Wednesday, July 03, 2013

 

After a Hiatus...

Brazil: soccer and citizenship By Shepard Forman Brazil has long been known as a sleeping giant, a country of vast as yet unrealized potential, whose people by-pass their passivity through samba and Carnaval, fueled by a low-grade sugar-cane rum called Cachaca. But a decade of dramatic economic growth, based largely on China’s appetite for natural resources and a credit-driven consumer market, led to vast private foreign investment and the emergence of Brazil on the world stage. As a serious player on climate change, in international trade negotiations and intellectual property rights, and as a leader in the struggle to contain the aids pandemic, Brazil has begun to exercise a leadership role in global politics that, for a short time, lifted the nation’s spirits to an all-time high. As a prosperous democracy, led in succession by two highly respected presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luis Ignacio (Lula) da Silva, the perennial country of the future appeared to be the country of now. A series of mega-events – the Rio plus 20 environmental conference, the 2013 Catholic youth encounter with Pope Francisco, 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics – were viewed as emblematic of Rio de Janeiro’s renaissance and a new, non-stoppable Brazil. And then it stopped. Page after page of newspaper articles read like a road map to stagflation. Inflation has returned, the value of the Real has declined, rates of growth and employment have slowed, a real estate bubble is forcing potential home buyers and mobile renters alike out of the housing market, the much-touted natural gas and petroleum reserves under the off-shore salt bed suddenly appear out of technological and cost-estimate reach, China has seriously slowed its purchase of Brazil’s commodities, and the Sao Paulo stock exchange lost a huge amount of its value, as did the portfolio of Eike Batista, Brazil’s wealthiest man and the one-time symbol of Brazil’s seemingly unstoppable wealth accumulation. Foreign direct investment has moved elsewhere, and over-use of credit at high interest rates has led to a worrisome rate of consumer forfeitures. Drug traffickers are creeping back into recently “pacified” slum communities, and street crime, including some well-publicized horrific kidnappings and rapes in public transport, have the public on edge. The mood in Brazil has moved in a period of months from euphoric to perplexed – how has it all gone wrong. Paradoxically, Brazil’s other historic opiate, soccer, holds the answer. As Brazil’s great cities prepared to host the Confederation Games, the precursor to the 2014 World Cup, something awakened the national consciousness. It began with the interdiction of the new multi-million dollar mega-stadium known as the Engenhao, whose sliding roof proved to be a major risk due to poor construction. Newspapers began to report on the costs and cost-overruns of soccer stadiums in all of the host cities, including the legendary Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, which was temporarily opened for the Confederation Games final in which Brazil’s World Cup selection team routed the championship Spanish team, once again placing Brazil at the very top rung of world soccer. But as Brazilians watched with pride as their team of talented young players out-performed their critics’ skepticism and came together as true champions, they also accompanied the largely peaceful massive street demonstrations that have become the real story of the season. Millions of people have poured into the streets night after night in more than 80 Brazilian cities to express their anger at the enormous public expenditures in preparation for the mega-events at the perceived and actual costs to the quality of education, health care, metropolitan transportation and security. And, as the magnitude of the costs escalated, so did public outrage against corruption, highlighted by the conviction and impending imprisonment of dozens of former government officials involved in congressional vote buying schemes and other sordid fiscal malfeasance. To chants of “the people have awakened,” Brazilian’s have made a spontaneous and unscripted set of demands on governing authorities at all levels for vastly increased investments in education, health care and public transportation. They have demanded the end of impunity and imposition of harsh penalties for public officials’ corruption. In quintessential Brazilian fashion, street signs mix linguistic creativity with popular sentiment: “Take your rosary out of my vagina,” read one. “Jesus opposes PEC-37,” read another in protest against the congressional bill that would take investigatory power away from public prosecutors and invest it in congress itself. Governing authorities have struggled to understand the origins and strength of a movement convened and oriented by social media, but to the credit of Brazil’s strong democratic ethic, have not tried to stifle or shut it down. Mayors in most of the major cities thought they could contain the demonstrations by withdrawing the ten cents hike in bus fares that sparked the protests. The Sao Paulo governor and mayor did so rather awkwardly, announcing the reversal while declaring it would be at the expense of social programs. President Dilma Roussef denounced the relatively minor incidences of violence and looting and expressed support for the democratic expression of the people but revived a number of old proposal that had little traction – 100% of new salt bed oil and gas revenues for education; contracting thousands of foreign, mainly Cuban, doctors to bolster the public health system, increased investment in commuter transportation, and a call for a plebiscite on political reform. More recently she convened her 39 cabinet ministers and held a press conference with a kitchen sink list of their responses, only to have garnered public cynicism when the press reported on the payroll costs of her over-bureaucratized administration. Most everyone I know and talk to at every level of Brazilian society applauds the street demonstrations and the fact that Brazilians have discovered their civic side. They continue to believe in the potential of this great nation and the future at its command, recognizing that the major problem lies within the government and that they have the power to demand change. The fundamentals are there. Of all of the emerging “powers” Brazil is blessed with adequate water, energy self-sufficiency, exportable quantities of food production and no external enemies. Its failures at good governance are now obvious to all Brazilians who have now demonstrated their readiness to assume their responsibilities as active citizens. If this is true, as I believe it to be, Brazil has arrived finally at its future. Those of us who had the privilege of watching the young soccer team sing the national anthem before their outstanding victory in the Confederation Cup have tempered our euphoria with optimism: Gol Brazil!

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