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One the Road in Brazil--week two |
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by Sarah Kanouse, UCIMC
Email: skanouse (nospam) eudoramail.com (unverified!) |
11 Jul 2001
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Three 'chapters' of my obsevations of Brazilian life and culture: geography, family, and activism. |
On the Road in Brazil—week two
Since we last wrote to you, we’ve traveled from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, stopping along the way in Parathy, and spent four days in Rio with Sascha’s family. The family gathered in Rio for Sascha’s grandmother’s 90th birthday party—the first large reunion in almost 20 years. The various family members have scattered to disparate destinations, and we’ve moved from a hotel in the Leblon beach neighborhood to the private apartment of family friends in the hills of Rio. The following three chapters represent a synopsis of some of our observations of Brazil.
The Geographical Scene
Sao Paulo, the city where Sascha’s uncle lives, is the sprawling capital of commerce and industry of Brazil. Because it is the capital of commerce, it has most of the country’s cultural infrastructure, including the best universities, museums, restaurants, orchestras as well as a large population of immigrants (mostly Japanese, Germans, and Italians). Because it is the capital of industry, it has an enormous number of indigent emigrants from rural areas seeking jobs and tremendous air pollution—on no day during our 5 day stay was visibility greater than 5 miles, and on the final day it was less than one mile. It is extremely difficult to walk in Sao Paulo due to the air pollution and the lack of pedestrian-friendly planning—actually the lack of any planning. The Brazilian term for ‘sprawl growth’ is ‘swelling,’’ and Sao Paulo has “swelled”in every direction, with suburbs and favelas (poor people’s settlements) spreading more than 1 ½ hours away from the city center. Sao Paulo’s ‘swelling’ has also created a highly segregated city, with the poor living in the most far-flung suburbs or in shacks lining the highways, and the rich in the central neighborhoods. According to local activists, this contributes to a perception on the part of Sao Paulo’s business community that the problem of urban poverty is being solved if only because they don’t have to look at it.
Rio De Janeiro, in contrast, enjoys a physical environment that prevents many Sao Paulo-style problems, though it has quite a few of its own. The city is crowded on a bay between the ocean and steep mountains of sheer rock, effectively limiting the ability of the city to ‘swell’ but contributing to a tremendous population density—Copacabana, for example, an upper middle class neighborhood, has a population density of ...... Large, poor suburbs are only beginning to extend to the north of the city. Air pollution in the wealthy, beachside ‘zona sud’ is mitigated by the ocean and forest-covered mountains in the middle of the city but is much worse in the ‘zona nord’, the older, working class and poor inland area. Despite the substantial differences between the ‘zona nord’and ‘zona sud,’ Rio is less economically and racially segregated than Sao Paulo. Hillside favelas are visible in all parts of the city, often climbing the mountains immediately above the most exclusive neighborhoods, and the beaches are a great democratic force in the city. All beaches in Brazil are public by law, and Rio’s beaches, while each maintaining a unique flavor due to location and tradition, are sites for intergenerational, interclass, interethnic mixing. Accordingly, even upper class Cariocas, as Rio residents are called, believe strongly in the need for economic reform.
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are connected by an inland highway (a 5 hour drive) and a coastal road (10 hours). The inland highway follows the route of the early 20th century railroad that connected the cities and bypassed all the smaller coastal towns, cutting them off from contact with the cities and leading to depopulation. Twenty years ago, the coastal road was put in, and the beautiful coastline has been ‘discovered’ by developers who have been building elaborate condominium complexes and resort hotels in formerly unpaved fishing villages. The natural enviornment—Atlantic tropical forest—is truly breathtaking, with groves of mangoes, bananas, and palms covered with orchids spilling down rocky hillsides to the ocean. Developers skirt the ‘public beach’ law by making public access exceedingly difficult. This leads to the seeming incongruity of fishermen and yacht club members using the same beach. Modern development is more pronounced on the coasts near Sao Paulo, though recently beach areas near Rio have begun to be built up.
Parathy is a town that has avoided modern development by playing up its historical uniqueness. It was almost completed depopulated when the railroad was put in 1910, and its colonial buildings stood vacant for almost 80 years. Today, it has become one of the favorite tourist destinations for middle-class Brazilians, who enjoy the original stone paved streets, adobe houses, and quiet atmosphere. It is a center for contemporary and traditional artists, and upper-crust tourism exists alongside traditional town life. Fishermen haggle with tourists over hourly tour rates after bringing in their morning hauls, and local schoolchildren play soccer and basketball in the courts adjacent to the Baroque central church. Parathy’s architectural uniqueness may be saved by niche tourism, but it may still lose its culture as more and more urban professionals seek it out as a vacation destination.
The Family Scene
Staying with family and family friends has shed light on some elements of upper-middle and upper class Brazilian family life. In general, the belief that families are more closely knit than in the U.S appears to be true (and this observation is also made by Brazilians who watch U.S.-made movies). Sascha’s cousin, who lives in California and was unable to make the trip to Brazil, called her father and half-sisters no fewer than once per day, often more frequently. Our current hosts’ daughter, who lives in Sao Paulo, also calls at least once per day, and their two sons—one a 24 year old professional—live at home. It’s not uncommon to see grandmothers, young mothers, and children of all ethnic and economic groups going shopping or to the beach together, and in smaller towns young women appear to only leave the house with their mothers—after dusk some towns appear to be populated almost exclusively by men.
Under Brazilian law, divorce is impossible unless both parties want it, which means that many couples either never get married or never get divorced. Sascha’s extended family is an example of the mixed family that is typical here, due to a combination of divorce laws, economics, and the absence of taboos on inter-ethnic relationships. His uncle, Pedro, married a woman many years ago and had two children. His wife would not grant a divorce, but they separated. He carried on a series of serially mostly monogamous relationships, one of which resulted in a son, who is now 13. Before the boy’s birth, Pedro began a long-term relationship with his current partner, who had a daughter from a previous relationship. They had another daughter together, who just turned 12. Pedro’s oldest child, who died two years ago, also had a daughter, who is being partially supported by Pedro and who is only two years younger than her 12 year old aunt. So, over the course of his life as a father, Pedro has raised six children, all of whom bear his last name though only two of which result from a marriage. All the children call each other ‘brother’ or ‘sister, and all are welcome at family get-togethers. In addition, none of Pedro’s children look like they ‘belong’ with each other; his 13 year old son and 9 year old granddaughter are half Japanese, his partner’s daughter is of partially African descent, the 12 year old daughter looks White, while his adult children look most ‘Latino’ (whatever that means). In this context, no one questioned why two light-haired gringos were called ‘Subrinos’(nephew/niece), no one thought it strange that Sascha can’t speak Portuguese, and no one—not even the grandparents’generation--thought twice about our not being married.
The Activist Scene
Despite Sascha’s father’s claims that “left in Brazil is far left of American left,” we’ve been steadfastly contacting Brazilian activists. In Sao Paulo, we met up with student activists involved in the Brazil Independent Media Center and spent time with them comparing notes on tactics, issues, and experiences in what was the most ‘familiar’ conversations and environment we’ve experienced here. Brazil’s IMC is small but nationwide; Sao Paulo’s collective specializes in the international involvement and in print production while Rio’s works primarily with video. Sao Paulo’s collective is small (Pietro is a one-man tech team) and almost all are university graduate and undergraduate students active in the anti-globalization movement. We spent as much time getting a primer on Brazilian left politics and learning about anti-globalization actions they had spearhaded as discussing independent media, and in general we had an eye-opening time.
At 27, Pablo describes himself as the ‘old man’ of Sao Paulo’s anti-globalization and independent media movements. They’ve gotten the most support and turnout from college students teenagers disillusioned with Brazil’s recent economic ‘miracle’ (currency stabilization, privatisation, a growing middle class, and increased consumption). As in the US, a disproportionate number of these activists are white and middle-class young people who possess the income and free time to read about economics and politics and to attend meetings. Many have also become radicalized by the government’s encroachment on the traditional privileges of the university, which includes complete state subsidization of tuition and fees (no corporate research dollars here—yet) and an absolute taboo on police presence on campus. Repeatedly, the Sao Paulo activists expressed outrage at police arrests and beatings of students on campus—historically the campus has been a place where even acts of targeted destruction (such as burning ATM machines) go uninvestigated. Student activists may be able to parlay their cultural capital and connections to city officials into better treatment for political detainees, who are often brutally beaten if they are perceived as politically powerless. However, the anti-globalization movement has support among older radical groups and growing support among the poor, suburban teen punk community. Getting these groups to agree by consensus on strategy has been an organizing nightmare.
We received a primer on the Brazilian left’s sectarianism and fragmentation and got excited anew by the unity of spirit we witnessed in Quebec City. Apparently, punk, marxist, anarchist, trotskyist and union groups often refuse to show up at actions planned by a neutral party if a rival faction will be present. Much of the conflict appears to be about process and style; anti-authoritarian groups have a hard time working with hierarchical, party-based leftists, who see the usually younger radicals as lacking experience and discipline. Few are experienced in working in consensus, and actions agreed to be non-confrontational have occasionally resulted in rock-throwing by individuals who were present at the organizing meeting but who didn’t voice objections to the consensus decision. In order to prevent conflict between groups and to make sure the action abides by the agreed-upon tactic, Sao Paulo anti-globalization activists have decided to try training an internal ‘security force’ to kick out protestors who don’t abide by the rules—a controversial decision for activists who pride themselves on being open to diverse tactics.
The Sao Paulo activists also stressed their need to develop new tactics unique to Brazil. They’ve found that traditional forms of non-violent direct action tend not to work because the police force is willing to engage in a tremendous amount of brutality—especially when the protestors are poor—and protestors are not willing to sit nonviolently while being beaten severely. They have used the sanctuary of the university heavily in the past, with the downside that the activist movement does not spread much beyond students and the more recent problems of police violence on campus. The held up the MST, or landless peasant, movement as excellent for Brazil in that it demonstrates the severity of police violence against peaceful squatters while maintaining a high level of support in the public despite negative media coverage. Of course, they add, thousands of peasants have been killed in MST campaigns—a level of danger few university students and urban activists are willing to tolerate. The search for a unique or hybrid Brazilian activist model will continue.
Tomorrow we will meet with a woman who works for an NGO in the favelas and with IMC folks in Rio. Check the website for more updates!
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