CÈU ABERTO, MARACANÃ LIVRE

The much-anticipated and little discussed privatization scheme for the Maracanã came out last Monday, exactly two weeks after the elections. “The plan” calls for the demolition of the Municipal School Arthur Friendenrich (the subject of Martin Curi’s 2011 book). The parents and principle are convinced that the government is waiting until to the end of the school year in late November to make their move. There is no clear indication of where the kids and teachers would be for 2013. The privitization was launched as a surprise for the general public (even for OGLOBO), but the school has been under threat since 2009 and has taken successful legal action against the state itself to militate for its permanence. Why does this school have to be removed, and if its removal is necessary, why can’t the Maracanã accommodate new school facilities?

The Museo do Índio is also slated for the bulldozers of a private consortium. The Museum, around for more than a century, an architectural treasure and site of indigenous identity, strength and resistance might be made into a parking lot, an walkway, a restaurant, or a storefront selling postcards of Brazil’s rich anthropological specimens. Does anyone know what the project is? Has this project been discussed with all of the relevant stakeholders? If the Museum can’t be reformed in situ, what alternative projects can be considered in collaboration with indigenous communities?

Want to train for the Olympics on the fine track at the Celso de Barros facility? You’d better hurry because the other day  representatives of IMX, (a consortium of Eike Batista and the USAmerican-based sport venue\ and entertainment conglomerate IMG) were seen walking around taking pictures. Probably unnoticed by the suits were hundreds of school children using the facilities, participating in public school Olympics, the Rio equivalent of field day. School kids using public sporting facilities in the middle of the day? Who ever heard ofsuch nonsense!? The track is one of the few Olympic-standard facilities in the state. If privatization will destroy recreation space, where and when are the replacement facilities being constructed?

The Julio Dellamare swimming complex is also going agua abaixo. The elderly are going to have to find a private club or a distant public pool to do their water gymnastics; they’re rightly upset that water therapy is not being valued and that their physical health will be negatively impacted by the loss of the pool. Olympic swimmers, divers and water polo players are going to have to train in Barra where there will finally be a positive legacy for Maria Lenk, coitada. There is a proposed reform for the Maracanazinho gymnasium, which will no doubt be banked by the public. This stadium also went under significant reforms for the 2007 PAN, and should theoretically, be adequate for 2016.  What are the plans here? Is another reform necessary?

To present theseand other unfortunate decisions the city government has called its firstaudiência pública, slated for Wednesday the 8th of November at 18hrs.It will be held at the Galpão da Cidadania on the Rua Barão de Tefe in the ZonaPortuária. (warning, facebook link). 

As with most public meetings of this kind, the panel will likely consist of a table of government officials powerpointing the project, allowing for the public to ask questions and make comments afterwards. This type of public planning ensures a minimum of transparency, maximizes private influence and excludes the general public and civil society from entering the discussion about the destiny of the very facilities that they pay for and use (or not: Maracanã, closed for four of the last eight years).  

The state says it has no option but to privatize, because it is building something that it does not have the capacity to manage. Why not then privatize the construction costs as well? The numbers never add up on stadiums, so why limit the scope of the argument to economic rationality? The stadium complex is multi-use, always has been, and we don’t know how much it cost to run over the last 62 years because the government won’t let us in to look at its records. We have no idea where the old Maracanã would have fit on the World Stadium Index because the is no access to attendance figures, number of events held, or even how much water the stadium used.

 It is long past time to make the Maracanã transparent. Even the clubs are arguing for privatization. As ever,  the clubs and the CBF are hijacking the public interest.  The torcidas organizadas are pawns of the clubs, so there’s no help coming from the most organized fan sectors. What is happening is that mothers, fathers, their kids, the elderly, the disabled, Olympic athletes, indigenous nations, physical education teachers, fans, beer vendors, and  public sector employees  are gathering to create the Plano Popular do Maracanã. Collaborators, enthusiasts and critics unite!

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. 

Rio para não chorar

viomundo.com.br photo: Girl beaten by Military Police in Porto Alegre

As if on cue, the Military Police in Porto Alegre showed us the extent to which the World Cup mascot will be protected. The obscene and absurd images nicely encapsulate what is going on to rip public money from the, er, public, and give it to multi-national corporations. After “Safado” was deflated by protesters, the Really Very Extraordinary Secretary for the World Cup in Rio Grande do Sul was most concerned that FIFA would give him a new Tatu-Bola. .

viomundo.com.br photo: Military Police guard a plastic armadillo!?!?

The details of what happened in the center of Porto Alegre (formerly known as the home of the World Social Forum, Participatory Budgeting, etc.) are a repeat of what we have seen all over the world. Peaceful protest by righteously indignant youths met by overwhelming police force that results in reporters being beaten and thrown in jail, cameras and cell phones broken, and unarmed people demanding their civil rights perrper sprayed, tazed, rubber bulleted, and bashed in the face by mindless thugs in service of private capital. Three days later the President went to Rio Grande do Sul to vote. The mayor was re-elected.

Also on cue was the Brazilian Professional Football Players' Union, who rightly pointed out the health risk of playing matches at 1pm on the bloody Equator! FIFA, of course, said that they consulted their medical committee which likely consisted of a Tatu-bola, Henry Kissinger, Jack Kevorkian, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. In Brazil, lawyers are also called doctors, so perhaps there was some real confusion for FIFA. The best thing about the new stadiums is the air-conditioning in the VIP boxes. So cool, so quiet. Ooh, snacks!

Thouands form a human chain around the Maracanã. Gustavo Mehl photo. 

To resist some of this profanity, Marcelo Freixo brought together thousands of people on Saturday to form a human ring around the Maracanã. As Erick Omena and I were debating on Radio Nacional last Friday, the destruction of the Maracanã is a crime against culture, architecture, history, memory and football itself. Those who approve of the reform tend to think that “global tendencies” are always good, don’t look past the discourse of plenty and progress, and want to blindly follow a path of infinite consumption as a way to complete citizenship. Enjoy the freefall  into an antiseptic nightmare.  The full program is below:

Freixo, a heroic figure in the current political scene in Rio de Janeiro, finished second in the municipal elections but with more than 28% of the vote. This is a huge victory and bodes very well for the insertion of social justice into the blithering diatribes of the incumbent. Paes ran with Goveror Deputy Dawg Cabral to Brasilia this morning to kiss the hand of the President and to thank her for her support in getting him re-elected. The first campaign video that Lula did was for Paes and his dominance in the militia-controlled sections of Rio was complete. Given all this, plus his insane financial advantage and the inherent conservatism of Carioca society, Freixo's 28% is indeed a huge milestone. Tatu-bola para a frente!

Pathetically and predictably, the hegemonic mega-event coalition was consolidated on Friday with the re-installment of Carlos Nuzman as head of the Brasilian Olympic Committee. Now at the helm for more than two decades, Nuzman was unopposed in the “election” and received the vote of 29 or 30 federations. The only vote against? The Brazilian Ice Sports Federation. You could say that the Federation has been frozen out.

To demonstrate the degree of depravity and old-school Latin American Coronelismo going on at the COB, check out this excellent piece of reporting by ESPN – Brasil. The piece opens by showing COB functionaries breaking into the Ice Federation headquarters to steal documents. The way the funding for sports federations works is that the Federal Government, via the Ministry of Sports, sends money to the COB which then distributes money to the federations. To get the money a federation president has to be on Nuzman’s good side and use the COB accountants at a cost of R$4000 per month. If you cross Nuzman, the money gets cut and the COB invades your headquarters. When asked about this by ESPN, the Minister of Sport said he could do nothing. Delightful.

The “election” of Nuzman to another term as head of the COB also means that he will keep his post as President of Rio 2016. The re-election of Paes has probably calmed the nerves of the IOC and FIFA. Invariably, the scenes of Porto Alegre will be repeated throughout Brazil as public space is privatized, social services are cut and citizens’ rights are trampled so that more gigantic Tatu-bolas driking Coke can be thrown up in the 12 host cities. Please vote on the name for the Mascot or send me your suggestions and I'll put them on the voting list. 

Here’s a longer video of the Abraço no Maracanã. Congratulations to all who participated!

Amijubi, Fuleco, Zuzeco e Safado

In addition to volunteering labor for profitable enterprises, a practice prohibited under Brazilian law for which the Law of the Cup made a generous exception, Brazilians can now participate in the trough-feeding insanity of the 2014 World Cup by choosing between three names for the official mascot.

"Safado"

Not satisfied with having the path to social participation opened by voting on the name of the World Cup ball, Brazuca (made in Pakistan where the skies are patrolled by drones), Brazilians are flocking to their computers to choose the name of the World Cup mascot. As FIFA explained in a press release, that despite their fervent desire to open name suggestions, there were certain legal complications but because “queríamos muito que os brasileiros pudessem desempenhar um papel ativo no batismo da mascote, decidimos realizar algo inédito e oferecer algumas opções para votação” – because we really wanted Brazilians to actively participate in the naming of the mascot, we decided to do something unique and offer voting options.

Uma delicia!

Thanks FIFA!!! I always wanted to have the chance to choose between three names for a mascot that will help cram the Tatu-Bola down our throats. 

The names are the best in indigenous and green-washing of a football tournament that will effectively step on the rights of the indigenous and destroy the environment. “Amijubi” is a combaination of "amizade” (friendship) and “júbilo” (happiness) that also happens "to resonate" with the Tupi-guarani word “Jubi”, which means yellow, one of Brazil’s colors! Perfect! I’m a happy friend to the Indians, I’m voting for that one! (Too bad the Museum of the Indian  next to the Maracanã is likely to be plowed under for the Cup).

But wait, “Fuleco” is a mixture of “futebol” (which I just love!) and “ecologia” which I also love as it is the fountain of all life. If I vote for this name, so FIFA tells me, I will encourage people to think even more about the environment than Carvalho Hosken, Odebrecht and Eduardo Paes combined. So many choices!

“Zuzeco”, well it’s just so dang Brazilian I might not be able to help myself. Not only does the “Zu” sound cool, it represents Azul which reminds me of the color of the seas of Brazils “magnificent coastline, its rivers and its beautiful sky”. Eco, well, why not just say it again because the more you do, the more you’ll believe that you’re participating  and not just wasting your time. If you hold the empty shell of the Tatu-Bola up to your ear after eating its tasty insides, you might hear the echo of the hollow eco-discourse.

Additionally, we’ve been informed by the Overlords that we will be assisting games on the Equator at 1pm. That’s right, kickoffs in Recife, Natal, Fortaleza, 1pm. There might be a good opportunity for someone to enter with the “official sunscreen” of the World Cup. Something durable, like the shell of a Tatu-bola. European television markets have dominated the scheduling of World Cups since Mexico ’86, sacrificing players and fans for the good of the game.

General update

Earlier this year, after Vasco was judged to have maintained some of their youth players in “conditions of slavery” at a clandestine training site, I stopped watching football. In Brazil, it’s impossible not to pay attention to novellas of some kind, but I have found that my decision to drop my active support for Vasco (though I’m still Vasco) has freed me to do other things. It’s actually quite a relief not to suffer the difficulties of fighting for a place in the Copa [your name here] Libertadores, or to get upset when we lose 4-0 at home and the very popular, very good manager is forced to resign. The more one knows about the way Brazilian football works, the more revolting it becomes. Quem conheça a cozinha não come mais.

In some respect, the only way that Brazilians give any credibility to my indignation and revolt against Vasco is by me staying away from the game. If I were to follow Vasco closely after calling them out on the international stage, people would have (and some did) questioned my “claim to authenticity”. As Vasco continues to disgrace its history and delude its supporters by trying to get out from under the judicial decisions that would make them treat their trainees decently, they are also being sued by Romário for back wages of R$50 million. The politics of the Vasco directorship continue in the very same, sad, tired vein as the CBF and Brazilian football in general. Without popular, judicial, or political pressure to change, nothing ever will. If you’re satisfied, keep giving your support as you always have. More Bread and Circus please, hold the bread.

As predicted, the Paralympic flag did not make the same rounds as the Olympic flag. It floated on over to a center for the disabled in Santa Cruz, and that was it. This week, even O Bobo was forced to publish a piece on the nearly complete inaccessibility of the city for people in wheelchairs. With four years to the Paralympics, the new metro cars and 40% of the bus fleet are inaccessible. In more than three years of riding city buses, I have only seen one person try to get on in a wheelchair. Why? It’s nearly impossible! There is only one crosswalk in all of Rio that has a sound alert for the blind. ONE! As I suggested in my last post, if we had the Paralympics first, these “problems” would become priorities.

The BRT Transoeste has now claimed five lives and injured many more since its inauguration in June. On a recent trip along the proposed trajectory of the BRT Transcarioca, it became clear that the entire region will be sliced in half, with street crossings limited to stop lights and pedestrian overpasses. Talk about making things difficult for the disabled and elderly! There is no indication that all the overpasses will have elevators, and even if they were to have them, would they be used? Cariocas are masters of finding the shortest trajectory across busy streets, even if those streets are packed with high speed buses. If no one will go an extra 30 meters to use a crosswalk or an underpass, why will they begin to climb with their bags in the heat of the day? Unfortunately, the Transcarioca will kill as readily as the Transoeste. 

Here it comes, again

It is a pity that more attention is not given to the Paralympics. This is likely a combination of fatigue after the Cyborg Games, combined with some preconceptions and prejudices about “disabled” sport. However, if we are (just for a moment) to think that the Olympics really possess positive, mystical, transformational powers then it is surely in the Paralympics that we see this most clearly manifested (though clearly with some Cyborg elements as well).

The Paralympics is full of eye-watering tales of human perseverance. The difficulties of training and high-level achievement are augmented by the daily rigors of “disability” (an admittedly terrible word to use for world-class athletes). The Brazilian athletes are to be doubly commended as they live and train in cities that are almost wholly inadequate for their daily needs: low levels of investment in sport, grave difficulties in social assistance and cities poorly structured for wheelchairs, the blind and the deaf.

It may be that one way to solve the problem of making the Olympic Games actually useful for a city is to host the Paralympics first. That way, we will have to ensure that the public transportation, sidewalks, restaurants, elevators, crosswalks, museum access, beach accesses, stadiums and hotels will attend to the needs and rights of the disabled before they meet the desires and demands of the International Overlords. We would also focus more attention on the real “human interest” stories found within sport, perhaps giving Bob Costas something meaningful to talk about. By making the Paralympics prelude, we can direct our attention to the people and projects that currently exist as afterthoughts.

This is all to say that the Paralympic flag arrives in Rio de Janeiro today. It is unclear whether it will make the same rounds as the Olympic flag, but I rather doubt it will go to the Complexo do Alemão which is almost completely inaccessible by wheelchair. 

(Vejam esse artigo no BBC Brasil sobre o projeto de transportes no Rio)

A Gringa meets an Elephant

Here's a link to an interview I did with Adventures of a Gringa, a blog maintained by Rachel Glickhouse about all things Rio. 

Excerpt: 

What are some of the possible "white elephant" projects that will result from Rio's mega-events?
It is easier to talk about the “non-white” elephants, and that’s a short conversation. Nearly everything under construction for the mega-events is being done with an urban plan that was created behind closed doors, and with little thought for the usefulness of the projects post-2016. I think they should actually paint everything white and put big ears on just to remind us. 

Istanbul 2020

Is it too soon to look ahead to Istanbul 2020? Is it too early to start poniting out the obvious?

Seems like the Turks are convinced. From the Istanbul 2020 bid book:

10.11 – Community support in excess of 87% of the population

Opinion polls were conducted by Strategic Focus measuring the response of 2,418 people 15 years of age and above from Istanbul (789) and 16 other cities (1,629) providing a representative national sample. The survey was conducted from 2 to 26 January 2012. The poll confirmed the wide-ranging support of the Games in Turkey and Istanbul:

Would you like to see Turkey host the Olympic Games? 87.1% of respondents in Istanbul and 83.3% throughout Turkey supported Turkey as host of the Olympic Games (14.2% had no opinion, 2.4% opposed) [ed: damn Kurds!]

~~ Do you believe that hosting the Olympic Games might help present a new image of Turkey to the world? 86.4% of respondents in Istanbul and 85.1% throughout Turkey believe the Games will offer a positive legacy and image for Turkey (13.4% had no opinion, 1.6% negative response). These results are achieved without any domestic promotion campaign, which will commence during the Candidature Phase and are comparable to those from polls conducted in November 2000, reflecting the enduring support of the Games.[ed: we haven't had to convince people it's good for them yet]

10.12 – Full support of government and the private sector

There is no organised opposition to the Istanbul 2020 proposal to host the Olympic Games. Rather, the bid enjoys the full support of all government bodies, opposition parties, the private sector and the general public.[ed: the Lords are in agreement about this]

10.13 – No requirement for a referendum under the terms of the Olympic Law

The Olympic Law ensures there is no requirement to stage a referendum in relation to the staging of the Olympic Games. Nor is it possible for opponents to the bid to force a referendum. [ed: I am not making this up].

11.1 – A balanced OCOG budget with guaranteed underwriting and cash flow. [ed: drinks on us!]

11.2 – Complete financial support from all levels of government [ed: keep the change]

11.3x    See you and your offshore accounts in Istanbul! 

3,600,000 hours of free labor for FIFA.

The FIFA Voluntary Labor Camp has opened for people to give even more of their lives to the International Overlords. I know that this is a “customary practice” but when FIFA is anticipating profits in excess of $3.5 billion for the month long tournament, it is obscene to think that in a country that has a minimum MONTHLY wage of R$622 (US$311), that FIFA has the gall to not pay people to work for them. Worse is the total success they have in doing so! The first days of volunteer enrollment there were tens of thousands of inscriptions. No doubt the meals, transportation and uniforms will be worth the trouble. It’s no small trouble:

Volunteers must agree to work 10 hours a day for 20 days = 200 hours of labor.

If a working week is 40 hours, that is 5 weeks of free labor per person.

Each host city needs at least 1,500 volunteer-slaves. 1,500 x 12 = 18,000

18,000 serfs x 200 hours = 3,600,000 hours of free labor for FIFA.

3,600,000 hours = 90,000 weeks = 22,500 months = 1,875 years

You get the picture.

Let’s put this in economic terms. Each person laboring for the Brazilian minimum wage for five weeks would earn R$777.50 for five weeks of work (a pathetic hourly wage of R$3.89). Multiply this by the number of laborers and we get R$13,995,000 or around US$7 million. With profits estimated in the billions, why does FIFA demand free labor? Seven million dollars doesn’t seem like so much to pay and if you actually threw some job training in there, people could use the event for something useful other than a t-shirt made by nimble Cambodian fingers.

The minimum wage in Switzerland is US$23. Let’s pay our Brazilian volunteers that wage and see how much FIFA continues to crow about sustainable practice. It would still only amount to 828 million dollars – a modest contribution to Brazil’s economy.  Or, as a colleague of mine has suggested, let’s get all of the COPA 2014 team on board with the national spirit and have them volunteer 5 weeks of free labor. Aló Ministro Rebelo! I know you are a member of the communist party, but this is really going too far! Let’s all  be good capitalists here, not feudal serfs.

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.

The Olympic Flag is made of Korean Silk

There are so many interesting things about the Olympic Flag that I am bursting with excitement to report that I gave away the punch line in the title. I was astounded that after so many years of researching the Olympic Games that something so elementary, so symbolic could have escaped my attention. Korean silk!!!! Who knew?

As the devoted readers of Hunting White Elephants will no doubt have heard, the London Games are over, save for the three weeks of Paralympics that receive almost no media attention whatsoever. The missile batteries might be coming down off the roofs and tourists will start heading back to London. The party cost British taxpayers more than 11 billion pounds, around 5x over the original budget. Eduardo Paes and the Rio team have learned that lesson well, now refusing to talk about the budget beyond what was presented in the Bid Books in 2009.

We do know that the original budget underwritten by Lula was R$31 billion. Can we go 5x over? Maybe. Part of the problem is identifying what is Olympic and what is World Cup, what is ordinary investment and what is related to the megas. When transportation systems are conveniently directed to serve the Olympics, they are part of the Games project. When they are part of the budget, they are not. Any and all increases in the Gross Product of Rio are attributed to the Games, any increase in water pollution is not. When projects make the numbers tick in the right direction for marketing, yeah Rio 2016! There are no other numbers.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. There is no evidence to suggest that mega-events bring a public return on public investment. To the contrary, this is a regime of public risk for private profit that will use the militarization of urban space to control local populations and extract as much value from the city in the shortest timeframe possible before moving Istanbul for 2020.

Protest brining the 'evicitions trophy' to the mayor

The press conference yesterday was an interesting look into the way the 2016 Olympics will be run. As we received media credentials, we signed up to ask questions only to be informed later that only 5 questions would be allowed because the Governor, Mayor and Snoozman were tired after their flight from London. The questions were typical of the Brazilian media: innocuous, staged, soporific, irresponsible and stupid. The SporTV reporter asked the mayor to explain the emotion of brining the Olympic flag back to Rio. The Globo reporter asked if the mayor was going to bring the actual flag around the city or if they were going to use a replica. This gave him the chance to bring up the medal winning boxers as “security”, highlight the honor guard of the Guarda Municipal (wearing pith helmets), and to suggest that if the Olympic flag needed more security he “would have Cabral call in BOPE.”

The only decent question came from the BAND reporter, who, in response to the stimulation of the protest by the Comitê Popular outside the too-small, low-ceilinged INFAERO conference room (itself a testament to the poverty of investment in public infrastructure) asked about forced removals and the fate of the Vila Autódromo. This clearly irritated the mayor who leaped to his feet, protesting any suggestion that there had been at any time anything but democratic, open discussion with all of the communities removed for Rio’s Olympic project.

Conflating various key phrases of Paes, he said “there have been hundreds of people removed along the trajectory of the Transcarioca in the Zona Norte, middle class people, and no social activists were making a fuss about that because we did things democratically [HWE: removing individual houses is easier than removing whole communities]. We’ve bought land for the people of the Vila Autodromo [HWE: a project that the government had to go back on because the land belonged to one of Paes’ major campaign donors] and everyone is going to live in a nice apartment [HWE: whether or not they want to] only 500 meters from where they are now [HWE: this project is not going to happen]. No one is going to be removed violently [HWE: ask the people in Metrô, Restinga, Vila Harmonia, Recreio II about that!]. Once we deal with this situation we’ll see these political agitators disappear like they always do [HWE: taking a pot shot at his opposition in the coming elections].”

He added, “We need to move on from people resisting progress and cursing the government. This should be a thing of the past.” The elimination of alternative voices in the Olympic Era was well documented in London, another lesson learned. Of course, none of this addresses the wisdom or necessity of projects in and of themselves; project planned by a public relations firm in conjuntion with their governmental, meida and corporate bedfellows. A philandering foursome that goes alem do pornográfico.

There were some other tendencies on display that should be taken note of by journalists and researchers. In the blowing, normative discourses of Cabral, Snoozeman and Paes, there is a continual conflation of two presidents, Dilma and Lula. “O presidente” is Lula, “a presidenta” is Dilma, as if they were both governing at the same time. Lula’s role in bringing the Olympics is never far from the lips of those who drank so profusely from his overflowing cup of charming good-ol-boyism.

This is a closed circle of self-referential and self-interested parties where no contrary or alternative hymns will be sung. Thus, the World Cup slogan, Juntos num só ritmo, can be understood to refer to the larger political project of the Olympics as well as the elimination of alternatives. The Olympics take this to the next level.

On a positive note, after the press conference as the medalists put on display by the government were carrying their own bags to be stuck into a van (instead of the limousine escort afforded their lordships), the protestors from the Comitê Popular engaged them in conversation. All of them were adamant about their support for an Olympics without forced removals and for the production of peaceful and socially inclusive Games.

Here it comes!!

Below is a transcript from an interview with the journalist Lucy Jordan (www.lucy-jordan.com)about the impending, banalized brutality of Rio 2016.

Lucy Jordan (LJ): Do you think the process of preparing for mega-events such as the Olympics has been a positive thing for Rio? Why not? Can you think of any positive aspects to the 2016 Olympic games? 

Hunting White Elephants (HWE): Yes and no. There has been a lot of investment and the city is nearly at full employment, yet the projects under way will not attend the real needs of the city. The Rio 2016 project has become the effective master plan for the city: a dangerous move in a city with a historical lack of investment in basic infrastructure. Also the interventions are creating a dual city: the Olympic city vs. the Non-Olympic city. There are of course always positive aspects when a city receives such massive investment but how those investments are being directed and what their long term effects will be is another story.

LJ: Do you think Rio is prepared for the Olympics? What measures have been taken so far to prepare Rio? Have they been successful? What are the main obstacles that Rio will face in preparing and being ready in time?

HWE: No. Almost none. Of the four BRT lines, three of which were not part of the original project, the one that has come partially on line has killed five people in the past few months because people are using it as a bike path.Why? There are no bike paths in the region. The question about being ready on time is not completely relevant as the six-week demands of the Games tend to justify a thousand urban interventions that will not prepare the city for the demands of 2017 or 2025. The main obstacles are a lack of professionalism in management, conflicts of interest, bureaucratic obstacles, lack of public participation, lack of transparency, and a lack of planning for post-event uses.

LJ: What do you think will be the main similarities and differences between the London games and the Rio games, and why? Do you think that differences between Rio and London, and Brazil and the UK, will manifest themselves in the difference between the Rio games and the London games? How?

HWE: London’s Games happened in a large city with a relatively functional transportation network and very few physical alterations to the city’s infrastructure had to be undertaken. Rio has many more problems in this regard: transportation is fragile, sewage systems are inadequate, etc. Also there is no terrorist threat in Brazil, so the massive investments in security will be more to control local populations rather than to defend against external threats. Things will happen more spontaneously in Rio and the Brazilian penchant for big parties in public space will make the spirit of the completion more diffuse. Also, Rio is not as cosmopolitan as London so there might be more surprises in store for the wealthy international tourist class that frequents the Games.

LJ: Do you think that Brazilians, and in particular Cariocas, are excited about the 2016 games? Why/Why not? How has Rio reacted to the London games? Do you think Brazil will be able to top the success of the London games?

HWE: The Olympics are exciting and Cariocas are of course excited to have the opportunity to see the games happen on home soil. Yet there is a tremendous anxiety and lingering doubts about the capacity of games organizers and the government to act transparently, professionally, and with the best interests of the city residents at the front of their agendas. There hasn’t been much reaction in Rio to the London
Games as Olympic sports are not of great interest in Brazil. The sexualization of female athletes has dominated the amateurish coverage. Brazil’s medal count has been surprisingly low which has further diminished interest. Top the “success” of the London Games? In what sense? Organization, transportation, security, cost? Successful sporting events are easy enough to pull off, preparing the city for future demands should be the real measure of a Games’ success. London was 5x over budget, hugely militarized, corporatized, etc...now what? 

LJ: What do you think of AECOM’s design? Is had been lauded for sustainability – do you think this is warranted?

HWE: It depends on what sustainability means. 60% of the AECOM project will be given over to real-estate. This will be yet another car-dependent, closed condominium project in Barra de Tijuca. The densification of this wetland region is occurring without the required investment in sanitation or in effective public transportation projects. Without creating jobs in the region, residents will get in their cars to go to centers of employment = not sustainable. AECOM has done some interesting things given the parameters set by Rio 2016, including the urbanization of the Vila Autódromo community. The Vila Autódromo has developed a proposal for how this urbanization should occur, demonstrating that keeping the community in situ will be more economical and sustainable environmentally than removal.

LJ: What kind of lasting “legacy” do you think Brazil will be left with after the games are over? 

HWE: I don’t use the word “legacy” to describe the Olympic project. These are impacts. There will be a massive budgetary overrun, militarization and privatization of public space, huge investments in world-class sporting facilities that will not be supported by programs to develop athletes, transportation lines that fragment instead of connect the city, huge increases in rents, unused four and five star hotel rooms that were subsidized by the public, and millions of good memories for one of the most expensive parties in history. 

Look out!!!

Yet another countdown to the day when Rio finally becomes the Olympic city. As the torch fuel switches from BP to Petrobras, the terribly nice things that happen to prepare a city for the Olympics will start ratcheting up here. We do have the small distraction of the World Cup, in case anyone has forgotten about that, but let’s first take a look at some of the critical problems that need to be addressed in Rio.

  1)      The word “legacy”. Can we agree that this is not a good word to describe what happens when tens of billions of public money get funneled into urban projects designed by public relations firms? These are permanent structural transformations that are not predicated on needs but desires and hollow discourse.

  2)      The airport. This will be the only Olympic city, ever, that will not have a public transportation line that connects the international airport with the city. There is a plan to put a Bus Rapid Transit line between Barra de Tijuca and GIG, but are people going to get on a city bus with their bags? There will also be no public transportation between GIG and the domestic airport downtown. Duh. There will be no water taxi, no increase in ferry service, just a generalized clusterbumble (don’t even get me started about the Metro).

  3)      Maracanã. Currently undergoing the third reform in twelve years. Once the largest stadium in the world, it will have a capacity of 76,000 for the World Cup and will likely need to undergo further reforms for the Olympics. For instance, where will the Olympic torch go? The current reforms are going to be around R$1 billion (or more) and if we add the hundreds of millions in the other reforms, plus the destruction of a protected cultural monument…anyway, you get the idea.

  4)      Engenhão. There has been a movement to change the name of the stadium from Estádio Olímpico João Havelange to honor João Saldanha, the communist coach of the national team that was sacked just before the 1970 World Cup. The problem is that the stadium, a flying saucer that landed in the lower-middle class neighborhood of Engenho de Dentro, is called “Stadium Rio”. Thus removing the name of Brazil’s oldest criminal is moot.

  5)      Engenhão II. The area around the stadium has never received any intervention to improve access. Hundreds of millions will need to be spent, yet there is only a R$15 million line item in the budget.

  6)      Engenhão III. The track will probably have to be replaced. The television screens too. And the roof is in constant danger of falling. Oh, and because the Maracanã has been closed 3 of 4 big teams in Rio play there and have destroyed the grass, so some games have been cancelled.

  7)      Vila Autodromo. AECOM’s winning Olympic park project included the urbanization of the Vila Autodromo which occupies the north-west corner of the Olympic park site. The city and Rio 2016 are anxious to get the “favela” out of sight and out of mind and have been trying for more than a decade, without success. Now, the Vila Autrodromo has put forth an urbanization plan that demonstrates that it will be both cheaper and easier to urbanize in situ than to forcibly remove. Will the government engage?

  8)      Olympic Village. Being built in a swamp. Where will those 15,000 daily Olympic size poops go? Can we get the 100 meter turd float into the Games?

  9)      Cost. Let me get this straight…we pay taxes which were spent on the bid, spent on the infrastructure, running of the games, athlete training and over-blown administration. Then we have to pay to go to the games and pay for the maintenance of useless structures that we won’t have access to because they will be privatized? Even if there were a budget to be kept, we still end up paying four or five times for the Olympics.

  10)  Cost II. The World Cup is pushing frontiers in more ways than I can detail in this post, but have been keeping tabs on for some time. Imagina a Olim-piada!?! The same people that went 10x over budget with the Pan American Games have been given more money with fewer controls, why would we expect a different result?

  11)  Medals. Brazil, not doing so well in London (2 gold, 1 silver, 10 bronze, behind the powerhouses of New Zealand, Denmark, and Kazakstan, whose combined population is less than Rio de Janeiro’s). There is little or no effective investment in sport in this country. It is no accident that the most decorated Brazilian Olympian is a yachtsman, and that other medals come through various forms of fighting and football.  There is a dire, desperate need for a massive shake-up at the COB, but Nuzman is holding on for dear life. The media doesn’t hold his feet to the fire because expectations are so low, and therefore easy to meet.

Ok…enough for today, just getting the pump primed (again) for the transfer of focus. 

Non-Olympic Post

The tables below are related peices of information. The first indicates that Brazilian teams do not make much money from putting butts in seats. If, for example, a team's attendance figures dropped in half for a season, this would only mean a 5.5% loss in revenue for the year. This could be easily compensated for by selling a couple of players or penning a new sponsorship contract. This is bad news for fans, as the second table shows. 

 Brazilian club revenue streams - 2010

Source of income	(%)
Ticket sales	11
Sponsors and advertising	12
Other receipts (i.e. replica sales)	12
Member dues and amateur sports	13
Television	24
Sale / transfer of players	28

Source: Cadernos FGV Projetos, Junho 2010, Ano 5, numero 13, issn 1984-4883

This table shows the rapid decrease in attendances and the staggering rise in average ticket prices over the last five years, the only for which data are available. The perverse influence of television on Brazilian football means that most teams play games on Wednesday nights at 9:50, after the tele-novelas. There is no special transportation scheme, public transportation stops at midnight and all fans are treated like criminals, as if they are waiting for the right moment to offer their fellow fans a Molotov cocktail. This seemlingly deliberate elimiation of fans has been more than compensated for by an increase in profits. The math is simple, charge way more for fewer people, price out your "undesireables" and allow the clubs to pay off the torcidas organizadas to provide the "show" which the television networks will strategically shoot to make it appear as if the stadium is full. This is a years' long process of seperating the people from the people's game. Does anyone think this will improve with the World Cup?

 Average attendance at football matches – Campeonato Brasileiro, Serie A, 2007-2011

year	total paying public	average paying public	gate receipts(R$)	average ticket (R$)
2007	6.582.976	17461	80040848	12.2
2008	6.439.854	16992	101241490	15.7
2009	6.766.471	17807	125764391	18.6
2010	5.638.806	14839	112873893	20.0
2011	5.660.987	14976	117665714	20.8
% Change	-14	-14	+46	+71

Fonte: http://www.cbf.com.br/competicoes/campeonato-brasileiro/