Brazil
Burning: The Story of an Illusion Gone Sour
By Pepe Escobar
By Pepe Escobar
Protests in Brazil
indicate what goes way, way beyond a cheap bus fare.
When, in late 2010, Dilma Rousseff was elected President after eight years of the impossibly popular Lula, a national narrative was already ingrained, stressing that Brazil was not the “country of the future” anymore; the future had arrived, and this was a global power in the making.
This was a country on overdrive – from securing the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics to a more imposing role as part of the BRICS group of emerging powers.
Not unlike China, Brazil was breathlessly exploiting natural resources – from its hinterland to parts of Africa – while betting heavily on large agribusiness mostly supplying, you guess it, China.
But above all Brazil fascinated the world by incarnating this political UFO; a benign, inclusive giant, on top of it benefitting from a lavish accumulation of soft power (music, football, beautiful beaches, beautiful women, endless partying).
The country was finally enjoying the benefits of a quarter of a century of participative democracy – and self-satisfied that for the past ten years Lula’s extensive social inclusion policies had lifted arguably 40 million Brazilians to middle class status. Racial discrimination at least had been tackled, with instances of the Brazilian version of affirmative action.
Yet this breakneck capitalist dream masked serious cracks. Locally there may be euphoria for becoming the sixth or seventh world economy, but still social exclusion was far from gone. Brazil remained one the most (deadly) unequal nations in the world, peppered with retrograde landowning oligarchies and some of the most rapacious, arrogant and ignorant elites on the planet – inevitable by-products of ghastly Portuguese colonialism.
When, in late 2010, Dilma Rousseff was elected President after eight years of the impossibly popular Lula, a national narrative was already ingrained, stressing that Brazil was not the “country of the future” anymore; the future had arrived, and this was a global power in the making.
This was a country on overdrive – from securing the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics to a more imposing role as part of the BRICS group of emerging powers.
Not unlike China, Brazil was breathlessly exploiting natural resources – from its hinterland to parts of Africa – while betting heavily on large agribusiness mostly supplying, you guess it, China.
But above all Brazil fascinated the world by incarnating this political UFO; a benign, inclusive giant, on top of it benefitting from a lavish accumulation of soft power (music, football, beautiful beaches, beautiful women, endless partying).
The country was finally enjoying the benefits of a quarter of a century of participative democracy – and self-satisfied that for the past ten years Lula’s extensive social inclusion policies had lifted arguably 40 million Brazilians to middle class status. Racial discrimination at least had been tackled, with instances of the Brazilian version of affirmative action.
Yet this breakneck capitalist dream masked serious cracks. Locally there may be euphoria for becoming the sixth or seventh world economy, but still social exclusion was far from gone. Brazil remained one the most (deadly) unequal nations in the world, peppered with retrograde landowning oligarchies and some of the most rapacious, arrogant and ignorant elites on the planet – inevitable by-products of ghastly Portuguese colonialism.
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And then,
once again, corruption raised its Hydra-like head. Here’s a
first parallel with Turkey. In Brazil as in Turkey,
participative democracy was co-opted, ignored or forcefully
diluted among an orgy of “mega-projects” generating
dubious profits for a select few. In Turkey it revolves around
the ruling party AKP’s collusion with business interests in the
“redevelopment” of Istanbul; in Brazil around public
funds for the hosting of the World Cup and the Olympics.
The new
capitalist dream could not mask that the quality of life in
Brazil’s big cities seemed to be on a downward spiral; and that
racism – especially in the police – never went away while the
demonization of peasant and Native Brazilian leaders was
rampant; after all they were obstructing the way of powerful
agribusiness interests and the “mega-projects” craze.
What can a poor boy do
There’s no
Turkey Spring – as there’s no Brazilian Spring. This isn’t
Tunisia and Egypt. Both Turkey and Brazil are democracies –
although Prime Minister Erdogan has clearly embarked on a
polarizing strategy and an authoritarian drive. What links
Turkey and Brazil is that irreversible pent-up resentment
against institutional politics (and corruption) may be catalyzed
by a relatively minor event.
In Turkey
it was the destruction of Gezi park; in Brazil the ten-cent hike
in public bus fares was the proverbial straw that broke the
(white) elephant’s back. In both cases the institutional
response was tear gas and rubber bullets. In Turkey the popular
backlash spread to a few cities. In Brazil it went nationwide.
This goes
way, way beyond a cheap bus ride - although the public transport
scene in Brazil’s big cities would star in Dante’s ninth circle
of hell. A manual worker, a student, a maid usually spend up to
four hours a day back-and-forth in appalling conditions. And
these are private transport rackets controlled by a small group
of businessmen embedded with local politicians, who they
obviously own.
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Arguably
the nationwide, mostly peaceful protests have scored a victory –
as nine cities have decided to cancel the bus fare hike. But
that’s just the beginning.
The mantra
is true; Brazilians pay developed world taxes and in return get
sub-Saharan Africa quality of service (no offense to Africa).
The notion of “value for money” is non-existent. It gets
even worse as the economic miracle is over. That magical
“growth” was less than 1% in 2012, and only 0.6% in the first
quarter of 2013. The immensely bloated state bureaucracy, the
immensely appalling public infrastructure, virtually no
investment in education as teachers barely get paid $300 a
month, non-stop political corruption scandals, not to mention as
many homicides a year as narco-purgatory Mexico – none of this
is going away by magic.
Football
passion apart – and this is a nation where everyone is either an
expert footballer or an experienced coach – the vast majority of
the population is very much aware the current Confederations Cup
and the 2014 World Cup are monster FIFA rackets. As a columnist
for the Brazilian arm of ESPN has coined it, “the Cup is
theirs, but we pay the bills.”
Public
opinion is very much aware the Feds played hardball to get the
“mega-events” to Brazil and then promised rivers of
“social” benefits in terms of services and urban
development. None of that happened. Thus the collective feeling
that “we’ve been robbed” – all over again, as anyone with
a digital made in China calculator can compare this
multi-billion dollar orgy of public funds for FIFA with
pathetically little investment in health, education,
transportation and social welfare. A banner in the Sao Paulo
protests said it all; “Your son is ill? Take him to the
arena.”
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Remember “Standing Man”
The
neo-liberal gospel preached by the Washington consensus only
values economic “growth” measured in GDP numbers. This is
immensely misleading; it does not take into account everything
from rising expectations for more participative democracy to
abysmal inequality levels, as well as the despair of those
trying to just survive (as in the orgy of expanded credit in
Brazil leaving people to pay annual interest rates of over 200%
on their credit cards).
So it
takes a few uprooted trees in Istanbul and a more expensive
shitty bus ride in Sao Paulo to hurl citizens of the
“emerging markets” into the streets. No wonder the Brazilian
protests left politicians - and “analysts” - perplexed
and speechless. After all, once again this was people power –
fueled by social media - against the 1%, not that dissimilar
from protests in Spain, Portugal and Greece.
Unlike
Erdogan in Turkey – who branded Twitter “a menace” and
wants to criminalize social networking - to her credit Rousseff
seems to have listened to the digital (and street) noise, saying
on Tuesday that Brazil “woke up stronger” because of the
protests.
The
Brazilian protests are horizontal. Non-partisan; beyond party
politics. No clear leaders. It’s a sort of Occupy Brazil – with
a cross-section of high-school and college students, poor
workers who struggle to pay their bus fare, vast swathes of the
tax-swamped middle class who cannot afford private health
insurance, even homeless people, who after all already live in
the streets. Essentially, they want more democracy, less
corruption, and to be respected as citizens, getting at least
some value for their money in terms of public services.
The die is
cast. Once again, it’s people power vs. institutional politics.
Remember “Standing Man” in Taksim Square. The time to
take a stand is now.
Pepe
Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an
analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to
websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.
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