligent city project and the mayor has used his technological initiatives to hobnob with the global elite (really looking forward to that Clinton visit in December!). But what’s the point of having an expensive IBM monitoring system when all you can do is watch in HD the streets flood and people get killed by buses? A “smart city” doesn’t willfully place its citizens at risk and then spend millions to watch them suffer.

Way back in 2007 when no one outside of Rio knew the name Eduardo Paes, he was plugging away as Rio’s state secretary of sport and leisure as the city prepared for the Pan American Games. The Olympic Stadium was over budget, poorly placed, behind schedule and, surprise surprise, poorly constructed. It also took on the name of a corrupt and disgraced former FIFA president. The stadium, like its declining namesake, has been closed for business because the roof is about to fall down. It has likely been in this condition for some time and the public has been at risk for years. Paes explained the other day that the stadium was constructed in a hurry  and that he was not at the head of the city government at the time so, hey, what can you do about the past? What exactly was Paes doing in his position of the state’s most important sporting institution when the stadium was constructed? If it is anything like the current secretary of Sport and Leisure, he likely gave nonsensical and offensive interviews with the intention of using the position as a political springboard. (Amber Alert: Marcia Lins).

Oh yes, because of old João’s peccadilloes with the ISL case and FIFA bribery he has not only had to resign from his honorary position at the IOC, but also at FIFA. The mayor-king has also given a green light for the changing of the Engenhão stadium name saying, “I’ve changed the name of a lot of things in Rio. I’ve changed them because I waned to. Botafogo has the naming rights and can call the stadium whatever it wants.” A little known fact is that Botafogo F.R. (who has the concessionary rights for a song) changed the name of the stadium years ago to Stadium Rio. Maybe we should change the name to Joana Havelange, João’s granddaughter who is one of the top people on the 2014 WC organizing committee, just to keep the black box clamped shut. More reasonably, there is a movement by several of Rio’s council people to put the name Nilton Santos on the Engenhão. Personally, I think the name Milton Santos would elevate geo-political consciousness a bit more (if you’re into geography porn).

In case all of this news didn’t excite you, here’s the money shot: After 63 years in the public domain, more than 750 million dollars of deforms in the last six years and a total dis-characterization of one of the world’s greatest sporting venues,  the Maracanã  has been privatized by the State of Rio de Janeiro. The winning consortium is comprised of IMX (Eike Batista’s main holding company that was contracted by the government to do the economic viability study), Odebrecht (Lula’s favorite civil construction firm), and AEG (a US based entertainment group that owns MLS teams and administers 120 stadiums around the world). The details of the concession are too painful to write down, but the rub is that over the next 35 years the state will receive less than 20% of its investment. I will be looking through this particular slice of this futuristic porn in the coming months but might not have the courage (or falta de vegonha) to write it down.

Photos from the Novo Maracana

Protest dancing, shoes optional

The protests outside of the stadium were not seen by many members of the media because they had been bused in government vans from the Sambodromo directly into the stadium and were told that they would not be permitted to enter and leave. This "worse than China treatment" (as one journalist put it), compounded a hugely confusing and overly-long credential process. Some jornalists spent more than six hours getting their credentials because the third party that had been contracted for the service had experienced a power outage of some kind and had not been able to print up the badges prior to the arrival of the media. 

Flying the flag with the question of the day.

The protest was organized by the Maraca é Nosso movement, a group affilitated with the Comite Popular da Copa e das Olimpiadas. The hundred-odd protesters included indigenous folk from the Aldeia Maracana settlement, parents, professors and students from the Escola Municipal Arthur Friendenrich, athletes and trainers form the two Olympic training facilities slated for destruction, members of the Comite Popular and the Frente Nacional dos Torcedores. Femen made an appearance and you can see the gratuitous photos of naked breasts on the globo site. 

The stands as television screen. Sit back and relax. 

 Inside the stadium, the show was on. This kind of display was meant to test the stadium`s lighting and sound capacity. The sound system was predictably bad, but the lighting reminded me of big concernt venues in North America, or going to an NBA game. The switching of lights and focus is a hallmark of multi-use arenas and this new arena will no doubt excell in the production of concerts and spectacle. Once they figure out the sound system, this will no doubt be one of Brazil`s most blinged-out concert venues.

A Praia do Maraca

Many of the drinking fountains were not working and the food service was not up and running so the Consorcio Rio 2014, in charge of the construction, handed out coke and water to the workers that comprised the majority of the audience (although selling of tickets for R$50 was the norm around the stadium for days leading up to the game). The Consorcio also gave away what could, in desperation, be called food: pringles and soggy sandwiches. The lack of trashcans was a problem. The lack of running water ensured that everythign had to be served out of plastic bottles and put into plastic cups. There was no clear recycling program and as a result, the inside of the stadium ended up looking like Ipanema after a sun-soaked Sunday (minus the floating arms). 

Having been to many stadiums and having seen the poor quality of construction relative to the seat installation that followed the deforms undertaken for the 2007 Pan, I was disappointed to see yet again that we find it very difficult to install seats properly in Brazilian stadia. The seats were either installed crookedly, had hugely varying distances beteen them or had confusing arms rests. In this photo we can see a bulge in the concrete that has twisted the yellow seat leftward. The seat has no arm rest, but the ones on either side do, in the blue row in front, some seats have one arm rest and others two, some none. It`s a small point perhaps, but the general impression is that the seats were all installed hastily and without much attention to detail. The same happened the last time around, as I noted in this post. 

No to privatization and an end to demolitions!

The protest made its way into the stadium and was fortunately not repressed by security forces, although I did hear one Consorcio 2014 worker shout over his walkie-talkie "we`ve got to get those people out of there". The banner is a call to maintain the stadium in public hands and to end demolitions and forced removals in Rio de Janeiro. The lack of action on the part of the security forces was a good sign for Brazilian democracy as is the fact that people are willing to risk getting beaten up to politicize an event that has been de-natured by most of the Brazilian media. 

Right hand only? 

Volte Sempre!

That the World Cup is the culmination of a process that is turning fans into clients was evidenced by the hundreds of green-clad Consorcio 2014 greeters that encircled the stadium before and after the game. On the way from the Metro I was greeted by a glad-handing troop of young Cariocas that were happy to point the way to the stadium. There is only one direction to the stadium so it was impossible to go wrong, but their presence indicated that the New Maraca will be dedicated to customer service. On the way out of the stadium, these same people lined the exits, cheering for the fans. The phrase of the night that really struck me was "Volte sempre" - come back always. This is the same phrase that we hear in the supermarket, the shopping mall, or in Wal Mart. This is perhaps the saddest twist to the entire saga. The Maracana is being promoted as an entertainment option, not as a historically important site of social and cultural reproduction. The presence of the hundreds of Consorcio Greeters consolidated the corporate nature of the event. That this has come at a cost of one point something billion R$ is disgusting, that it has come at the expense of democracy is quite something else. 

As I had gone into the stadium before the end of the protest, I missed these joyful moments that occurred sometime after the game started. So much for my short-lived optimism, but at least I was correct about needing to have running shoes and a gas mask. 

Hunting White Parrots

In an article entitled “White Elephant Hunting” published in the New York Times Goal Blog today, we are presented with a number of fallacies that justify the massive public outlay on stadiums that will be used for the World Cup. The author identifies White Elephants in Manaus, Brasilia, Natal and Cuiabá, citing the Federal Deputy Romario`s criticisms of the stadia but then quickly saying that Romario gets it wrong because:

1. He doesn`t understand Brazilian history. The northeast has traditionally been the poorest region of Brazil and merits the investment in World Cup associated infrastructure projects (citing Fortaleza`s metro extension). 

2. Even though some of these investments were planned before the World Cup, the event is giving a push to completion. 

3. Brazil is huge, so it makes sense to include cities like Manaus and Cuiabá (which is erroneously identified as having a larger population than Atlanta) in order to balance the distribution of the tournament`s investments.

The challenge, the article goes on, is how to make the stadiums useful after the tournament. The felicitous solution? Privatize the stadiums and have monster truck shows, religious gatherings, football matches, and international artists. Shakira will be making a tour of Brazil every six months is she is to play to crowds in all of these White Elephants. Basically, the idea is to force the public to pay for stadiums they cannot afford and at the expense of other public investment,  privatize them, and then charge them top R$ to go to events at high-tech multi-use arenas every week.

The example of the Fonte Nova is a classic piece of data omission. The author tells us that Freddy Adu`s (a recently transferred US player) Bahia is one of the best supported teams in Brazil, and this is true, but their average attendance last year was 18,981. The capacity of the Novo Fonte Nova is 50,000 and will need “at least 33 well-attended football games a year to make it economically viable”. What is the definition of a well-attended football match? How will the average attendances of 2,000 in Cuiabá help to pay for the debt servicing on the stadium? The author thinks that stadiums could be filled by reducing ticket prices, yet as I have demonstrated here repeatedly, the tendency in all of Brazilian football is the increase of tickets to games and even the government is worried about a gentrification process, so how or why does the author think that clubs will look for ways to reduce ticket prices? I agree that prices should be reduced but the political economy of Brazilian football is headed in the opposite direction.

These kind of omissions are a familiar type of journalism associated with these events that only want to tell the “happy story” of global sport, ignoring the economic and social realities in order to circle back in the line at the kool-aid punch bowl. The following quote from the article is typical of such reporting and does nothing to advance the debate, nor to discuss honestly the real problems associated with the preparations and hosting of the event: “Nevertheless, amid talk of delays and spiraling costs, the 2014 World Cup will at least be an event for all Brazil. In a country where the north-south cultural and economic divide is so deeply engrained, that at least is something to celebrate” It is not merely talk of spiraling costs, but a massive public outlay that will have real consequences once the fans and reporters have moved on to the next host. How is hosting an event in 12 cities something for all Brazil? What about Belém? Why Curitiba? What does all Brazil mean socially when tickets for the World Cup have started to be sold at over $500?

The article`s closing argument has some kind of vague emotional appeal that FIFA must love as their product is the passion for the game and not the economic or social realities of their event: “Back when I was a young man, I never dreamed I’d see the World Cup here,” said Brasilino Almeida, an elderly Salvador construction worker who helped build both the original Fonte Nova stadium in 1950, and, 60 years later, its modern replacement. It is a sentiment that will be echoed in Cuiabá, Manaus and beyond.” Let’s say this person did work on the original stadium construction in 1950. Assuming 13 as the minimum age to lift a hammer on a northeastern worksite in 1950, this man now at least 76 years old – and he is still working on a construction site! [ed: to clarify, I never doubted the existence of this man, but find it absurd that at both ends of his life, no labor laws are being respected. Why is he still anywhere near a construction site at 76? Trotting out a old man to marvel at the wonders that hundreds of millions of mis-managed dollars can produce hardly qualifies as a strong argument for what is happening with the World Cup]. 

In sum, the article suggests that the Brazilian World Cup is rumored to be expensive, there may be some massive White Elephants roaming the land, we can see them and have them in our sights, but let`s not kill them because they will make us feel good for the 360 minutes of football (in Manaus, Cuiaba and Natal) that we won`t be able to afford to see in person. All Brazilian cities merit federal investment in infrastructure but we know that the projects associated with the World Cup were poorly planned, hastily executed (if at all) and may not serve the long-term needs of the cities or the country. There is no redress (as the author suggests) of historically-situated cultural or economic divides in World Cup investment, especially when we take into consideration the astronomical sums being invested in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics.

The author is keen to ignore the very criticisms that he identifies at the beginning of the article in order to sell the World Cup to an international audience. This article does not attempt to kill White Elephants, but to make them into bichos de estimação (pets).

Riding on that Monster Bus!

Nearly every day in Rio there is a fatal accident involving public transportation. In response to the brutal gang rape of a USAmerican woman a few weeks ago the city government stopped all van service in the Zona Sul of Rio, massively impacting mobility options for residents of Vidigal and Rocinha, two of Rio`s largest favelas (not to mention the impact on those who make their living with the vans). One of the results of this short-sighted, band-aid solution is to overcrowd the dangerous bus system even more. Bus drivers wield their carriages like twenty-ton baseball bats, there is little to no regulation and even when drivers are fined for their egregious violations of law and common decency, the bus company will pay the fine to FETRANSPOR, a regulatory agency that acts on behalf of the bus companies. There is no projected reform of Rio`s transportation system underway, the federal government continues to subsidize car production and consumption in pursuit of the Brazilian Way of Life, and those whose lives fundamentally depend on public transportation will soon experience yet another increase to the already outrageously high fares.

Rio`s Mayor announced the increase in a meeting with Brazil`s finance minister. In the same breath he asked that Rio`s debt ceiling be raised from 40% of liquid receipts to 120%. Can anyone guess why Paes is asking to both increase transportation fares (that go to private companies) and asking to borrow more public money at the same time that huge areas of the city are being privatized, occupied by the military, and otherwise cleared for real-estate development? If anyone has been looking for the ghost of Margaret Thatcher, I think she had a cup of tea in the Malvinas and then hot footed it to Rio.

One of the more bizarre stories of recent weeks was the discovery of two arms floating off of Posto 9 in Ipanema. The arms were tied together with cords and the only thing the papers had to say about the case is that officials were going to figure out who they belong to. I have not been able to find anything more about this story but will try to give it some fresh legs.

Speaking of, one of the great initiatives in Rio is the development of the Transcarioca trail. This will (supposedly) unite between 160 and 220km of trails through Rio`s national, state and municipal parks. As with everything else, the idea is to have the trail ready before the World Cup. Let`s hope this project gets on the ground!

This weekend, the Novo Maracanã will open its doors to a limited public for a test game between the Friends of Bebeto and the Friends of Ronaldo, two members of the 2014 Local Organizing Committee. The privatization scheme has been big news here and there are numerous protests planned for the event. Tear gas mask, check. Eye drops, check. Running shoes, check.