Brazzil - Year 15 - Number 207 - August 2003

MUSIC: Ilerbie Mann and his Brazilian heart

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--During their recent meeting at the White House, presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and George W. Bush of the US agreed on having the Free Trade Area of the Americas in place by 2005. It was a surprise for many that such an agreement was reached so early on the Brazilian President's tenure—Lula was inaugurated January In—given the fact that Lula until recently was a vocal opponent of that accord.

The FTAA, better known as ALCA in Brazil and throughout Latin America, has been feared by several Latin American countries as a way for the US to increase its economic power in the area without substantial benefits to the other economies involved.

Another side-effect of such an agreement, and which hasn't been adequately addressed is the impact the FTAA will have over AIDS patients in Brazil.

Much of the contention between Brazil and the US on how to implement ALCA has been over intellectual property rights. Brazil has been developing an exemplary program to fight AIDS using for that generic drugs that were developed by the government unable to pay the prohibitive prices asked by the multinational laboratories. Thanks to it, the rate of AIDS-related deaths was cut in half. That program has drawn the attention and admiration of the world, but also the ire of the labs and the United States. Brazil is faced with the question: should the country sacrifice lives in order to increase its agricultural exports?

RM Send mail to: P.O. Box 50536 - Los Angeles, CA 90050-0536 Ads/Editorial: (323) 255-8062 Info: (323) 255-8062 Fax: (323) 257-3487 Brazzil on line: http://www.brazzil.com E-mail: brazzil@brazzil.com Publisher and Editor: Rodney Mello Assistant Editor: Leda Bittencourt Book Review: Bondo Wyszpolski Music Editor: Bruce Gilman With the help of volunteer writers around the world

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Cover Dilemma: adopt the FTAA or let people die of AIDS Cover by Laz-cee Anderson

Cutouts Media Roberto Marinho: the king maker dies Presidency Lula in Spain

11 01 01 11 21 22 23 25 28 21 311 31 33 31 31 42 44 45 52

Behavior No mulatas or blacks in Fashion Week Art Vik Muniz and his 1001 talents Government Lula da Silva or Lula Quadros?

Power Chief of staff, Jose Dirceu, our Lord Cromwell Politics Lula: monolingual and proud of it Controversy The President and the MST cap Strike Publish workers mad at Brasilia Economy Almost time to deal with IMF Identity Brazil, Brazilian, Brazilianness Nation One country, several ethnicities In Portuguese "Urn dia de cao, em Paris" Travel Piranha: the soft side of a beast Nation The misery of two cities called Guaribas Sex Yankees and Brazilian hotness Film Madame Sate', rough but real Music The Brazilian soul of Herbie Mann Impressions South of the border - Part I

lepartuouts OS Rapidinhas

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Farewell to the last Emperor Globo's owner, Roberto Marinho, built an empire from a single newspaper, which he took over in 1921. Over the decades, he built up a media chain of newsoapers, radio and television stations. TV Globo created the phenomenon of the telenovelam which has been exported all over the world.

JOHN FITZPATRICK It was obvious that scmething had happened about 10.30 p.m. on Wednesday w ien the S'ao Paulo-Cruzeiro soccer game was being shown on TV Globo. As soon as half-time came we we -e suddenly whisked to a darkened news studio where a nervous-looking fenaale journalist was lo Acing at the camera. Since the Congress was in themiddle of a heated debate over pension reform at that moment, following a day of violent demonstrations in Brasilia one was expecting a political newsflash.

Instead, the woman announced that tle owner of the Globo Group, Roberto Marinho, had just died at the age of 98. She read a brief statement from the family announcing that he had been rushed to the hospital earlier in the day with a lung problem and had died about 9.30 p.m. durng surgery. The late media magnate was re7errecl to simply as 'yornalista" as though he were still a hack scribbler.

The news quickly reached Congress where the session was halted for a (rather noisy) minute's silence. An even noisier minute's silence was held at the football stadium where young players, who had probably never heard of Marinho, bowed their heads and showed their respect for what it was worth.

The football commentator looked as shaken as the Globo journalist and, for one moment, looked as though he were about to cry as he paid his tribute to "ci.nitor" Roberto Marinho.

There is no doubt that Marinho was a brilliant businessman. He built an empire from a single newspaper which he took over in 1921 at the age of just 20 when his father died suddenly. Over the decades he buflt up a media chain of newspapers, radio and television stations. His main newspaper "0 Globo" was a supporter of the military government This helped him lawr on to obtain TV licenses and, as television became more accessible to the population as a whole, he gained great influence and wealth. TV Globo created the phenomenon of the telenovela soap operas, which dominate evening television here, and have been exported all over the %void.

Whether the autocratic Marinho reaLy accepted the return to democracy is unclear, but he had a strong political ally in Antonio Carlos Magalhaes, an oldsty _e "colonel" from Bahia state and a national political heavyweight for sea•eral decades. TV Globo was so opposed to the PT can] date, Luiz Inacio Lu a da Silva, in the 1989 election campaign that it blatantly favored his opponent and eventual victor, Fernando Collor de Mello. Despite this, President Lula ordered three days of mourning and PT leaders were among those wha paid the warmest tributes to "door" Marinho.

Veja Doesn't Let Facts Get in the Way of Telling the Truth It was good to read Alan Marcus's article in brazzil.corn in which he criticize] Veja magazine for its new publication "Jovens". He aptly highlighted the artificial world created by this magazine, which stresses individual consumerism and hedonism at the expense of the good of society as a whole. It is difficult to believe that this s the magazine, which published a seres of articles in 1992 which led to the downfall of F'resident Fernando Collor de Mello.

Nowadays serious journalism has given way to superficial political and economic coverage.

These are outweighed by feather-lighz articles on celebrities, and health and beauty items, which would not be out of places in gossip rags like Cares or fitness and beauty magazines like Boa Forma, I lost virtually all faith in Veja about a year ago when I wrote complaining about a map of Britain it published which had "Inglaterra" (En.zland) stamped oni I pointed out that Britain was, in fact, made up of three separate countries England, Scotland and Wales—which, along with Northern Ireland, formed the United Kingdom. II pointed out that not anly did Scotland have a separate legal an] educational system from England but also had its own parliament and government.

Instead of admitting that it had made a mistake, Veja published part of my left ex within an article covering half a page in which it downplayed the Scottish parliament and said it had few powers. It a so said that since Brazilians generally referred to the UK as "England'. then it would continue to do so even though this was factually incorrect. To be fair, Veja published my reply in which I pointed out that the government in Edinburgh had responsibility for all Scottish affairs and had powers to set taxes. However, the careless attitude adopted by Veja towards establishing facts, as opposed to 6

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

fiction, now makes me distrust it in all other areas State of Siege When violence gets out of hand people often compare Brazil with Colombia where criminals and leftwing guerrillas have forged an alliance to challenge the state. Despite the ongoing violence here- --massacres in favela shanty towns, raids by drug gangs on police stations, shoot-outs in the streets, prison riots — this comparison is still not appropriate. Howe‘ er, at times, . one wonders if Brazil will follow the Colombian route.

This week, for example, the director of the Bangu prison complex in Rio de Janeiro was shot dead as he went home from work. His car was boxed in and he was attacked by a gano of four gunmen. He was t'the third senior official of this prison complex to be murdered in this way. What is particularly appalling is that not only are the police pretty sure who ordered the killing-- -a prison inmate—but they believe he was assisted by some prison officials concerned about an investigation the directorhad been making into their behavior in the killing of another prisoner.

What's in a (Brazilian) Name?

A survey published recently showed that the six most popular boys' names in Brazil were: Joao, Jose, Gabriel. Lucas. Pedro and Mateus. For girls the order was: Maria, Ana, Jana, Beatriz, V itOria and Larissa.

It would have been more interesting to publish a list of the odd names which so many Brazilians have. Some of these names are so strange— Juracir or Valente—that a foreigner often cannot even tell whether they are male or female. Other times they are the opposite of what you would imagine. I used to iork with a woman called "Francis" and the former Brazilian ambassador to Rome was called "Andrea" although he was His and not Her Excellency.

';'re•mmomme. i;ik BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

In Brazil, Gossip Is News, Too A royal horse in Spain condemns Lula's bad manners and does its business in front of the President's ministers. TV tycoon Silvio Santos "jokes" that he only has a few months to live and thinks this is funny. And Mick Jagger wishes he had not had an affair with leggy Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez.

JOHN FITZPATRICK

A couple of readers have taken me to task because I lamented the fact that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had boasted about his inability to speak English recently. In 'act, I was not criticizing Lula for being monolingual but for playing the populist card and behaving as though his lack of English somehow brought him closer to the people.

In my view, Lula would be setting a good example if he were to announce that he intended learning English to enable him to convey his views to the world community in the world language.

No-one expects him to become fluent but if he were, at least, able to make a speech in English it would improve his image abroad and, I am sure, at home. No-one was ever impressed by ex-president Fernando lienrique Cardoso's linguistic skills because they expected it from an intellectual, but if Lula were to master English then the very people he claims to represent would consider it a tribute to them as well.

They would be proud of him.

Lula should follow the example of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who started to learn English about 20 years ago to help get his message across. Anyone who has ever heard him speak knows that Arafat still has a long, long way to go but, at least, he can speak and respond to questions in English. In his case it must have been more difficult than it would be for Lula. Not only has Arafat' spent most of his life on the run from Israeli bombs and bullets, not exactly conducive to quiet study, but since Arabic is his mother tongue he had to learn a new script as well.

Horse Sense For a man of the people Lula seems to be as star struck by royalty as any forelocktugging English serf During his visit to Madrid this week, our President was so overawed by the presence of His Majesty, King Juan Carlos of Spain, that he bounced out of his Rolls Royce and rushed to greet the King and Queen, completely forgetting his own wife, Marisa, who had the car door slammed in her face by a royal flunky.

Fortunately His Majesty showed more gallantry than our forgetful, macho head of state and, noticing Marisa's absence, went back and rescued her with a Castilian charm that her hick husband will never have if he lives to be a thousand years old. Shortly afterwards, one of the horses in a cavalry guard of honour showed what it felt about Lula's bad manners by doing its business in front of Lula's team of minister. Horse sense indeed!

Silvio Santos's Funny Sense of Humour Silvio Santos is the kind of person whom you can admire yet despair of at the same time. He came from a humble background and by dint of hard work built up the second largest television network, SBT, of which he is the owner and star performer. His channel is probably no worse than the others and so mentally undemanding that even a hamster could follow his programs. He unashamedly targets the least educated part'

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LUCIANA MONAD nun WEI IMERIENCES WITH MKK JAGGER ugusivi rionamo' moss

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of the population and has a great following among them.

In my opinion he exploits people shamelessly. One particularly distasteful sight is ofh im walkingthroug-i the studio audience, holding uphandful ofnotes, shouting "Who wants money? Wio wants money?" Since most of these people probably survive on the minimum salary or less, this kind of behaviour is obscene, like dangling 3 glass of water in front of someone who is dying of thirst.

Santos is one of the most famous people in Brazil yet does not have a bodyguard because 1-e says the pee)* lose him so much that nc-one would kidnap. These could have almost been famous last word& Just over a year ago he was held hostage in his home n Sao Paulo by a gunman who had previously kidnapped one of his daughters' Santos put h s foot in his mouth again last week when he told gossip magazine Coniigo that he only had six years to live and, more foohshly, that he was going to sell his Tv channel for R$ 2 bilion (US$ 700 million). This interview, which was given in Miami, caused a bombshell sincenone ofthe SBT directors back in Brazil knew anything about and 4 was denied by the al leged purchasers Santos had named.

Since Brazilian law changed recently to allow un to 30 percent foreign participaton in media companies, this comment alsc generated international coverage. SBT eventually published fuE-page notices in the press stating that Santos had only been "joking." Santos must have a funny sense of humour if forecasting his own death and announcing the sale of his main asset is his idea of what is fu my.

Gossip, gossip Having checked the above story out I have become an expert on local gossip. Don't tell anyone I told you but, apparently: a) Ronaldo's wife has been seen in public wittotit her wedding ring; b) Mick Jagger wishes he had not had an affair wit n leggy Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez, which resulted in the birth of a son and a hefty alimony bill; c) Children's TV presenter Eliana traveled to the US recent y with somebody who was the ex-husband of somebody who once played a top role in a novela, the name of which I have forgotten; and the daughter of the late Cristina Onassis has just attended the wedding of her Brazilian boyfriend s sister. For more on these and other exciting stories cnec< out C-ontigo, Cants, Isto Genie, Capricho, Minha Novela aportunities, for the Boys from Brazil The attraction of Brazilian girls is obvious, but what is it about the boys that they seem to beguile IF nglish politicians? Remember Peter Mandelson who lost PtIl e his jol as a minister in Tony Blair's cabinet after getting himself into trouble on behalf of his Brazi ian boyfnend? Well this week another MP was suspended from the House c f Commons for his part ii a bogus immigration application by a Brazilian former male escort he employed as a parliamentary assistant.

A commitee said tiat he MP had been "unwise" to employ the Brazilian since -past experience indicate.s how Me employment in Westminster of a person with a history of wcrk in the sex industr7, can become a cause ofpublic scandal." The price of love for the MP came high, n at only in terms of prestige but also in cashâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the hopeless, hapless English lovebird loaned his Brazilian paramour 4,000 pounds sterling (about US$ 6,000) and admitted that he did not expect to receive it back.

Coitadinho! (Poor thing!) For any =employed Brazilian rent boys looking for an opportunioj, my advice is get on the ne3xt plane to London and hang about t lobbies and tearooms of The Hoese of Commons.

Whodunnit?

According to local press reports, 11 members of drug trafficking gangs in Rio de Janeiro were killed in a day of violence this week. How most of them died depends on which police force you believe. One section says the deaths occurred in shootouts between two -ival factions while a spokeswcman for another section said the ma orIty of deaths resulted from a gun battle between the gangsters and the police. With law enforcement in the hands of peop e who cannot agree o something as clear cut as a major gun battle in the country's second largest city, can any one wonder wly many victims crime don't bother to report even serious c like robber es anc assaults? ' There s no room for tais stoy here but no soap opera novela could have been as sensational as this tale.

LI

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

4?.

Too much fuss about Lula putting on a baseball cap bearing the Landless Bits and Pieces Movement's logo. The last gimmick on the catwalks is having models wear the bikini top as a bottom and the bottom as top. A females blowing whistles and flashing cards at football's naughty boys.

JOHN FITZPATRICK

Our President Luiz Inkio Lula da Silva is being attacked from the professional chatterers because he put on a baseball cap bearing the logo of the MST landless peasant movement during a meeting with its leaders recently. The MST is the bête noire of much of the Brazilian media and it is quite nauseating to see how much hostile coverage this organization gets from the mainstream press. Should any of its national leaders be murdered some day then the Brazilian press will have to bear the blame for the sensational way it presents them.

The MST has made itself unpopular by invading private property and its motives are still suspect. However, by meeting their leaders and putting on a baseball cap for a photo opportunity is Lula doing anything worse than when he sits down to cut a deal with the likes of disgraced Senator Antonio Carlos Magalhaes or the Senate leader Jose Sarney whose daughter Roseana, the former governor of Maranhao state, has still to explain where she got the piles of cash to finance her failed bid to become a presidential candidate last year?

Catwalk Capers

Oh no, it's that time of the year again—the Sao Paulo Fashion week.

This overexposed event, which is slavishly followed by the media, provides acres of free publicity for the crop haired, ear-studded precious little dress designers who produce clothes no normal person can afford or would be seen dead in. The nightly TV Bandeirantes news was so excited about this non-event that it rushed us live coverage so we could "ooh" and "aah" at the latest gaggle of scrawny, skinny waifs strutting along the catwalk to ecstatic applause from the great and good among the invited aud ience.

The gimmick this year was some designer's idea of having models wear the bikini top as a bottom and the bottom as top. The result—a glimpse o f miniscule boney bunda cleavage—would probably turn on the Latin teacher at a minor English public school for boys (and the designer of course) but not macho men like your correspondent.

As usual, although Brazil is crammed with stunning black and mulatta girls, the overwhelming majority ofthe models were white. The only black model given any prominence was Naomi Campbell who is not even Brazilian, while Brazil's top model, Giselle Bilndchen, is of German descent. Had Ira Levin's novel The Boysfrom Brazil been more politically correct Giselle would certainly be "The Girl from Brazil".

Oh Whistle and Ah'll Come Tae Ye My Lass'

When I first came to live here I looked forward to following the local football scene. After Brazil's victory over Italy in the 1994 World Cup, in which Romario was outstanding, I expected to see some high class entertaining sport. I was quickly disillusioned. Maybe it was the fact that virtually all the top players were abroad or there were too many games involving too few good teams but, instead of being glued to the television on a Sunday afternoon I started switching off.

I decided to support not sao Paulo or their rivals Corinthians, but Palmeiras because this made me neutral in Sao Paulo-Corinthians arguments and also because Palmeira's green and white colours were the same as those of my own hometown team, Glasgow Celtic. Maybe I even brought Palmeiras luck because they ended up winning the Sao Paulo championship with a team that included Rivaldo at that time.

Even then, I could muster little interest and gradually stopped watching. However, over the last year I have started to follow the game a bit more and have been particularly impressed by the young Santos team. Unfortunately Pele's old club blew their chances recently against Boca Juniors of Buenos Aires who annihilated them 5-1 on aggregate in the Liberators Cup final. Besides that, there are also quite a few good players around at the moment, such as Robinho, Diego, Kaka, Alex and Ilan although the chances are that most will end up playing overseas.

However, one extremely pleasant development has been the sight of female officials on the field blowing their whistles and flashing yellow cards at naughty boys. In the recent game between sao Paulo and Guarani the referee and the linesmen (sic) were women. One really sexy lineswoman, Ana Paula de Oliveira, is becoming every male fan's favourite and I now check out to see whether she will be appearing. Football fans always say that women's football is boring. Well maybe it is but having three wenches on the field livens up even the dullest match. It would also be interesting to see if the presence of ladies makes the thugs and brutes who make up so many of today's players behave themselves a little more.

SAo Paulo Stood Up Once More

Oh dear, Sao Paulo has been jilted once again in favour of that hussy, Rio de Janeiro. This time the snub came from the Brazilian Olympic committee which wants to bring the 2012 games to Brazil. The committee voted by 23 to 10 that poor little Sampa should not be the Brazilian candidate and plumped for Rio instead. The sao Paulo presentation made „41 BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

by state governor Gerald° Alckmin and city mayor Marta Suplicy highlighted the size of this megalopolis and the support the state and city governments were giving the bid. This must have Worst Possible Illusion, a documentary on Brazilian artist Vik Muniz, had committee members yawning takes us on a whimsical world-hopping journey. We watch him construct their heads off Since the meeting was actually held in Rio one won- dazzling works of art that fool the eye. His photos test our notion of the ders why the Sao Paulo delegation representation of reality commonly associated with photography. did not see the writing on the wall.

The Rio presentation focused on ABBE HARRIS the beauty of the city and its surrounding. No mention was made of One of the art world's rising stars--the young Brazilian Vik Muniz—is hard to one of Rio's favourite sporting ac- categorize. He's a pletographer and sculptor as well as a self-proclaimed magician tivities—shooting—or the speed whose work has been .:alled fresh, witty and exhilarating. His recent one-man show with which the city's athletically- at the Whitley Museum of American Art and his photography book Seeing is minded thieves sprint through the Believing (which made both The New York Times and the Village Voice's Top Ten streets after snatching bags and lists of 1999) solidified his reputation and a documentary on his life and art called cellulars from the pedestrians. Rio Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz has been picked up by may be more attractive than some of PBS' Independent Lers series for an airdate of Tuesday, October 14th at 10 pm (check the other candidates—Toronto, New local listings) in conjunction with Latino Heritage Month. It was directed by AnneYork, London or Paris—but the Marie Russell who spent over a year and a half on the road with the artist in making chances of a visiting athlete or spec- the film. tator being shot at or mugged in Worst Possible Illhsion takes us on a whimsical world-hopping journey while we these places is distinctly less than in watch Muniz construct dazzling works of art that fool the eye: sculptures of wire that the "cidade maravilhosa" so I think look like line drawings of flowers; paintings made of thread that resemble charcoal we can forget having the Olympics drawings; portraits made of chocolate syrup (specifically Bosco, Muniz' preferred taking place in Brazil nine years brand); and sugar on black paper that creates haunting from now. portraits of the faces ofthe Caribbean children who work I'm Just a Jealous Guy on plantations harvesting sugar cane. or Is It Jealous Gay? Muniz' photographs test our notion ofthe representaAccording to a recent British tion of reality commor ly associated with photography in study, Brazilian men are the most different ways. In working with these non-conventional jealous in the world. Can this really materials, M-aniztransfonns these items into what he calls be true? I have heard Brazilian and "photographic delusions." At first these images appear to foreign women say their men are be familiaror sometimes commonplace; however, a closer more tender—carinhoso is the usual look reveals that the photographs are actually created cliche—than us brutish northern from this variety of unusual materials. This process of Europeans, but never jealous. If the creating photographs challenges our common definition Latin lover exists I think he is in of photography.

Argentina, Italy or Spain because Muniz, born in 1961 in San Paulo, grew up under from what I have seen of your aver- harsh political regimes in Brazil and learned early on that age Brazilian man is a cuddly, little the safest way to communicate was through coded lanhand holder who lets his wife or guage. As a child he became fascinated with image and perception and the role ofthi girlfriend walk around the beach magician and his work embodies the notion that appearances may be deceiving. "I virtually naked for every other guy don't think art started when a caveman drew a picture on a wall," says Muniz. "I think to drool over. Also, after claims that art started the moment man could see something in something else."

800,000 people took part in the "gay Muniz discovered his irreverent technique and talent for being what he calls a pride" event in Sao Paulo recently I "low-tech illusionist" when documenting his early artworks and sculptures. What am beginning to wonder if there are interested him most were the representations ofthe objects themselves. -What really any macho men around here at all— fascinates me about the photographic process," he says, "is that it endorses the apart from us foreigners that is. existence of things. A chocolate puddle with the likeness of Freud becomes part of ' Ballad with words by the Im- the same history as its notable subject. Photography reveals their true identity as mortal Bard, Rabbie Burns, objects."

In Worst Possible Elusion Muniz visits his 93 year-old grandmother in Brazil Scotland's answer to Camoes. whom he calls "the most important woman in my life" and Chicago, his first home John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish in the United States where he worked as a gas station attendant and supermarket cart journalist who first visited pusher. From there we journey to Arizona where he creates a gigantic bone Brazil in 1987 and has lived in "earthwork" in the desert while going to extraordinary lengths to capture it on film.

So Paulo since 1995. He writes It's easy to see why Muniz is viewed in both photography and art circles as one on politics and finance and runs of the most original and talented artists to emerge from the 1990's. Part Sesame his own company, Celtic Street, part Andy Wanol, Muniz uses charm, bulldozers, chocolate sauce and Comunicacdes www.celt.com.br, chartered planes to create and explain his celebrated conceptual art. In addition to his which specializes in editorial show at the Whitney, Muniz represented Brazil in the 2001 Venice Biennale. His and translation services for personality can best be described as charismatic, even irrepressible, which makes Brazilian and foreign clients. him the perfect subject for a documentary.

You can reach him at ifcelçcorn.br Abbe Harris is a publicist with Cara White Associates and can be reached at abbeuub44ao1.com

Art

You Can't Pin Him Down

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BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

Brazil's Poison Pill Will the AIDS case in Brazil be worsened if the FTAA is established? The US wants to see Brazil strengthening Intellectual Property Rights. Brazil is asking itself though if it is worth to sacrifice lives through the compromising of its AIDS program, in order to enhance agricultural exports.

The goal of esta ishing and consolidating a free trade environment for the Am ican continent has necessitated new initiatives since the colla se in December 1999 of the Seattle WTO Ministerial, given t resulting inability of member nations to establish new rounds ffree trade negotiations. Consequently, the FTAA (Free Trade ea of the Americas) has gained significant momentum in recent years in its effort to establish the American continent as an area f free trade among all 34 member countries (with the exception f Cuba).

Despite the vital d enthusiastic support of its most vocal and most prominent pro oters, the United States and Canada, the FTAA's eventual su cess will depend ultimately on the support erica's largest economic power, where of Brazilâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Latin temperate attitudes wards free trade agreements remain lukewarm.

Brazil, like most atin American countries, fears that further trade liberalization ought about by the FTAA may have longterm negative result increasing economic dependency of individual countries on e dominant American market. Moreover, trade disputes betw n Brazil and the United States, specifically with respect to Well ctual property rights and non-tariff barriers have intensified si 'ficantly over the last couple of years.

The purpose ofthii s article is first, to focus on the trade dispute between Brazil and the US over intellectual property rights, and, secondly, to explore the effects, both direct and indirect, that the FTAA, if implementh d, might have on the current AIDS crisis in Brazil.

ANDREA GARRAFA GOUVEIA BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

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Over the last two decades, Brazil has been developing the world's most successful program against AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. By producing its own generic versions of innovative, experimental medicines, thereby forcing pharmaceutical companies to lower prices for additional AIDS drugs, the Brazilian government has been able to grant free access to drugs to treat AIDS to those infected with the HIV virus.

The many successes of Brazil's program between 1997 and 2002 have amazed the entire world, successes most notably including no less than a 50 percent reduction in the AIDS-related death rate, and a reduction by 80 percent in the volume of hospitalizations, which saved the country around US$ 677 million, between 1997 and 2000' (By 2002, the total savings had already reached US$ 1 billion)2. The successful campaign is seen as a model to follow by countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Because Brazil's relationship with the United States is complex, its position on free trade negotiations is still not clear. For if Brazil agrees to enter negotiations over FTAA with the US, she may have to make costly concessions in order to accommodate established Brazilian goals.

Brazil, for example, wants to see the US drop agricultural subsidies. The United States, on the other hand, wants to see Brazil to begin to strengthen Intellectual Property Rights, in part by paying authorized market prices for patented medicines it uses in treating AIDS and any other diseases.

Following are the basic concerns of both the United States and Brazil, concerns which compl icate negotiations over FTAA: The US argues that pharmaceutical companies will lose incentive for the continued researching and developing ofdrugs designed to cure and/or control targeted diseases if, after expending their financial resources to research and develop medicines for the cure and control of such diseases, these companies are then prevented from enjoying the financial rewards of selling those drugs to the public.

Brazil, on the other hand, along with other developingcountries, argues that since the United States is a wealthy country, she can afford to allow these expensive, lifesaving drugs to be made available to people in need.

Furthermore, Brazil argues, since the pills themselves are actually quite inexpensive to produce, many developing counties are themselves equipped to manufacture these drugs, thereby addressing their own AIDS crises. And to bolster this claim, the Brazilian government cites its own dramatic success in having reduced the num12

bers of AIDS infections below all predic- facilitate full participation by all countions ofthe World Bank and other analysts. I tries."'

Brazil claims that by treating Brazil's own Several other meetings have been held AIDS crisis in this manner, the government so far in order to achieve further progress in has reduced by no less than an astounding, the negotiations. The last meeting took 50 percent the number of AIDS deaths int place this year, in Panama, on February 15, Brazil. where the member countries were each Thus, from a Brazilian perspective, the supposed to present proposal for liberalsimple question is this: Is it worth the cost ization of the market to industrial, agriculofsacrificing lives through the compromis- tural and services imports, including goving ofa successful AIDS program, in order ernment procurement. to enhance agncultural 'exports?

Nonetheless, manycountries postponed The focus of this article will be to their presentation and the meeting did not examine and evaluate in considerable de- run As expected, as reported by the media. tail the question of whether the results Through the negotiation process, trade offs gained and further expected by the AIDS will be made regarding the nine negotiation Campaign developed by Brazil will be groups disclosed below: negatively affected by: trade initiatives, Intellectual Property Rights which would be advisable economic poli- Agriculture, including Sanitary and cies for developing countries, specifically Phitosanitary Measures for those engaged in trade liberalization Services through the FTAA Investment If so, it will be proved that such initiaMarket Access, including standards tives entail even undesirable outcomes, Dispute Settlement despite the established assumptions of ecoCompetition Policy nomic theorists, academics, policy anaGovernment Procurement lysts, private sector experts, and Subsidies, Anti-Dumping and policymakers, all ofwhom subscribe to the Countervailing duties theory thattrade and investment liberalizaAs each of the 34 member countries is tion invariably promote overall growth and experiencing its own level of economic prosperity. development, each individual country's American Union willingness to make concessions concernThe Free Trade Agreement of the ing the above negotiation groups will deAmericas, or FTAA, consists in an ambi- pend on its own stage of economic develtious attempt to join into a single free trade opment. For example, the US might make area the economies of the Western Hemi- concessions on access to its agricultural sphere, in which barriers to bade and in- market in exchange for stronger language vestment would be eliminated. Though the in observance of intellectual property. In FTAA had been first envisioned by former similar fashion, Argentina may give ground US President George Bush in 1990, initial on access to its service market, but only in talks did not actually occur until Bill I exchange for the cessation of agricultural Clinton's presidency, dining the First Sum- .! subsidies by the United States government. mit of the Americas, which took place in !

The FTAA has been charged with the Miami in 1994, where gathered together !mission of being "WTO-plus", meaning were all 34 leaders of the Western Conti- that the agreement has to meet al least the nent (all but Fidel Castro). These leaders !level of liberalization reached through the were committed to achieving substantial iWorld Trade Organization, as in the case of progress in the development ofthe negotia- NAFTA, which cover areas not currently tions and to reaching an agreement by the !covered by the global trade body, such as year 2005. !rules on investment, enforcement of intelTrade officials would initially develop lectual property rights, government prothe structure and scopeofnegotiations over jcurement and competition policy. the next two years, following the 1994 ! Some of the groups who defend the Summit. Though up until 1997, the public TAA and help to spread the "idea" would have no involvement in this moveoughout the hemisphere are: some coament, in 1998, oppOsition to the FTAA itions of corporate interest hoping to take began to grow. Civic societies and busi- advantage of market access; policymakers nesses had become better organized by the who see in the FTAA a way to resolve time of the Second Summit of the Ameriational priorities; and policy analysts, who cas, which would occur in Chile in 1998. believe, in the economic theory that trade At this Second Summit, the FTAA ne- and investment liberalization promote overgotiations were formally launched and the p prosperity and growth. leaders agreed that the "...process be transThe goal of the organizers is to put a parent and take into account the differences Free Trade Agreement for the Americas in the levels of development and size of the into action by January 2005. If put into economies in the Americas, in order to effect, the FTAA will totalize a population BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

ofmore than 800 millions, with GDP (Gross Domestic Product) estimated in US$ 11 trillions'.

The Mercosur Brazil has proved its commitment to further liberalization, through its active participation in the WTO, FTAA negotiations and the Mercosur Agreement with imo, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay as well as Chile and Bolivia (as associate members). The Mercosur consists of a market of more than 200 million people and a GDP of over US$ 1.3 trillion; and its greatest achievement is having opened new perspectives for trade within South America.

Although Brazil is still considered one ofthe most protected countries in the world, it has made consistent efforts to open its market during the last two decades. "The IMF has been the battering ram that has forcibly liberalized Latin America," says Marc Lee, author of the report What Is Going on at the FTAA Negotiations. "Trade agreements," Lee explains, "like the WTO and the proposed FTAA, serve to lock this economic model in place". As the Brazilian economy was driven towards exporting, it became more dependent on more developed countries' markets, the consumption capitals of the world.

The U.S. is already Brazil's most important export market, accounting for almost 20 percent of the country's exports.

However, Brazil still expects that it can reap as much benefit of the American market as the United States can take from Brazil: while U.S. exports to the Brazilian market have grown by 103 percent since 1994â&#x20AC;&#x201D;standing now at US$ 13.6 billion; Brazil exports to the United Sates, by the other hand, grew by only 12 percent, in that same period.'

There is much to be gained by American companies and individual importers from increased trade flows in terms of Brazilian exports to the U.S. In recognition of this, the US has tried, and will continue trying, to exchange market access for concessions in intellectual property right disputes, investments, and services.

Intellectual Property Rights Throughout the world there are people who are bringing innovations to market.

The talent of the inventors is one of the most valuable resources available to promote development and growth and it must be protected. This natural resource, corn-

product or utilizing its process. ing from beautiful minds, should always b In spite of the insistent lobbying of the motivated so that development of new cr US government and the pharmaceutical ations never stops. Intellectual prope companies, which tried to get higher stanrights promote innovation by enabling t dards of patent protection for medicines, s inventors to capture the monetary rewar developing countries succeeded in having of their work the WTO agree that public health comes In other words, "i tellectual property is a before patent rights. With the launch of the highly specialized ar a Doha Round, after these TRIPS issues were questioned, in particular by developof law designed to e ing countries seeking to clarify their rights d courage creativity a fair competition in t e of producing generic medicines to controlling serious diseases spread, the Doha Decmarketplace. It protec the rights of individ - laration affirmed that the TRIPS Agreeals and businesses who ment shall not overlap the public health have transformed their policies such as the fight against AIDS and ideas into property ty other epidemics.

The main paragraph ofthe Declaration granting rights to t â&#x20AC;˘ owners of those pro - says the TRIPS Agreement should be interpreted as support for the WTO member erties."6 As countries e - rights to protect the health of their populagaged in trade, int 1- tion by providing them with access to the lectual property rigljts needed medicines. The declaration sets the were brought to theat- members free to evaluate the situation and tention of the interna- decide whether, compulsory licenses or tional community as parallel imports'° should be established. well, since national The document also mentions the obligation laws would not be enough to protect a of the TRIPS Council to analyze the possicreation of one country in foreign lands. In bility of issuing compulsory licenses by this scenario, "new internationally-agreed those countries whose governments are trade rules for intellectual property rights unable to produce the generics.

Therefore, the WTO agreement estabwere seen as a way to introduce mote order lishes exceptions to the exclusive rights of and predictability and for disputes to patents and authorizes countries to break settled more systematically'''.

Thus, the basis for the creation 011- a these patents, granting manufacturers the system to internationally ensure intellec- right to manufacture such patented meditual property rights was touched upon for cine in case ofnational emergency. In other the first time in 1986 in the Uruguay Rou d. words, public health should take preceThe WTO Agreement on Trade-Rela d dence over WTO patent rules. Another Aspects of Intellectual Property Ri ts important victory acquired by developing (TRIPS) was launched as an attempt to countries after the Doha Declaration was bring under a common rule the ways pr p- the extension of time to comply with the erty rights are protected around the wo d. TRIPS Agreement, from 2006 to 2016.

The Drug Industry One of the major items that are c nThe Drug Industry market covers all tained in the TRIPS agreement is pate ts.

"A patent can be obtained for a new or worldwide commercialized pharmaceutiimproved machine, article of manufac e, cal drugs, such as drugs used to treat infecchemical composition, process, comp er tious diseases, cancers and tumors, disorsoftware or business method, or even an ders in the central nervous and gastro intesecommerce business model or enabl ng tinal systems and cardiovascular and endotechnology for the Internet. A patent all iws crine problems.

While the United Sates has the biggest you to prevent anyone from produc g, using or selling your invention unless ou share of the Global Pharmaceuticals marare paid for the privilege. A patent u ts ket, accounting for 40.3 percent ofthe total, you the right to control the fate of ym ur Latin America represents only 7.0 percent invention in the marketplace".8 Under e of the market and is the smallest sector if TRIPS, member countries agfeedthatpa nt Australia, Asia and Africa are counted protections for products and process in- within the same category. Merck & Co, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, ventions should last at least 20 years.

In order to avoid the abuse of powe of Pfizer Inc and Novartis are the Pharmaceua patent holder (such as charging an e or- tical International industry leading compabitant price for the product or failin to nies.

The Pharmaceutical market is expected provide the product to a certain m et), to be worth US$ 585 billion in 2006, which the TRIPS agreement allows governm nts corresponds to a growth rate of 46 percent to issue compulsory licenses', permi mg other firms to produce the patent hold r's in relation to the 2002 figures. In 2001, the 13

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

industry grew by 7.0 percent, accounting ing medicines to treat AIDS, cancer, men- pulsoity license and parallel imports (in the for the value of $380 billion. " tal illness, and other diseases were devel- case of national emergency or other grave Since the Food and Drug Administra- oped, increasing the life expectancy of the Circumstances), it [WTO] recognized pubtion requirements have become more strict, global population. lic health has to come before anything else. the diseases more complex to treat, and the The period of market exclusivity reThe Aids History in Brazil system demanding ofmore complete infor- search-based companies enjoyed before, The first case of AIDS was identified in mation about the drugs, today it takes phar- between the introduction ofa breakthrough Brazil in 1980. Homosexual, highly edumaceutical companies medicine and com- cated and wealthy men were the most af10 to 15 years in average peting innovators, fected group by that time. After 1985, to bring a new drug to has been shrinking , heroin users started to gain a bigger share of the market. since 1965. the class of AIDS infected groups and the The natural conseAnother conse- proportion of cases spreading through hetquence of the lengthier quence is that despite erosexual contact also became bigger. time to market Was the pharmaceutical com- While women and lower-income populaincrease in the cost of panies' right of en- tions were increasingly contracting the videveloping a new drug. joying patent protec- rus, drug users, homosexual men, and prosIn 25 years, from 1975 tion for 20 years, the titutes continued to represent the major to 2000, the average cost Pmeatimi. actual patent life for risky groups for getting and transmitting to create a new drug indrugs is estimated to the disease. creased by 480 percent, from $138 million be almost half that, largely because of the When the first cases of AIDS were to $802 million. Besides, there is a high risk long time it takes to develop a new drug and identified in Brazil, the disease was mostly of not getting the drug developed or ap- to get it approved by the FDA. concentrated in the States of SAo Paulo and proved; FDA approves only 0.4 percent of As a result, generics are coming earlier Rio de Janeiro. However, by the end of the the drugs that enter preclinical testing, and into the market and in greater quantity, the 90's, as the virus was spread, every Brazilonly 30 percent ofthe drugs that manage to increased competition is causing prices to ian state had already identified AIDS cases â&#x20AC;˘ enter the market generate revenues that fall, and the consumer has begun to enjoy (Brazilian Ministry of Health, 2000). either break even or surpass average Re- more options lately. In spite ofrepresenting ' The Brazil response to the AIDS episearch and 'Development costs. According a higher share of the market, the generic demic was very effective and started at the to the Pharmaceutical and Manufacturers industry is still not satisfied and has been end of the 1980's, through a collective of America (Phrma), in 2002, the U.S. trying to change the Hatch-Waxman law to effort towards building a national program Pharmaceutical companies expended a to- allow generics to copy more medicines; to combat Sexually Transmitted Disease tal of $32 billion in R&D. Phrma joined forces with the U.S. Patent and AIDS. The civil society and the people As a result, the Pharmaceutical Indus- and Trademark office to argue that if these living with I-IIV virus were very active try claims it is necessary to protect its Changes ever occur, they will bring an players in this fight, which advanced siginventions through patents, so they can unfavorable imbalance, decreasing incen- nificantly at the second half of the 1990's. recoup the high amount of capital invested tives to innovation, injuring the industry The National Sexually Transmitted in the creation of the drug, which will and consumers.

Diseases (STD) and AIDS Program was enable them to engage in further developIn the international commerce arena, deated based in the principle that the prements. If, on the other hand, patents are not. pharmaceutical companies have been I vention to the disease should not be respected and other companies are granted heavily criticized, in particular by deve lop- decoupled from the assistance to people the right to produce copies ofthe medicine, ingand less developed countries, who claim already infected by the virus. Significant the general price will fall and the return on the need for cheaper medicines to treat their government resources have been applied investment will represent only a small share vast portion of population that suffer from to the program in order to prevent the ' of the potential value. Thus, companies serious disease and who, due to poor eco- spread of HIV. The increasing involvewill gradually loose the incentive to re- nomic conditions, cannot afford the pricy ment ofNGOs has made the program able search and develop further drugs that could medicines. While recognizing the impor- to reach marginalized groups, who are more mean the cure for currently fatal diseases tance of patent protection in promoting vulnerable to infection. The action plan set such as Alzheimer, AIDS, and others. incentives to further innovations, the soci- by the program has as main characteristics: In 1984, the Hatch-Waxman Act was ety has been debating the necessity of givGuarantee of human rights to those voted and passed by the Congress. The law ing access to medicines to people that can- leaving with HIV; gave generics manufacturers the chance of not afford them.

Establishment of voluntary counseling challenging patents, entering the market The main question on this issue posted and testing centers, guaranteeing free testbefore patent's expiration day. Even though to the world nowadays is: "What should ing for the population"; only 6 percent of all generic drug applica- come first: saving millions oflives throughGuarantee of free access to all of the tions for FDA repr,esent actual patent chal- out the world by providing access of al- available resources to treat the disease, lenges, the law helped generics to increase ready existing medicines to the poor, or such as medicines; their share in the market from 20 percent in enforcing property rights to enable pharIntervention methods of education to 1984 to almost 50 percent in 200212. maceutical companies to engage in further change risky behaviors; The ones who benefited most from the research to find the cure for current fatal Increased condom availability as well Hatch-Waxman law were the drug con- diseases? as syringes and needles; sumers; as the Act provided a balance Whereas the World Trade OrganizaNational communication system to disbetween generics creation and incentives tion has established the Agreement on seminate information on HIV/AIDS. for generation of new drugs, at the same Trade-Related Aspects ofIntellectual PropIn 1991, responding to demands of time increasing competition between re- erty Rights (TRIPS) as an attempt to en- some sectors of civil society, the Brazilian search based companies has grown drop- force patent protection worldwide, by al- government started the distribution of ping drug prices, several new revolutioniz- lowing poor countries to make use of corn- Zidovudine, or AZT, to the thousands liv14

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

ing with AIDS that had been prescribed treatment, increasing their hopes. This initiative caused negative reactions among the international scientific community, who feared that Brazil would not be able to administrate correctly the use of the drugs.

This could generate the creation of mutant forms of virus resistant to the medicines and thus the whole project would be unsustainable..

Nevertheless, the time showed that the policy, adopted in 1991 and updated the following years was sustainable, reflecting the ability oflimited-resources countries to reduce the impact of such a dangerous epidemic. In 1996, including protease inhibitors (Pls) in the package of medicines available to the population, the Ministry of Health increased the amount of antiretroviral (ARV) distributed, and has maintained this policy for each new medicine discovered by scientists.

These ARVs are an assemblage ofdnigs gathered together that attack the virus quickly and violently; 8 of them, out of a total of 15, are manufactured in Brazil.

Farmanguinhos (Rio de Janeiro), Lafepe (Pernambuco) and FURP (Sao Paulo) are the manufacturers that possess the technology to produce these drugs, including the most recent ones. The national manufacturing resulted in a fall in the prices of the drug by more than 70 percentI 4, which made it possible to the government to disâ&#x20AC;˘tribute the drugs gratuitously to the population. Moreover, Big Pharmaceutical Companies such as Roche and Merk, under the risk of having the patents disrespected, decided to negotiate lower prices with the Brazilian government.

Nowadays, the universal and free distribution of ARVs by the public health system consists in one of the most relevant aspects of the AIDS policy adopted by Brazil (15 types of ARVs have been distributed to more than 115 thousand people.)

Since 1996, this policy has been responsible for the drop of more than 50 percent of the deaths for AIDS and reduced by more than 80 percent the hospitalization rate associated with AIDS complications.

Besides, there was a decrease by 60 to 80 percent in the demand for treatment of AIDS-related diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. A time length and complexity of hospitalization cases were also reduced, reflecting a significant improvement in the quality of life of the people leaving with AIDS. In the last five years, 358 thousand hospitalizations were avoided, and because of that the country. saved US$ I billion in investmentresource's.

Thanks to the joint efforts of the government and the NGOs in Brazil, which were effective in selling to the population the importance of the use of condoms and

of safer injection habits for drug addic the HIV infection rates represented a su stantial decline among homosexuals, pro titutes, and intravenous drug users (Wor d Bank, 1999a); the infection of HIV amo g prostitutes dropped from 18 percent 1996 to 6.1 percent in 2000. Among horn sexuals, the reduction was from 10.8 p rcent in 1999 to 4.7 percent in 2001; d finally, among the ones who are addicted o intravenous drugs, the infection rate creased, from 21.4 percent in 1994 to 11.4 percent in 2000 (Ministry ofHealth, 200 ).

According to a 1992 projection by e World Bank, it was predicted in 2000 B zil would have 1.2 million people infect d with AIDS. However, the country jump into the new century with less than 610 thousand cases, the number of infe d people being estimated at 597 thous d, which represents a reduction in the in tion rate of more than 50 percent.

The FTAA and the Brazilian AI I S Case "We agree that the TRIPS agreem nt does not and should not prevent them rs from taking measures to protect pu lic health." "We affirm that the agreement an and should be interpreted and implemen ed in a mannersupportive of WTO memb rs' rights to protect public health and, in articular, to promote access to medicines or all."

The above excerpts were taken fr m the TRIPS Agreement, after its reform la0 tion in November of 2001, when the members, including the United States, et for one more round ofdiscussions, in D ha, Qatar, and signed the new agreement. e Doha Round clarified that public he 1th should be predominant over patent pro tion, bringing hope to the poor econo i les struggling to control the spread of ser sus disease inside their national borders.

Withal, the FTAA's first drafts o intellectual property were developed be ore the changes made on the TRIPS Ai ee'pent at Doha, and contain US intentio s of strengthened intellectual property righ in the American continent that go agains the country's promises made in Qatar. Alth ugh the FTAA text hasn't still made it offi ial, US public comments regarding negoti ing objectives on the Agreement have m. e it clear it seeks to enforce a TRIPS- 'Ius among the potential members. Itmay sund like pure speculation, but other evid nce also exemplifies the intentions of the ush in Administration to protect patent ri light of public health.

The two recent FTA Agreemen involving the US and the countrie of Singapore and Chile reflect clearl the intentions behind the US desire to ansform the whole continent into a singl free trade area, and thus can be seen as a pil itfor

what is going to be the FTAA. In the Advisory Committee Report to the President on U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement submitted by the Committee on Intellectual Property Rights for Trade Policy Matters (IFAC-3), the patent protection obligations that must be followed by Singapore go beyond those included in the TRIPS Agreement As it is described in the first paragraph of the patent section, "Singapore FTA include[s] a number of important clarifications of the existing TRIPS obligations as well as a number of additional provisions that enhance the standards of the TRIPS Agreement" The report also reveals that the United States seeks to establish, in the countries it signs the Trade Agreements with, the same Intellectual Property Protection level it has within its borders, which goes contrary to the international agreement that countries with different level of development should be treated differently poor countries don't always need to follow the same standards as the industrialized world.

Another report, sent by the same committee to the Bush Administration, this time covering the US-Chile FTA Agreement, states that the draft on Chile's FTA was not as well proposed, because in spite of the fact that it contains levels of patent protection higher that the ones established

by TRIPS, it is still not considered high enough according to US standards. On the other hand, the Committee considers the Singapore FTA closer to what the US expects of a bilateral/multilateral Agreement on Patent protection, stating, "IFAC-3 believes that it is critical that future FTAs include, at a minimum, all ofthe additional patent protections found in the Singapore FTA as well as provisions such as the twelve-month grace period," and further stating, "... [the Singapore] agreement, on the whole, establishes key precedential provisions to be included in the other FTAs now being negotiated, included the FTAA." But what are those additional provisions contained in these new US bilateral agreements that will likely be incorporated into the FTAA text and that could affect Brazil'?

They are: Restricting the grounds for compulsory licensing; Banning of parallel imports; 5 year protection from test regulatory data; Patent extension to make up for any regulatory delays; Generic drugs obligation ofgetting marketing approval issues by state agencies.

The US and the pharmaceutical companies intend to extend the patent for more than the 20 years stipulated by the TRIPS. Besides, by granting the companies exclu15

BFtAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

sive rights over handling the data of a a total debt of US$ 240 billion (World,. tion of the country will be affected overall. registered pharmaceutical product, the sys- Bank, April 2003). Therefore, it does not: Brazilians have to analyze, then, whether tem would create a monopoly for these possess reserves of capital. Even so, the the concessions it will have to make in companies in the market. Furthermore, the government has successfully managed to I order to gain market access, will be worth need for getting marketing approval would provide free and universal access to the the price it will have to pay. forbid generic drugs from reaching the drugs that treat the AIDS disease. This was Will the country, through further trade market promptly after the patent expires. on ly possible because the country has, sine liberalization, achieve overall prosperity These provisions, which provide stronger 1995, domestically produced AIDS treat- as the theory preaches? What if the price rights for patent holders, would be respon- ment generics and products like the brand the country has to pay is strengthening the sible for a delay or restriction in the produc- medicines. However, sooner or later, be- Intellectual Property Rights ofthe pharmation of cheaper generic versions of new sides the share of the population already in ceutical industry, and therefore stopping medicines. treatment, the 600 thousand infected by the producing the cheap and effective generic Currently, 8 of the 15 drugs that com- HIV virus, together with the new cases that medicines that have been distributed to pound the anti-aids cocktails are already are sure to surge, will develop the symp- many HIV positive people, which has premanufactured in Brazil. These are legal toms of the disease-requiring treatment. sented outstanding results by saving milcopies, which are not protected by patents, If Brazil signs the FTAA Agreement lion of lives? since Brazil has only started to recognize committed to respect the TRIPS-plus proIt is important to emphasize thaf the intellectual property rights ofphannaceuti- visions proposed bythe United States, which Brazilian government recognizes the imcals since 1996, when the law of patents will delay or restrict generics production, portance of the patents, since Brazil was was approved. The drugs not produced in even though Brazil may gain in enhancing one ofthe first emerging countries to adopt Brazil are purchased from foreigner labo- the export of commodities by the drop in a legislation that respects the provisions ratories. The Brazilian government is pres- trade barriers, it will also have to import at mandated by the World Trade Organizesuring to drop the prices of two of them, unreasonable prices the new drugs, pro- tion. While the Brazilian law on Patents Efavirenz and Nelfinavir. tected by patents, that will be developed to allows manufactures to copy any drug The purchasing ofthese two drugs con- further combat AIDS. launched in the marked before 1997 but sumed 36 percent of the US$ 200 million This will make a limited-resource coun- enforces intellectual property rights beBrazil spent in 2002 with anti-aids drugs. If try such as Brazil unable to carry forward yond this date, countries such as India and the domestic manufacturing of the 8 drugs its National Sexually Transmitted Diseases Argentina will only adequate to this system already mentioned were not made pos- (STD) and AIDS Program, which is seen , after 2005. In other words, the present sible, Brazil would be spending close to worldwide as a model of life saving. As a policy in Brazil complies with the WTO $500 million, which would make the free matter of fact, there are already new drugs ' Agreement established in the Uruguay and universal distribution of drugs imprac- launched in 2003 (in particular, new , round and confirmed in Doha. ticable(CNDSTâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;December2002). Thanks antiretroviral drugs)that Brazil cannot copy The efficacy of the Brazilian Program to the government health policy against because they are protected by patent. against AIDS was accomplished through AIDS, since the ARVs have been gratuTherefore, since the government would the commitment to provide treatment to itously distributed, the death rate related to have to pay the full patent price for the ' everyone who needs it, at the lowest price AIDS fell by more than 50 percent; addi- AIDS medicines, the drugs most likely ' possible, dealing with the epidemic as a tionally, 58 thousand new cases of AIDS would no longer be accessible to the total- public emergency disaster. This was made per year and a total of 358 thousand hospi- ity of HI V infected people, in particularthe possible not by breaking patents, but by talizations have been avoided. poor who cannot afford them. This people, adopting the efficacious strategy of forcing The prices of the treatment have also who started to gain hope after the success- down the prices charged by pharmaceutitumbled: today, the annual cost ofthe treat- ful implementation ofthe AIDS campaign, cal companies by threatening them with ment of one patient in Brazil is estimated in will lose the ability to control the disease compulsory license.

US$ 2,233. In the United States the annual and will begin to fear death again.

Brazil's current policy has worked well treatment/per capita costs between US$ Disillusionment and Suspicion :in reducing AIDS. Since AIDS became a 10,000 and US$15,000 and it is not granted Brazil is considered a key player to the ,controlled disease in Brazil and the HIV to everybody16 . This value corresponds to free trade agreement for the Americas, infected people were being granted with more than 3 times the per capita income in since it represents 40 percent of South free access to the drugs that treat AIDS, the Brazil. In 1997, 35 thousand people were America's total economy. However, the population became less reluctant to acgranted with the cocktail anti-AIDS. Nowa- home of over 175 million people still sees knowledge their HIV status and consedays, out of the 600 thousand infected with the FTAA with disillusionment and suspi- quently started to search for testing centers the HIV virus, 120 thousand are being cion. .to get their diagnoses. When people are treated with the ARVs distributed freely by The various sectors of the Brazilian 'mare of their AIDS status (positive or the government." nation have different feelings about engag- negative), the spread of the disease slows According to a research study con- ing in a free trade with the United Sates. Own, since the contaminated population ducted by The University of Campinas in Agricultural and textile exporters, who have tends to use protection when having sex Brazil (UNICAMP), in 1995, Brazil im- competitive advantage in relation to Ameri- with others. ported US$ 300 million in drugs. In 1999 can rivals because they enjoy much lower Therefore, the more successful the camthe import of drugs was already mounting costs, will be the grand winner if the US paign becomes, the more people increase to US$ 1.4 billion, an increase by 470 tariffs and non-tariff barriers are dropped their hopes, trust the system, are tested and percent. From 1994 to 1997, the deficit in or become nonexistent. then treated, and the less the disease spreads the Brazilian balance of trade was US$ 1 Nevertheless, whereas it is important to out. It represents a positive, instead of a billion, ifwe count only the pharmaceutical consider the consequences of the FTAA to vicious, cycle. Ifthe program is condemned sector. the goods and services industry, one cannot and the hope is taken away from them, the Brazil is a developing country with neglect the society; therefore, it is neces- gains achieved so far can be lost very many social-economic problems, carrying sary to put in perspective how the popula- quickly.

16

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

issue go to the World Health Organiza-

In reality, this successful policy VC tion Website: www.who.intlentity/hiv/ will be, put in jeopardy if Brazil topics/arv/en adopts stringent intellectual propBibliography erty rules in any FTAA negotiaBarnett, Tony and Alan tions. Hence, the Brazilian govern, Whiteside. AIDS in the twenty-first ment should analyze very carefully century: disease and globalization the trade-offs ofthis deal in order to Basingstoke, Hampshire; New avoid the mistake of trading export York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. dollars for lives. beers, Donald 0. Generic and The HIV testing in Brazil innovator drugs: a guide to FDA Nowadays, 1.145 Health Basic requirements. approval Units and 208 Examination and Gaithersburg, [Md.]: Aspen Law & Advising Centers (CTAs) provide Business, c1999 Barbosa, Rubens Antonio (BraHIV diagnostic through the Public zilian Ambassador to the United Health System. In 2001, The Unique States), "Think of Brazil as a SupHealth System financed the antiply Source" Embassy of BraziL HIV testing in more than 1.6 milBrazilian Embassy in Washington, lion people. However, it is esti2002. http://www.brasilemb.org/ mated that only 1/3 of the total trade embaixador brasil sunalv.shtml population in Brazil know their HIV (15 March 2003), Trade. status. By the other hand, in develBraga, Carlos Alberto Primo, et oped countries, 50 percent to 75 <h ://-wwvv.wtoo.or /en lish/thewto al. Intellectual Property Rights and Ecopercent of the population has already been whatis e/tif e/agrm6 e.htm> (1 April 20 nomic Development. Washington, DC: Agreements tested.

World Bank, c2000.

S Litman Law, Intellectual Property, < h The Brazilian Aids Program is working Burstyndoan N., et al. Preventing Vio> (9 A on a strategy to increase the amount of /www.litmanlaw.com/info/ip.htm lence in Schools: A Challenge to American 2003) Patent. people to be tested for HIV through a Democracy. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence 9 Compulsory License is a provision at national campaign. The involvement of allows countries to produce copies of b d Erlbaum, 2001.

Clovis Rossi. " Brasil vai retomar cities and states is fundamental for the medicines, Upon payment of a royalty to c batalha nas patentes",°Estado de S. Paulo success of the strategy since an infrastruc- Companies who own the brand.

When an importer finds a cheaper p ce (Brazilian newspaper) 9 February, 2003, ture containing laboratories and sites of of a'°good or equivalent good on the w rld Dinheiro, B3 •collection of blood samples has to be de- market and imports the good instead of pay ng Conner, Ross and Fan, Hung and veloped. The free access to antiretroviral higher local prices. These imports tend t be Villarreal, Luis P. AIDS: Science and Socihas stimulated the population to seek for outside authorized importer channels. Au o- eV. Boston: Jones and Bartlett, c2000. rized retailers, who are not allowed to so rce HIV diagnostic.

• Dillon, John and John W. Foster, "Free goods from parallel importers, generally pTrade Agreement of the Americas". ' "WHO Model List of Essential Medi- pose this practice since it makes them inCommon Frontiers Canada 27 March competitive against unauthorized retailers ho cines", World Health Organization. 22 April www.ecej.org/ can source these relatively cheap goods.

2001.

2002.

(Industry Pharmaceuticals ftaa%20presentation him> (March 2003) " "Global <http://www.who. int/medicines/organizaFeroze Ahmed. "Provide ARV Drugs tion/par/edl/lopinavir.doc> (28 February 2003) Overview)", Datamorntor Industry Profile nu@ 2002 pNA Free To HIV Patients" The Finacial Times 2 Marco Victoria, "Can Universal Access Resource Ce Business and om. to HAART Change the Profile of TB-HIV Co- 7 April 2003 (15 April 2003) "FTAA expands bad trade policy", Infection?", World 12 Pharmaceutical Research and Man Health Organization. June 2002. < http:// California State University, 26 April 2001 of America (PhRMA), www.who.int/gtb/whats-new/durban/June15/ turersPharmaceutical http : //www .csulb.edut--(149er/archives/ I ndustr Profile 2 Morning/I> (3 March 2003) 2001 /spring/opinion/v 8n 107 (Washington, DC: PhRMA, 2003).

3 FTAA - Free Trade Agreement of the revelations.shtml (April 2003) 13 See Annex I. Source: Minister ofHe 1th.

Americas, Second Draft Ageement, Draft Text FTAA—Free Trade Area ofthe AmeriMinister of Health, CNDS '4 on General and Coordenacao Nacional DST / AIDS (Nati inal cas, Draft Agreement: Chapter on IntellecInstitutional Issues, 2001. (Washington, Coordination of Sexual tual Property Rights 2002, (15 February .February 2003 Transmitted Disease and AIDS) De em- 2003) FTAA expands bad trade policy", Cali4" ber 2001, FTAA—Free Trade Agreement of the fornia State University, 26 April 2001 < www.aids.gov.br > (01 April 2104) Second Draft Agreement, Draft < ht4p://www.csu1b.edut-d49er/arch ives/ Americas, ica de Tratament 2 0 0 1 /spring/opinion/v 8 n 1 0 7- ( ratarneno Nac onal Text on General and Institutional Issues, MinisterofHealth,Coorden 15 revelations.shtml> (April 2003) 2001. (Washington, D.C.: 15 February Rubens Antonio Barbosa (Brazilian Am- DST / AIDS, December 2001, > (01 April 2 04) 2003). <www.aids.gov.br bassador to the United States), "Think of Brazil (Tratamento - Politica de Tratarnento) Gallagher, Peter. Guide to the WTO as a Supply " Politica Brasileira de AIDS: Princ pals and developing countries Boston, MA: Source" Embassy of Brazil, Brazilian Em2", Kluwer Law International, 2000 bassy in Washington, 2002. <http:// Resultados e Avancos 1994 - 20 www.br as i I em b o r g / CoordenaCao e prevencao "Global—Pharmaceuticals (Industry DST / AIDS, National Library, 2002 Datamonitor Industry Profile trade embaixador brasil supply.shtml> (15 Overview)", < htt ://www.aids. ov.br/final/bibli eca/ Annual 2002 pNA Business and Company March 2003), Trade.

Law, Intellectual Property,<http:/ politica 94 02.pdf > (March 2003) 6 Litman Resource Center, (15 April 2003) '7 The access to the drugs in Br 1 is /www.litmanlaw.com/info/ip.htm> (9 April universal, Herrington, Wayne W. and George W. the reason why only 120 tho sand 2003)WTO - World Trade Organization, In- out of600 thousand people have been tre ed is Thompson. Intellectual Property Rights 7 HIV tellectual Property: Protection and Enforce- because a person contaminated with the e or and United States International Trade virus should not start the treatment until Laws. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publicament". WTO / Trade she develops clinical AIDS, i.e. an adv ced tions, c2002 into the Future - deals - TRIPS, this stage of the disease. To read more abo

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

17

Holmer, Alan F., "The Case For Inno- ceutical Industry Profile 2003 (Washingvation: The Role of Intellectual Property ton, DC: PhRMA, 2003).

Protection". PhRMA 20 November 2002 "Politica Brasileira de AIDS: Principais www.phrma.org/publications/publications/ Resultados e Avancos 1994-2002", 20.11.2002.629.cfm (Februry 2003) Coordenacilo e prevencilo DST / AIDS, 1BGE—Instituto Brasileiro de National Library, 2002 htty:// Geografia e Estatistica (Brazilian Institute www.aids.gov.br/final/biblioteca/ ofGeography and Statistics), Public Avail- politica 94 02.pdf (March 2003) able Data, 2002 (01 March 2003) Rubens Ricupero, "Direito a saude e a "Intellectual property/ Patents & tradi- vida", 0 Estado de S. Paulo (Brazilian tional knowledge". Business and Human newspaper) 12 Jan 2003, Dinheiro B4 Rights: a resource Website. http:// Russell, Asia, "Health GAP comments www.businesshumanrights.org/Intellec- submitted to the office of the USTR on the tual-properry.htm (April 2003) second draft text of the FTAA", Health Litman Law, Intellectual Property, http:/ Gap Access Project, 28 February 2003 /www.litmanlaw.com/info/ip.htm (9 April Schott, Jeffrey J. The WTO After Se2003) attle. Washington, DC: Institute for InterLuis Nassif. "Um feito diplomatico national Economics, 2000 historico," 0 Estado deS. Paulo (Brazilian "The FTAA; Access to newspaper) 16 November 2001, Dinheiro, Treatment and Human Rights", / AIDS Human B3 Rights Watch, 29 October 2002 http:// Mario Magalhaes. " Govern° tem hrw.org/press/2002/1 0/ftaa1029-bck.htm sucesso em AIDS e vacina," 0 Estado de S. (15 April 2003) Paulo (Brazilian newspaper) 23 October "Understanding the web of price re2002, Caderno Especial, Pg.10 duction: a pricing guide for the purchase of Milner, Chris and Robert Read. Trade ARVs for developing countries." Access to liberalization, competition, and the WTO Essential Medicine December 2002 Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Ed- www.accessmed-msf15 org 5 April 2003 ward Elgar, c2002.

United States. Congress. Senate. ComMinister of Health, CNDST— mittee on Health, Education, Labor, and Coordenacao Nacional DST / AIDS (Na- Pensions. Closing the gaps in Hatchtional Coordination of Sexual Transmitted Waxman: assuring greater access to afDisease and AIDS) December 2001 fordable pharmaceuticals: hearing before www.aids.gov.br (01 April 2004) the Committee on Health, Education, La(Tratamento—Politica de Tratamento) bor, and Pensions. Washington D.C. U.S. Pharmaceutical Research and Manu- G.P.0, 2002. facturers of America (PhRMA), Pharma"US bullying on drug patents: One year

after Doha". Oxfam Briefing Paper www.haiweb.org/campaign/access/ OxfamSummary.html (March 2003) Vict6ria, Marco, "Can Universal Access to HAART Change the Profile of TBHIV Co-Infection?", World Health Organization. June 2002. http://www.who.int/ gtb/whats-new/durban/June15/Morning/1 (3 March 2003) "WHO Model List of Essential Medicines", World Health Organization. 22 April 2002. http://www.who.int/medicines/organization/par/edl/lopinavir.doc (28 February 2003) Wills, Brian Steel. A Battle from the Start: The Life ofNathan Bedford Forrest.

New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

"WTO Summit: Don't Undercut AIDS Drug Access, Human Rights Watch7 November 2001 <http://hrw.org/press/ 2001/1 1 /wto-aidsl I 07.htm> WTO—World Trade Organization, "Intellectual Property: Protection and Enforcement". WTO / Trade into the Future—deals—TRIPS, http:// www.wtoo.org/english/thewto e/whatis e/ tif e/agrm6 e.htm (1 April 2003) Agreements Zoellick, Robert B. and Celso Lafer, Public Hearing Interview, Office of the USTR 20 September 2002.

Andrea Garrafa Gouveia, the author, just finished her Master's Degree in International Commerce and Policy at George Mason University. She welcomes comments at afgarrafavahoo.com

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brazzil@brazzil.com

today. Fortunately there are many black Americans who have not used their past as an excuse to blame everyone else. but themselves for their inability to accept the responsibility for their own destiny and move on.

If you spoke more about the role of Portuguese government or the dictatorship of Salazar in the last century as the cause of the problems in Portugal's former colon i es, your articl e would have been more plausible. Was Portugal the only nation to steal gold from Brazil? I think today you couldn't say that Portugal is the "bi guy" in Brazil anymore. I'm sure you've hear of the Greater Carajas Development Program.

And trying to compare the Samba to the "gloomy" Fado certainly shows a lack of cultural understanding when it comes to the origins of the Portuguese. Perhaps you need to read up on Portuguese history a little more.

"It may sound like a cliche but on my first visit to Lisbon I felt I was in an African rather than a European city." Yes, I would agree with you here. It is a cliche. Have you been to Paris lately? Or London? Or New York? Yes, the world is becoming a very small place indeed.

But Portugal also have many immigrants from eastern Europe and they are opening businesses and thriving here. Maybe the Brazilians you speak of should have visited the US or Canada instead of Europe (most likely at the height of the crowded tourist season) to see how well the Portuguese are doing. And might I add that many of the Brazilians I know here are doing quite well.

Virtually every nation or people in the world has been exploited by another more powerful nation or people at some point in history. And sometimes the very ones who were exploited later became the exploiters. This is unfortunately the sad truth of man's tendency towards greed and cruelty in the name ofpower.

In this, Portugal is no different from any other nation.

Deborah Monteiro Portugal VEJA BURNING The article on the Veja special "Teen" edition - "Veja's Yankee Brazilian Teens www.brazzi I .com/2003/htm I/news/articles/ aug03/p115aug03.htm - was excellent. I am living in Salvador, Bahia and when I saw the magazine on the rack at my local supermarket I felt disgust at the cover, which shows a group of white, middle class teens with one token black guy.

When is Brazil's media going to reflect Brazil's racial reality? The damage to selfesteem and ethnic pride is enormous. How

many times have I complemented someone here in Salvador on their beauty only to be told that I am more beautiful because I have blonde hair and blue eyes. It fills me with anger and sadness. I would love to see all the editions of Veja "Teen" be burned in the Praca da Se in the Pelourinho.

Michael Andersen Salvador, Bahia I FEEL YOUR PAIN Re: "If Only I Knew a Little Portuguese www. brazzi I . c om/2003 /htm I/news/art i cles/ jun03/p142jun03.htm Dear John Daniel, Fear does not describe how I felt when I first went to Brazil (Sao Paulo and Rio in one trip). I am a musician (trombonist), and was on tour, playing Gospel music. I had never been to South America, and certainly had never been to a country where most of the population spoke no, I mean, NO English. I felt like a Japanese tourist here in New York City, I mean, I stayed in a pack man. "Never leave the group dude, just DO NOT LEAVE THE BLOODY GROUP!".

Folks were nice enough, actually, much nicer then here in New York City (my home town). But ugh, the language barrier was pronounced with a capital "P".

After 18 days, my head was bangin', I could barely speak 10 or 12 words of Portuguese (and I did that so badly I embarrassed myself regularly). Frustration became my middle name.

Imagine, you get off stage having played your butt off, men and unbelievably fine women are coming up to you trying to talk to you, and you understand nothing, and you can say even less.

As I said before, UGH1111111 There is more to this story, but then, I would bore you.

David New York, NY LATIN, YES SIREE Brazil is a beautiful country that has many specific characteristics that make it special, however it is part of Latin America, and like all the other countries in Latin America it shares with them a history and traditions that are more important than its differences.

God knows I would love to die in a Carnaval in Rio, and yes their game is beautiful, but still a Latin American country nonetheless. Either we start seeing that the common factors that unite us are more important than our differences, or we continue in the dark ages of separatism. Saludos, JDRodriguez Via Internet

CARING FOR PORTUGAL Dear Mr Fitzpatrick, Regarding your article "The Samba and the Fado,' - www.brazzil.com/p132feb03.htm. I would disagree with you when you say "the average Brazilian cares little for Portugal".

Today Portugal is full of Brazilians who care very much for Portugal because Portugal has given them the opportunity to become Portuguese citizens and EU members, whether or not they then decide to move on to more fertile territory within the EU. And ifanyone is putting constraints on Brazilian request for Portuguese citizenship, it is other EU member countries.

But many Brazilians remain in Portugal because they share a common language and the Portuguese are, in general, a people of racial and religious tolerance unlike many other "richer" EU neighbours.

I am indebted to Brazil for being the first country my Portuguese grandfather sailed to in the beginning of the 20th century and where he first sold fish and later became a cook on a boat that made trips up the Amazon River. He sailed FOR MORE LETTERS AND ENTIRE to Brazil when he was 9 years old to help Can't you find Brazzil at your Brazilian LETTER SEE: support his mother after his father had died of consulate? http:/hvww.brazzil.com TB. He didn't return rich with gold plunder. but Don't ask us why, ask the consulate. with fond memories of the friendships he made with the local and native people and the courage Allow 5 to 7 weeks to receive your first issue. No back issues sold. No subscriptions by phone. and maturity to face an unsure future.

Use your credit card or make check to Brazzil and mail it to: Later he would sail to the USA, fleeing the BRAZZIL - P.O. Box 50536 - Los Angeles, CA 90050-0536 poverty and dictatorship of Portugal. I am indebted to him and without his sacrifice I would 0 rit take 1 year (12 issues) not be the person I am today. I was born and educated in the US, but chose to live in Portugal 0 NEW 0 RENEWAL and have continued to do so for the past 21 years For into: (323) 255-8062 - Email:brazzil@brazzil.com and have never regretted this decision or the decision to become a dual national.

WHY NOT SEND A GIFT TO 10 100 EVERYONE YOU KNOW? USE YOUR CREDIT I have also traveled to Brazil in homage to CARD my grandfather and visited the land where he lived, Belem do Para. You speak of the poverty of Portugal but next to India, I have never seen Name: such poverty as in the streets of Rio and Sao Paulo. What was most shocking to me were the Company: orphaned children living on the streets. I won't go into detail as I'm sure you know all about Address: their lives.

Do you blame this on the Portuguese too?

City: State: ZIP: I do not understand your apparent need to denigrate the Portuguese for every ill of the E-mail Tel: Brazilian people. It somehow reminds me ofthe plight of black Americans who still blame their past history of slavery for all their hardships of Yearly rate for Canada & Mexico: $15. All other countries: $18 (surface mail).

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BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

Deja Vu:

Lula da Silva Quadros

Six months ago, who would be deranged enough to predict that public servants would be rallying in the streets,- that the Judiciary would rise up against the Executive? Or anyone daring to imagine Lula's party trying to expel legislators for remaining faithful to the party's agenda?

Public works stopped? Social programs immobilized?

CARLOS CHAGAS

Someone wrote somewhere that the past is our most precious treasure, not because it tells us what to do, but bec use it tells us what to avoid. History repeated is, of course, only a farce. Times are diferent and the world is never the same. Brazil has changed and so have the Brazilia people. Still, it pays to pay attention. At each day President Lula reminds us more nd more of former President Janio da Silva Quadros, who was inaugurated presi& nt in January 1961. First, for having brought the provincialism of sao Paulo to Bra ilia. Second, because he promised everything to everyone during the campaign and n w, in power, realizing that he can't keep those promises, displeases instead everyon Judiciary against Executive Six months ago, we would have a ested anyone deranged enough to predict that public servants would now be rallying in the streets against the workers' government, the one they helped elect. Or anyone p edicting that the Judiciary Branch would ever rise up against the Executive. Worse s ill, anyone daring to imagine the PT (Workers' Party, Lula's own party) trying to expe legislators for remaining faithful to the party's agenda. Or the landless infringing on the authority of the President by declaring, in his presence, that land invasions are oing to go on.

Ruralists refusing an invitation sr a meeting and increasingly arming themselves? The country's entrepreneurs irotesting and criticizing economic policies?

The middle class hurt in their buyingsower? Public works stopped? Social programs immobilized?

President Lula would be well ad ised to be aware. Janio Quadros was not a Pernambucano, but a Mato-Grosse se by birth, albeit a Paulista by training and concepts. He started by fooling the v st majority who voted for him by gathering a passable cabinet composed of Pauli tas unknown even in sao Paulo, although his Justice Minister, Pedroso Horta, was exceptional, never mind the coincidences.

Saying One Thing Doing Anot er During the campaign, Jan io Quad o talked to all kinds of workers, promising new labor laws and more social rights, bu I he refused to allow for wage increases. At the universities, he sounded like Lenin's ounger brother, but did not hesitate in sending the Army to the streets of Recife ti suffocate a student rally. In meetings with businesspeople, he defended absolute prerogatives for the capital, which his Treasury Secretary followed through.

He handed down Instruction 204 of the defunct SUMOC (Superintendencia de Moeda e Credito—Currency and Credit Superintendency), which benefited speculators. He declared Brazil bankrupt an was only concerned with the foreign debt. He advanced with sharp claws and open angs over the public servant sector, demanding dupla jornada (double working hour.) and slashing benefits, ironically committing himself to pitiful back-ups. With his naction on agrarian reform, he encouraged the illegal work done by Francisco Julia 's Peasant Leagues. He scorned UDN (Uniao Democratica Nacional—National D mocratic Union), the party who had supported him, and ended up losing his suppo base in Congress.

Seven months into his office, Jani exploded. He resigned. Some even say that he did it in order to return later, with no I ongress and no Constitution, attempt thwarted.

Of course no similarities will be sund between the state of mind of the President who inaugurated the 1960s and the • esident inaugurating this new century. It is, however, opportune to record simil situations—some even identical.

Serious accusation In the midst of allth is march-and-r; verse discussion around reformaprevidenciaria (welfare reform), a seriously bruisin accusation was made by Senator Paulo Paim: last November, R$ 6 billion (2 bi lion dollars) disappeared from the chest of Previdencia Social. The destination rn f such monies was unrelated to their mandatory purpose. It was probably used to pa for some of the interest on the foreign debt.

The legislator from Rio Grande o Sul is holding firm in the first line of defense of public servants and does not avoi criticizing the government and even his own party, the PT, although the languag he uses is definitely more affable than the one used, for example, by Senator Heloi a Helena.

One of the reasons leading to the sacking up by the administration on the issue of welfare reform may be witnessed in the position taken by PT legislators who, like Paim, neither squawk or attack, b t demonstrate willingness to vote against the proposals that can make the lives o Brazilian public servant even worse than they already are. and is a represenCarlos Chagas writes for the Ri 's daily Tribuna da Imprensa your comments at tative of the Brazilian Press Associ tion, in Brasilia. He welcomes carloschaeashotmail.com Tereza Braga is a freelance Portu uese translator and interpreter based in Dallas. She is an accredited membe of the American Translators Association. Contact: terezab@sbcglobal.net 21

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

Brazil's Lord Protector There is no discussion in which Brazil's Chief of Staff Jose Dirceu does not give the final word. It seems like he is the one in power. Unlike in England, though, he exercises it on behalf of the king—sorry, Lula. His attitude increasingly resembles that of Cromwell, as he ties together the political and administrative controls of the State.

CARLOS CHAGAS

For details, go to the History books, an actor working in the wrong play. because this is only a summary. From Dirceu Denounces 1649 to 1660 England became a repubthe Cardoso Administration lic. King Charles I had closed the ParliaIt boggles the mind of many of his ment, but was forced to reopen it and comrades how he sustains the current soon enough the shock came. Its memeconomic and political situation, apbers, who represented not the real people proved the shocking budgets cuts for the but the emerging bourgoisie and small social ministerios, demands the squarrural nobility, refused to approve the ing in and punishment of those who rise budget for the war with Scotland. against the neoliberal model, negotiates After rejecting anotherthreat to close support from historically unreliable blocs down and under the leadership ofOliver of Congress and, above all, demonstrates Cromwell, the Parliament regimented an apparent scorn for any type of ideolan army, confronted the royal troops and ogy. won. King Charles I ended up decapiHe proved it by conforming to the tated and Cromwell became the ruler, patterns of the last eight years to a tee, with the title of Lord Protector. He was even traveling to the United States to put actually a dictator—a Puritan, compethe State Department and the speculatent and inflexible. Two years after his tors at ease, only to later label as damned death, the monarchy was back. inheritance the commitments inherited Chief0fStaffControls Ministerios by the current government. And he has Why on earth has Chief of StaffJose just formulated an extremely serious Dirceu been called our Lord Protector? accusation against the Cardoso adminIt's not that he plans to decapitate Presiistration. dent Lula. After all, we have been a He said that corrruption prevailed Republic for quite a while. He is not one on those days, referring to certain to even represent the demands of Conprivatizations. Could he have had inforgress; quite the contrary. Increasingly, mation about the illicit tactics of though, he is undergoing this transforBanestado? One thing is certain: he will mation into a Lord Protector. We just pursue the accusation with the same don't know exactly what it is that he's inflexibility he used to propose the reprotecting. form ofPrevidencia (social welfare sysThere is no discussion in which he tem). does not participate, decide and give the In the cabinet itself, Lord Protector final word. I don't mean to build large is no longer simply respected. He is comparisons, but it seems like he is the feared. When it's time to admonish some one in power. Unlike in England, though, recalcitrant minister, the initiative comes he exercises it on behalf of the king— from him. Also from him come the insorry, Lula. The two are not going to formation about a possible reorganizacollide head on, we hope, but the attition of the team advising the president. tude of the Chief of Staff increasingly Ifthe telephone rings and the call is from resembles that of Cromwell, as he ties the office of the Chief of Staff, everyone together the political and administrative shudders. controls of the State. For the EnglishConclusion: it's a profile that tends man of the 17th century, there could be to be rare, if not unprecedented, in our no obstacles for the achievement of his history. Where this will lead, no one can major purpose, which was the end of tell. It could even end at the Planalto absolutism, the grandeur of England and Palace, seven years from now, in case the purity of religious faith. And for Lula wins reelection in 2006. Or even Dirceu? before. It would be the union of formal There are people comparing him to power with actual power. To protect Richelieu or Mazzarino. Others prefer whom? The image ofthe president? The to remember the Marquis of Pomba!, in liturgy of power? The government? The Portugal. And there are those who favor nation? The party? The workers and the Golbery do Couto e Silva or Leitao de less favored? The economic agents?

Abreu, in a concentration of all images England knew, from the beginning, of recognition of strength behind the what their Lord Protector protected. We throne. No similarity, however, could will need to wait on. be more appropriate than that of Lord Protector.

Carlos Chagas writes for the Rio's For that same reason there are those daily Tribuna da Imprensa and is a who rebel, even if they lack the courage representative of the Brazilian Press to make their rebellion public. Could Association, in Brasilia. He welcomes today's Jose Dirceu be the same man your comments at from the times ofthe student leaderships carloschagasAhotmail.com in Sao Paulo, the urban uprising, the exile, the guerilla training in Cuba and, Tereza Braga is a freelance Portulater, the clandestine return to Brazil? guese translator and interpreter based in Or could those characters already have Dallas. She is an accredited member of been the Jose Dirceu of today? The man the American Translators Association. knows what he wants, demonstrates the Contact: terezabAsbcglobaLnet same old steadfastness and often turns merciless. The devil is that he looks like

22 BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

According to all indications, only God can attack mankind from now on. Since God doesn't exist, we are indeed in a jam. This is what we heard from our President last week: "Rest assured that there's no rain, no frost, no nose turned up, no National Congress and no Judiciary Branch; only God himself can stop us from making this country gain the position ofprominence that it should never have failed to gain" ("us" understood as "me").

Translation: paltry mundane institutions such as Congress and the Judiciary are no obstacle for the stud from Garanhuns, the one who prides himself in impregnating at the first mating. And then we have the so-called prominence that Brazil supposedly should have deserved and failed to deserve, as if Brazil had ever enjoyed any prominence in anything besides soccer or the rumps of mulatas.

Now in power, Lula finally shows his claws. Imagine if it had been Fernando Henrique uttering such an absurdity. He would immediately be ran down as a crook or dictator. In previous essays, I pictured Lula as the reincarnation of Chance Gardener, Jerzy Kosinski's emblematic character in the novel Being There (0 Vidiota, in the Brazilian translation). Chance is the gardener in a mansion whose only contact with the world is his television set. While I'm not familiar with our President's daily habits, it seems that I hit the nail right on the head. In the last edition of Veja, LauroJardim writes: "Here is an important aspect ofthe way in which Lula governs: he is addicted to Never in the whole history of television newscasts. Many of his decisions about whether or not to speak on the Brazilian Republic has a this or that topic are made primarily by what he watches on TV".

President uttered so much But movies are prodigal in archenonsense in just six months What types. Our readers must have seen Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove (Dr. we have now is a President who is Fantcistico, in translation). If you did, surely never forgot the gesticulation proud to display his lack of you of the Nazi scientist living in asylum in culture, a President who flaunts the U.S. Dr. Strangelove is constantly using his left hand to constrain his right his monoglotism and brags about arm, which insists in rising for the salutaA similar conditioned not needing to speak any English tion to the Fiihrer.petista leader in Brazil. reflex assails our in order to be respected abroad. The instant he gets excited, something from his innermost self rises againâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;his Bolshevik hatred for vile bourgeois instiJANER CRISTALDO tutions like Congress or the Judiciary.

Going back to Fernando Henrique,

In Brazil, the Onetongued is King

he is credited with the now folkloric "please forget what I wrote". His successor may or not have said "please forget what I said", but he definitely acts as if this were his plea. It's not enough to forget what he once said, though; it's actually forbidden to repeat it. While on campaign, in a naĂŻve demonstration of the level of his intellect, Lula called veados (queers) the inhabitants of Pelotas (city in the state of Rio Grande do Sul).

On the next day, the PT (Workers' Party) filed a lawsuit to forbid the press from publishing this brilliant find. Recently, a pet ista congressman reprinted the recording of a speech in which, among other courtesies, Lula called his now ally, Sarney, a thief. For having quoted the country's leader, the congressman is on the brink of expulsion from the Party.

"He committed the most serious offense in the PT, which is that of hurting the personal honor of a member and attacking the party"â&#x20AC;&#x201D;said one Planalto Palace courtier.

But all Joao Fontes did was to quote the source, which means that he simply transcribed what the boss had said. I always stated that there is a Stalinist DNA in the PT. Let them coexist with power a little longer and the PT will start eliminating from photographs any inconvenient characters posing beside the Maximum Leader, in the best style of Joseph Vissarionovitch Djugatchivili, the Peoples' Daddy. It's not by chance that the Eminent Reproducer has been proclaiming himself as the father of the nation. Any similarity is not a mere coincidence.

- Two days later, he retracted: "In no moment has it crossed the mind of the President to offend in any way the National Congress or the Judiciary Branch."

Lula, who has for a long time now acquired the majestic habit of referring to himself in the third person, seems to have forgotten the reference he once made about the legislative chambers as the "three hundred swindlers in Congress".

We now understand the slick resort to the third person. Nothing at all crossed the mind of the President. Something, yes, crossed the mind of the presidential candidate.

Before we are faced with prohibition to publish what Lula said about his peers, let me reproduce a piece of his thinking when he was in the process of framing the PT while president of the Union of Metallurgy Workers in the Sao Paulo ABC (part of the greater Sao Paulo area). In July 1979, Lula gave an interview to Playboy magazine in which he mentioned Hitler and Khomeini as two political figures for whom he harbored deep admiration.

Praising Hitler's disposition, strength and dedication, he stated: "Hitler, al23

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

though wrong, had that thing I admire in a man, the fire to commit to do something

and to go ahead and try it". About Khomeini: "I don't know much about Iran, but the strength that Khomeini showed, his determination to end that regimen of the Shah, was serious business".

Past pronouncements put aside, never in the whole history of the Republic has a President uttered so much nonsense in just six months. Even if by miracle Lula does not leave the country worse than he found it, the damage is already done. The average level of our national culture, which has never been high, took a plunge with his ascension into power. What we have now is a President who is proud to display his lack of culture. A President who flaunts, as a prize, his monoglotism.

While aspiring to be the leader of Latin America, the man is proud not to speak any Spanish. In a country in which families face scarcity to be able to afford a course in English for their children— because families know that without English nobody can go very far—our atrocious monoglot brags about not needing to speak any English in order to be respected abroad.

Some palace courtier obviously stuck into his brain that he is respected abroad.

In Europe he was treated with the defer-

24

ence owed to any foreign dignitary, whether he is the President of Ougadouga or Burkina Fasso. In his insipience, the man confuses protocol with respect. From the "Eagle of the Hague" (*) we are down to "jhe Parrot of Evian", to quote from a clever note by one of Brazilian philoso-

with the world. But none of that moves our President. With his ego inflated by his numbers in the elections and by the media constantly incensing him, Lula transforms his deficiencies into virtues.

Head over wheels in love with himself and his past, he misses no opportunity to pher Olavo de Carvalho's students. And extol his want of culture. we still have three and a half years of If Lula's opinions about Hitler and folly ahead of us.

Khomeini were left unnoticed, his curWe Brazilians tend to look at Africa rent statements about Congress and the with a certain compassion. But even ldi Judiciary Branch confirm those old Amin Dada, the grotesque dictator of flames. The arm of our tupiniquim verUganda, spoke English. That a Brazilian sion of Dr. Strangelove is starting to factory worker can't speak English is jump up, and ever more frequently. understandable. Many cultured people--even among the wealthy do not speak Translator's Note: (*) Reference to English in Brazil.

Rui Barbosa ( I 849- I 923), lawyer, writer What is inadmissible for a President and liberal politician nicknamed A Aguia is to take pride in not being able to speak de Haia any other language. Bush is also a monoglot, but he manipulates a language Janer Cristaldo—he holds a PhD ofuniversal transit. And, still, Bush would

never dare to boast about not speaking any other language. Not to mention that nobody would bet a dime on the cultural level of the current American President.

My apologies to patriotolics, but you can't go far with Portuguese. To know a language besides your own vernacular is to open a window to other cultures, to expand your own knowledge, to exercise your intellectual curiosity and to speak

from University of Paris, Sorbonne—is an author, translator, lawyer, philosopher and journalist and suffers SAo Paulo. His e-mail address is cristalbaguete.com.br Tereza Braga is a freelance Portuguese translator and interpreter based in Dallas.

She is an accredited member of the American Translators Association.

Contact: terezab@sbcglobal.net

BRAWL-AUGUSTM

The French say "bonnet" and the Americans "cap". In Brazil it's "bone".

We try to make it simple, but faced with the commotion created by the little red cap with the MST (Landless Workers Movement) logo on the head of President Lula, we will soon have something similar to the cakes of Marie Antoinette.

Exaggeration abounds from every side: critics of the media say it has gone overboard in attributing so much political significance to an insignificant gesture in the presidential routine. Critics of the government respond by saying that any gesture from the nation's leader has meanings that can't be ignored or minimized.

The fact is that both sides cling to a symbol but the real issue is different, and bigger: what we have is a gigantic set of gears used for simplifying everything, beginning in the media—unable to refuse it— and ending on those who need the simplification in order to make their messages intelligible. In other words: we are in the territory of drama. Theatre with no dialogue, based in signs—a pantomime.

The "crise do bone" used a piece of clothing and converted it into a political message simply because we are deeply inserted into a self-feeding circuit where everything is fragmented and reduced to signs. The media needs them to lend meaning to the information it circulates, and the producers of in formation can't be without them, in order to be understood.

The bone is the disguise of a system which is apparently convenient to all but which is, in reality, the enemy of all who want something beyond a virtual culture—maybe a facilitator in appearance, but complicating in its essence.

The disarticulation of this system starts with a review of the events affecting our media since the 1990s. The feat of overthrowing President Collor was casual and marginal and resulted less from its virtues than from its vices. Enthused with the triumph, the media strived to increase its fire power at any price. It went into telephonic tapping and demoralized investigative journalism. It in-

Smoke and Mirrors Lula's cap crisis was just a piece of clothing that w converted into a political messa because we are deeply insert into a self-feeding circuit whe everything is fragmented a reduced to signs. The rned a needs them to lend meaning the information, and t producers of information nee them in order to be understoo ALBERTO DINS

vested heavily into increasing audiences by playing magic tricks, paying no attention to the process of building credibility through editorial quality.

Then came modas & manias (fashions and fads), hypochondria & therapies, with the appearance of knowledge but the basic mission of paving the way for the supremacy of the trivial and the consecration of irrelevance. We succeeded in the feat of covering the invasion of Iraq without having ever explained how and why Iraq was created. The electoral campaign was covered with a reasonable equidistance but after inauguration it was clear that in this land, impartiality is the sum of partialities.

To generalized destitution we added strategic disorientation. Companies have their hats in their hands and no ideas in their heads. Communication vehicles insist in making noise but all the drum is doing is to drbne, like a cuica. Following all the streamlining and reengineering, the ones with the biggest salaries were fired and suddenly it was discovered that without them, the media could no longer mediate.

In this scenario, the hone fitted as a glove. The government rocked on all the symbols and metaphors while the media fooled itself with the idea that its mission consisted in simply changing them. Not even the so-called intellectuals are able to articulate a more consistent way of thinking, entangled in mottos, words of command, cliches and scams of a code accessible only to communicators and communicants.

In the times of the Estado Novo and censorship, the masses nicknamed DIP (the Department of Press and Propaganda) the "One who Talks-to-Himself'.

These days, with the media choking, all we hear are the bones of the MST and the quepes (kepis) of the UDR (Uniao Democratica Ruralista—Democratic Ruralist Union).

Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR—Laborat6rio de Estudos Avancados em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of the Observat6rio da Imp rensa. He also writes a column on cultural issues for the Rio daily Jornal do Brasil. You can reach him by email at obsima(&,ie.com.br

_Tereza Braga is a freelance Portuguese translator and interpreter based in Dallas.

She is an accredited member of the American Translators Association.

Contact: terezabAsbcglobal.net 25

BRAZZIL -AUGUST 2003

quarters as being anti-democratic but, since the demonstrators were virtually threatening elected representatives, it is hard to Let us hope this display of feel much sympathy for them. This rougher element has been joined by the nation's judges and prosecutors who are threatbullying by the joint blue and white ening to go on strike on August 5. Is it just coincidence that this is the day when the first vote may be held? collar sectors continues. This will Let us hope this display of bullying by the joint blue and show the lengths to which some white collar sectors continues because it shows the people the lengths to which some people will go to look after themselves, people will go to look after regardless of the common good. themselves, regardless of the Without excusing the civil servants, their behavior is less serious than that of the judges and prosecutors whose threat to common good. The judges threat strike is a serious challenge to a democratic state and an intolerable abuse of power. It is the first time in Brazilian to strike is a serious challenge to history that such a threat has come from this quarter. One PT democracy and an intolerable member remarked bitterly that it was a pity the judges had not gone on strike when the rule of law had been broken during the abuse of power. military dictatorship years (1964-1985). The president of the Supreme Court claimed that back then, judges and prosecutors JOHN FITZPATRICK were not entitled to strike.

Despite this unprecedented militancy by these members of the judiciary, many people are remarkable blasĂŠ about the It has been quite a week. The pension reform proposals whole affair. Since justice does not really exist in Brazil and the were given a symbolic nod of approval by a Congressional legal system moves so slowly, the effects of any strike are committee in the face of the juggernaut of vested interests unlikely to be immediate. In any case, the lawyers and judges determined to protect their privileges. The vote'was clear-30 will lose what little respect they have and, unless they change to 8â&#x20AC;&#x201D;but, at the same time, the governing allies took pains to their approach, will crash lemming-like over the cliff edge. weed out most, but not all, the opponents from its own side.

The government acted swiftly and broke off negotiations This does not mean the proposals will be approved since with them. President Luiz Mach) Lula da Silva, who has kept an there are many amendments and plenty of disgruntled repre- unusually low profile over the last week, chose the occasion to sentatives just waiting to tear the bill to shreds. Government surface once and wasted no time in castigating them. Without leaders are talking of having a first vote on August 5, so lots of actually naming the judiciary he said: "90 percent of the public backroom meetings are going on as the administration tries to sector gets paid badly and lives badly when they retire but there cater to the special interests without gutting the bill. is a privileged sector which does not agree with the pension The reform-minded Congressmen are facing intense pres- reform... In a country where there are 40 million hungry people sure, bordering on intimidation, from the forces which want to and the minimum salary is R$ 240 (US$ 85 a month) there are maintain the status quo in an unusual alliance of striking civil people who think that retiring on R$ 17,000, R$ 19,000, R$ servants and members of the judiciary. The unhappy so-called 20,000 or R$ 30,000 (from roughly US$ 6,000 to US$ 10,000) civil servants who taunted Congressmen and accused them of is not enough." There are times when Lula says the wrong being traitors and worse, met their match when the military things and times when he says the right things and this was one police cleared them out of the House of Representatives. of the times when he got it right.

The decision to bring in the police was criticized in some It is too early to say whether this strike will really come 26

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

about. The judges have been universally slammed and know deep down that they have no genuine grievance, despite their pompous claims to be the sole power which can control the Executive and legislative branch of government in support of the common citizen. They have no public or political support, nor any dynamic leadership.

Since they earn good salaries and the average pension comes to around R$ 8,000 (US$ 2,700) a month they will start thinking again when they realize what they have to lose. Unlike striking car workers or even lower level civil servants, this kind of person is not used to surviving without his perks and any prolonged strike is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Lula' s priority is to get enough support for the proposals to be passed on the first vote. For this reason, he is trying to create a kind of"political committee" made up ofparty leaders to try and reach some kind of agreement. At the same time, he has to sort out the so-called "Group of 30" dissidents within the PT and also ensure the backing of the PMDB (Partido do Movimento Democratic° Brasileiro--Brazilian Democratic Movement Party). Although the PMDB is now officially an ally ofthe government it has still not yet been given a high level ministerial appointment. The other parties, including the PL (Partido Liberal Liberal Party) of vice president Jose A lencar, will also need some sweeteners.

Lula is also under pressure to back up with facts his recent statement that in July there would be signs of growth. With only a few days of the month left at the time of writing, these signs have still not appeared. However, there was good news of a sort this week for the government when the Central Bank's monetary policy committee, the Copom, cut base interest rates by 1.5 percent to 24.5 percent.

Despite this fairly large cut the Central Bank came in for criticism from all quarters. It was accused of being too timid

and acting too late. Let us await the publication ot tne otticiai minute of the Copom meeting to see why the committee reached this decision. Not only was the decision unanimous but the Copom did not set a bias which would have allowed the Central Bank President, Henrique Meirelles, to act on his own to cut rates before the next meeting in a month's time. Maybe the Central Bank knows something which the rest of us do not.

John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish journalist who first visited Brazil in 1987 and has lived in Sao Paulo since 1995. He writes on politics and finance and runs his own company, Celtic Comunicactiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; www.celt.com.br, which specializes in editorial and translation services for Brazilian and foreign clients. You can reach him at if(&,celt.com.br

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The Chamber of Deputies has made progress this month toward the passage of pension reforms. The special committee studying the matter approved a somewhat less tough version of the government's original proposal. This means that the matter could go to the floor of the lower chamber as early as next week.

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, JoAo Paulo Cunha of the PT (Workers' Party), called out the Military Police to control the crowds of government workers that had invaded Congress to protest against the proposed changes.

This unprecedented move caused criticism from the Left, but perhaps avoided more confusion.

It remains doubtful that measures that will significantly improve the social security deficit, that reached a record R$ 9.6 billion (US$ 3.27 billion) for the first six months of 2003, will emerge. Opposition even within the government's own The Brazilian government and party remains strong.

A partial strike of government workthe IMF have not yet discussed ers in protest against the reforms continthe possibility of a renewal of their ues. The already precarious public health service has been curtailed in same areas. agreement, which expires in Retirees have had difficulties in receivDecember. It's doubtful that Brazil ing their meager pensions. The Social Security offices are closed making it difwill commit to a continuing ficult for firms wishing to meet the July 31 deadline for rescheduling payments primary surplus of the magnitude of contributions in arrears. it is now amid clamors for more The federal tax collectors and customs inspectors also staged a slow down action on social problems and causing delays in clearing imports and expediting exports. This is not good for stimuli to the economy. ' companies installed here to use Brazil as RICHARD HAYES an export platform that operate with slim stocks ofcomponents and finished goods.

Several categories of judges have stated that they will strike on August 5th,

Brazil and IMF: Measuring Each Other

28

the date that the debate over pension reform may start in the Chamber of Deputies. Judges and prosecutors are not happy with the possibility of losing some of their unreasonably generous retirement benefits. This may fizzle out as not all magistrates think this is a wise move.

If they strike there will be no one to judge the legality of the strike. Many judges are lawyers that could not make it in private practice. Their salaries and benefits are among the highest in the land. Their complaints have aroused little sympathy in the community at large. In fact, their attitude could help Lula gain support to instigate an investigation of the whole judicial system, if he ever gets around to it with all the other problems he faces.

Too Much Power As a layman, I would say that there is something wrong with a judicial system that gives enormous power to judges to disrupt happenings that affect the lives of many people. Three flagrant examples of how judges block progress cometo mind: The on again off again merger of Varig and TAM, Brazil's two biggest airlines.

The recent confusion over rates that fixed line phone companies may charge their customers.

The holding up of the duplication of a dangerous stretch of an important federal highway linking So Paulo to Curitiba, southern Brazil and the Mercosul countries.

An IMF mission headed up by Jorge Marquez-Ruarte, an Argentine, is meeting with the economic and monetary authorities in Brasilia this week. It is expected that the International Monetary Fund will approve Brazil's economic performance so far in 2003.

The primary surplus of nearly R$ 37 MaZIL-AUGUST2003

billion (US$ 12.6 billion) achieved through May of this year exceeds the targets previously established by the Fund and Brazil. This will make way for the next to last disbursement in, August of US$ 4 billion under the US$ 31 billion agreement signed during the twilight of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government last year.

One more parcel of US$ 7 billion should be doled out in November, assuming the October inspection goes well.

The existence of this IMF agreement, coupled by the surprisingly responsible behavior of Lula's government in monetary and fiscal matters, has led to a positive inflow of short-term capital this year enabling the country to meet its maturing overseas obligations.

Direct Foreign Investment during the first semester of 2003, however, has dropped by two thirds from the same period last year. This may be due to economic conditions in the First World but the apparent inability of Brazil to live up to contractual agreements and the unstable juridical atmosphere help little to encourage investment.

Both parties, the Brazilian government and the IMF, are maintaining a low profile and have not yet discussed the possibility of a renewal of this agreement, which expires in December. They prefer to leave this matter up in the air until later in the year. I doubt if Brazil will commit to a continuing primary surplus of this magnitude amid clamors for more action on social problems and stimuli to the economy. A renewal of this agreement in its present form will be difficult. Lula cannot afford to be seen as caving into the international bankers. It will be interesting to see the reaction of creditors should the safety net of the IMF no longer exist.

The real economy continues fe ble.

The automobile manufacturers are lo ded with inventory and threatening layoffs.

An emergency plan of the governme t to reduce taxes on cars in order to stim late sales seems to be faltering in the mid t of contradictory declarations by ca met members. I think they would find it d'fficult to authorize tax reductions whe the factories continue to raise prices in s ite of low demand for their products. Un mployment continues at record levels and family income is less now than a year ago in real terms.

Makers of toys, appliances, ell phones, PCs and other electronic ga getry are all complaining of poor sales. he packaging industry, often a sign ofth rigs to come, is also dreary according top ess reports. July istraditionallyaslowmi nth due to winter school holidays. Some expect a slow recovery leading up to the Christmas season. But it is difficult t. see from where the money to purchase â&#x20AC;˘ iscretionary items will appear.

Cutting Interests The reduction last week of SELI or basic interest rate by 1.5 percent per ear to 24.5 percent will do little to stimu ate investment or consumption. The'pro uctive sector considers this reduction too little too late. Monetary authorities ar ue that they must move slowly in orde to continue to keep inflation at bay. P essure to further reduce interest rates nd lower banks' reserve requirements are mounting. How much longer Palocci nd Meire Iles can continue to wield the po er to keep creditors happy is a quanda The situation in certain rural a eas and the invasion of unoccupied ap ment houses and hotels in downtown ĂŁo Paulo has attracted further attentio in the international press. Sunday's " ew

York Times ran a balanced article by Larry Rother.

An inflammatory speech by the national leader of MST, Jodo Pedro Stedile, in Rio Grande do Sul State this past week, has caused consternation in several quarters including certain ministries of Lula's government. 6,000 families have unlawfully invaded and are camped out in an area owned by Volkswagen in the industrial suburb of Sa'o Bernardo do Campo, in the Greater Sao Paulo. VW's legal efforts to have them expelled have thus far been thwarted.

Unless the government becomes more vocal and better enforces the law, the powder keg may explode. The impression is that they are unwilling or unable to control the illegal acts of those who helped elect Lula.

Certain elements of the PT together with the families of 22 guerrillas who disappeared during skirmishes with the army in the Araguaia region between 1966 and 1974, during the period of military rule, have won a judge's decision to force the army to turn over secrete documents. The army claims they have no such documents that would indicate where the bodies of these men are buried. It could turn out that extremists wind up causing an end to Brazil's latest experience with democracy, less than 20 years old that permitted a leftist government to come to power.

Sdo Paulo, July 29, 2003.

Richard Edward Hayes first came to Brazil in 1964 as an employee of Chase Manhattan Bank. Since then, Hayes has worked directly and as an advisor for a number of Brazilian and international banks and companies. Currently he is a free lance consultant and can be contacted at 1921ouvreAuol.com.br

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Recently, I watched an Irish movie where a guese, English and Italian cultures and fictional Brazilian soccer star had been hired to languages, albeit all these populations are play for a Northern-Irish Protestant football located within the European continent, (soccer) team. The Irish soccer supporters in however, this certainly does not make the stadium, portrayed in this movie, wore them homogeneously "European".

Mexican sombreros and would play Mexican These particular points are not exmariachi music to encourage and support this amples of "political-correctness-gonefictional Brazilian soccer-star-character in the astray" or an attempt to avoid "offending" film (a Catholic). This movie only reiterated anybody; the point here is very simple: to the sustained stereotypes and the pathetical]) merely illustrate how certain terms have inaccurate and jumbled portrayal of the Braziltranscended their original meaning and ian archetype in Irish, British and North Ameriare geographically and scientifically incan popular, political, and literary imagery: valid, and hence have become inaccurawhich is ubiquitous and in need of serious cies and in need of deconstruction and revision. revision.

The rampant and gross indifference to the Brazilians speak Portuguese, they do separation and awareness of the various popunot speak Spanish, do not listen to mariachi lations of Latin America is interesting, espemusic nor do they eat burritos, fajitas or cially because in countries where populations tacos and wear sombreros. Similarly, not of European ancestry exist these populations everyone from Great Britain or Ireland is make sure their differences are clearly known. an uncouth drunken tattoo-bearing lowloud and distinct (i.e.; Irish, English, Scottish, income council-flat-resident-footballPolish, Italian, French, German). For example, there is no hype hooligan-crook who speaks with a cockney accent and wants to of "the large European population in Boston", but instead, escape to Rio de Janeiro like Ronnie Biggs. there exists hype about "the large Italian or Irish population in Brazilians are likely to have as much in common with Boston". Likewise, the several someone from Puerto Rico, so-called "ex-pats" around the Mexico, or Cuba, as an indiworld are meticulously careful vidual from the Isle of Dogs to distinguish themselves from in the East End of London, other nationalities.

England would have with Bossa Nova, baido, samba, someone from El Paso, choro and pagode are excluTexas, USA. sively Brazilian. These are 10 Reasons Why Brazil unique Brazilian musical genres Should Never be Confused that are as distant from Mexican with Puerto Rico, Cuba or Mariachi music as a Polish Polka Mexico: is to an Irish jig.

Pele, Tostcio, Rivelino, Pele, Tostdo, Rivelino, GarGarrincha, Zico, Socrates, rincha, Zico, Socrates, Romario, Romcirio, Ronaldinho (BraRonaldinho, all international zilian soccer stars) Brazilian soccer stars, are exJeitinho brasileiro (literamples of the truly and inimially: "the little Brazilian table raison d'ĂŞtre which encapway"; or "the good-old Brasulates the Brazilian essence, zilian way") The rampant and gross indifference to the with all the ginga (Brazilian ..Iogo de cintura (Liter"sway"), the jeitinho brasileiro separation of the various populations of Latin ally: "hip-play" or "hip(literally: "the little Brazilian movement"; the Brazilian America in the United States and elsewhere is way"; or "the good-old Brazilability to figuratively get out ian way")and thejogo de cintura ofconstricted or stressful situinteresting. In countries where populations of (literally: "hip-play" or "hipations) movement"; the Brazilian abilSamba (The Afro-BrazilEuropean ancestry exist these populations ity to figuratively and literally ian rhythm and music excluget out ofconstricted or stressful make sure their differences are clearly known, sively from Brazil) situations).

"Palmeiras onde canta o loud and distinct.

The way soccer is traditionsabia" ("Palm trees where the ally played in Brazil is unique, songbird sings"; an excerpt and Brazil is the only country in from a well-known poem ALAN P MARCUS the world to have won the Socknown to every Brazilian cer World Cup five times. These schoolboy and girl) Brazilian soccer players do not Boteco("Small Brazilianplay soccer like Mexicans, Puerto Ricans or Cubans, they are style bar") not "Hispanic" in the contemporary semantic context, but they Reveillon brasileiro ("Brazilian New Year's celebrations") are uniquely Brazilian.

Chopp ("Brazilian draft beer") The imaginary consolidation of one part of the American Caipirinha (Brazilian drink made with pinga, lime and continent, Latin America, into one singular geographic, lin- sugar) guistic and ethnic category is flawed and politically-motivated.

Praia de Ipanema ("Ipanema Beach") For example, Brazilians living and working in the USA might feel they have very little or nothing in common with SpanishAlan P. Marcus (Master's of Science in Geography, in speaking populations such as Puerto Ricans, (they are actually progress) is a Brazilian living in the USA. He has also written other articles on Brazilian identity, "race" and ethnicity, and US citizens), Mexicans, and Cubans, however, they all are animal ethics for Brazzil magazine, available online: treated as one big homogenous political group. Similarly, www.brazzil.com - E-mail contact: amarcusAgeo.umass.edu French culture and language is clearly different from Portu-

The U gigue "Brazil' anness" of Bra Mims

30

BRAZZIL -AUGUST 2003

The subject of Brazilian ethnicity, more often than not, home- in West kfrica than they would feel in Puerto Rico or Mexico. Historically, Brazilians themselves translates into the dichotomous "black-white" have purposely denied, downplayed, disdiscussions without allowing room for other missed, and forgotten about the strong conmulti-dimensional models ofgeographic ethnection to the West African cultural, musinic variances. The ethnic variances are cal, and ethnic components in Brazil. multifold and ambiguous by nature, however Brazil has a deep connection with West they are significant to better understand BraAfrica, that is not only human (i.e.; culzilian "racial," social, and cultural politics. tural, linguistic, and ethnic), but also geoBrazil's Strong and Long-Standing Congraphic, since the West coast of Africa and nection to Africa the Eastern coast of Brazil were once atThe African influence and presence cantached over 225 million years ago to the not be overstated in Brazilian culture. It is supercontinent" Pangea (meaning "all ubiquitous within the Brazilian nation, since lands" in Greek). This helps explain why the Afro-descendants within the Brazilian the physical landscapes, that is; the fauna, population represented in the past, and many the coastal beaches, the coconut trees, the scholars claim they still represent, an overall sand, the formation and the colors of rocks, majority of the total Brazilian population. It and the geography in general of West Afis widely held that there were more African rica, are so strikingly similar to those geoslaves brought to Brazil than any other counBrazil has several graphical landscapes of the Brazilian Easttry in the world. ern coast.

Aspects of Brazilian music, food, words, ethnicities and they are Nevertheless, Brazilian culture has, of and religions are as much a part of Brazilian course, also received influence from culture as they are a part of West African complex, as Amerindian and European cultures that have culture. The origins of the African connecand contradictory, converged and adapted into an ethnic, relition to Brazil, may be traced to the slaves gious and cultural syncretism, unique to who were brought from regions now known creative as Brazilians Brazil. The progeny of such ethnic syncreas the Following countries: Ivory Coast, tism exemplifies Brazilian creativity and Angola, Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau, MozamBrazil themselves. contradiction to describe persons of varibique, Sudan, and Congo. received influence from ous colors, and of different geographic and And certain words comprise part of the ethnic outcomes. The contradiction in Bracommon Brazilian-Portuguese vocabulary, West Africa as well as zil lies in the seemingly "caring" and "afand mostly, but not exclusively, originate fectionate" terms Brazilians may use, such from Amerindian and from the West African Yoruba linguistic and as neguinho ("little Negro kid"), however, ethnic group, words such as: acaraje, axe, European cultures that still maintaining a subtext of racist insult aye, oleo de dende, Ogum, orixds, babalad, and a form of "putdown", albeit Brazilians Exu, macumba, lemanja, capoeira, samba, have converged and will insist it is not so. batuque and bunda.

Geographic Ethnic Variances adapted into a unique The highly influential West African heriThe Brazilian ethnic variances have tage may also be observed in Brazilian samba ethnic, religious and ambiguous ancestral ties, such as caboclo, music, in the West African-style of drumbeat cafuso, mameluco, caicara, mulcao, pardo, syncopation, and in a Brazilian style of soccultural syncretism. and mestico. Note that mestico is not spelled cer, that seems to incorporate movements nor does it mean the same as mestizo, used from a samba-capoeira-type of footwork in Spanish Latin America. Mestico has a when dribbling the football and dazzling ALAN P MARCUS connotation of a subjective "mixture" of opponents. several backgrounds including African, Furthermore, West African influence can also be seen in Brazilian styles of dances, for example, in Amerindian or European; and not merely the ,progeny of Carnaval with the Ala das Baianas ("Aisle of the Baianas", exclusively Amerindian and European.

The term caicara refers to populations from coastal fishing "Baianas" as in: "from the state of Bahia"; dressed in tradivillages, particularly in the Southeastern tional religious West African white clothing coastal regions. Their ancestry is amand head-dress) in a escola de samba biguous, a combination of ("samba school" in Carnaval) or also Amerindian, European and AfWest African-type clothing styles as rican ancestries. seen on a street-vendor, dressed in The term caboclo(a), used typical Baiana-dress selling doceto describe persons mostly of de-coco ("coconut sweet"). The Amerindian and European anelements of Afro-Brazilian relicestry, carries a figurative gions such as Macumba, "noble" and romanticized conUmbanda, and Candomble are also notation, particularly emphaconspicuously West African in sizing the aspect of Brazilian substance and in form, and, yet Amerindian ancestry, much in- ' they appear to be so vividly "Brafluenced by the concept of zilian" at the same time.

Rousseau's "noble savage".

The Brazilian connection to West Caboclo(a)s are cited in countless BraAfrica is formidable, however the existzilian literary works and in song lyrics ing stereotypes of Brazilians abroad, do not allow for this strong connection, particularly stereotypes of the referring to mostly populations of the North and Northeast of Brazil. "homogenous-Latin American-Spanish-Amerindian-type".

The terms mameluco and caluso, may include some AfriIt is highly probable that Brazilians would feel more "at

Brazil?

Viii Brazil?

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

-

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can ancestry as well as Amerindian and European ancestry, but do not represent the same "romanticized" and "noble" image as the caboclo(a), albeit they all refer to relatively the same regions ofthe Northeast, North, and Center-West of Brazil, and also to the ambiguous combinations of Amerindian, African and European ancestries. The term pardo, a formal term used mostly for the Brazilian censuses, refers to people who arc neither black nor white; a subjective and generic term for "gray", "mixture", "brown", or mulatto.

The regional geography and its respective popular connotation help to illustrate the ethnic variances in a different context that is uniquely Brazilian. Foreign paradigms will not validate nor suffice to further examine these subtle and significant ethnic variances.

The North American model of "race" is clear-cut, that is, notions of "black" and "white" are clear and distinct. In Brazil, "black" and "white" are not as clear-cut and much less distinct.

The ethnic mixtures in Brazil and the large influx of Middle Easterners, Italians and Portuguese, in addition to Amerindians and Africans, altogether produced a "darker-skin" make-up, or cor (color), relative to North American populations.

A Brazilian research poll in 1976 developed by the PNAD (Brazilian "National Research of Domiciles"), revealed 136 "Colors" given by respondents as their own self-described "color", since it is the word "color", and not "race", that is used for ethnic identity. These self-described colors epitomize Brazil, as they are as creative, contradictory, and complex as Brazilians themselves.

These colors illustrate the ever-changing "realities" that shift within Brazilian ethnic and political dynamics. The color identities in Brazil seem to be in perpetual motion. The semantics involved in these self-described "colors" also reflect contradictions. That is, the semantics reflect Brazilian creativity, informality, spontaneity and vivacity as well as Brazilian elitism, racism, and misogyny, and a Brazilian patriarchal slavist-legacy.

But more importantly and most of all, the semantics of ethnic identities and "colors" reflect Brazilian lightheartedness, which is such an embedded characteristic of the Brazilian national subconscious.

References: Freyre, Gilberto. 1938. Nordeste: Aspectos da Influencia da Canna Sobre a Vida e a Paizagem do Nordeste do Brasil.

Livraria Jose Olympio Editora; Rio de Janeiro, Brasil Nascimento, Abdias do. 1978. 0 Genocidio do Negro Brasileiro: Processo de Racismo Mascarado. Editora Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

Nobles, Melissa. 2000. Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.

Ramos, Artur. 1933. 0 Negro Brasileiro. Editora Massangana, Recife, Brasil Other relevant articles written by this author on Brazilian ethnicity in Brazzil Magazine:: "Brazil: Northeasterners Get No Respect": http://www.brazzil.com/pl05jun03 .htm "Out of Africa: Race in Brazil and in the USA": http://www.brazzil.com/2003/html/news/articles/june03/ p123jun03.htm "Paulistas and Caicaras: Parallel Lives in Brazil": http://www.brazzil.com/2003/html/new5/articles/jun03/ p129jun03.htm Alan P. Marcus (Master's of Science in Geography, in progress) is a Brazilian living in the USA. He has also written other articles on Brazilian identity, "race" and ethnicity, and animal ethics for Brazzil magazine. E-mail contact: amarcusAgeo.umass.edu

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Um dia de cao em A Dog Day in Paris Paris Enquanto que aquela cena teatral se

As thatt eatrical scene unfolded, deep down in

desenrolava, bem no fundo da minha cabega eu

my psyche I assumed the thoughts of some of the

imaginava o que provavelmente pensavam muitos

many peo le walking by us: "These stupid

dos transeuntes que nos viam: "esses estupidos

americains. Can't even control their own puppies'

americains. Nao conseguem nem controlar o apetite

appetite for sex!" There was no one to give us a

sexual dos seus bichos de estimagao!"

hand, thou h.

DARIO BORIM

DARIO BORN*

Para alguns sujeitos do meu tipo, peitudo e pretensioso (apesar de nascido em uma cidade pequena coin° Paraguay), as cidades grandes sao maravilhosas fontes de surpresa e aventura. Talvez por isso eu aprendera a amar Belo Horizonte desde os meus prirneiros contatos corn a capital dos mineiros, aos 13 anos de idade.

Talvez a rnesma atitude tenha-me levado a passar minhas primeiras horas em Nova York em completa imersa'o no mundo doido e desconhecido do Central Park, ate altas horas da noite. Bern, esta Ultima facanha foi em uma era diferente, 1981. Eu tinha 21 anos: nem podia e nem queria imaginar os riscos rondando aquela famosa parte ,da cidade.

Dez quilos e dez anos mais ,tarde, eu já deixara de ser tao burro, inocente ou descuidado:Era uma outra decada, e a linha do meu cabelo tinha recuado uns cinco centimetros, ou mais.

Apesar de ainda ser estudante e padecer da mesma falta de grana (como sabem, bolsas de estudo pa° cobrem viagens de ferias), sentia-me perfeitamente seguro e preparado para visitar, pela primeira vez, o coracao da Franca. Mal podia eu saber, entretanto, que apesar das precaucepes, dos mapas e de uma companhia atenciosa e carinhosa (a minha prOpria esposa em nossa Lua de Mel); nada me impediria de ter urn debut _ completamente desastroso em Paris. , • Tudo comecou nip pequeno café-lanchonete, a uns dois quartelroes do monumental Museu do Louvre. Urn pouco antes da hora do almoco Ann e eu conseguimos pedir, em frances, urn sanduiche tipo croissant sem saber exatamente a natureza mais banal do recheio: presunto e queijo. Certarnente estavamos excitados para iniciar uma longa maratona de Miguelangelos e Renoirs. Era melhor enchermos a panca antes de ficarmos animados demais e perdermos a fome. 'For ora, para que nos importarmos corn' dois cachorros—uma femea pequenina e channosa, e urn machao meio marrom, corn cara de bravo— tambdm circulando por au, naquele café enfumacado, já que era dezembro e oar frio la fora nao atraia nenhum ser, racional ou irracional? Alem do mais, estavamos em plena Franca, onde tantos cachorros e gatos demonstram pelas calcadas todo o finesse das suas roupinhas de bicho burgues e todo o fedor das suas fens indiscretas.

Depois de sair do café, eu ainda tentava calcular quantos

For people like me, daring and pretentious (but born and raised in a provincial small town like Paraguay, Southeastern Brazil), big cities were dreamlike sites ofadventure and surprise. That's probably why I learned to love Belo Horizonte on my third visit to the capital of Minas Gerais, at the age of 13. That's probably why, also, 'my first hours in New York City were a total immersion into the wild and unknown world of Central Park quite a few hours after dark.

Well, that was a different era (1981). I was twenty-o e. I could not or did not want to imagine any risks roaming hat part of town.

Ten years later and twenty pounds heavier, I no longer played that du b or that stupid. It was a different decade, after all, and my hai had grown a lot thinner. Even though I was still a broke full- me student (graduate scholarships, after all, don't pay for ips abroad), I felt perfectly safe and ready to visit the heart of France for the first time. Little did I know, however, that being cautious, following maps, and having a smart and c rig companion, such as my own wife on our honeymoon, ould not prevent me from having a disastrous debut in Paris It all start • at this tiny café, a couple of blocks behind the monumental ouvre. At lunchtime, my beloved Ann and I managed to o der, in French, a sub-like sandwich unaware of its most trivi ingredients: ham and cheese. It certainly was going to be a marathon of Michaelangelos and Renoirs and we'd better g t fixed before getting too enthusiastic to eat.

Meanwhile, hy bother the two puppies—one, a small and delicate fema e; the other, a brown and gross-looking male— sharing the s oky quarters, since it was December, and the chilly air didn't appeal to any one, humans or beasts? Weren't we in France where so many cats and dogs in the streets showed real tyle in clothing and pooping in semi-hidden corners?

Once out ide again, I was still trying to figure out how costly that or inary snack had been in dollars, when I felt these inch-long cl s scratching my hips. Before I could react, something w rse started to happen: I could feel this hot, animalistic t s gue licking my rounded buttocks. The whole affair got real y bad (let's say, darn hard on me when! noticed

BRAZZIL -AUGUST 2003

33

Mares tinhamos gastado corn aquele lanchezinho de araque quando comecei a sentir umas garras de pouco mais de dois centimetros me arranhando na altura dos quadris. Antes que pudesse reagir, algo mais grave comecou a rolar: uma lingua quente e animalesca me lambia no traseiro bem arrebitado que Deus me deu. A coisa piorou ainda mais (engrossou pro meu lado, vamos dizer assim), quando percebi que urn certo bastao de carne rocava o interior das minhas coxas.

Sem muita coragem para encarar a real idade de frente, isto 6, de tras, fui logo gritando, "Meu Deus do ceu, que diabo e esse me grudando aqui nas pernas". Eu já podia ler no olhar avermelhado da minha esposa a confirmacao de que a situacao era bem delicada, pois, como eu supunha, havia urn cachorro enorme tentando me executar au i mesmo, no meio da rua.

"Damn dog, go away, go away!", gritou Ann, em ingles — algo como "saia dal, seu cachorro desgracado". Mas pra que, se aquela criatura franc6fona corn certeza nao entendia a lingua dos velhos rivals, os ingleses? Enquanto eu tentava me desvencilhar, lembrei-me de que deveriamos procurar alguma expressao francesa que carregasse grande forca retOrica, uma ameaca autoritaria qualquer que fizesse o cachorro parar corn aquela sem-vergonhice—algo do tipo "senta, filho da mae", ou "some dai, seu puto". Ora essa, mas que brincadeira besta era aquela comigo!

Já que a minha cabeca andava atrapalhada de tanto susto e medo, eu nem conseguia retirar da memoria uma (mica palavrinha francesa daquelas aprendidas corn o Irmao Ivo no Juvenato de Paraguacu. Entao implorei para que Ann descobrisse ou inventasse alguma expressao ütil na lingua de Marcel Proust. Nao saiu nada que prestasse. Ela fez la uns sons estipidos em alguma lingua estrangeira, "saie, sale, fuera", mas o bicho nao estava nem ai. Continuou no abuso de minha dignidade sem dar bolas para os apelos da minha esposa.

Enquanto isso eu tentava caminhar mais rapid°, mas o bicho nab me deixava em paz urn so segundo. Preso as suas garras, experimentei o truque de girar em torno de mim mesmo, sem me deslocar, corn a indti I esperanca de conseguir estontear o cachorro desalmado. A Unica consequencia foi a de que fiquei eu ainda mais confuso diante daquela situacao embaracosa.

Ann entao comecou a rir, de nervosa. 0 seu idioma portugues ão cachorro—pelo amor foi mais um a tentativa a fracassar: "Nrdo de Deus, neio!" Esporadicamente eu notava nela uma luz esquisita nos olhos e um amargo na voz., Logo perdeu a compostura, e apelou, como uma "carioca" que morava no Rio de Janeiro nos 80: "Para, porra, para!"

"E agora o que fazer?", perguntei-me em voz alta. Pelo menos nab havia mais que cinco ou seis pessoas em todo o quarteirao—menos vergonhoso, pensei. Entao urn de n6s disse (e ate hoje nem ela e nem eu sabemos quem foi) que aquele cachorro miseravel provavelmente era urn dos bichos que a gente viu na lanchonete.

Especialmente por causada coleira, que parecia ter as mesmas faixas vermelhas ao meio. E, nao havia diivida: era mesmo aquela combinacao gigante de bulldog e pastor alemao (a boca e o p'elo do primeiro, o tamanho e a altura do segundo).

Aquele estranho episeidio ja se prolongava pelos mais longos dez minutos da minha vida ate entdo. Na prOxima esquina, quase a um quarteirdo do ponto em que se iniciara aquela tragedia can ina, dobramos a direita e Ann aparentemente conseguiu uma saida para o nosso sofrimento: a enorme porta de vidro de urn predio a nossa direita. Ela correu naquela direcdo e eu a segui, por um instante livre das garras no animal.

34

this fleshy stick rubbing the insides of my thighs.

Without any courage to gaze at ugly reality face-to-face, I immediately asked my wife "Oh my God, what the hell is going on?" Too surprised to understand what was cooking behind me, even too afraid to take a decent peek at the imaginable perpetrator, I could read Ann's distress through her reddish face and then realize that there actually was a gigantic dog trying to hump me right there, in the middle of the street.

Ann shouted in English, "Damn dog, go away, go away!" and I attempted to disentangle myself from the animal. But what was the use of such words, if that Francophone creature surely could not master the tongue ofthe old rivals, the Britons?

While I carefully tried to get out of that sexual trap, it soon dawned on me (at this point fearful and helpless), that we ought to remember some French expression that carried a sense of power, that forced this dog to "stop!" or "sit down!" or "go away!" or "fuck off!" Since, in my troubled mind, I couldn't even open the file of my middle-school French notes, where some rusty lessons from my Canadian teacher might have survived two decades of oblivion, I begged Ann to recall something to that effect. Apparently no lexicon of hers seemed right. She murmured and mumbled foreign sounds of some sort, like "sigh-ay, salee, .fuera," but nothing caused the dog to change its way. The animal continued abusing my dignity without giving a hoot to my wife's innocuous appeals.

In the meantime, I tried to walk faster, but the beast wouldn't leave me alone for a second. Stuck on the sidewalk, I tried to turn around and around, hoping to make the dog dizzy, yet the only result was more confusion in my own head. In fear, Ann started to lose it, after laughing rather nervously at me for a while. She started to shout in Portuguese, her second language, "Nilo cachorro—pelo amor de Deus, nab!" as if she were pleading mercy by the love of God. Sporadically there was a taste of horror in her tone of voice, and she went on and on with "Para, para, porra, para!," all of which to no avail.

Ann had forgotten about keeping a face. As a good carioca, which she was in the early eighties, she cursed in the face of the beast with something nearly as bad as "Knock it off, fucker, just knock it off" "Now what do we do?" I wondered aloud. At least there weren't more than five or six pedestrians in the entire block— less shame, I guess. Then one of us said that that dog was probably one of the puppies at the snack-bar. (I don't quite know, today, and neither does my wife, who spoke and who listened at that point.) The other agreed. Especially because of its thick leather collar with a red stripe in the middle, there was no doubt: it was that beast, which appeared to be a strange and huge combination of bulldog and German shepherd, the mouth and general body shape of the former plus the size and height of the latter. At any rate, I even hate the thought of remembering the features of that bastard now, as I write.

What a scumbag!

This strange sort of affair went on for some of the longest five minutes of my life. Then, at the next corner, about a block away from the site of our encounter with the beast, we took a right, and Ann managed to see an escape to our canine tragedy: a large glass door to the building that lay all along that block, to our right. She ran toward that way and so did I without the animal, momentarily left behind us.

However, it soon caught up with us, gasping but seldom failing to pant or "foam at the mouth in lust," as Ann put it later.

BRAZZIL -AUGUST 2003

Entretanto, ele logo nos alcancou, bufando, mas sem deixar de ofegar ou "babar de desejo", como me diriaminhacompanheira, horas mais tarde.

Ann e eu ate hoje descordamos sobre quern de fato teve a ideia, mas, nao importa: n6s tres pudemos entrar no predio por aquela porta de vidro. Logo depois dela sair eu conseg,ui fechar a passagem atras de mim, bloqueando o monstro cujas narinas sO queriam saber dos prazeres das minhas pernas.

"Liberte avec elegance", gritei em fiances pela rua afora, em jabilo total, em uma forcada tentativa de levantar o meu sentido de dignidade. Mas que ingenuidade a minha! NOs já nos encontravamos quase em frente ao museu, a pouco menos de 200 metros de distancia, quando senti algo muito rüim. Aquelas terriveis garras me grudavam de novo nos quadris. Eu nem acreditava mais no que via ou sentia; parecia que todos os parisienses conspiravam contra II& naquele dia. 0 porteiro do predio nao tinha tido a menor dO e fora logo soltando o cao tarado, que acabou chegando a mim antes que eu chegasse ao Louvre.

Meu embaraco era muito major naquele momento. A inda corn medo de tocar na fera optei por dar mais um giro, mas o co tambern girou. Nao dava nenhuma tregua na sua busca por prazeres pornograficos corn urn ser da especie humana. 0 bicho queria praticar, vamos dizer, o inverso da bestialidade.

(Que nome poderiamos dar a tal ato de selvageria sexual?)

Talvez porque Ann venha de urn estado americano nacionalmente famoso pela sua "gente polida" Minnesota nice) e tenha exercido uma influencia positiva sobre o meu jeito de ser levemente descarado (ou mundano), nos ate que xingamos poucas vezes aquele cao-capeta, em portugues ou ingles.

Enquanto que aquela cena teatral se desenrolava, bem no fundo da minha cabeca eu imaginava o que provavelmente pensavam muitos dos transeuntes que nos viam: "esses estapidos americains. Nao conseguem nem controlar o apetite sexual dos seus bichos de estimacao!" Na realidade nao aparecia uma anica alma viva para nos ajudar. Alias, era uma pena que nao havia nenhuma arma de fogo ao meu alcance, porque, totalmente desonrado por aquelas repetidas tentativas de estupro eu queria mesmo era meter bala naquela criatura inescrupulosa.

Pensamento positivo tern os seus limites, é claro. Entao Ann e eu resolvemos que nos tres entrariamos para o museu de qualquer forma. Talvez os segurancas daquela distinta instituicao pudessem fazer algç por nOs. Eu ja estava pensando que nos nos encontravamos nao exatamente na Europa mas em uma hipotetica India do Primeiro Mundo onde certos animais eram sagrados (entre eles o tal do cachorro) e tinham todo o direito de destruir a felicidade da especie humana.

Ern urn salao bastante largo, que nos levava a entrada do Louvre propriamente dita, ouvi minha esposatentando explicar a situacao para os dois guardas au i de plantao, urn homem e uma mulher. Corn um ingles meio capenga, mas certamente melhor que o nosso frances confuso e minimalista, os guardas puderam fazer perguntas e compreender que o cao (pelo amor de Deus!) nao era nosso. Mas enquanto que a ralacao p o babado continuavam do mesmo modo por paste do animal feroz, os guardas confessaram nao ter a menor ideia daprovidencia certa a tomar diante do nosso estranho caso.

No momento em que urn dos guardas solicitava ajuda pelo radio, a mulher de uniforme nos deu uma brilhante sugestao: que tal me "prenderem" na guarita de vidro instalada em urn BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

My wife an I still argue about it, so I can't really say whose plan it was, fo sure. But the deal is, the three of us were able to get inside th t large building. I didn't even care to see if it was a business or r sidential complex. Quickly after Ann, who was inside for no more than ten seconds, I turned around and fled the building myself, making sure! closed the door right between my protuberant tail end and the dog's disgusting snout.

"Liberte avec elegance," I proudly told myself in French, in an attempt to raise my sense of dignity while Ann and I ran like mad dogs away from that building. We were already in front of the museum, basically six hundred feet from the back door, when I nearly froze inside: those terrible claws grabbed me by the hips from behind again. I simp couldn't believe it, but apparently all the Parisians were conspiring against us. The darn doorman we saw at the buil ing must have released the animal that apparently could no live without the fragrance and pleasure of my legs. As upset ing as it may seem, the monster reached me before we cou reach the Louvre.

My embarr sment was much deeper now, but for the most part I still op rated on the stereotypical attitude known as "Minnesota ni e." Still afraid to touch the dog I once again tried to turn around nd around, but the beast wanted no break. He went on and o with his pornographic business involving a member of the human species. What the dog sought after was the reverse of estiality. (What name could we assign to such an act of sexu I savagery?) Perhaps because she is a good Minnesotan w o has had a pretty positive influence on my slightly shamel ss (or mundane) ways, my wife and I did shout for help but rar ly cursed at the beast, in English or Portuguese.

As that the trical scene unfolded, deep down in my psyche I assumed the t oughts of some of the many people walking by us: "These stu id americains. Can't even control their own puppies' appet te for sex!" There was no one to give us a hand, though. bob d there was not a gun at hand either, because, utterly dishono ed by that attempted rape, I might have easily shot the horren ous creature.

Wishful thi king has its limits, I guess, so we decided the three of us w uld enter the museum anyway. Perhaps the security guards there could do something. I was already thinking we were r a First World India where certain animals (among them t e illustrious canine species) were sacred and had all the free om and privileges they aspired to.

In a wide h II that led to the main entrance to the Louvre, I heard Ann try t explain the situation to two of the guards, one male and the o her female. Their English, rather broken, but certainly better han our own confusing and minimalist French, was apparently good enough for them to understand that that "dog (thank God ) was not ours. While the humping and foaming and scratching continued, though, none of the guards knew what to do in Ii ht of such unusual and comical circumstances.

When som of them were using their radio to call out for help, the femal guard had a brilliant idea. How about "locking him up" in the g ass security booth set in a corner ofthe hall, and "keeping the d g outside, of course"? Isn't it just swell that the trick worked? r me, it was very comforting to be alone in that closed area. Y t, that refuge didn't mean my nightmare was over. All would be fine, I guessed, but the son-of-a-gun decided it wouldn't go a ay. It kept staring at me, now and then circling the booth with ut losing a sense of my companionship or a speck of my ch 35

canto daquele said° de entrada e, impedirem, e claro, que o animal me acompanhasse ate aquele "esconderijo"? Nan é que o truque aparentemente deu certo! 0 que, de fato, nao significou que o pesadelo tivesse acabado por completo. Tudo estaria bem se o filho-de-uma-cadela nao resolvesse dar, ele prOprio, um plantao au i no salao, arregalando os olhos, arfando corn as narinas dilatadas, e rodeando a minha guarita sem desistir urn m inuto da minha companhia ou do meu charme.

0 que tinha tudo para ser um fantastic° alivio agora me fazia sentir ainda mais machucado. Bandos e mais bandos de turistas entrando para o museu, geralmente criancas japonesas, agora paravam para fazer perguntas, assistir e fotografar (imaginem a honra!) aquele bizarro espetaculo envolvendo urn paraguacuense expatriado em desespero e um cachorro parisiense em plena tara. Por detras do vidro eu pude observar que minha esposa fazia de tudo para parecer calma. Para isso olhava para os lados e tentava relaxar os musculos da face. Al veio outra cena de me tirar do seri°. Chegaram mais guardas e, a urn certo momento, urn deles teve o conhecimento de ingles necessario e a petulancia de urn bobo da corte pra dizer a Ann que ele sentia muito, mas que nao havia nada a fazer, pois aquele cao estava loucamente apaixonado pelo seu esposo.

(Onde é que havia de existir uma pistola, meu Deus?)

Bern, eu mal podia acreditar na acuidade das minhas retinas quando aquela mulher de uniforme (a "boa samaritana" que quis me colocar na guarita) decidiu que ela podia muito bem correr um pequeno risco e grudar a coleira daquele bichosacana. Assim o fez eta, como muita coragem, e o animal, para a surpresa de todos, reagiu bem, ate corn uma certa civilidade. Eta, entao, levou o can ate urn daqueles cordeies divisores, cie veludo vermelho (tipicos de cinema), e ali algemou o filho-deuma-cadela pela coleira.

Libertas quae sera tam en, dessa vez eu quase gritei o lema mineiro de liberdade, em latim. Mas era bobagem, e eu nab queria passar por louco. Queria era esquecer o acontecido o mais rapido possivel, mas nem isso eu consegui, apesar do momentaneo alivio. E que logo mais teria outra sessan de pavor ao ver tantos caes pintados nas distintas telas do museu. Por isso acabei passando o resto do dia em um estado de nausea, carregando comigo as marcas concretas daquela insolencia animal. Minhas pernas e bracos estavam an-anhados e as pernas da minha calca jeans guardavam os odores de dois caes: o do bicho tarado, corn certeza, e, provavelmente, o de uma cachorrinha no cio, aquela que se chocou contra as minhas pernas pelo menos duas vezes no pequeno café parisiense.

Foi assim a minha visita ao Louvre — aquele majestoso museu que deveria ter sido o portal de ouro para a Cidade das Luzes. Cultura, arte, transcendencia, estes eram os sonhos de urn ex-menino de cidade pequena que se transformara em aventureiro internacional para depois virar intelectual de cidade grande. Em Lua de Mel eu acharia quase tudo muito sofisticado e elegante no Velho Continente, dos canais de Amstercla as fontes de Florenca, exceto Paris. A ocasiao que poderia ter-se tornado a melhor parte da viagem por varios paises da Europa, corn ecos da inteligencia de Simone de Beauvoir e James Joyce as margens do rio Sena, por exemplo, na verdade so me deu vergonha e Odio. Fui levado a um tat nivel de humilhacao pablica que a minha (mica indenizacao por tantos danos morais foi pensar que urn dia eu teria urn born material para uma historia, a vinganca de urn dia de cao em Paris.

36

My stint at the booth, which had felt for a while like a tremendous relief, now made me feel even more painfully ashamed. Herds of tourists corning into the museum, mostly Japanese school kids, stopped to learn about the incident and take pictures of the parties involved: a Brazilian expatriate in despair and a Parisian dog in lust. (Can you imagine my celebrity pride?) From behind the glass I could sense my wife's share of despair even though she clearly tried to hide it from me by either looking sideways or smiling or laughing, as if the matter were simply comical. Indeed, the area started to get crowded. Soon there were another three or four guards, one of whom had the guts to remark, to my wife, as she briefed me on half-hour later, that there was nothing they could do since that dog was madly in love with her husband. (God, where the hell could I find a pistol?)

Well, I could hardly believe my eyes when the same female guard that assigned me to the booth decided she could take the risk and grab the dog by collar. She did it, defiantly, and the dog reacted most congenially. She brought the animal close to one of those metal posts that sustains velvet isolation cords in theaters and locked the sex maniac by the collar.

Libertas quae sera t amen, this time I almost cried out Minas Gerais Latin motto, "Freedom, even if it is late." But it would be nonsense. The least thing I wished, at that point, was to suggest to others around me that I was a lunatic. It was freedom at last, but what I hoped for the most then was to forget my recent plight altogether. It was not possible, however, for the ,dread I was to experience inside the museum every time I saw any of the so many dogs painted on such exuberant canvases. I was traumatized. I remained badly sick of all them dogs throughout the day. I was sick, most of all, because my very pants still smelled like one of them, probably two of them, since the whole ordeal must have sparked when, at the café, that poodle-like female, certainly in heat, rubbed against my legs a couple of times.

The Louvre, yes—that majestic museum would be the golden gate to the City of Lights.

Culture, artistry, transcendence, these were the ultimate pursuits of an ex-small-town boy gradually metamorphosed into an intellectual and international urbanite. On a honeymoon with my best friend and best lover, all had been very exquisite in the Old Continent, from the picturesque waterways in Amsterdam to the elaborate fountains in Florence, except for Paris. The supposed occasion of a lifetime for someone expecting to find elegance in every European corner, or inspirational echoes of Simone de Beauvoir's wit or James Joyce's craft by the Seine, actually dumped me in a puddle ofhatred and shame.

I was led to such a level of humiliation that my only post-stress indemnity was to imagine that one day I would have good material for a story, my revenge on a dog day in Paris. *Borim's bilingual editions are not translations. Kin souls at best, the texts bear a mutant life of their own. The first English version was written in the early 1990s, when Borim was a candidate for an M.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota. The story hatched again, ten years later, in Portuguese. It soon appeared in Borim's first book, Paisagens humanas, and then changed its English predecessor. A sporadic contributor to Brazzil, Borim is currently a professor in the Department of Portuguese at U-Mass Dartmouth and hosts a weekly radio show dedicated to Luso-Brazilian music on www.wsmu.ore. He can be reached at dborim(&umassd.edu.

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

They had it even before we knew what was happening. My rod bowed in prayer to something below the tea-colored water's surface. The six-pound test line danced like a cat on a hot pavement. All hell had broken loose. Beads of sweat rolled down Doris' back. Her clothes were now a second skin, clinging to her every move. We panted for breath. We had fish on. The silvery oval-shaped body ahd red belly of a piranha broke the surface. I reached for it. "Don't let a finger get near their mouths or you'll lose it", our native guide barked.

Minutes earlier, I shuddered from a breeze escaping from somewhere up ahead despite 85 degree-plus heat. The doubledigit humidity didn't help either.

A maddening buzz filled my ears, but thanks to my coating of Vick's Vapor Rub, the blood-suckers wouldn't feast on me. My eyes burned. My nose dripped. A coffee-table-sized leaf or hanging branch slapped into me every few steps. Curses burst from my lips even with my best efforts to become as one with the rainforest, as the Indian had.

Our fishing rods extended from 18" to five and a half feet. I'd hoped the light mono would suffice, although I'd squirreled away spools of twelve and twenty pound test as an afterthought. If we tagged into a 50-plus pound tambaqui even that wouldn't be enough. Vines as thick as my wrist dipped into light coffeecolored waters making little ripples as it slid past roots and fallen branches.

Tangled growth matted the gentle slope of the bank into tea-with-milk colored wetness. I'd flicked a thumbnail-sized chunk of bloody chicken liver on a barbless hook with a split shot into a dinner plate-sized swirl just beside a snarl of mangrove roots jutting upwards through the surface.

Minutes later, his tanned skin gleaming with moisture, our guide demonstrated the efficiency of the scissor-like teeth. A green leaf held near the gaping mouth instantly sported a neat, crescent-shaped bite. Three heavy blows to the head prepared the killer for cleaning. After cleaning, he made a series of diagonal cuts along each side of the fish. Into these he carefully rubbed a mixture of salt, garlic, and ground roots from a small gourd he carried. A simple shaved branch frame held the fish over a smoky fire of glowing coals. The firm toasted flesh tasted smooth and a bit earthy, BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

Piranha: Deadly and Delicious The Amazon is filled with danger. Soldier ants march by the millions devouring all life in their path. Crocodiles lie in wait for the unwary, the Anaconda uses heatseeking guidance to find its next meal. But none of these carry the fearsome mystique of the voracious piranha.

LARRY M. LYNCH

like a seasoned and mellowed catfish. With a wink and a sly nod towards Doris he said.

"Make these heads into soup and youwill need many wives".

She glanced at me with a puzzled look. I smiled.

The Perfect Killing Machine , The Amazon is filled with danger. Soldier ants march by the millions devouring all life in their path. Submerged up to the eyes, crocodiles lie in wait for the unwaryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;whatever or whoever that maybe. Undulating its 20-foot length beneath the surface, the Anaconda, one of the world's largest snakes, uses heat-seeking guidance to find its next meal. The barbed stinger in the tail of plattersized stingrays can inflict a wound that takes months to heal. But none of these carry the fearsome mystique of the voracious piranha. Ranging through South America from Brazil to the lowlands of Peru, they also inhabit waters in Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. In the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers of Brazi I and the Orinoco River in Venezuela, no creature is safe from the piranha's razor-sharp teeth and powerful jaws. The serrated teeth fit together like scissors, enabling piranha to cut the flesh from their prey. Like a shark, a Piranha's teeth are replaceable, when one breaks off a new one grows in its place. The Yagua Indians of Peru often use the sharp edges between the teeth of a Piranha jawbone to sharpen the point of their blotvgun darts. A fish that is dying or swimming erratically will be quickly attacked by a large school. Piranha will also attack without warning to defend their eggs and territory. A wounded animal that strays into the water will be stripped to the bone so quickly it seems almost to "dance" on the surface as it's ravaged from beneath. A bird that falls into the water will be gone, feathers and all, in three minutes or less. A trapped fish struggling in a net will be chewed clean to the head in a matter of seconds.

Attacks on large animals and humans are often dramatically portrayed, but are rare. In some regions piranha are known as "donkey castrators".

"They will rend and devour alive any wounded man or beast." U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt said, adding, "Piranha are the most ferocious fish in the world." Piranha, also called caribe or piraya only furthered their fearsome mystique when Roosevelt encountered 37

them during his exploits in 1914. There are about 35 known species of piranha, but only five species represent a danger to man. Species range from the redbelly piranha (Pygocentrus nattereri) with its characteristic red belly to the largest of the carnivorous species, the black piranha with its demon-red eyes and a 17 and a half inch long dark body weighing up to ten pounds. It could remove a man's hand in two or three bites. Most species dine on fruit or seeds that fall into the water from overhanging trees. The fish are not always aggressive. Women wash clothes in knee-deep water where men spearfish while children bathe or swim in these same piranha-infested waters without harm. Further adding to the piranha's mystique, Indian men with half a dozen wives and up to a score of children attribute their potency to piranha-head soup, although no scientific justification for the soup's potency yet exists.

Piranha Fishing Piranhas are usually part of indigenous peoples' diet in the areas where the fish are found. All you need to go piranha fishing are lines with a metal leader next to the hook so the fish doesn't bite through the line, a supply ofred, raw meat (worms or cut-up fish will do too) and a bit of luck. Piranha swim in large schools and are attracted by movement and blood. In May of 1999, hundreds of anglers armed with rods, reels, and raw steak flocked to the Brazilian town of Aracatuba near So Paulo for a oneSunday piranha fishing tournament. The townspeople had declared open season on the flesh-eating fish, which had decimated other species in the local river.

The prize for the tournament was an outboard motor. But "most fishermen were content to go home with plenty of the reputedly aphrodisiac piranha", claimed then town spokesman Nelson Custidio. .Piranha, earning their notorious reputation by reportedly killing 1,200 head of cattle every year in Brazil, is some of the best eating fish in South America.

Whatever name you call them and no matter where you try them, when cooked in a variety of ways, their firm light flesh with its smooth, slightly nutty flavor, is a taste you're sure to enjoy.

Cooking Piranha Prepare your fish native style, with these Brazilian recipes.

Cachama, a piranha-related farmraised species, is often used where piranha are not locally available. Cachama (in Spanish) and tambaqui or pacu (in Brazil) also originate in the Amazon and 38

Fried Piranha

Orinoco River basins.

Two cachama species cultivated commercially in Central and South America are the white one (Piaractus brachypomus) and the black one (Colossoma macropomum).

Piranha in Tomato Sauce Piranha, whole, cleaned and scaled 4 firm, ripe tomatoes 1 finely chopped medium-sized onion 2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh parsley '/2 cup of water 2 tablespoons of margarine salt and pepper to taste Peel and cut tomato into small cubes.

Put half the tomatoes and onion into a large frying pan, place the cleaned piranha on top then cover it with the rest of the tomato, onion and parsley. Add the salt and pepper.

Add half of the water and cook covered over a low fire for about 20 minutes or until the fish can be easily pierced with a fork.

Carefully remove the piranha from the pan and place on a warm serving dish.

Reduce the mixturein the frying pan for an additional 5 minutes until thickened and pour over the piranha.

Brazilian Piranha Soup Piranha, whole fish or heads green vegetables in season or to taste carrots, peeled and sliced or diced yams, peeled and cut up onions, whole small or quartered salt and pepper to taste 1 or 2 small chiles to spice things up a bit small ginger root, coarsely chopped 1 or 2 sliced or wedged lemons or limes Boil whole fish in vegetable stock with spices and pieces of ginger. Add fresh cut up vegetables. Remove bones and larger fins from the fish. Slice lemon or lime as garnish. Remember, the head is an aphrodisiac and is often served separately. The soup can also be made entirely from piranha heads if desired.

A medium-sized whole piranha for each serving 2 or 3 cloves of garlic salt and pepper sprig of fresh parsley whole lemon or lime 1 or 2 whole ripe tomatoes, sliced small quantity of seasoned flour or corn meal Clean and scale the fish thoroughly.

Make a series of diagonal cuts along both sides of the fish from top to belly.

Crush the garlic cloves and mix with the salt and a little pepper. Rub this mixture into the cuts along the sides of the fish.

Wrap with a damp banana leaf (or a moistened paper towel). Allow to marinate for 30 minutes to an hour.

Some Colombian cooks leave refrigerated overnight. Heat some fresh cooking oil to a high temperature in a large frying pan. Sprinkle the marinated fish lightly with seasoned flour or corn meal.

Fry golden brown on each side, turning the fish carefully after browning.

Serve hot garnished with sliced tomato and fresh lemon or lime juice squeezed over the fish.

Grilling Piranha Amazon Style Grilling fresh-caught fish on an open fire is always a tasty way to enjoy a fresh catch. Use a whole cleaned and scaled fish, rub it lightly with oil, season it with salt and pepper or other available spices, then place it on a grill, about 4 -6 inches from the heat. In the wild you can use a framework of small twigs and shaved saplings to position the fish over the fire.

Cover the fish with a banana leaf (or foil), and cook until the fish is brown on the underside, approximately 6 - 8 minutes. Turn the fish carefully and continue until the flesh near the bone is (check with the tip of a small knife or long fork), in approximately 8 to 10 minutes. Smaller fish usually work best using this method, especially in the jungle.

Larry M. Lynch is a writer and photographer specializing in travel, adventure, and food-related writing for Blue Frog Media Works.

He lives in Cali, Colombia, and has more than 100 magazine articles, stories, papers and essays published in print and online publications. His work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, South American Explorer, Escape From America, Mexico News and Brazzil magazines. He travels and researches articles throughout Mexico and Latin America and teaches at a university in Colombia.

He can be contacted at: bluefrogmedialAnetscape.net BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

Misery Guaribas in Piaui became known when it was transformed into the showcase town where the Zero Hunger program was inaugurated a few months ago.

Guaribas in Pernambuco, is a Quilombo, a settlement originally populated by runaway slaves.

Their descendants heard that the Zero Hunger program will assist them. xico SA

BRAZZIL -AUGUST 2003

The town of Guaribas, in the state of Piaui, always has been the twin sister of the town of Guaribas, in the state of Pernambuco. They have much in common: their names, their needs and the ft ct that they have been forgotten out in Brazil's harsh, semi-arid backlands.

To get to Guaribas in Piaui, the final 60 kilometers of the road cross a sandy desert punctuated by craters (not potholes, craters). You need gasoline to make the trip, but the most important fuel fbr making the journey of 653 kilometers from the capital, Teresina, is patienoe.

Without a lot of patience, it is very possible to give up in the middle of the trip.

The ideal vehicles for making the difficult, nine-hour journey, according to local residents: motorcycles, good at navigating the craters, or donkeys, good because they do not complain.

Guaribas in Pernambuco would seem to be another story. After all, it is near the capital, Recife, a mere 198 kilomete -s away down the BR-232, recently baptized the Luiz Gonzaga highway (Gonzaga was a popular folk singer from the region). But the town, so near, is really very far away, in another universe. First of all, no one in the region seems to know of it, or exactly vhere it is. "Guari what?" people reply when asked for d'rections to Guaribas, Pernambuco.

No one at the gas station has ever heard of it. Taxis don't go there. De livery trucks don't know where it is. And the police have never had problems there, so for them it doesn't exist. And that is in BezerroS, the county seat, which is supposed to be just 40 kilometers away; "supposed to be," because although maps show Bezerros, none show Guaribas.

That last 40 kilometers is dramatic.

The only person on the road who claims to have heard of Guaribas is a drunk who points the way with great conviction. But the fact is that the road ends before Guaribas, and the last 100 meters or so, downhill, has to be made on foot. Finally, the town of Guaribas, Pernambuco, has been reached.

Guaribas in Piaui became a township (vi/a) at the beginning of the last century.

But according to the local folk, it became known only recently when it was transformed into the showcase town where the Zero Hunger program was inaugurated just a few months ago. Now everything in town smells new. There is the smell of construction, including a school where adults are learning to scratch out their own names for the first time in their lives.

There is the smell of potable water, available in town, also for the first time. The smell of perfumed love letters arriving at the town's first post office. The smell of

new sheets at a brand new pension. And, finally, the smell of nail polish and shampoo at the town's very first beauty parlor.

Guaribas in Pernambuco, is a Quilombo, that is, a settlement founded and originally populated by runaway slaves in the 19th century. It is now inhabited by their descendants who have heard that the Zero Hunger program will assist Quilombos. And they have also heard about their sister city in Piaui and what the program is doing there. So there is hope that better days are in the offing.

They do not want a lot. Maybe just get themselves on the map, at last.

The Zero Hunger Pilot City "On the air, Radio Hope, broadcasting directly from Guaribas, Piaui, Brazil, the Zero Hunger pilot city."

A lot of the local residents were incredulous when they heard that voice on their radios, mixed with the sounds of firecrackers celebrating annual winter festivities (Festas Jun inas). The community radio station is just one of a series of new endeavors by the state government.

And the radio is heard, they say, even out in the Serra das ConfusOes (Confusion Hills) beyond the city limits.

It is all a little frightening. So many new things. "Now the only old things are us and our necessity." says Tereza Rocha, 88, one ofthe oldest inhabitants. "We are so far out in the boondocks that even bad news does not reach us. We are so isolated that politicians don't come here looking for votes," she explained. That is pretty isolated.

"Man, let me tell you that Brazil was discovered in 1500, but Guaribas was found only this year. We were the doorman at the end of the world," says Orlando Rocha, 62, who admits to being overwhelmed by the changes in town.

"Now people are coming here to see how things are. I guess you could say that everything has its time and our time has finally arrived. Our name is now on the map," he concluded. Rocha (known affectionately as "Seu Orlando"), is the father of ten children and an unknown number of grandchildren ("have to count them to find out how many"). He says the town was visited only by people who had gotten lost, or the wind, "which makes a curve here," he explained using local slang to designate the Brazilian equivalent of Timbuktu.

Guaribas, Piaui, did get in the news for another reason. The mayor, Reginaldo Correia da Silva (PL) has been accused by state prosecutors of leasing out city hall to his friends and removed from office on two occasions. The case is in court right now.

Good News Out of a total of 5,507 municipalities in Brazil, Guaribas, Piaui, is the third worst as measured by the Human Devel-

opment Index. That explains why it was Lord, and the reason is there has never "discovered" and turned into a Zero Hun- been any way to avoid having little chilger program laboratory. The federal gov- dren die in this place," explains farmer ernment program began in March by pro- Jao Bertold, 76. He should know; no viding 500 residents with R$50 per month less than 8 of his 15 children died while for food purchases. Since then the local infants. "Here we carry the ill in hamgovernment has come up with a counter- -mocks. I have seen many hammocks carpart consisting of a series of action plans ried out of town to a place where a vethat have transformed the landscape and hicle could pick them up and take the sick person to another town," says Orlando the lives of the town's inhabitants.

One of the most serious and persis- Rocha. Guaribas never had a doctor, let tent problems in the semi-arid region of alone a hospital. It still does not have a Brazil is the lack of potable water (semi- hospital, but now a doctor makes visits. arid Brazil stretches throughout the inte- That is more good news.

So, discovered in 2003, Guaribas rior ofthe Northeast region and the northern part of the state of Minas Gerais). celebrated this year's Festas Juninas in a Among the action plans, one has put new spirit. After all, there was the new potable water right in the center of radio station, the beauty parlor and even Guaribas, making life ,a little easier for a new place for eating out. And because the womenfolk who have to carry cans of , of the new post office, retirees and govwater on their heads (because in a sexist ernment social program beneficiaries did society a man would never do that), "Be- not have to travel up to 200 kilometers to fore we had to walk a long way, climb up receive their payments.

There is also a construction boom in steep hillsides. It was very hard work," town. A municipal market and 66 lowsays Naive Alves Rocha, 23.

A small water treatment plant with a cost homes are going up as part of a reservoir in now located in the center of development program.

With its newly acquired fame, some town. It is being run by state technicians as part of the Zero Thirst program. The legends about Guaribas and its inhabitlocal women still carry water cans on ants have sprung up. One tells the story of their heads, but the distance is much, a young fellow from Guaribas, arrested much less. Instead of four kilometers, the in faraway Sao Paulo, who was immediwomen balance their water cans on their ately released when the police discovered he was from what is now one of the heads for just a few meters now.

Early in the morning, a line of women most famous cities in the country.

There has been a ripple effect, as forms at the reservoir. "Let me tell you, this is living in luxury. You cannot imag- well. In the past, residents of Guaribas ine what it was like before," exclaims went to the nearest big town, Caracol, for Valda Alves da Silva, who is the manager shopping. Now residents of Caracol are of the Hotel Ferreira, the only one in coming to Guaribas, bringing their mertown. It is known as "the shelter for chandise and setting up street fairs. authorities." There are hammocks in the "Things are actually coming to us," says entrance hall and beds in the rooms. Tereza Rocha. "Some of the things I see Capacity is "some 30 heads." There still â&#x20AC;&#x17E; happening make my head spin. Seems isn't running water in the bath; you bathe like it is finally our turn. May not be the Indian-style, by tossing water on your- discovery of heaven, but there's no denyself from a trough (you toss the water ing the people here are being treated like using a hollow, dried out, fruit pod, known people for a change. That may not be as a cuia). Silva says a shower has been very important for someone used to livordered and is on the way. The hotel is ing the goody-goody life, but for us it is part ofthe 1 percent ofhomes in Guaribas, a pretty big thing." she declared.

Meanwhile, Guaribas, Pernambuco, Piaui, that have bathrooms.

All these problems, an economy that also wants to get on the map operates at a misery level, the lack of - If it can be said that Guaribas, Piaui, clean water and the rampant malnutrition got on the map because it is the Zero have made life expectancy in Guaribas Hunger program pilot city, its twin city of an average 56.1 years, while the national the same name in Pernambuco has not average in Brazil is 68.1. The infant had such luck yet. The Quilombo itself mortality rate in Guaribas, at 59.9 per consists of 52 families, descendants of one thousand births, was running at runaway slaves, who actually live in Lower Guaribas (which is below Upper double the national rate, which is 29.6.

Although there are no official statis- Guaribas; a sort ofdownside ofthe downtics yet, it is reported that in the threet side). "That's a dangerous place. Just the months Zero Hunger has been ir other day they killed two people down there," says a resident ofUpper Gauribas, Guaribas, no infants have died. pointing "down there," to Lower In Hammocks Most babies die because of malnutri- Guaribas. A poster on a door, down there, tion. "There isn't a house in town that has recalls the II Conference of Quilombo not sent "little angels" to the lap of Our Communities of Pernambuco,whichtook BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

40

place earlier this year.

Almost all the residents are descended from three families: the Silvas, the Souzas and the Santos. Almost all are related, says Maria Isabel da Conceicao, 61. "We are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of much suffering. Now we are free, but we have little freedom. We still get lots of hard knocks from life," says this woman whose name is the same as the Brazilian princess who freed Brazilian slaves in 1888.

The slum known as Lower Guaribas is a row of homes made of mud and some brick. Just ahead is a soccer field where kids can play for money. For the winner, sweets and cornbread. The players look like the lions of Cameroons, and play similarly, fast and gracefully.

Sandro Lido de Souza, 28, is the president of Resident's Association of the Qui lombo of Guaribas. He represents the town in political meetings where the future of such locations is discussed. He is concerned with conservingthe memory of the community's ancestors. "Our struggle has historical origins. We must ensure that our young people know about that," he says.

Differently from most years, this one was rainy. The semi-arid (agreste as it is called) looks almost serene. The landscape is green and there are so many frogs in the lake their croaking seems to

drown out the conversation somethties.

But soil that has been abundantly kvatered does not translate into prosperity for the inhabitants of Guaribas. "We are not landholders. We are forced to p ant our crops on small plots of land owned by others," explains Valdemar Lido de Souza, 55, the father of Sandro and 15 other children.

Most of Lower Guaribas' families "rent" themselves out to landowners in the region. A day's work brings in, in the best of times, R$8 (less than US $3). At the moment there is a surplus of workers and the price for a day's work has fallen to R$6, even R$5. "Taking care of something that belongs to somebody elsel is one real big waste of your time," says Lido de Souza.

Obtaining property rights is a slow process. One such process began in 1996 and seems to have gotten lost in red tape.

"Nothing for us is easy. It never has been," says Sandro. "Even though all we really want is to get back what used to belong to us."

Zero Hunger Arrives On the food security map, Guaribas, Pernambuco, is in this month's line-up.

Along with other state Quilombos, it will become part of the program (the otfer Quilombos are: Imbe, in the municipality ofCapoeiras; Negros de Jilu, in Itacuruba; Conceicao das Crioulas, in Salgueito;

Serrote do Gado Brabo and Sitio Caldeiraozinho, both in Sao Bento do Una).

Initially the program will assist 142 communities around the country, containing some 15,000 families, that have been certified to have originated as Quilombos founded by runaway slaves.

The program is being run through a contract signed by the Extraordinary Ministry of Food Security and Hunger Combat, the Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality and the Palmares Cultural Foundation.

Community leaders in Guaribas are betting that the emergency food card, which will give the most needy families R$ 50 a month for food purchases, is going to reduce malnutrition which, although no official statistics exist, can be seen in the eyes of the children, it is so widespread. "I have lost count of the number of"dizzy" kids! see around here.

Dizzy from hunger, that's what they are," says Maria Isabel da Conceicao. "And often they go hungry because they have absolutely nothing, not one little thing at all, to eat."

Xico SA writes for Agenda Brasil (AB), Brazil's government press service. You can reach him emailing lucas@radiobras.gov.br

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41

I went to see the gay pride parade down in Copacabana, Sunday.

Before going to meet my friends in the assembled crowds of GLS (which, to hear the local wags tell it, means Gays, Lesbicos e Suspeitos), I stopped off at the Balcony Bar for a dark draft beer.

Balcony's one of the only places on the beach that serves these and it's also a major hangout for the kind oftourist who comes to Rio expecting to find "hot" women. As such, it's usually filled to the brim with prostitutes and gringos.

Today was no exception. As I sat there drinking beer, I eavesdropped on the conversations around me. There were three Americans to my left, With the obligatory professional gatas draped over them. After listening in for a while I introduced myself and got an earful of their comments regarding the parade.

Turns out that all three are manager types in the service economy back in Toledo, Ohio. Their reactions to the assembled viadagem ranged from attempts at derision (but it's rather hard to snort dismissively at two hundred thousand of anything), to thinly concealed anger, to straight out homophobia ("If one a dem faggots touches me, I'm gonna punch him in da face."). After awhile, more than a bit intimidated, they left the Balcony to head in-land where there "weren't so many queers around". Just before they left, one of them turned to me, shook his head and said "We don't see anything like this back home in Toledo".

Continuing on over to the gay pride parade, I shortly found myself ensconced within another group of American tourists, these more generously disposed to the assembled masses waiting to march.

They, too, were thrilled to see something like this, something which had never occun-ed (at least at this magnitude) back in their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa.

Why so many Anglo-American "Oh, I just love Brazilians!" one of them told me. "They're so free, so utterly acmen consider Brazilians to be "so cepting when it comes to sex. Where else hot" and sexually active? These in the world could we feel as liberated as this? Certainly not where I'm from." are guys who probably never let Well, there you go, I thought. There, in a nutshell, is the responseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in double their hair down. Suddenly, pretty and on both sides of the sexual preferdraping ence lineâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as to why so many Angloare prostitutes American men consider Brazilians to be themselves all over them offering "so hot" and sexually active. Consider sex for less than two hours' the source: these are guys who, for better or worse, probably never let their hair wages back home down in all their lives except for that one crazy spring break trip 18 years ago when THADDEUS BLANCHETTE their fraternity went to South Padre Island. (For the gay crowd, feel free to substitute as and if necessary: "summer vacation"... "friends from the club"...

Sex in Brazil: We Don't Have This in Toledo

"San Francisco".)

They're from sleepy, average towns in the interior of their respective countries where they've led sleepy, average lives, dating sleepy, average people while they get on with what they hope will be a relatively lucrative career. Then they come to Rio on vacation. WHAM! Pretty prostitutes and/or disco boys are suddenly draping themselves all over these guys, offering sex for less than (to them) two hours' wages back home. Man! They've NEVER seen anything like this back in Toledo! Those Brazilians are sure hot, right? WooHOO! The Forbidden Fruit 75 years ago, the great American journalist Hi. Mencken described another, similar, set ofAmericans as they engaged with what they imagined to be a tropical paradise where all that was forbidden back home became, suddenly, accessible: "...a huge touring car stopped at the door. The diners craned their necks and the headwaiter, an elegant young Cuban, rushed forward. One second later he was bowled over, and a round dozen Americans leaped out ofthe touring car and into the room. Their leader was a handsome and well-dressed young man of the sort seen at country clubs... In two bounds he was in the middle of the floor. Then, pausing dramatically, he swept off his Panamahat, waved it in the air and howled 'Hallelujah!' "...The headwaiter and his aides, with great skill, closed in upon the party. Yelling and struggling, its members were herded to the back of the dining room, and then through a swinging door. Presently they were out in the alley behind, still bawling. The Latin-Americans, reassuring their women, resumed dinner. ",..We began to observe the crowd more closely. It was unanimously American and obviously highly respectable.

One finds its exact counterpart every Sunday afternoon on the veranda of every country club from Portland to Portland... an elderly lady separated herself from the rest.... Perhaps the boss of the local Friends of Art. Or the chief reliance of the rector of the Episcopal Church. Or maybe only grand empress of the Federation of Charities. One could not imagine her, at home, venturing beyond half a cocktail before dinner, and then only on gala occasions. But [here] she was pouring down highball after highball, and with each she let a magnificent yell."

What neither group of Americans, then or now, realized is to what degree their repression makes the "natural" expressions of "Latin exuberance" they so desire possible. Though Rio would obviBRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

42

ously have prostitutes and gay pride parades even if the gringos weren't around to help foot the bills, it is very doubtful that these scenes would have developed in the ways that they have without ship and planeloads of tourists disembarking every weekend looking for the sexual freedom they feel deprived of in their home countries. In other words, much of the Brazilian sexuality that tourists see is subsidized and maintained by the tourists' own desires.

Foreign Fantasies Even in those cases (which I'm sure are the majority) where tourists arrive here with no plans to hunt up a sexual partner immediately upon hitting the streets, Rio's (partially gringo generated and maintained) reputation has made itself felt, forming a lens and a mindset, which tends to distort what the typical tourist sees, pulling it towards the sexual.

Thus, the Copacabana strip, about as "typical" of Rio as its counterpart in Hollywood is of L.A., solidifies for the tourist as the nee plus ultra of their Brazilian voyage.

Women wearing shorts and tank tops aren't making these fashion choices because they're practical in a tropical climate or because that's how they've learned to dress from TV, they do it because they are "naturally sensual".

Outrageously dressed and silicon enhanced prostitutes aren't marginal figures occupying a geographically restricted sexual underworld, they are "typical" examples of Brazilian female sexual expression.

Eighteen-year-old disco boys aren't buff because they take steroids and pump iron 'til they drop in the full knowledge that their body is their meal ticket. No! These kids are hunky because "Brazilians are naturally gifted with beauty".

And ask the tourists, gay and straight, what the "natural" roots of all this supposedly exuberant sexuality are and they'll tell you: it's "Brazil's mixture of races".

Mmmhmm.

Far be it for me to scream "racism", but it does occur to me that it's probable that such an idea didn't just pop into these tourists' heads full-formed, innocent and without history. Obviously, when tourists talk about the "mixture of races" producing "sexiness", they're not talking about white folks. In fact, most ofthem— generally white—are quite dismissive of how their own neighbors and family members rate on the sexuality scale when compared with "Brazilians". It's thus not the "white blood" which they are commenting on when they talk about Brazilians' "natural sexuality"...

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

Now, everyone has their partiular tastes when it comes to body types I'll admit, myself, to finding curly hair t be particularly sexy. And I believe tha it's undeniable that, if xenophobia—irr tional fear of difference—exists, hen xenophilia—irrational attraction to difference—must likewise exist. Hell, one could even argue that heterosexuality is based upon xenophilia. But what's iOteresting is the way in which the tourists describe this attraction.

According to them, it's not their articular psychological quirks that d aw their eye to Brazilian bodies: it's the Brazilians themselves as these dis lay their "natural" attributes. At the roo of this, we can find an unconscious no ion of sin. What most of these tourists d or are tempted to do—while in Rio t ey would never do at home. By projec ng the source of this temptation onto so ething outside of themselves, to the s xy "other", they liberate themselves fr m what they, at some level, consider to be inappropriate feelings.

Naturally Sexy It is not at all surprising, then, t at these people take as their scapegoats t at category of hum an beings which the W st has always used as its antithesis, as always seen as being oversexed: n nwhites. What Rio's "racial mixture" s gnifies within this scenario is simply t t, as recognizably European descended or "white" (if only in cultural terms) Carlocas are accessible for this kind ofprojection in a way that the Thais, say, aren't.

On the other hand, "racial mixture" makes them physically distinct from "purely white" and thus an appropriate object for projection of sexual desire.

Now, whenever I write or talk abut things like this, the responses come thi k and fast into my e-mail box: "But Braz 1ians ARE sexy. Surely you can 't be bl in ?

You must not be getting laid enough..." and so on. So let me be the first to admit that yes, some Brazilians are sexy. As are some Brits and even some Americans.

But are Brazilians, as a whole, sexy?

Well, this weekend I also went to a birthday party for a friend's niece, , a working class girl out in Banco de Arei i. , Mesquita, a very sleepy, average wor ing class Carioca suburb. Guess what?

Folks out there are pretty much wh t they're like back in Toledo, Ohio or a y Anglo fim do mundo you care to nan* The women I met were mostly in theIr mid to late twenties, mostly with one three kids, mostly running to fat an cellulite. The men, similarly aged and family orientated, had beer bellies sticking out 10 centimeters or so in front Of their belt buckles.

Both sexes get off on churrasco, beer and pagode. They consider downtown Rio and particularly the tourist zones where our pals from Toledo and Des Moines concentrate to be nests of vice and corruption. About the ONLY difference between these people and their friends and the masses of middle-of-theroad, middle Americans (and their British equivalents) in the sexual department is that they aren't as ready to cast sex, per se, as a "sin", as long as it's framed within a certain kind of sexual experience. They talk about it more and cast it in a more immediate and, perhaps, practical light than their Anglo counterparts.

These people frown upon adultery.

Whatever they might be actually doing themselves, it's a scandal when Jose boffs his neighbor's wife and nothing good is expected to come of it. They frown on the spectacle of people—especially women—hopping from bed to bed.

Again, whatever they themselves might be doing, if Maria has three or four guys on line, she's liable to be called a piranha.

Most ofall, they frown on homosexuality, even though many of the men have most probably had homosexual experiences in their lives (it's worth pointing out, however, that unlike certain Anglo countries I can mention, homosexuality has never been openly outlawed in Brazil). Within this culture, "whore" and "fag" are some of the worst insults one can sling, as is "cuckold". And these categories are very liberally defined to include pretty much any individual whose dress or behavior does not parallel theirs.

This is not a culture that's sexually free and easy with itself, y'all. Not by a long shot. These people have a hell of a lot more in common, sexually speaking, with their British and American working class counterparts than they do with the folks who run and participate in the circuses currently on display down in the South Zone. Furthermore, they represent the vast majority of Brazilians.

So the next time you're tempted to describe Brazilians as "hot" or "sexy", stop a moment and think: who are you really talking about? ' MENCKEN, H.L., 1928. "Gin-guzzling American Tourists Crowd Havanna".

IN: Rodgers, ed. The Impossible H.L. Mencken, NYC: Doubleday, 1991. Pp.661662.

Thaddeus Blanchette is a 35 year old immigrant to Brazil who has been living in and studying the country most of his adult life. He can be reached at poboxthadAvahoo.com.br 43

Madame Said is a movie with the wrong name. The title comes from the stage name of Brazil's most famous drag queen of the Rio de Janeiro Carnaval. But viewers expecting to see a Brazilian version of To Wong Foo or Priscilla, Queen 14140 miNiMitionROMOLIV.014RAmid0.04.1411•ANOP01. of the Desert will- be surprised, maybe even a little shocked. Those movies about rag queens were fairly clean, tame and feminine. Madame Saul couldn't be any more different.

Perhaps -Before Madame Sat" would be a more appropriate title, since the film is about the story of Joao Francisco dos Santos before he became the famous carnival dancer of the 1940s, named after Cecil B. De Mille's film Madame Satan.

Director/writer Karim AInouz invites the audience to be a fly on the wall of the underbelly of the bohemian Lapa district of Rio de Janeiro in the 1930s, and into otemmoot.reasmomion• the dirty, raw and very masculine world of the movie's main character and impromptu family. Joao Francisco—portrayed masterfully by cinema newcomer Lazar() Ramos---is a muscular, quick-tempered, testosterone-pumped and overwhelmingly male -queen".

The film begins with the open lips and wide eyes ofJoao Francisco from behind what seems to be a crown of beads. lie is mouthing the words as if they were his own, rather than being sung by a woman burlesque stage artist to a drunk and rowdy audience. In those moments Joao Francisco is, in his own mind, the star.

But the scene quickly turns. Vitoria dos Anjos (Renata Sorrah) comes offstage, tosses Joao Francisco her shawl at him and demands her next costume. As her stage dresser he quietly submits to her verbal abuse while she scoffs at his praise of her routine—at least this time.

The rest of Joao's life is anything but submissive. He lives in a flat with a makeshift "family" of fellow underworld bohemians. Laurita (Marcelia Cartaxo), Joao's best friend, is a prostitute with a brash laugh and less-than-motherly instincts LA/ 41.21t1141011. ot v•••Clt towards her infant daughter. The real "mother" of the family is Taboo (Flavio prettot.....orue Bauraqui), a transvestite with a flair for cooking, sewing and general housekeeping. wil.A14111.111.4."fr The one-year-old Firmina (Giovanna Barbosa) is often seen in either the motherly "NA Am. CO arms of Taboo as nanny or Joao Francisco as adoptive father. Joao rules the house, Taboo tends to it, and Laurita fits in somewhere in between.

Joao Francisco has no need for anything feminine. Laurita may be his best friend, but he's attracted to men, not women. Nor does he like the tenderness of a homosexual like Taboo. Joao Francisco is a man's man, and wants the same. One night in the Blue Danube, the local bar, he sets his sights on Renatinho (Felippe Marques), makes a pass at him in the bathroom, and eventually seduces him in the paint-stripped bedroom of his home.

The sex in Madame Satdresembles x-rated versions of Wild Kingdom more than tame love scenes. Joao Francisco makes love like he lives life—with anger, passion, fire and a primordial hunger that is more reminiscent of big-game cats than humans. He is a sleek black puma, and the rest of the world is his prey.

One lover, Renatinho, is welcomed into the lair. Another—a paying John who speaks in code when he asks for -a sister who looks like you, has thighs like you" and sticks his tongue down Joao's throat—becomes a target for Joao Francisco and Taboo's mischief.

Taboo breaks into the room screeching that the police are on a house-by-house search for a murderer. The client flees, and they laugh after the middle-class man runs out with his shirt in his hands and pants undone... and missing his cash-filled wallet that he'll never report stolen.

It's apparent that these three Joao, Taboo and Laurita—could have continued to live quite contently for years in Lapa, making money through prostitution, thievery and other odd jobs. But Joao has an inhuman temper. "You're like a wild animal, banging its head against a wall," Laurita cries in desperation after witnessing Joao's rage.

One evening at the cabaret Joao is caught trying on one of the singer's costumes, and she nags and belittles him like ,a hellish grandmother to a small child. He finally has had enough. He fights back verbally against her, throws a few props around the dressing room, then goes to the bartender and quits. But he won't leave until he's paid what he's owed— two months of wages. Joao ends up leaving with his money after using his knife and capoeira-style street-fighting skills on the goons at the bar. But the matter doesn't end In Madame Sara, Brazilian there. Joao is eventually arrested for stealing from the cabaret owner and serves some time in jail. director Karim Kinouz invites the After getting out he's inspired to do his own show, and convinces bar-owner Amador (Emiliano Queiroz) to perform at the Blue Danube. The show is a smashing success and audience to be a fly on the wall of Amador and Joao discuss continuing the performances that will eventually make him famous, until Joao's anger gets the better of him once again. the underbelly of the bohemian First-time feature director Ainouz apparently took years to write the script and assemble the cast and crew, and the fermentation of the project is apparent. The Lapa district of Rio in the 1930s, cinematography by Walter Carvalho, with its hand-held camera techniques and overand into the very masculine world exposed footage, brilliantly brings the grit of underworld Rio to life and enhances the superb acting.

Madame Sata takes place in foreign territory lost today even to Brazilians, but feels of the movie's main character. utterly honest and real. There aren't many Brazilian films that make the translation to the The sex in Madame Sala U.S. market, but those that do (Pixote, Central Station) are often hard looks at the difficult life of the common people. Madame Sata joins them.

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MARY BETH BARBER

Madame Sata plays at the Film Forum (209 West Houston St.), in New Yorlruntil July 22. Show times are 1:00. 3:15, 5:40, 7:45 and 10:00 pm.

Mary Beth Barber, the author, lives in New York and welcomes comments at mary_beth_barber@yahoo.com

BRA7_ZIL - AUGUST 2003 44

It was with great sadness that I read the other day of the passing on July 1, 2003, at age 73, of jazz giant Herbie Mann.

Herbert Jay Solomon was born in 1930, in the Northeast section of the United States (Brooklyn, New York), and died in the Southwestern portion of it (Pecos, New Mexico), but his real home was most probably the planet Earth.

A superb flutist, Mann was one of the pioneers in bringing the silvery instrument out of the stuffiness ofthe orchestra pit and into the smoky spotlight of countless jazz joints, nightclubs and cafĂŠs the world over. He was originally a clarinetist who later took up the tenor saxophone before finally pressing his lips to the elongated eloquence of the flute; it was a literal love at first drawn breath. His playing ultimately achieved a remarkable airiness and bounce that would greatly contribute to the making of the flute into a popular and essential focus of the modern jazz ensemble.

Mann's extensive career took him on a restless globetrotting quest for newer and ever more exotic musical herbs. A true ethnologist, he was forever shaping and honing his beloved craft, but always in the service of his creations and their multi-ethnic origins.

In 1961, he paid his first visit to Brazil, which led to a lifelong association with that country's unique harmonies and infectious toe-tapping rhythms.

Mann became one of the first American jazz artists to discover and record the novelty known as bossa nova, still in its early infancy. The album he made at the time was tilled Do The Bossa Nova With Herbie Mann, and featured guitarist Baden Powell, the young Sergio Mendes, and a novice Brazilian composer named Antonio Carlos Jobim. The rest, shall we say, was musical history.

Mann continued to experiment with a BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

Herbie Mann: Brazil Was Home Too Herbie Mann became one c the first American jazz artists t record bossa nova. In the albu Do The Bosse Nova With Herb!

Mann, he featured a novic Brazilian composer name Antonio Carlos Jobim. In his late years, Mann returned to his firs loves, Brazil and bop, for hi musical grounding.

JOE LOPE

multiplicity of musical forms and styles, incorporating bebop, pop, rock, jazz, fusion, reggae, disco, R&B, Latin, African, Oriental and Middle Eastern influences into his performing grooves. In his later years, he even looked to his own Eastern European cultural roots for inspiration, but inevitably returned to his first loves, Brazil and bop, for his musical grounding.

My principal remembrance of this side of Herbie Mann was his 1990 album Caminho de Casa (The Road Home) for Chesky Records. On it Mann played works by a veritable buffet of Brazilian songwriters: pianist and arranger Nelson Ayres; vocalist and guitarist Dori Caymmi; singer/composer Ivan Lins; crooners Roberto and Erasmo Carlos; ex-Novo Baiano Moraes Moreira; perennial jazz favorite Milton Nascimento; and his own original composition "Yesterday's Kisses" tossed into the salada for added spice.

His band mates for the recording sessions included several artists that comprised his Jasil Brazz jazz combo at the time, among them Paul Socolow on bass, Mark Soskin and Eduardo (Edward) Simon on piano, Ricky Sebastian on drums, Romero Lubambo on acoustic guitar, and the wonderful CafĂŠ on percussion.

For me, the album's success is due in large part to the air of delicacy and lightness that is sustained throughout the program. There isn't a heavy-handed moment on it, and even Socolow's growling electric bass lines are tamed in the general low-key approach to things. The spare use of percussion and other distracting sound effects are kept to a minimum, credit for which must be given to the individual arrangers, as well as to CafĂŠ's solid studio experience.

Mann gets things moving right from the opening track with the bouncy and 45

jaunty title tune by Nelson Ayres. His flitting flute work along with Romero's plucky guitar licks constantly challenge and support each other in a fabulous game of one-upmanship, as Eduardo on piano picks up the thread at key moments by doubling with the flute on the main theme. It's a perfect blend of two disparate elements, with the melody soaring up into the studio stratosphere and staying with the listener long after the song's end.

The next two pieces are at a decidedly slower tempo, but they're no less emotionally charged. The electricity generated by that first number continues into Dori Caymmi's lovely "Gabriela' s Song," at once delicate and mild, lyrical and light, a summertime breeze that stays bewitchingly in the flute's earthy lower register, which stresses both the instrument's sonorous and sensuous sides.

Ivan Lins and Mauricio Tapaj6s' song about a woman who disappeared during Brazil's military dictatorship, "Aparecida," has its own moment in the limelight. It's a beautifully languid air employing a lilting bossa nova beat and a soft sinuous statement, offset by Mark's tumbling piano cascades that make the keys of that instrument sound more like a slow and steady waterfall, as you imagine yoursel f on a leisurely stroll along the Copacabana coastline, with Café's delicately tapped bongos echoing each of your sand-filled footsteps, and Ricky's drum kit and hi-hat providing a perfect counterpoint to this delightful tropical sojourn.

It's followed by an equally charming piece by Roberto and Erasmo Carlos, "Seu Corpo" (Your Body), which originally came with some evocatively sensual lyrics, and is even more laidback than the Lins number, as Mann's flute predominates here by virtue of its hypnotic vibrancy.

The temperature is raised a few degrees with the rhythmically propelled samba and choro workings of "Pao e Poesia" (Bread and Poetry) by Moraes Moreira and Fausto Nib. The flute takes off on its own wave of celebratory sound, and gives the listener the impression of being an active participant in a Rio Carnaval parade, while giving equal time to the piano as it voices its lines in a flowing and expansive variation on the main idea.

Mann's own gorgeous piece, "Yesterday's Kisses", brings us back to bossa territory, the prevailing mood being that of a warm and humid summer night, of wiping away the perspiration from your lover's sweaty brow. The work is enlivened throughout by the bass's mewling love call, answered in turn by both piano and flute, purring playfully in languorous obeisance to it.

Milton Nascimento's classic "Anima" is given an unusual treatment by Mann and Venezuelan pianist Eduardo Simon, who pull the main melody around in deliberate stop-and-go fashion, very different from the version recorded in 1991 by clarinetist Richard Stoltzman on his equally memorable Brasil for RCA Victor. At almost a full nine minutes, "Anima" is the longest number on the album, and perforce it takes the time to make its poetic presence felt. The original song's lyrics about the soul reaching out in search for something beyond this mortal and temporal existence sympathetically reflects Mann's own long-range career pursuits, and can stand as his personal life statement.

The final two tracks, "Choro das Aguas" (Cry of the Waters) by Lins and his frequent collaborator Victor Martins, and "Doa a Quem Doer" (No Matter Who It Hurts), also by Lins, wrap up the proceedings nicely.

Guitar and piano start the forward propulsion in "Choro," as the flute enters in ever-so-hesitating a manner, then pulls back with several long-limbed phrases. One can fully appreci-

ate the marvelous atmosphere of the recording venue, made in the famous RCA Studio A in New York City you can even hear Mann dexterously fingering his favored instrument, captured for posterity by the minimalist miking techniques.

Romero's rock-steady guitar strumming returns, as playful as ever, but this time dragging itself into momentary fits and starts, hemming and hawing as it goes, while the flute slowly emerges, pleading for obvious forgiveness for some past fault.

The guitar eventually defers to it for the long-held final word, which becomes a literal sigh of breathless anticipation of some imaginary future assignation.

The closing number, "Doa," adds one last samba note to the celebration, as we're taken back to the Carnaval street parade and its colorful cacophony of sounds and rhythms, a fitting formal conclusion to our Brazilian exploration.

I listened to this splendid album in tribute to the principal artist, Herbie Mann, who was without a doubt the main man of World Music. He has. indeed, found the proverbial road back to his heavenly home, but here on terra firma—and especially on this particular recording—Mann was truly at ease with Brazilian music, Brazilian artists, and his "adopted" homeland Brazil, one he often returned to in his wayward wanderings; and Caminho de Casa, or The Road Home, is no better testament to his musical memory.

Joe Lopes, an American citizen born in Brazil, was raised and educated in New York City, where he worked for many years in the financial sector. In 1996, he moved to Brazil with his Brazilian wife and two daughters. He returned to the U.S. in January 2001, and now resides in North Carolina with his family. He is a passionate lover of all types of music, including jazz and opera. You can email your comments to JosmarLopes(&msn.com.

NEEDS A COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR He/she will be in charge of advertising and marketing reporting directly to the publisher.

Send your résumé to: Brazzil PO Box 50536 Los Angeles, CA 90050 E-mail to: brazzil@brazzil.com Or call: 323-255-8062 BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

46

Bispo (Bishop)—The tortured life of schizo-paranoid popular artist Arthur Bi po do Rosario (1911-1989) who created m st of his art using trash and old material fr the Rio psychiatric hospital where he liv d.

Written by Joao Miguel and Edg rd Navarro, directed by Edgard Navarro, ith Joao Mi uel Cl u OVIeS

JUST-RELEASED OR RE-RELEASED

da Hora, Seu Jorge, Matheus Nachtergaele, and Phcllipe Haagensen.

Deus E Brasileiro (God Is Brazilian)— Brazil/2002—God decides to take a vacation, but before leaving his post, He has to find someone to take over during the break.

Comedy directed by Caca Diegues, with Antonio Fagundes, Paloma Duarte, Wagner Moura, Bruce Gomlevsky, Stepan Nercessian, Castrinho, Hugo Carvana.

ooks Nest sellers

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE MOVIES:

Batalha de Arroz num Ringue para Dois (Rice Battle in a Rink for Two) Written by Mauro Rasi Directed by Miguel Falabella, with Miguel Falabella and Claudia Jimenez.

Playwright Rasi, who died in April, wrote the play for Falabella and Jimenez in 1985, but this was the first time they staged it.

The story of marriage of Nelio and Angela, which brings lots of laughs to the public.

Capitanias Hereditdrias (Hereditary Captaincies)--After embezzling a huge amount of money, a trio composed by an unscrupulous banker, his partner, plus the sister-inlaw try to leave the country. Written and directed by Miguel Falabella, co-written

by Maria Carmem Barbosa, with Jose Wilker, Ney Latorraca and Natalia do Valle.

Sem Vergonhas (No Shames)—Based on Anthony McCarten and Stephen Sinclair's play Ladies Night. The New Zealand story about down on their luck men who decide to put a strip-tease show was nioved with success to the Lapa neighborhood. Written

by Daniel Botti, translated by Liane Lazoski and Gabriela Morales, with Jandir Ferrari, Leandro Hassum, Jayme Del Cueto, Marcelo Mello, Pedro Neschling, and Marcelo Escorel.

IAI PAIN

Quarta-Feira, Sem Falta, La Em Casa (Don't Miss It This Wednesday at My House)—Comedy. Two friends, both widows—one a hypocrite, the other foul mouthed--meet every Wednesday to exchange gossips and their own past extraconjugal sexual adventures. Written by Mauro Brasini, directed by Alexandre Reinecke. with Beatriz Segall and Myrian Pires.

Novas Diretrizes em Tempos de Paz (Peace Time New Guidelines)—The 1945 dramacharged real story about Polish Clausewitz, who needs a permit to stay in Brazil and the man who can give him this document.

Written by Bosco Brasil, directed by Ariela Goldman n, with Tony Ramos e Dan Stulbach.

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

+ Velozes luriosos (2 Fast 2 Furious) A Creche do Papai (Daddy Day Care), A Festa Nunca Termina (24 Hour Pa ty People), A (llama Noite (The 25' Hour) A Viagem de Chihiro (Spirited Away), Horas (The Hours), Blush .(Hongfe ), Canguru Jack (Kangaroo Jack), Carm n de Godard (Premon Carmen), Como Per# er um Homem em 10 Dias (How to Lose a y in 10 Days), Embriagado de Amor (Pun hDrunk Love), Foi 56 urn Beijo (Just a Kiss), Frida (Frida), Kamchatka (Kamc atka), Leila° - 0 Filme (Piglet's Big Movi ), Matrix Reloaded (The Matrix Reloade ), 0 Bastardo (Jan Dara), 0 Filho (Le Fit), Filho da Noiva (El Hijo de la Novia), 0 Homem Sem Passado (The Man Withou a Past), 0 Pianista (Le Pianiste), 0 Q e Fazer em Caso de Incendio? (What to P0 in Case of Fire?), Por um Fio (Pho e Booth), Premonicao 2 (Final Destinati n 2), Roma (Roma), Taurus (Telets), Tir • em Columbine (Bowling For Columbin Todo Poderoso (Bruce Almighty), U a Mulher E uma Mulher (Une Femme t une Femme), Uma Receita para a Ma a (Dinner Rush), Voltando a Viver-Antwo e Fisher (Antwone Fisher), X-Men 2 '-Men ) Desmundo—Brazi1/2001--We are in 15 0 Brazil. The queen of Portugal sends o Brazil colony a group of orphans, who w 11 be the wives of Portuguese colonize Much of the story is about Oribela, one the orphans who ends up with a sugar c baron. Directed by Alain Fresnot, wr Simone Spoladore, Osmar Prado, Ca Ciocler, and Beatriz Segall.

0 Homem Que Copiava (The Man W o Used to Copy)—Brazi1/2003—Whi e working at a Porto Alegre (state of R. Grande do Sul) stationery store and re ing the material he copies, a young m dreams of a new and rich life. Directed 11 Jorge Furtado, with Lazaro Ramos, Leand Leal, Pedro Cardoso and Luana Piovann Carandiru (Carandiru Penitentiary)—Br zi1/2003—Based on Estacao Cdrandir (Carandiru Station) written by Drauzi Varella. A doctor trying to prevent AID in Brazil's largest prison becomes con dant to several inmates. Directed by Hect r Babenco, Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos, Milto Goncalves, Ivan de Almeida, Ailton Grac , Maria Luisa Mendonca, and Rodrig Santoro.

Cidade de Deus (City of God)—Brazi 2002—Based on Paulo Lins's novel o same name. An inside picture of Rio' favela Cidade de Deus. How Dadinho Buscape grow up in world of drugs an crime. Directed by Fernando Meirelles an Katia Lund, with unknown actors, includ in Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmin

FICTION 1. Onze Min utos, Paulo Coelho 2. 0 Diario de Tati, Heloisa Perisse 3. Banquete corn os Deuses, Luis Fernando Verissimo 4. Uma Vida Interrompida: Mem6rias de um Anjo Assassinado, Alice Sebold 5. Erros lrreversiveis, Scott Turow 6. Angus: 0 Primeiro Guerreiro + CD Angus: Trilha Sonora, Orlando Paes Filho 7. Sobre Meninos e Lobos, Dennis Lehane 8. As Mentiras que os Homens Contam, Luis Fernando Verissimo 9. Perdas e Ganhos, Lya Luft 10. Um Encontro Inesperado, Rosamunde Pilcher P4/uto Carlho

IIIFICTIIII 1. Estacao Carandiru, Drauzio Varella 2. As Vidas de Chico Xavier, Marcel Souto Major 3. Stupid White Men: uma Nava° de Idiotas, Michael Moore 4. Abusado, Caco Barcellos 5. Mulheres Alteradas - 1, Maitena 6. Mulheres Alteradas - 2, Maitena 7. As Boas Mulheres da China, X inran 8. 0 Pianista, Wladyslaw Szpilman 9. Fora de Controle: Como o Acaso e a Estupidez Mudaram a Historia do Mundo, Eric Durschmied 10. A Ditadura Envergonhada - Vol. 1, Elio Gaspari

IEEE 11111 I ISITIIICIIII 1. Criando Meninas, Gisela Preuschoff 2. Quern Ama, Educa!, Icami Tiba 3. Quern Mexeu no Meu Queijo?, Spencer N. Johnson 4. Tudo Tern Seu Preco, Zibia M. Gasparetto 5. Mentes Inquietas, Ana Beatriz B. Silva 6. Criando Meninos, Steve Biddulph 7. Ninguem E de Ninguem, Lucius (Espirito) & Zibia M. Gasparetto 8. Nat) Leve a Vida Tao a Seri°, Hugh Prather 9.A Arte da Felicidade: um Manual para a Vida, Howard C. Cutler & Dalai Lama 10.0 Segredo das Criancas Felizes, Steve Biddulph According to Veja magazine www.veja.com.br

47

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49

Banco Real (305) 358-2433 Banespa (305) 358-9167

Kitanda Brazil (818) 995-7422 Sugar Loaf (562) 856-1615 Supermercado Brasil (310) 837 4291

• gas aszsuataus

ABFC • As. Bras. da Flor.

(407) 354-5200 Cam, Corn, Brasil- EUA (305) 579-9030 ARARA - Amazon. As. (813) 842-3161

•lean 11111111 •batman

Brasil Brasil Cult. Ctr (310) 397-3667 Modern Lang. Center (310) 839-8427

• Wind

• Anstists

Ail OMR

Consulado do Brasil (305) 285-6200

ArtMedia (310) 826-1443

▪thislists

• Ivisi ihnius

Hedimo de SA (305) 262-8212 Luciano Garcia (954) 424-5868

Noronha Advogados (310) 788-0294 Edgardo Quintanilla, Esq. (818) 986-1295

• fan i brarnas

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All Braz. Imp. & Exp. (305) 523-8134 Brazil by Mail (954) 472-7163 Vanya's Sweets (954) 785-0087 Via Brasil (305) 866-7718

Fogo e Paixao (310) 450-4586

•link

Brazilian Heart Dance & Sing (818) 759-9089

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Nilson A. Santos (213) 483-3430

Katja Rego Johnson (954) 255-5715

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listen = Itiks Livraria Plenitude (800) 532-5809

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Consulado do Brasil (617) 542-4000

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Sylvio P. Lessa (617) 924-1882

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Brasil Brasil (617) 561-6094 Food Mestizos (781) 322-4002

•intractin

Approach Student Ctr (617) 787-5401 Braz. & Amer. Lg. Inst.

(617) 787-7716

• PIIMICAIIIS The Brazilian Monthly (617) 566-3651 Bossa: Braz. Jazz Guide (617) 262-9997

•itastairats

Café Brazil (617) 789-5980 lpanema (508) 460-6144 Tropicana (617) 567-4422 Pampas Churrascaria (617) 661-6613

Chicago •Canine Consulado G. do Brasil (312) 464-0244

• fasts Prandial

Samba 1 Dance Group (773) 486-9224

•Trassixting

Portuguese Lang. Ctr. (312) 276-6683

Dallas h Houston, TN •links IASWIIIIIIS Brazilian Cultural Center (713) 961-3063 Fila Brasileiro Association (817) 447-3868

• fa a Prangs

Taste of Brazil (866) 835-5556

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Capoeira Golpe Bonito (713) 463-6584

• Issbarnts

Boi na Brasa (817) 329-5514 Fogo de Chao (972) 503-7300 50

Samba Café (713) 961-7379

• Trani Alma

Brazil Brasileiro (972) 594-8894 Sergio & Doris Travel (281) 679-9979

Los Angeles • iirnilli Varig (800) GO VARIG

• Arts Clans

Julinya Vidigal De Vince (310) 479-2070

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Bakari Art Studio (323) 857-0523 Folk Creations (310) 693-2844

• Atte lisp*

Cosmo Auto Parts (323) 259-9818 Pit Stop (310) 643-6666

• Mils Banco do Brasil (213) 688-2996

• MIMS Verao Brazil Bikinis (818) 887-1776

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Samba Collection (562) 438-3669

•Clubs lAssuclallals

Brazil-Cal. Chbr of Corn.

(323) 658-7402 Brazilian Sociocult. C. (310) 370-0929 Centro Cultural Gaucho (323) 256-6548 MILA - Samba School (310)478-7866 Mov. Social Humanista (310) 281-6652 SambaLa -Esc. de Samba (562) 438-3669

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Brazzil

-Int fstati

Florida Review (305) 374-5235

Tania Sayegh (310) 612-4838 Solon G. Pereira (562) 924-9633

Simone Bethencourt (954) 704-1211

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Bossa Nova (310) 657-5070

By Brazil (310) 787-7520 Café Brasil (310) 837-8957 Gauchos Village (818) 550-1430 Grill from lpanema (562) 435-6238 Pampas Grill (323) 931-1928 Roda Viva Churrascaria (626) 839-9950 Sabor Brazil (310) 376-7445 Zabumba (310) 841-6525

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Touchdown Freight (800) 824-4399 Key International Shipping (800) 248-3880

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Brazil Air (800) 441-8515 Brazil Tours (818) 767-1200 Cheviot Hills Travel (310) 202-6264 South Winds Tr & Tours (800) 533-3423

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Brazil TV & Production (562) 439-4830

Gilberto Henriques (310) 371-0620 Georgia Maria Ferreira (818) 908-9199

Transbrasil (800) 872-3153 Varig (800) 468-2744 Vasp (800) 732-8277

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(323) 255-8062

Miami - S.Florida •&inn

Brazilian Nites Prod.

(818) 566-1111 • MgI Priffiltt$ Brazil Mania - Braz. Market (310) 212-6040 Hi Brazil (310) 318-2108

Dra Henrietta Faillace (305) 935-2452 Dr. Roberto Shaffer (305) 535-1694 Dr. Neri Franzon (954) 776-1412

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Brazilian Consulate (323) 651-2664

•best

• Physicists

Elizabeth Almeida, M.A. (310) 470-0214 Dr. Jefferson Se (213) 207-2770 Tania Haberkom, M.A. (310) 840-5380

littany

Joel Stewart (954) 772-7600

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Banco do Brasil (305) 358-3586 Banco Nacional (305) 372-0100

Boteco (954) 566-3190 Brazilian Tropicana (954) 781-1113 Porcao (305) 373-2777 Steak Masters (305) 567-1718

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60

Brazilian Wave (305) 561-3788 Discover Brazil Tours (800) 524-3666 Euroamerica (305) 358-3003 International Tours (800) 822-1318 Luma Travel (305) 374-8635 Monark Travel (305) 374-5855 New Port Tours (305) 372-5007 Via Brasil Travel (305) 866-7580

New York /N. Jersey •Mks Luso-Brazilian Books (800) 727-LUSO

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Brazilian Ch. of Corn.

(212) 751-4691 Brazilian Corn. Bureau (212) 916-3200 Brazilian Trade Bur. (212) 224-6280

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(212) 757-3080

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BBJ (Br. Bus. Junction) (212) 768-1545 • hit i Pfallitt Amazonia (718) 204-1521 Coisa Nossa (201) 578-2675 Merchant Express (201) 589-5884

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The Brasilians (212) 382-1630

Brazilian Voice (201) 955-1137 Portugal-Brasil News (212) 228-2958 www.verdeamarelo.net (732) 906-8039

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Brasilia (212) 869-9200 Brazil 2000 (212) 877-7730 Brazilian Pavillion (212) 758-8129 Cabana Carioca (212) 581-8088 Indigo Blues (212) 221-0033 S.O.B. (212) 243-4940 Tapajos River (201) 491-9196

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What I can imagine is the terror of living in a country where you can't trust the police, for whom the laws are even more a function of individual whim as of enforcement. From the predatory policemen tothe city officials to the school that won't pay salaries on time, an individual just can't fight.

"Is Brazil in South America?" asked the cabbie when my wife and I told him as he drove us to Kennedy Airport where we were going. The cabbie was from Ecuador. He thought Brazilians speak Spanish. What to say? Brazil is one of those vast countries doomed to be vastly unrecognized if recognized at all. The following account is written, first of all, to try to put Brazil on the map. It's not a portrait of the whole of Brazil. For better or worse, that portrait has already been painted. A recent excellent collection of essays in the Traveler's Tales series, for example, follows the usual lines. Brazil largely has to do with two areas and one city: the Amazon, the Northeast, and Rio de Janeiro There is only one piece on the whole south of Brazil— about the state capital of Curitiba.

Recently I returned from a trip to Brazil. Nothing unusual about this, except for three things. First, I didn't go to Rio. Second, over the course of thirty days—including sixty-nine hours worth of bus trips--I visited four southern states. Third, I accompanied my wife, who is Brazilian. Eva has a mother and a father, four children, two sisters and four brothers, and nineteen nieces and nephews who live in Brazil. Our purpose was to see every single one of these people. We almost did.

In the process, we saw much in excess of its occasion. The following account is designed to represent some of the excess.

Although there is a narrative embedded here, I have instead tried to produce a series of verbal snapshots that emphasize the impressionistic, reflective character oftravel writing. Each one in the series is designed to read complete in itself, like an essay.

Each is three paragraphs, as a principle both of formal restraint and of release, like a sonnet sequence.

A final word of introduction. Brazil is not my country. I don't live there. I can only respond to it in American terms. And yet! have lived there—for the first time, eleven years ago—and emotionally I remain there. So for me the relation of Brazil to the United States is Brazil to me, but only to the exact measure that the relation of the United States to Brazil is the United States. I don't live between two worlds. I live inside them. For a month, it was good to experience how little each has in common with the other.

May 10. How is it different? How is it different? Over and over again, as Eva's niece and her husband drive us home from

the airport, I stare out at the city as if stunned, as if I've never been to Brazil before. Walter and Nara's car becomes a ship. The city is an ocean. The people— walking alongside the roads, sitting at confeitarias and lanchonetes—are so many fish.

Suddenly Brazil's difference from the United States strikes me: life is outside here. Whether kids playing soccer in a field or just a group of people standing around in a street, not even a quarter of these people could been seen on a Sunday morning in any American city, including New York. In America, what you want is a self. In Brazil, what you have is a society.

Today features the state football championship between two of the premier teams, Corinthians and Sao Paulo.

It doesn't matter to me who wins. It matters passionately to these Paulistas.

Firecrackers begin to explode in earnest by game's end. It might appear that the city is under attack. It fact it's merely once more under construction. The firecrackers are more comparable to depth charges, only set by the fish, excited all over again to be in their element.

"Just like what you have in the US," assures Noel, the new boyfriend of Valeria, another of Eva's nieces. He's speaking of something I've never seen before at a Brazilian football match: cheerleaders! True enough, these animadoras de torcidas indeed resemble American cheerleaders. Yet as they bounce about waving their pom-poms, the television camera ignores them.

Noel tells me that these girls are part of an attempt by Brazilian authorities to curb violence at football games. Trouble is, nobody pays much attention to the girls, except perhaps for halftime, when there's a lottery—another violence-preventive measure. I want to tell him that the purpose ofcheerleaders in the United States is not to curb violence at football games.

Or is it? What then is the purpose of cheerleaders? To eroticize violence?

Maybe at American games, cheerleaders are just empty signifiers of absent femininity, and at Brazilian games cheerleaders are empty signifiers of absent Americanness; in each case, you can make of the cheerleaders whatever you like. One thing I'd like to make is this: let them be the sign of how blissfully meaningless your own country becomes— perhaps ironically in this instance—when

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

you confront evidence of it in anot er.

Five years ago it was Walter nd Nara doing the same thing that Noel d Valeria are doing now: cooing and oissing and lying in each other's arms in the home of the girl, right before her parents, every day and evening. I ce more, Eva cautions me not to thin of sex; if Noel marries Valeria, he ill marry a virgin, just as Walter did w en he married Nara, who was twenty-fur, the same age Valeria is now. Everyb s dy understands about the importance of irginity.

The irony with respect to the Un ted States is exquisite. As bourgeois Am- ricans, Noel and Valeria would not be permitted to express their affection for each other so explicitly in her home; et, most likely, away from home they we Id be fucking like rabbits, for all anyb dy knew or cared. But what precisely s it that would not be cared about? It's ot virginity.

Some of the cultural difference an be explained, I think, not only by c ntrasting attitudes toward sex in each .ociety but, more important, family. I eel marries Valeria, he will marry her f. ily; he will eat with them and share t eir lives just as Walter does now. Th :refore, what he's doing now is courting he family. He expects them to trust him, j st as they expect him to trust them.

The open displays of affection e signs of trust all round.

For Mother's Day, Noel and Val :ria came up with a money-making id - a: baskets lavishly decorated with ribbo s, cellophane, and dried flowers. They c 0 ntain materials for a special break '. t consisting of cup and saucer, milk, Cr. kers, cheese, juice, tea, honey, and bu ler.

Some forty baskets were priced at thi five, fifty, and eighty reais, includ ng delivery. They sold out!

Set aside the energy to work; it t e ok three days to make these baskets ( nvolving the whole family). Consider o ly the sheer imagination of these peo e!

And there are millions of lower-mid le class people from Sao Paulo alone o work as hard to survive. Valeria's whIle life astounds me. She works from '-5 each day as a clerk/receptionist in an office that deals in legal docume ts.

Then she takes courses from a priv te law school from 7-11 each night. In Saturday she takes a course in Engl sh from 2-5.

Sunday is the only day Valeria as

entirely free to try to expand this business of festive baskets, as well as a telephone message service (run out of the office Walter and Nara rent for their computer training school). She's 100 percent Brazilian and she lives a 100 percent Brazilian life. Yet sometimes she looks so tired that I can only justify an aesthetic response, and compare Valeria with her raven hair and sallow skin to a sad Madonna. Only she should be framed in one ofthose Italian Renaissance paintings, rather than caught in a basket.

Families sit around and talk. At one point Noel makes some disparaging remark about Indians, while everybody is celebrating (as Brazilians love to do) their European heritage, in this case, Italian. Eva cries out: "You are in a family that comes from Indians." Even Eva's brother, Elson, and his wife, Terezinha, look surprised. Eva recounts once again the story of how one of their Spanish ancestors took a fiery young Indian as a bride; as a child this woman bit his finger off.

"I didn't know you had a foot in the kitchen," exclaims Noel to Valeria. Eva exclaims back: "We all have a foot in the kitchen. In fact, we have both feet." She would not have emphasized this—I know—had she not lived in the United States for the past ten years. And yet, since she has, her emphasis has the force of a rebuke, delivered from abroad, as well as one delivered right from inside the kitchen.

Brazilian racism is different from American racism. Ours might be deeper.

But their surface seems to me far more shallow and unreflective. Brazilians simply don't see what they're doing when they luxuriate over their European roots at the unstated expense oftheir Indian or Negro blood, much less when they give voice to the privilege. So late in the twentieth century, their social contract remains constructed so they don't have to see racism, not even in the kitchen.

If Eva were writing, she would write about Guilherme, Walter & Nara's son.

He's the quintessence of one-and-a-halfyear-oldness. He's all smiles, he churns his chubby legs, he can almost talk. If he does something, he likes to come up to you so he can extend his hand and you can give him a "high five." He's onto or into everything—the tops of tables he can reach, steps he can climb, corners he can hide. In honor of his father's Portu-

53

guese background, Evacalls Guilherme, "Vasco da Gama."

Since it's me writing, I can't see Guilherme quite this way. I don't have any children myself, so I've never raised a boy. Implicit in Eva's response to this one is her experience that he's a boy rather than a girl, unlike the one she raised until she was ten or the twins until they were five. Just as implicit is the knowledge that Guilherme is part of her blood, and she ofhis. She "reads" him in terms of who in the family he resembles, and she confidently presents herself to him as his aunt, his tia.

By contrast, lacking any intimate experience as well as any clear relation, to me Guilherme appears as something quite different: a Brazilian subject. Every bit his family's, he's equally every bit his culture's. Though he can't yet speak, when he does it will be Portuguese; already the difficulties he has pronouncing my first name are the difficulties of a Portuguese speaker. Moreover, the strongest word that he can utter now is the announcer's periodic cry of goal—goaaaaaaa11111—in imitation of the never-ending football game on television; he pronounces it more lucidly than either pai or mae, "father" or "mother."

Elson, at 59, is Eva's eldest brother.

He has a fourth grade education. For most of his life he's been an electrician, although he's got a quick temper and has had trouble holding jobs. For the past six years Elson has had a most unusual one.

Basically, what he does is walk all over Sao Paulo every day, carrying large amounts of money.

Sao Paulo is a dangerous city, with lots of muggings. Elson works for a company that offers to businesses and banks the means for the safe transportation of money (as well as important documents). The company only employs older men, who are told to look as nondescript as possible. Elson has carried as much as $130,000 (though with this much another man accompanied him, and they took cabs).

He works off the books, so has no medical insurance from the company. In a country where the minimum salary is 110 reais per month (about $100), it's not clear what Elson makes—anywhere from 500 to 1,000 reais. But business all round is bad now. There might be a million unemployed in Sao Paulo alone.

For the moment, Elson's company has

54

offered the men a 30 percent pay cut rather than immediate layoffs. He gave us each a knee brace that he uses to carry money, and he seems as proud to show it as he is to demonstrate the special gadget he uses on the weekends to catch a certain fish called a corrupto that lives in discarded inner tubes of the city's rivers.

One day awhile ago Walter and Nara were driving. He stopped at a red light.

A police car was behind them. A cop got out, and was outraged. He proceeded to berate Walter for stopping and threatened him with a fine. "Can you imagine," Eva says, "how humiliating this would be fora Brazilian man especially?"

I can't. Try as I might, I just can't.

What I can imagine instead is the terror of living in a country where you can't trust the police, for whom the laws are even more a function of individual whim as of enforcement. Would Walter say that it's not really terrifying to live in Brazil as much as just horrifying to live in Sao Paulo? No matter. From the predatory policemen to the city officials who change the tax rate on his computer programming business almost weekly or the administrators at the private high school where he works who won't pay him on time, an individual just can't fight, and he wants out.

Indeed, the surprise to us this time is that the whole family would leave Sao Paulo if they could, even Elson, for whom the completion of his new home— a brick-and-concrete rectangle built up in the forecourt of the old home by the whole family over the course of some ten years—is the dream of a lifetime. Elson was advised not to finish the outside of the house, lest it attract thieves. Nobody has to tell him that the thieves would as likely be policemen as anybody else.

Does understanding a country begin when you give up the notion that any portion of it is any more "real" than any other? Undoubtedly. So the vast and vastly infamous industrial and commercial metropolis of Sao Paulo, with some fourteen million people, is no more real than the obscure city of Maringa—some six hundred and fifty kilometers southeast—where Eva was raised, where she and I lived five years ago, and where her parents still live (along with three hundred thousand or so others).

Trouble is, some places are ceaselessly represented as more effectively real than others. To Brazilians, for example, the celebrated musical culture of

Salvador, to the Northeast, makes this city more vibrantly real. To the rest of the world, the sheer physical beauty of Rio de Janeiro, if nothing else (Brazilians would emphasize more the violence) makes it more wondrously real. In these terms, Maringa scarcely exists.

Add to this the fact that the people of Maringa (and southerners generally) speak a slower, more measured Portuguese coded as provincial, or caipira, in contrast to the sexy, sophisticated Carioca Portuguese of Rio, preeminently.

So what to say? What Eva says is emphatic. After Walter and Nara take an hour weaving through downtown streets to get to Barra Funda, the main bus station, as soon as we take our seats on the bus, Eva exclaims: "I can't wait to get out of here to the real Brazil."

Watching the Titanic Sinking in Brazil There are few nursing homes in Brazil, due to the fact that the entire social service structure of the country—from its public hospitals to its government-sponsored welfare—is so rudimentary.

There's no outside to the family.

Both young and old belong to you and the end of life is more hopeless than the beginning Maringi May 13. The bus Maringa-wards is state-of-the-art. Brazil has the best bus

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

system in the world, and now the long-distance fleet of V iacao Garcia, which serves the state of Parana, features an "Executivo," including air-conditioning, a cockpit for the driver set some steps down from the passenger level, and passenger seats that retract way back. Eleven hours are scheduled from Sao Paulo to Maringa, at the cost of 33 reais (US$ 11).

By contrast, just a few days ago it cost us twice this amount to bus about a third less the distance from western Pennsylvania to the Port Authority in New York. We had to change buses once. Only the second was air-conditioned, and had seats comparably wide as this Brazilian bus. Both American buses were no more than half empty. This one is full, and full of the sort of middle-class looking people whom you seldom see on American buses.

But so what? The roads (all one lane, once we leave the state of Sao Paulo, the richest state in Brazil) are still often cracked, narrow, and clogged with trucks.

As we get closer to Maringa, the bus begins to stop more frequently at little towns. Inside the city limits of Maringa, individual passengers can request being let off just about anywhere. This human scale is nice. But it transforms state-ofthe-art into what Brazilians term apinga pinga, "drip, drip." We arrive at Maringa's new terminal forty-five minutes late.

The Hotel Bandeirantes has it. Eva's parents have it. Maringa has cable! Now cable makes the whole scale of this planned city—which celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its existence five years ago, when we lived here—feel different. Even the charming downtown grid of small shops and boutiques appears somehow more precious or intimate, now that it's possible to go home, turn on the television, and watch ESPN in Spanish or a channel from (of all places) Dubai.

Or do some forty cable channels such as these really make as much of a difference? Somebody spoke of the global village, granted. But who has been listening in Maringa? Maringa is the sort of city where you can see farmers clattering along the main thoroughfares in horsedrawn carts. Locals (even Protestants) remain proud of their cone-shaped ca-

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

mari

thedral, at 124 meters the highest mon ment in South America (and tenth hig est in the world). Maringa, I think, i a village model for post-industrial ca talism to stage its global energies. Fir t, it styles itself upon local circumstanc s, and then proceeds to cast them into fig rative darkness; little about Marina matters for the global imaginary oth r than these horse-drawn carts.

Of course cable makes some diff rence to me. But I'm just a visitor, fir whom the fact that it's now possible o watch a German news report or a Briti h documentary makes Maringa, ifnot mo e charming, then at least less remote fro the rest ofBrazil, if not the world. Troub e is, like a local, whether the television s on or off, I still have to re-dial a fe times in order to make a phone call tot e university, or put the toilet paper in a basket rather than flush it down the toil t after I wipe my ass.

Eva's parents, Oscarina and Virgili i, are both in their early eighties. Her moth r looks far more frail than she did fi e years ago, and her father is so drugge , incontinent, and insentient that he mig t as well be dead. Eva's two sisters, Elzi a and Ercilia, have had to devote the r lives to these two for the past five year., alternating two-week periods in whic one stays with them round the cloc .

Hiring maids hasn't worked. Finding a health care facility for the father h proved impossible.

Lately, it seems, a place has bee found, in Londrina—some one hundre kilometers away, where Ercilia live.

But the problems this would prom it seem insuperable. Set aside the cos .

(Close to 300 reais—US$ 100—p .r month.) Set aside even Oscarina's o jections. (The old woman refuses to li ten to talk of moving her husband out if their apartment.) Consider only the pra

tical matter ofgetting the old man to Londrina. He can't be put in a bus. In order to make it feasible for him to endure a long trip in a car, the sisters can't do it alone; even Elzira's strong heart sinks.

Virgilio is older in Brazilian terms than he is in American terms. Worse, he's more incomprehensible; there are few nursing homes in Brazil, as a function of the fact that the entire social service structure of the country— corn ranging from its public hospitals (a scandal) to its governmentsponsored welfare (virtually non-existent)—is so rudimentary. What the case of their father prompts the family to face is that finally it has only its own resources. There's no outside to the family in Brazil. Both young and old belong to you. Hence, back in Sao Paulo, the whole of Nara's family is saving for the birth ofher second child, which can only take place at affordable cost of 1,200 reais—US$ 400 (nobody having any health insurance or trusting it if anybody did) in a private hospital two hours from Sao Paulo. Hence also, the end of life is more hopeless than the beginning.

I see Milton, my friend from the university whom I hung around with a lot five years ago. He speaks right up, in English. It's rusty but still intact, clear, and thorough. I ask if he's spoken English since I left. He says, no. I'm incredulous. "You mean, you haven't spoken one word of English since I left, not once?" "Not one moment," Milton replies.

What's that joke? If you speak two languages, you're bilingual. Ifyou speak three, you're a polyglot. If you speak one, you're American. So, in Brazil more than anywhere else, I've remained American, despite the fact that I understand so much Portuguese by now that I like to say, of all the people in the world who don't speak Portuguese, I speak the best Portuguese. The surprise here in Maringa is that I now seem both to understand and speak more confidently than I ever have before. I can impersonate a native ordering coffee, pingado.

How to explain this?

I think of my friend, Arnie, who lived in Brazil for fifteen years. At least ten years passed before one day, he told me, he just began to speak Portuguese. Was this because at last he had come to accept the fact that he was living permanently in

55

Brazil? Perhaps. Just so, is my Portuguese more confident because 1 suddenly accept the fact that! will never live permanently in Brazil? It had to happen in Maringd, where Eva and I have lived longest in this country, and could have lived forever. You don't just speak a language. As Milton illustrates, you speak emotions.

When we first visited Maringá together eight years ago, Eva got to be reacquainted with Cida, a woman in the English department, whom she once knew—but not very well or very long— when both were teenagers in Maringd.

Cida produced a picture of a seventeen year-old Eva, looking to me like a hippie with a handkerchief tied round her forehead and long hair flowing down. Eva scorns this reading of the picture. She was a poor girl. She hated hippies. She didn't know any hippies. Hippies were the product of the upper classes, who had the luxury to invent themselves in fashionable international ways. Brazilians never forget the implacable pain of class.

This time Cida has us over for dinner. Her husband, Napoledo, has now sold his little grocery store and works at another while he takes courses in computers (same as their eldest daughter, about to graduate from college). Cida herself is retired, with a full pension, at forty-two! Such a thing is possible in Brazil; politicians refuse to change the system whereby you can retire after twenty-five years of work. Now Cida isn't quite sure what to do with her life (there's some talk of building a pensao for students on some land she bought with an inheritance) and bides her time as an instructor at a local English language school.

Eventually Cida and Napoledo drive us back to our hotel, which has long had the reputation of being the finest in Maringa. We try to disabuse them; the carpets are threadbare, the rooms are cheap. Cida just recalls a story of when she was young and her father, a shoemaker, took her on a special visit to a private club to see its fine horses. She was so humiliated by the looks of the club members that "1 felt worse than the horses." She and Napoledo drop us off at the Bandeirantes. But they refuse our invitation to come in, and just drive away.

It's Maringa's 51st "Exposition." We persuade Ercilia to go with us. There is

the obligatory pavilion featuring industrial exhibits. There are the obligatory pens featuring livestock. It's a country fair! I haven't been to one in decades.

Eventually we stroll around the amusement rides. But where are the games where you shoot at rows of ducks or throw darts to win dolls? We never come across them. I give up trying to figure out why, and just try to relax into the easy caipira atmosphere. All the men and boys wear cowboy boots. It's like being in Montana.

Some singer named Daniel is appearing at the rodeo stadium. Ercilia's never heard of him. We decide to wait.

Men ply the crowd with beer, soda, and popcorn. Finally the lights on stage blaze forth, the sound system explodes, and Daniel appears. He, turns out to be one part heartthrob and one part country rocker. There's a cute little number, lavishly mounted, featuring some cowgirls and cowboys doing a square dance.

Daniel thanks God again for the opportunity to appear in Maringd. We are very far from samba.

In an American formula, Brazil just as accurately equals Montana minus samba as it does Louisiana plus samba.

If this doesn't matter to Americans, though, what does it matter to Brazilians? The night before, Cida showed us a tape of a huge national show presented in So Paulo, Brasil 500, designed to commemorate the discovery by the Portuguese. After band after band and singer after singer from Bahia or Rio, Eva protested in the name of the south. "What about our music?" Cida just shrugged.

We all know that an appearance by Daniel at Brasil 500 would have made as much sense as a booth selling Jimmy Buffet or caijin CD's at Exposition 51 in Maringa.

I've studiously avoided seeing the movie Titartit. But it's playing here and there's not much else to do at night. I invite Elzira and Ercilia along. Though Ercilia sees movies regularly, Elzira,i who attends church every day, hasn't seen a movie in more than fifteen years.i1 There's a moment, going to see the most famous movie on earth, I feel that I may as well be in the company of an Amazon Indian. What will Elzira think? How will she respond?

It turns out that she loves the movie.

(Ercilia is somewhat disappointed not to be more moved at the love story). Exactly why is not entirely clear to me. It's

the sensation, I guess—not so much the suspense as a level of the ship fills up and the Girl tries to rescue the Boy (say), as the realistic recreation onscreen and the almost visceral editing. Titanic in this respect is a very contemporary movie.

It's designed so that anyone can see it, in the sense that anyone will respond the same way to the danger of water filling up a cabin.

Yet people at any movie, even one such as this, are nothing if not culturally specific. Titanic, for instance, is pronounced "tchi-ta-neeki" in Portuguese.

Milton tells me that local kids who want to put on airs effect an English pronunciation of the word. I, on the other hand, will forever put on airs by effecting—or at least mentioning—the Portuguese pronunciation of the word. Meanwhile, I'll never forget that I bore witness to a global phenomenon in the company of two sisters-in-law, one of whom said three rosaries all the way through the long sinking of the ship, while the other joked with her about praying for the souls of those who went down.

Out to the Ball Game If one of our players makes a mistake he's an asshole. If a referee makes a call favorable to the other side, he's a son of a bitch.

If one of their players fouls ours, he's a motherfucker. Not even at the most rabid American football game I've attended have I heard so much cursing. We feel more ourselves. We feel like men.

Florianopolis May 22. Is it that in the United States Eva and I are simply locked into our own habits, our own routes, our own class?

Another bus, another long trip. It's 732 kilometers from Maringa. to FlorianO-

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

polis. We'd like to rent a car, but are advised that the drive is simply too dangerous, especially because of the construction on the road after crossing over from Parana. into Santa Catarina. So we take a bus and for awhile try to content ourselves looking at the rumpled hills, dotted mats oftrees, and red-brown earth ofparand, or noticing how the roadwork beginning in Parana is an affair of hoes and shovels rather than tractors and earthmovers.

Suddenly Eva becomes fascinated by the conversation between two drivers in their closed compartment below. One works for another bus company. Our driver is giving him a ride. They both hate no one so much as a driver who refuses to let another on board. One almost cries when they recall another who died in a bus accident some time ago. Both laugh at another whose wife, it seems, regularly puts "horns" on him.

Eva laughs when at one point one curses an auto that swerves in front of our bus by calling the driver a pau de bosta, "stick of shit," an expression she's never heard.

Mostly, what the two drivers talk about is money, money, money. Ours is buying a house. With overtime, he can make 1,000 reais a month. The other doesn't make as much, and doesn't like it. What fascinates Eva, I think, is that the two are completely immersed in their lives, so typically Brazilian, trying to make do. A female version of this life could have been hers, and was, once, albeit from a more upwardly mobile class position. What fascinates me, on the other hand, is that we literally sit above the two drivers, as if in judgment, or at least contemplation. The life of these men could have never been mine, and, rather than a reverie of kinship, I can only experience one of detachment. I wish I could get lost, but I can't, All four of Eva's children, who live in Curitiba, are able to meet us when the bus stops and then accompany us after a few hours on another bus to Florianopolis. For the first time they will meet Ricardo, who has invited us all to his beach house.

Ricardo is an eighteen year-old who lived with Eva and me last year, after his study abroad program fell through in Providence and he wound up being stranded

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

in Dallas. The son of one ofthe sisters â&#x20AC;˘ f the husband of one of Eva's niec s, Ricardo eventually became closer to s than any of Eva's own children, w o have each lived with us in the Unit d States, at periods ranging from thr e months to two-and-a-halfyears and w o each eventually decided to return to Ii e in Brazil.

There was never any doubt th t Ricardo would return. Maybe, paradox"cally, this is why he became closer to u He could afford to. Nothing is more s d about her own children now than that h r son, Daniel, remains distant. A squa , chubby, clownish thirteen year-old wile we last saw him, he's now a six foot tw , lean, and reserved eighteen year-ol .

Let him represent his sisters: Virgili twenty-one, and Sara and Luci, the twin, almost sixteen. All are variously a sorbed in the daily commonplaces of hi or her own life. While for Eva and m this time is transcendent, for the childre it's accidental; in another month, eac might be differentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Daniel less vain Virgilia more emotionally poised, th twins more solicitous.

So we all make our improbable col lective way, switching seats on the bu and talking, five hours to Florianopolis one of the most beautifully situated cit ies in Brazil. It's on an island twenty five miles long. The island has forty-two separate beaches. Ricardo has a beach house on one, from where he surfs.

FlorianOpolis is where he was born, has lived all his life, and wants to live. Eva's children, on the other hand, have lived all over the place in Brazil alone, from Maringa. to Rio. Is it any wonder that they meet Eva with no gifts, whereas Ricardo presents Eva with a big bouquet of flowers when she steps off the bus? I like to think that he picked it himself

from mother earth.

I've never seen a soccer game in Brazil. Today is the state championship, between Ricardo's team, Avai, and its rival. Ricardo wants to see it. Daniel and I go along. The girls decline, and, when we finally get to the stadium, it's easy to see why. There are few women to be seen and no teens. This is a strictly macho scene. The men in the center of the home side sing songs, wave flags, and jump up and down, just like you see on television. But television gives you nothing of the beery, raucous, ecstatic atmosphere. Just as, surprising to me is that many of the men aren't so young, not even those comprising the little drumand-horn band.

The game begins. The men are focused on every move. Anything that goes wrong for Avai draws their curses. Anything! If one of our players makes a mistake he's an asshole. If a referee makes a call favorable to the other side, he's a son of a bitch. If one of their players fouls ours, he's a motherfucker.

Not even at the most rabid American football game I've attended have I heard so much cursing. It doesn't seem to be that we hate the other team. It's that we want to get hot. During a moment when the cursing and singing and shaking abate a bit, I hear a guy down in front shout up at our section, "cold fans." But when shortly before halftime a goal is scored against us, all becomes acceptably frigid.

There are bathrooms down below the stands. But so many men can be observed pissing against the walls that the scene becomes another gender display, and I think again of one of those men-only, post-Iron John camps in the U.S. that I've read about, where men splatter mud on themselves and try to get back in touch with the Wild Man within.

Either these Brazilian men are preprogrammed to be Wild or else attendance of the game puts them in touch with this Man. Though that lone goal holds up, and we lose, it seems to me that we had so much fun even crying out against the injustice of so many missed opportunities in the second half that we feel better afterwards. We feel more ourselves. We feel like men.

Anhatomirim Island is a couple of slow, easy hours by boat from Florianopolis. It's a perfect day, flush with sun. The sea is smooth

57

as the bluest glass. Our hosts, Ricardo and his parents, Americo and Lucia, assure us that we might see dolphins.

The kids sun themselves like lizards.

We adults chat. Even the maid, Dirce, from deep inside the state of Santa Catarina, is along. I thought we were headed for a close encounter with Nature. It turns out we confront History, sort of.

The island is very small—hardly more than a rocky splotch whose only claim to touristic interest is that it's the site of an old Portuguese fort. The fort was constructed in seventeen something, and then in eighteen something—something happened. I don't pay much attention. It's just too resplendent here. The views of the glistening sea over the luscious palms, ipes,peroba,andjacaranda trees are irresistibly seductive. Even the guide seems more intent on making jokes about how some sealed tunnel once promised a fate worse than death (that you would change your sex) or repeating the legends of a hanging tree (where resistors to the federal government were taken in the nineteenth century). Yet of course appearances are deceptive, and more the seductive, the more deceptive.

FlorianOpolis was settled by Portuguese from the Azores. Hence, the original name of the island, Ilha de Nossa Senhora do Desterro, "Island of Our Lady of Exile." It has a history of rebellion against the federal government. At last century's end, Governor Floriano Peixoto changed the name of the city after he crushed some rebels. Now, it seems, there's some local movement to change the lovely name of the city back.

Meanwhile, this island, whose name means, "cave of the little devils," abides as a premier touristic site whose impeccably preserved adobe and brick buildings, washed in white, accented by green, and surrounded by blue, are covered by something that can't be seen: blood.

Americo is second-generation Brazilian. Eva opines that he's the most thoroughly Brazilian Japanese she's ever met, completely at ease with himself as he cooks all manner of wonders (churrasco, kibe) on the big grill to the rear ofthe beach house, drives us around the city (stopping on a mountain so we can exclaim at the island's gleaming lagoon), and talks to Eva about points of comparison between Brazil and the United States. Americo's grandfather came to Brazil without a penny to his

158

name. It's an interesting story.

His grandfather owned a mine in Japan. The government confiscated it during the First World War, and told him to fight or emigrate. Americo's father was two when the family came to Brazil, and began working in the fields of a farm. Eventually, the grandfather was able to buy some land and build his own farm. It became successful, eventually through the subsequent work of Americo's father. Americo himself still remembers his grandfather, who insisted upon a degree of personal refinement to the end of his days. He kept a white linen suit, and wore it to church every Sunday.

Americo, a lawyer, appears to have continued the refinement of his grandfather (I'm not sure about his father) through his love of travel. He's been everywhere in Brazil, just went to Europe for the first time, and wants to travel more in the United States. He's never been to Japan and has no desire to go.

Lately, the Japanese government got in touch with him. Something about his grandfather's confiscated land; Americo could take possession of it. "Keep it," he told them. "I don't want it." "Imagine," he tells Eva, "going back to be slaves to those Japanese."

Beach-hoppin' around Santa Catarina Island, north to south, courtesy of Ricardo & family: first stop is Barra da Lagoa, which has the placid charm of something in Tahiti. We eventually try to help some fishermen work their net.

It's a lot of time for only a few fish, as it turns out, but we get a touristic thrill anyway. After lunch, on to Joaquina, a long, lopping curve with choppy waves,

where surfing championships are regularly held. We buy some postcards and pass on some T-shirts. Then northwards to the posher beaches of Ingleses, Canavieiras, and Sambaqui, each more fashionably and expensively appointed with more houses and condos than the last.

Indeed, after the first two, we really don't see the beaches at all. What we behold instead is the wealth that has been invested at their locations.

Some ofthe houses are fabulous. "Such a shame that there's so much luxury in a country that's so poor," remarks Americo at one point. "Be quiet," Lucia replies. "we've got a house too, and it looks like one of these to some people."

No wonder they're somewhat discomfited to hear that Eva and I prefer the more rustic, utilitarian beaches—such as theirs—on the southern end of the island, where the Azorian fishing community is still to be found, in simple villages of colorful old wedding-cake houses.

It's winter here now in late May. If this doesn't mean it's cold—temperature in the 80s—it does mean that the beaches are unpopulated. So, we're treated on an off day to the world's imaginary of Brazil as a tropical paradise, or at least as an estimable example ofthe fun-in-the-sun tropics. In the tropics, as we know, there is no sin. However, in the tropics, as we must forget, there is class. The plentiful beaches of Santa Catarina Island turn out to be as marked by how much money you have as the neighborhoods of FlorianOpolis. The only thing that binds them all together, poor and rich alike, is the promise of the beach. At, or rather on, the beach, there is no class.

To be continued. Next: "Curitiba" This text is part of an essay called South of the Border, South of Brazil: Reflections on Another Life.

Terry Caesar is the author of, most recently, a collection of essays on academic life, Traveling Through the Boondocks.

He has been traveling to Brazil for some eighteen years, ever since he first arrived in Rio de Janeiro on a Fulbright. He welcomes your comments at caesar(&clarion.edu

BRAZZIL - AUGUST 2003

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