By Daniel Rigney 
I've been planning this trip to Brazil for months. As it happens, I'm here just as Brazilians are taking to the streets en masse in cities across the country to protest political corruption and unpopular governmental priorities. For better or worse, I've come at an interesting time.
About a week ago I arrived at the airport in Rio de Janeiro to join my wife, who was already here on a historical project. Four hours later, we were strolling near what is known locally as the “Hippie Fair” craft market when we met our first mass protest demonstration (manifestação), moving steadily toward us from the north.
A street near the apartment where we were staying turned suddenly into a river of humanity when several thousand protesters marched down Copacabana and through the small neighborhood that connects it with Ipanema beach. Marchers shouted slogans, carried signs and waved flags to express vocal disapproval of national politicians, practicing a form of civic engagement that seems increasingly common in countries around the world.
We didn’t go out looking for action. (Well, maybe a little.) The action found us. As we walked alongside the festively boisterous crowd, photographing the moment for our digital scrapbooks, we briefly joined this current of humanity as we made our way through the march, crossing from one side of the street to the other.
At that moment we were not merely observing and recording historical events. We were participating more directly in them.
'Manifestation’ (manifestação) is a fitting word for events like these – public expressions of strong feeling that emerge from somewhere deep beneath the visible surface of society, rising like social tremors or volcanic eruptions, to disequilabrate the powers that be.
This demonstration seems targeted mainly at PEC 37, a congressional amendment to the constitution that would allegedly impede the prosecution of acts of political corruption. Brazilian politicians seem to like the amendment for some reason. These folks don't.
Notice that the man in the yellow shirt above appears to be texting or checking his smartphone in the midst of the march. Maybe he's tweeting the event live.
The girl on a bike (photographed with father's permission) is seeing this event through eyes that may live to see Brazil in the 22nd century, if nation-states as we know them still exist then.
The protests thus far have been largely peaceful, though marred by occasional violent actions and police reactions (e.g., rubber bullets, tear gas, stun grenades). We see several vandalized buildings and some preventive boarding (e.g., at Banco Do Brasil and McDonalds), but the city is generally keeping calm and carrying on, friendly and relaxed, as though nothing much is happening.
A more urgent Carioca concern: Will Brazil defeat Spain at Rio’s legendary Maracanã stadium tonight in the final game of the Confederations Cup?* Football, it seems, is one of the glues that holds this society together despite its extreme economic inequalities.
The demonstrations are reported to be relatively leaderless and spontaneous, and their focus seems to vary depending on the salience of the issues (corruption, mass transit, education, health and social services) in the neighborhoods in which they bubble up. So far the economic class base of the demonstrations (ranging from poor to middle class) seems to vary with the neighborhood, but every demonstration I've heard about expresses frustration with a political/economic elite (is there really a difference?) that seems out of touch with its citizens and unresponsive to their aspirations, pursuing instead prestigious and expensive luxury projects such as the hosting of the 2014 World Cup football championships and the 2016 Olympic games.
I came to Brazil to rendezvous with my wife, a historian, who has been in the country for several weeks working on an imaginative research project, constructing a multimedia history of the city of Rio that will feature maps and drawings overlaid on each other through time to show the city in historical motion. My wife is fluent in Portuguese, and in her role as a cultural interpreter and go-between, she helped this old sociologist understand the history that was unfolding before our very eyes.
Just days before I arrived, major cities throughout Brazil had erupted in demonstrations whose strength and passion surprised even those who initially organized them. The first demonstration, in São Paolo, focused narrowly on angry opposition to a modest increase in mass transit fares, but the spirit of protest soon spread to other cities and to wider issues, all converging on dissatisfaction with backroom elites in the ruling party and across the political spectrum.
Brazilian elite politics, as it is explained to me by native observers, might be fairly described as a multiparty parliamentary system that functions in practice as “one party, many masks” – with splinter parties receiving appointments and spoils from the ruling regime to ensure cooperation and elite unity.
Overall, the current ruling party is generally described as center-left, but the recent revolts from below express popular sentiment that the ruling elite have prioritized grandiose and expensive projects (read: World Cup and Olympics) at the expense of social investments in education, health care, transportation and services for the middle and lower classes.
In addition to the Copacabana-Ipanema march, we saw at least two other significant demo sites on our visit to Rio. We saw major public spaces heavily guarded with massive displays of potential force by layers of city, state, federal and military police, including what looked like a SWAT team patrolling Ipanema with semi-automatic weapons from the back of a black truck. We saw armed police walking the city, often in groups of ten, protecting public buildings such as the City Council chambers and the state legislative assembly, both of which were focal points of protest during our stay.
On my last day in Rio, I heard a roar of sound coming down the street toward us. I fumbled for my camera, and was able to get this fleeting shot of a political parade of perhaps thirty motorcyclists, banners flapping behind them as they sped past the hotel where pop star Shakira ("Hips Don't Lie") was purportedly staying, and where a knot of devoted fans were gathered on the street, shouting and waving up to her room. Is this a curious cultural juxtaposition, or is it just me? .
Whether
recent events here mark the beginning of a ‘Brazilian fall and winter’
(or spring and summer north of the equator) is a question future
historians will contend with. I’m not sure what they’ll conclude, but
one historian we talked with was exceedingly skeptical that the current
protests would bring about any enduring change in the way Brazil is run.
In an unscientific poll of cabdrivers, however, we asked whether the current wave of manifestations would die down soon or would continue. We got mixed results. One cabbie thought the demonstrations were already on the wane, but another mused that “the manifestations have to continue because a lot of things need to be fixed.”
Where in the world will the next manifestations manifest themselves? If Brazil is any guide, they can come unexpectedly, and can surprise even the demonstrators themselves.
*This final score just in: Brazil 3 Spain 0. Back in Houston since this morning, I can almost hear the celebratory fireworks going off in Rio. There may be more political fireworks as well.
For a more whimsical look at the city of marvels, see Rio in Miniature.
Danagram
;] correspondent on the daily planet since 2011
Photos by author.
I've been planning this trip to Brazil for months. As it happens, I'm here just as Brazilians are taking to the streets en masse in cities across the country to protest political corruption and unpopular governmental priorities. For better or worse, I've come at an interesting time.
About a week ago I arrived at the airport in Rio de Janeiro to join my wife, who was already here on a historical project. Four hours later, we were strolling near what is known locally as the “Hippie Fair” craft market when we met our first mass protest demonstration (manifestação), moving steadily toward us from the north.
A street near the apartment where we were staying turned suddenly into a river of humanity when several thousand protesters marched down Copacabana and through the small neighborhood that connects it with Ipanema beach. Marchers shouted slogans, carried signs and waved flags to express vocal disapproval of national politicians, practicing a form of civic engagement that seems increasingly common in countries around the world.
We didn’t go out looking for action. (Well, maybe a little.) The action found us. As we walked alongside the festively boisterous crowd, photographing the moment for our digital scrapbooks, we briefly joined this current of humanity as we made our way through the march, crossing from one side of the street to the other.
At that moment we were not merely observing and recording historical events. We were participating more directly in them.
'Manifestation’ (manifestação) is a fitting word for events like these – public expressions of strong feeling that emerge from somewhere deep beneath the visible surface of society, rising like social tremors or volcanic eruptions, to disequilabrate the powers that be.
This demonstration seems targeted mainly at PEC 37, a congressional amendment to the constitution that would allegedly impede the prosecution of acts of political corruption. Brazilian politicians seem to like the amendment for some reason. These folks don't.
Notice that the man in the yellow shirt above appears to be texting or checking his smartphone in the midst of the march. Maybe he's tweeting the event live.
The girl on a bike (photographed with father's permission) is seeing this event through eyes that may live to see Brazil in the 22nd century, if nation-states as we know them still exist then.
The protests thus far have been largely peaceful, though marred by occasional violent actions and police reactions (e.g., rubber bullets, tear gas, stun grenades). We see several vandalized buildings and some preventive boarding (e.g., at Banco Do Brasil and McDonalds), but the city is generally keeping calm and carrying on, friendly and relaxed, as though nothing much is happening.
A more urgent Carioca concern: Will Brazil defeat Spain at Rio’s legendary Maracanã stadium tonight in the final game of the Confederations Cup?* Football, it seems, is one of the glues that holds this society together despite its extreme economic inequalities.
The demonstrations are reported to be relatively leaderless and spontaneous, and their focus seems to vary depending on the salience of the issues (corruption, mass transit, education, health and social services) in the neighborhoods in which they bubble up. So far the economic class base of the demonstrations (ranging from poor to middle class) seems to vary with the neighborhood, but every demonstration I've heard about expresses frustration with a political/economic elite (is there really a difference?) that seems out of touch with its citizens and unresponsive to their aspirations, pursuing instead prestigious and expensive luxury projects such as the hosting of the 2014 World Cup football championships and the 2016 Olympic games.
I came to Brazil to rendezvous with my wife, a historian, who has been in the country for several weeks working on an imaginative research project, constructing a multimedia history of the city of Rio that will feature maps and drawings overlaid on each other through time to show the city in historical motion. My wife is fluent in Portuguese, and in her role as a cultural interpreter and go-between, she helped this old sociologist understand the history that was unfolding before our very eyes.
Just days before I arrived, major cities throughout Brazil had erupted in demonstrations whose strength and passion surprised even those who initially organized them. The first demonstration, in São Paolo, focused narrowly on angry opposition to a modest increase in mass transit fares, but the spirit of protest soon spread to other cities and to wider issues, all converging on dissatisfaction with backroom elites in the ruling party and across the political spectrum.
Brazilian elite politics, as it is explained to me by native observers, might be fairly described as a multiparty parliamentary system that functions in practice as “one party, many masks” – with splinter parties receiving appointments and spoils from the ruling regime to ensure cooperation and elite unity.
Overall, the current ruling party is generally described as center-left, but the recent revolts from below express popular sentiment that the ruling elite have prioritized grandiose and expensive projects (read: World Cup and Olympics) at the expense of social investments in education, health care, transportation and services for the middle and lower classes.
In addition to the Copacabana-Ipanema march, we saw at least two other significant demo sites on our visit to Rio. We saw major public spaces heavily guarded with massive displays of potential force by layers of city, state, federal and military police, including what looked like a SWAT team patrolling Ipanema with semi-automatic weapons from the back of a black truck. We saw armed police walking the city, often in groups of ten, protecting public buildings such as the City Council chambers and the state legislative assembly, both of which were focal points of protest during our stay.
On my last day in Rio, I heard a roar of sound coming down the street toward us. I fumbled for my camera, and was able to get this fleeting shot of a political parade of perhaps thirty motorcyclists, banners flapping behind them as they sped past the hotel where pop star Shakira ("Hips Don't Lie") was purportedly staying, and where a knot of devoted fans were gathered on the street, shouting and waving up to her room. Is this a curious cultural juxtaposition, or is it just me? .
Whether
recent events here mark the beginning of a ‘Brazilian fall and winter’
(or spring and summer north of the equator) is a question future
historians will contend with. I’m not sure what they’ll conclude, but
one historian we talked with was exceedingly skeptical that the current
protests would bring about any enduring change in the way Brazil is run. In an unscientific poll of cabdrivers, however, we asked whether the current wave of manifestations would die down soon or would continue. We got mixed results. One cabbie thought the demonstrations were already on the wane, but another mused that “the manifestations have to continue because a lot of things need to be fixed.”
Where in the world will the next manifestations manifest themselves? If Brazil is any guide, they can come unexpectedly, and can surprise even the demonstrators themselves.
*This final score just in: Brazil 3 Spain 0. Back in Houston since this morning, I can almost hear the celebratory fireworks going off in Rio. There may be more political fireworks as well.
For a more whimsical look at the city of marvels, see Rio in Miniature.
Danagram
;] correspondent on the daily planet since 2011
Photos by author.
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