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SHORT STORY: "EVA" BY _ NDRE CHARAK
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Should Congress be tinkering with the Brazilian Civil Code? Senators have just approved a new version of the document, which has been sent back to the Chamber of Deputies for their final approval. While Brazil has already had seven constitutions since its independence from Portugal in 1822 it has been faithful to its Civil Code after adopting it in 1917. No problem there. Germans have not touched their own
11
code since 1896 and France keeps th same document that was written i 1804. Some have pointed to the Brazilian code's old age as a proof of its excellence. Others, however, including women and Blacks, have accused the civil statute of being completely out of step with the times. One of the main changes being sought is the adoption of the family power concept instead of the old paternal power. Now a man can, ask for annulment of a marriage if he finds out that the woman whom he, married wasn't a virgin when they consummated their union. The new code will also lower legal', age from the present 21 to 18. It seems
http://www.brazzil.com very fitting in a country where children as young as 16 years old are able to vote and can go to an adult jail starting at 18. It happens, however, that the draft for the new code was written 22 years ago and has been dragged in Congress from committee to committee, being conveniently lost on some drawer on occasion. At this pace, the new code will be too old when congressmen stop fiddling with it. R.M.
CONTENTS
28 Short story
Cover
Andre Charak's "Eva"
Is the new civil code ready for prime time?
34 Travel
16 Justice
Courts on the brink of collapse
18 Economy
A very healthy informal economy
20 Literature
Blacks in Lobato's fiction
Manaus is not the Amazon Cover by Sonia Pereira
39
DEPARTMENTS 6 Rap idinhas 14 Letters 46 e Cultural Pulse 47 Por al 49 Classifieds 50 U.S.A. Calendar 52 at's Brazilian
Music
Carnaval 101, its history and rhythms
54 Special
Jeitinho, the Brazilian way to bend rules
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1 Publisher and Editor: Rodney Mello / Entertainment Editors: Sam & Harriet Robbins / Book Review: Bondo Wyszpolski / Music Editor: Bruce Gilman / Representatives: MIAMI : Nosso Guia (305) 374-0096 - Valeria Mendes (Calendar) / BRAZIL: Celso Sawaia (011) 885-9288 E- mail: csawaiaŠbrhomeshbpping.com.br I BRAZZIL (ISSN 1091-868X) is published monthly by Brazzil - NOT mailing address: 2039 N. Ave. 52 Los Angeles, CA, 90042-1024. Periodicals Postage rate paid at Los Angeles, CA. Single copy sold for $2. One year subscription for 12 issues is3 (three dollars) in the U.S., $15 in Canada and Mexico, and $18 (surface mail) in all other countries. No back issues sold. Allow 5 to 7 weeks to receive your first issue. You may quote from or reprint any of the contents with proper copyright credit. Editorial submissions are welcome. Include a SASE (self addressed and stamped ;Ide by its advertisers. envelope) if you want your material mailed back. Brazzil assumes no responsibility for any claims m POST MASTER: Please, send address changes to: BRAZZIL - P.O. Box 4253 - Los Angeles, CA - 90050-0536 5 I BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998 I I I I
SU= Skinny Days
Some basic facts of Brazilian history starting with its discovery and discoverer might be in for a revision. Beginning in first grade Brazilians learn that their country was discovered on April 22, 1500 by Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral who disembarked in what is today the state of Bahia. The official version also says that Cabral's stumbling on Brazilian lands while trying to get to India was due to serendipity. This is not quite the truth according to recentlypublished A Construco do Brasil (The Construction of Brazil), a book by Portuguese historian Jorge Couto, who is a professor at the Universidade de Lisboa. The author's findings had ample exposure in Brazil at the end of November thanks to a cover story on the subject by the weekly magazine /sto E. Less than two years before the celebrations being prepared to commemorate its discovery the country is learning that Duarte Pacheco Pereira might - have come to Brazil in November or December 1498 in a secret mission organized by Dom Manoel 1, King of Portugal at the time. Why all the secrecy? Very simple, says Couto. The lands he found belonged to Spain, according to the 1494 Tordesillas Treaty, which divided all lands to be discovered between Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese historian's
That Brazilian staple of car-repair shops, the pin-up calendar, has survived '70s' feminism, '80s' conservatism, and the '90s' political correctness. The increasing presence of women on their premises, however-30% of the 250,000 Brazilian autorepair shops' clients are female—has forced calendar makers to tone down on the erotic nastiness of the pictures. Showing of pudenda, until recently a must, is now out. The stars of the 1998 crop of calendar girls are pretty women whose names were recently in the news, among them landless activist turned Playboy's cover girl Debora Rodrigues. This disrobing-for-the-masses activity is on the résumé of more than one celebrity. Case in point, Maria das Gracas Meneghel, better known as Xuxa, graced one of these wall ornaments well before becoming a known-all-over-the-world children's TV host. Around the time she acted in softcore porno movies, Xuxa also posed for the Esso—as Exxon is still called in Brazil-1982 calendar. One of the best proofs that this exposed-skin marketing works is that the Brazilian state oil monopoly, Petrobras, apparently cannot live without it. When the oil giant threatened to stop printing the naked-girls calendar a few years ago, the protests were so loud that the idea was promptly abandoned. The first time around the Petrobras calendar had a mere 5,000 copies. For this year edition 380,000 calendars have been printed. Petrobras has paid $10,000 to Viviane Arafijo to show it all in the company of a soccer ball. Petrobras hopes that her appearance will inspire the national soccer team to win a fifth championship when it goes to France for the World Cup in June and July.
main source is a 200-page manuscript written by Duarte Pacheco himself around 1508. The document, which resurfaced after having disappeared for close to 400 years, is called Esmeraldo (apparently an anagram using the Latin name for the king— Emmanuel—and for the discoverer—Eduardus) De Situ Orbis, meaning sites of the earth.
Less Appealing In Brazil everybody hates them, their perceived laziness, incompetence and downright nastiness, but at the same time everybody seems to be willing to be one of them, a public worker, that is. That's because despite a low salary, public servants have some sweet perks you will not find in your runof-the-mill private sector job, such as getting upon retiring the same salary as those who continue toiling—in the private sector, retirement benefits cannot exceed $1,000 a month—and the guarantee of not being fired. This latest item, however, will be changing soon. The Camara dos Deputados (House of Representatives) has just voted in favor of ending public workers' socalled stability, a privilege introduced in the 1934 Constitution during Getulio Vargas first round in the presidency. By the way, such a benefit was also enjoyed by anyone in the private sector after ten years on the job. This privilege though was eliminated in 1967 by
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
general Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco, the first president of the military dictatorship (1964-1985). President Fernando Henrique Cardoso got personally involved in the House vote, which ended up 322 to 157 against lifelong jobs. After final approval of the law by the senate, municipal, state and federal government will be able to fire employees due to poor performance on the job as well as when more than 60% of the budget is being used to pay workers. Proportionally, the U.S. and France, for example, have more public servants than Brazil. The biggest problem in the country is the uneven distribution of the work force. While there are too many drivers, secretaries, and cleaners, there is a lack of specialized workers. Twenty of the 27 Brazilian states are spending more than 60% of their budget with their work force. In the prosperous states of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, for example, expenses with personnel represent 80% of the budget, and Espirito Santo is going bankrupt expending 92% of what it makes in salaries and benefits to its active and retired workers. The federal government, with half a million workers is in better shape than most states, applying 50% of its budget on personnel. The new law might provoke a stampede of the best qualified public workers to the private sector. Cardoso recently was forced to give a 30% raise to his cabinet cadres so he wouldn't have to govern the country with novices fresh out of the university.
BRAZZII - JANUARY 1998
Politics
High-level Lowness The recent exchange between two forn er Brazilian presidents and a would e candidate to the presidency had pa ents rushing to the mute button on thei TV remote. The terms they used to d scribe each other were not only do nright rude but also obscene. The w r of words started with an interview given to the weekly magazine /sto E b impeached President Fernando Coll r de Mello. Collor called his successor, Itamar Franco, who was his vice-president at the time he was forced to leave the presidency in 1992, a "perfect idiot who hides the most absolute ignorance about everything." "Ciro Gomes is a coward," Collor also said referring to Ceara's exgovernor, former ex-finance minister and a wannabe presidential candidate in October's elections. Oblivious to the words of his senior aides, who asked him to ignore the offense and keep on high ground, Franco invited the media for a press conference. Then he theatrically threw on the floor the magazine with the interview and read a 17-line note calling Collor an "outlaw": "Very early during his work at the presidency I noticed he was a scoundrel, a fact that was proved by his removal for pillage." Ciro Gomes was even more generous in the use of adjectives to classify his attacker. Liar, delirious, unscrupulous, rogue were some of the terms with which he presented Collor, concluding: "All of this shows total lack of scruples by a tramp, and doesn't deserve further consideration." Collor from his office in Miami would end t e war he started with the lowest blow. In a note entitled" esponse to a Deviant", the ex- resident wrote: "To Itamar and co pany. It is not my fault if you loo ed in the mirror and didn't like hat you saw. I ask you to shove up your intimacies the aggression against me. Finally I am already tired of tantrums, very fitting for restless boys." "In a fight between hus and and wife, I don't put my spoo ," cornmented an amused Luiz Ina io Lula da Silva, the PT's (Partido dos Trabalhadores—Workers' Party) candidate to the presidency. The same we of the uncharitable exchange Collor also saw the end of h s hopes to run again for the presidency this year. For seven otes to zero the Supreme Court rejected his motion to a nul the senate's sentence, which prevents him from seek ng any public post before December 30, 2000.
Nursing Mary With the blessing of the Church, a Madonna exposing her right breast while feeding baby Jesus is being used in Brazil in a campaign to encourage mothers to nurse their babies up to the age of six months. The unknown author's work is believed to have been painted in the 17th Century in Russia and a copy of the painting is being used in the Brazilian mother's milk crusade. Ninety seven percent of Brazilian mothers nurse their children at birth, but by the third month this rate falls to 57%. The educational effort will last one year getting exposure through billboards, Tshirts and space and time donated by TV and the press. Promoted by the Health Ministry, the campaign was launched in December in the presence of first lady and anthropologist Ruth Cardoso, who posed for pictures exhibiting the campaign's T-shirt.
In a section called Wired Travel, the October issue of Wired magazine, the digeratti's Bible, has dedicated six whole pages to what it calls -lowbudget, low concept" Brazilian TV. "All cultural imports," writes Patrick Symmes, "seem to pass through a filter that reframes them, producing in the end something utterly Brazilian." He also touches on Brazilian TV imperialism: "Hundreds of millions of Chinese watch Brazilian shows, Nicaraguan are obsessed, Scandinavians are hooked, and even Lech 'Walesa and Fidel Castro are fans."
Symmes traces the origin of the all-too-present novela (soap opera) to Fidel Castro. Upon his storming of Havana on January 1, 1959, Cuban radio-novela writers fled the country. Some of the scribes exiled in Argentina wrote what became the first Brazilian soap operas. As for the self-attributed so-called "Globo standard of quality," the Wired writer couldn't detect any of it amid Globo's productions' "clumsy special effects and embarrassing horror music." His conclusion: "Night after night the evidence poured in until I could no longer deny the obvious: Brazilian TV wouldn't win any Einmys." Symmes recognizes though that Globo's novelas fare better than decades-old trashy soap General Hospital, but it's "nowhere near" such Yankee prime-time shows as ER.
Swimming in Oil Brazil has come a long way in oil self-sufficiency. In 1950 the country was producing 928 barrels of oil a day with little hope that it would ever be free from importing the product for most of its needs, although it relies mostly on hydroelectric plants for the production of electrical energy. At the end of 1997, Petrobras, the state oil monopoly, had more to celebrate than the holidays, however. In December, for the first time, the company was able to produce 1 million barrels a day, meaning 60.1% of the domestic oil consumption, used mainly to move a fleet of 17 million automobiles. In 1950, with a practically non-existent car industry, Brazil produced 1% of the oil it needed. This number had grown to 32.9% in 1970, when the number of cars was 3.1 million. In 1980, even though the production of oil
8
MEM Minimum 50 What's considered essential reading for an educated Brazilian? Rio's daily Jornal do Brasil asked this question to three writers—Ledo Ivo, Antonio Torres, and Flavio Moreira da Costa—and came up with a list of 50 books people should read during their formative years. They include reference works as well as literature classics and traditional poets. Reference: Almanaque Abril Colecao Primeiros Passos Dicionario Ingles-Portugues Michaelis Enciclopedia Mirador Literatura no Brasil by Afranio Coutinho Novo Dicionario da Lingua Portuguesa by Aurelio Buarque de Hollanda Nonfiction: Casa Grande e Senzala by Gilberto Freire Chato-0 Rei do Brasil by Fernando Morais Chega de Saudade by Ruy Castro Urn Estadista do Imperio by Joaquim Nabuco Formacao do Brasil Contemporeineo by Caio Prado Junior 0 Povo Brasileiro by Darcy Ribeiro Os Sertbes by Euclides da Cunha Raizes do Brasil by Sergio Buarque de Hollanda Teoria da Dependencia by Fernando Henrique Cardoso Viva o Povo Brasileiro by Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro Fiction: Agosto by Rubem Fonseca 0 Ateneu by Raul Pompeia Ciranda de Pedra by Ligia Fagundes Telles Coletanea de Contos Infantis by Monteiro Lobato Comedias da Vida Privada by Luis Fernando Verissimo 0 Conzpadre de Ogum by Jorge Amado Corpo Vivo by Adonias Filho Fogo Morto by Jose Lins do Rego Grande Sertao: Veredas by Joao Guimaraes Rosa 0 Guarani by Jose de Alencar A Hora da Estrela by Clarice Lispector Laco de Familia by Clarice Lispector Macunaima by Mario de Andrade Memorias de urn Sargento de Milicias by Manuel Antonio de Almeida Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis Memorial de Maria Moura by Raquel de Queiroz A Morte e a Morte de Quincas Berro d'Agua by Jorge Amado 0 Mulato by Aloisio de Azevedo Nariz de Vidro by Mario Quintana Para uma Menina corn uma Flor by Vinicius de Moraes Quarup by Antonio Callado Quincas Borba by Machado de Assis 0 Quinze by Raquel de Queiroz Sao Bernardo by Graciliano Ramos 0 Tempo e o Vento by Erico Verissimo Tocaia Grande by Jorge Amado Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto Vidas Secas by Graciliano Ramos Poetry: Castro Alves, Obras Completas Cruz e Souza, Obras Completas Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Obras Completas Goncalves Dias, Obras Completas Manuel Bandeira, Obras Completas
had increased from 167,000 barrels a day the previous decade to 188,000 barrels, this amount covered only 16.8% of the nation's needs and its 10.8 million cars. Brazil now ranks 17th among the world's oil producers, which are led by the US with 8.6 million barrels a day.
Brazil got itself a first place in Washington in December and it wasn't for poverty, corruption or deforestation. According to environmental organization Conservation International no other country among the 17 that are called megadiverse due to their biological wealth, has more natural riches than Brazil. The country, says the latest report of Conservation International, has the largest number of wild forests, the largest amount of plants (55,000 species or 22% of all plants in the world), more mammal species than any other nation (524 of them, 25% of them occurring only in Brazil). Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, believes that the Bio-17 countries should get as much respect as the G-7 nations. He is also convinced that the importance of Brazil has been overlooked among the nature-rich countries. While in the last 10 years Brazil received only 135 million from foreign countries to preserve its biodiversityl China—fourth in the rank— got ten times this am
In many regions of Bra he "law of silence" c ties to be the law of the i And people who decide open their mouth t flounce criminal tiviti
BRAZZIL -JANUARY 1998
anguage
Rio's Newspeak
are being silenced. That's what happened in November to radio announcer Eduardo Lopes de Faria. From Campo Grande, capital of Mato Grosso do Sul, Faria was killed in a bakery with 13 shots soon after announcing on the air that he would reveal the names of hit men in the region. A just finishedreport by the Human Rights Committee of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies concluded that death squads have the upper hand, killing politicians and businessmen's rivals in at least nine of Brazil's 27 states. The most violent region, says the document, is Mato Grosso do Sul, where 87 people were downed by gunmen in the first seven months of 1997. Most of the deaths involved arms smugglers, drug traffickers and personal revenge. Death squads were also found to be active in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Bahia, Para, Mato Grosso, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte and Sao Paulo.
Bash Time Ready for Carnaval? Rio is always ready for carnavalescos. For those going to Rio for a live closeup experience all the information is on the Internet at http:// www.rio.rj.gov.br/riotur. Prices for tickets vary from $3 for bleachers to $350 for special seating close to the action. The main parades with the so-called special Escolas de Samba will happen on Sunday, February 22 and Monday, February 23. Here is the list for the samba schools in the order they will appear. On Sunday: Caprichosos de Pilares, Salgueiro, Vila Isabel, Grande Rio, Porto da Pedra, Mocidade, and Portela. On Monday, Tradicao leads the big parade followed by Mangueira, Imperatriz, Viradouro, Beija-Flor, Unidos da Tijuca and UniAo da Ilha.
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1996
Slang is by nature often a very ephemeral happening. Most of the new expressions created by youngsters and criminals to communicate among themselves are very localized and don't last more than a few seasons. Some of the most popular giria originated in Rio, however, usually get national acceptance as with the recent "Ah, eu to maluco (Ah, I'm just crazy), meaning I am overjoyed. Much of the creation and spreading of new slang in Rio these days get help from Carioca (from Rio) Ws. A sample as compiled recently by the daily newspaper 0 Estado de S. Paulo: Alemanzar—(lit. germanize) become foe Boboionga—ugly woman Boca da caverna—(cave's mouth) ballroom's corner for petting Camunguela do brejo—(swamp's beast) ugly woman Choque de monstro—(monster's shock) fabulous Dar urn CB—to stop talking to someone Dar um sacode—(to give a shake) to date Demorou—(it took long) well done E al, choque?—how is it? E ai, do processo?—how is it? Emba car a ideia—(to dull the mind) to smoke pot Estar zulu—to be high on drugs Estar de bob—to have spare time Estar tampado—(to be closed) to
be full of cops Eu to maluco—(I am crazy) I am very happy Formigueiro das almas—(souls' anthill) cemetery Jogar jaca—(to throw the jaca fruit) to leave your date with someone else Lombrou, lombrou, cumpadi—the cops arrived Molho vermelho—(red sauce) cool dude Na esquaceio da fel icidade—(on happiness equation) very happy No tijolinho do mocoto (on gelatin's little brick) in a cool way Pancar o barraco—to fight Pancadeio—the liveliest song Trem das onze—(the 11 o'clock train) a slow person Zoar na comedia—to try unsuccessfully to be funny
I. dvertisement
Santa Claws Famous as much for the slick lingerie it manufactures as for its on-your-face tactics to advertise it, DuLoren has taken an unusual step after its Christmas ad spreads provoked the readers' ire: it pulled out the piece, interrupting what should have been a month-long campaign. The ad showed an awfully obese and naked Santa Claus being scolded by a young beauty in a lacy bra and panties ensemble with: "You dirty old man. You live surrounded by little deers." Adding to the grotesque caricature of the gift-bearing kind-old-man of children's fantasies, the word used for deer (veado) is also commonly understood as queer. "We may have crossed the line," said DuLoren's owner Roni Argalji, in a rare admission of wrongdoing. Argalji, okik who doesn't allow pictures of his own „es,n7 ° :k.1 /4c>5.1 14'16 '01a cAlIm'' face to appear in the media for fear of being kidnapped, has also explained what he calls the Dulorian woman: "She does things on her own initiative. She knows when and with whom she wants to make love. She is not betrayed, she is the one who betrays." 9
It's the Law After 22 years of discussion, the Brazilian senate has approved a new civil code. It will replace a document that has been considered exemplary by some, but that has begun to show its age after serving the country for 80 years. Some argue that the new text is old on arrival and a few others believe that the best thing would be to just leave the good old code alone. ALESSANDRA DALEVI When the Brazilian civil code was created in 1917, Brazil was a young republic only 27 years old. The president was Venceslau Bras Pereira Gomes (1914-1918) and the country had 28 million inhabitants compared to 161 million today. That year saw several strikes from workers in Sao Paulo who demanded among other things a ban on child labor for children under the age of 14, the end of night shifts for women, and an eight-hour work day. There were then a mere 1757 cars in the city. That same year, 84 women took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro demanding that they be allowed to vote. It would take 15 more years before ballots would be secret, women would be allowed to vote and the eight-hour workday would become law. In Sao Paulo, painter Anita Malfatti (1896-1964) scandalized society and became a pioneer of the modernist movement by exhibiting 53 of her cubist-and-expressionist-inspired paintings. It was also in 1917 that Brazil declared war against Germany after having a ship sunk by the Germans. Introduced on January 1, 1917, the civil code replaced an institution that was inherited from Brazil Empire, the Kingdom's Ordinances. Those laws had been written at the end of the 16th century, during the Spanish colonization, by King Philip II (1527-1598), known as Philip I in Portugal. Since the introduction of Brazil's first constitution in 1824, two years after the country declared its independence from Portugal, jurists from the empire have talked about developing codes that would regulate behavior in the civil and penal areas. Proposed by renowned jurist Clovis Bevilacqua, it would take 16 years of discussion for the present code to be approved and one more year before it would go into effect. A reflection of the times, the old document opens with "every man is capable of rights and obligations." The wife is considered a mere extension of the husband, who wields all the power—the so-called paternal power. In 1975, when President General Ernesto Geisel (19741979) decided the antiquated code needed some updating, Brazil was still in the middle of a military dictatorship that would survive another 10 years. Divorce would not be allowed until 1977 and the death penalty and life in prison would be abolished in 1978. It was this project proposed 22 years ago 10
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
that Brazilian senators approved on November 26, 1997, with a final vote being expected from the Camara dos Deputados (House of Representatives) in the coming months. The new code is an attempt to consolidate rules that today are spread across more than 50 decrees and laws, as well as legal practices established during the last eight decades. The laws deal with the individual's day-to-day activities, including family relationships, acquisition and disposal of property, various business and personal contracts, and legal age. The writers of the new code adhere to the theory advanced by a current of Brazilian jurists, who believes that a single document containing the basic norms of the law gives a firmer juridical base to the country than a series of rules, laws, decrees, case law and constitutional provisions. It might take a long time before the new code starts to make a difference in the lives of Brazilians citizens. Even assuming that the statute passes in the House in 1998 and is signed immediately into law by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the new civil code would not become the law of the land until twelve months after Cardoso's signature. THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT As presently written, the new civil code project has 2,073 articles contained in nine books. While the last book deals with what is called "final and transitory clauses" the other eight discuss family, personal rights, property, business activities and wills among other subjects. With all the delay, however, it is doubtful that the new law will properly deal with some of its main express concerns—namely the emancipation ofwomen and youngsters— and be an adequate response to those asking for a statute in step with political correctness. The project was introduced in the senate by Bahia senator and lawyer Josaphat Ramos Marinho, 82, from the Partido da Frente Liberal (Party of the Liberal Front), a party allied to the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration. Marinho called the old document "paternalistic and individualistic," while renowned jurist Miguel Reale described the old text as "overcome by the historical process." Referring to the document approved by the senate, Josaphat Marinho declared: "The main difference between the new code and the one now in force is the social character of the new law, which goes well beyond the individualistic or privatist feeling." The senator often walked a fine line between the forces of modernization and those who would prefer to leave things the way they are. Despite the opposition, Marinho was able to convince his colleagues in the senate, for example, that the project should keep a rule allowing the marriage of a woman, who is at least 16 in cases she lost her virginity in order "to protect her honor". Marinho was convincing enough when he said the new code should reflect the average thinking of society. This aspect of the honor, he stressed, is still very important for many families. Following in the steps of the 1988 constitution, the project determines that divorce cannot be finalized until two years after the couple's separation. Initially the text required the length of separation to be five years. The new text also addresses equality between men and women, and abandons the concept of paternal power in favor of family power. In a reversal of the current law, men will not be allowed to get a marriage annulled by alleging the woman wasn't a virgin when he married her. Between 1984 and 1994 the code endured the scrutiny of several congressional committees and suffered so many changes that the document listing the paths taken by the code is a 27-page report. However, despite lengthy discussion, the code approved by the House in 1984 still stated that "every man" has rights and obligations; this has been corrected to read "every human BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
being." These and other changes have been introduced by a multiparty special commission created in 1995 to revamp the code's text. the Senate examined 366 amendments presented by the House, to which Josaphat Marinho added 127 new propositions of his own. TRYING TO STRIKE A BALANCE AccordinOo Senator Josaphat Marinho, the new code deliberately does not try to be all inclusive. He explained the reasoning behind this strategy: "I have left a escape clause in the law, which should be flexible enough to allow the inclusion of provisions that only life can teach. In those cases a judge will decide." Even an updated and spruced-up code will not answer many specific 'questions and dilemmas. Intentionally, the new text is not a trailblazer, but a repository of longestablished norms, principles, and laws. Controversial topics like cloning, organ transplant, in vitro fertilization, sperm banks, and surrogate motherhood are not even mentioned in the text. And when dealing with subjects like family relationships, only the most general of rules are explored, without mentioning, for example, same sex partnership and all its implications. The concept of "legitimate" marriage and family has also been abandoned to conform to the Constitution, which considers a "family entity" an informal and stable union between spouses. What the Magna Charta does not specify is how many years a man and a woman have to live together before their association acquires the same status before the law as the official marriage. The new code requires that the couple have to cohabit for at least five years, a term which is reduced to three when there is a child born from the union. Since there are no statistics about the number of couples who live together without being formally married, the number is generally inferred from the steep fall in the number of official unions. While there were 936,000 formal marriages in 1984, this number fell to 763,000 ten years later. The present civil code presents more than a dozen restrictions on marriage—including age (16 for women and 18 for men)—that can lead to annulment. It also forbids an adulterous man or woman from marrying the lover who has been condemned for the crime of adultery. The discovery that a partner is a homosexual is also enough to annul a marriage. Most of these rules should change. While the current code considers legitimate only those children conceived in a legal marriage, the revisions approved by the senate eliminate any distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate. The new code omits any reference to children as being legitimate, illegitimate, incestuous, the result of an adulterous affair or adopted. There is no distinction any more. The change in this area is so drastic that a father will not be allowed to dispute paternity while he is married. Any paternity test, for example, may only be done after the couple's separation. The proposed document also lowers from 30 to 25 the age a person must be to adopt a child. Foreigners will be allowed to continue adopting Brazilians and taking them to live overseas, but the rules for this practice will be defined later through a special law. The new statute should put an end to situations in which one of the spouses is unable to take action because his or her companion refuses to sign papers. This happens, for example, when the man or the woman wants to start a business and the other is against the idea. Today, the partial or universal community property status of a couple, which comes into effect upon marriage, makes one dependent on the other in a number of transactions. The old code requires men over 60 and women over 50 to marry in an absolute non-community property regime. The 11
idea is to protect older people from being taken advantage of by people who are only interested in getting the spouse's money. This paternalistic approach is seen as too condescending and even unfair by some experts, however. Associate Justice Ant6nio Cezar Peluzo, from SAo Paulo's Justice Tribunal criticizes the law arguing: "It is as if age eliminates all discerning capacity among citizens." When there is controversy the new text generally opts for a more traditional and conservative point of view. Despite all the liberalization among married couples in Brazilian society, the new code will still consider adultery grounds for preventing a parent from obtaining custody of the children. Josaphat Marinho considered excluding adultery in such cases, but he was dissuaded by supreme judge Moreira Alves, a conservative, who acted as an informal consultant for Marinho. Moreira Alves argued that the clause should be retained because the penal code still considers adultery a crime. As a slight concession to modernity, however, the word "responsibility" is substituted for "blame" when the subject is loss of rights in the judicial separation. Other reasons for losing custody of children include dishonorable conduct and the voluntary abandonment of home for one year. Under pressure from the Church the document also does not alter the section that deals with abortion, establishing that an individual's rights begin at the moment of conception and not when the baby is born, allowing special protection for the unborn, as a previous version of the text read. NOT EVERYONE IS HAPPY The new statute doesn't mention the touchy subject of civil union between homosexuals. Aides -to Marinho informed that the senator tried to reach a balance when writing the law in a way that norms well established by society are kept and reaffirmed, with some leeway for advancement, but without any "excessive liberalism." Even among the feminists, who for years have been championing the adoption of a new civil code, the imminent arrival of the statute is producing only lukewarm enthusiasm. Rosiska Darcy de Oliveira, president of the National Council of Woman's Rights, although considering the new norms of "fundamental importance" complains that some of the rules mainly on the field of family law have already become antiquated. According to her, the project's authors were not able to keep pace with the rapid development of the Brazilian society in the last decades. A harsher critic of the text is Luiz Mott, the outspoken gay leader, who is professor of Anthropology at Universidade Federal da Bahia (Bahia's Federal University) and president of Grupo Gay da Bahia (Bahia's Gay Group). Mott says that he wasn't surprised by the conservative tone of the proposed code and its refusal in dealing with civil union between homosexuals. "It would be hard to expect courageous positions from conservative senator Marinho," he declared, "but it is fundamental that the civil code be attuned to modern times and to public opinion, which is already in favor of gay unions." Arguing that minorities should not be suppressed, lawyer Jose de Castro Bigi, an expert in family law, also defends the inclusion of the subject in the new statute. Respected jurist Miguel Reale, 87, who presided the group that in 1975 prepared the new code's first draft, disagrees, however, pointing that such matters should not be discussed by the code, but by special legislation. Reale contends that the subject of civil union among people of the same sex is still too controversial to be included in a wide-ranging document as the civil code. The new text has also been criticized for not adopting 12
some laws that have been introduced in the country more recently such as the Estatuto da Crianca e do Adolescente (Statute of the Child and the Adolescent) and the Codigo de Defesa do Consumidor (Consumer Defense Code). SOME KUDOS FROM THE LEFT The code got some accolades from the opposition though. The 59 senators (70% of the whole senate) who came to the first session in which the project was discussed loudly applauded Josaphat Marinho. Senator Benedita da Silva -from Rio, talking on her own and in name of the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores—Workers' Party), praised the project for adopting modern concepts that benefit women, the environment and minorities, all of them overlooked in the old document. On the other hand, more opposition came from the Catholic Church's CNBB (Conferencia Nacional dos Bispos Brasileiros—National Conference of Brazilian Bishops), an organization that until recently was better known for its combativeness and as a bastion of liberalism many times in opposition to Pope John Paul II. Father Clairton Alexandrino, secretary of CNBB's Pastoral Committee on Family, criticized the section of the project that legalizes the situation of unmarried couples who live together for at least five years. According to him, that clause contributes to the disintegration of the family: "This is an innovation that grows as a horse's tail: downwards," he complained. "The code suffered an involution. The majority of representatives and senators call themselves Catholic or Christian. The problem is that they don't reflect the Christian thinking." The section on family planning, which states that the couple havethe right to use contraceptive, also did not go well with thie CNBB. "This change is absurd," maintained Alexandrinti, "because in a veiled way it allows that the State help to prevent a birth." Pro-feminist congresswoman Marta Supl icy, from SAo Paulo, who is in favor of legalizing abortion, was also mad, but for the opposite reason. She criticized the antiabortion stance taken by the new text. The original project written in 1975 by jurist Miguel Reale considered the beginning of life at birth, but Marinho, pressured by the Christian lobby, opted to keep the 1917 text, which gave rights to an embryo from the moment of its conception. DEALING WITH COMING OF AGE Adulthood comes earlier in the new code. Instead of 21, 18 is the minimum age for such activities as starting a business, buying property or marrying without having to get permission from parents or legal guardians. Society has already changed this rule, which the civil code only now tries to address. The penal code, for example, establishes that adulthood starts at age 18. And youngsters can vote as early as 16, with vote becoming compulsory at 18. A woman is considered an adult and is able to marry at age 16; interestingly enough men only reach legal age two years later. The new text equalizes the sexes establishing "that a woman can marry at age 16, but before she is 18, it is necessary that her parents or legal guardians give authorization for that." Marriage before this age only with a judge's authorization, who can grant it only if the girl is at least 14. Since 1942 the Italian civil code has lowered to 18 the age their youngsters reach adulthood. In France this change happened in 1974. In the U.S. the age children reach majority varies from state to state, going from 16 (age in which some states will allow youngsters to get a driver's license) to 21 (age in which individuals can get legally their first sip of booze). BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
In a recent interview with daily Folha de Sdo Paulo, Supreme Court minister Moreira Alves defended this reduction in age for attribution of civil responsibility reminding that there is a worldwide trend in that direction. He also mentioned his belief that penal responsibility should be lowered from age 18 to 16: "The individual at 16 has already the judgement for electing the president, senators, representatives, but he is considered incapable of distinguishing between good and evil. If, at 18, the youngster is going to be considered capable of highly complex acts like marrying, starting a business, signing contracts, and managing all his patrimony, we should ask ourselves if it is only at age 18 that he becomes capable of distinguishing good from evil in order to know if something is criminal or not." The new rules will affect more than 9 million youngsters, who would free themselves earlier from their parents' tutelage. Census data from 1996 show 9,344,161 Brazilians with ages 18 (3,250,655), 19(3,059,632), and, 20 (3,033,874). All these young men and women need to go through what can sometimes become a bureaucratic nightmare to get their "emancipation certificate," which allows them to marry, start a business or simply be able to accept an apartment as a gift from their own parents. Despite the money involved and all the difficulties, emancipation certificates have been sought at an increasing pace on Brazilian cartorios (a notary-public like institution, but much more bureaucratic, that prepares birth and marriage certificates among many other attributions). A recent article on traditional daily 0 Estado de S. Paulo showed that the 1" Registro Civil de Sao Paulo, which covers the Se downtown neighborhood, was granting an average of 538 of those documents every month by the end of August 1997. In 1996, when 5,682 certificates were prepared, the monthly average was 473. The get the emancipation papers a youngster has to bring from another cartorio the so-called "emancipation deed", a document signed by five people (the youth, both parents, and two witnesses), with all the signatures duly notarized. The whole process costs in average $100, not computing the time lost in line and all the likely aggravations. The document has to be picked up personally at the cartorio, generally two days after its submission. WHEN IT IS TIME TO GO According to the present code, a private will can only be a handwritten document that has been signed in the presence of five witnesses. The new text allows for the will to be done in a computer with the number of witnesses reduced to three. In extreme cases, a judge can decide the validity of a private will even without any witness. While the old law allows that a spouse disinherit the other spouse this practice will be now forbidden. Such an action will only be permitted in rare cases as when it is proven, for example, that a marriage partner attempted against the life of the will maker. Another change establishes that the heirs can use half of their share in the inheritance the way they see fit, not having to attend to the will's dispositions. There will be also an end to the norm that allows the will's author to block for a certain period the use of money or property. Such a change would prevent that owners of a large patrimony live like misers because they cannot use their inheritance. The intent of the original code when requiring that wills be handwritten was to prevent the risk of falsification. And supreme justice Moreira Alves, whose proposal was not approved, would like to maintain the same rule in the new statute. Jurists seem to agree that the best will is BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
the public one, which is registered in a cartorio. When a computer Or a typewriter is used to write the will, the new code establishes, no erasure or blank spaces will be allowed. ' THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS Despite opposition from some senators, the final project approved by the senate allows owners to use force, including firearms, to maintain or repossess a property. Senator JoSaphat Marinho did not buy the argument that the clause encourages violence and harms the federal government effort to proceed with its agrarian reform effort. Agrarian reform is the subject of a specific law, argued Mapinho, adding: "This clause intends to protect property, irkcluding the property of weaker people." The project pares to three years the time the state will wait before taking a real state property that has been abandoned by its owner. The new code will also reduce from 20 to 115 years the time someone has to live in an abandoned property before claiming its title in an action of adverse possession. Several fthe measures adopted by the new code have already beet in force due to specific legislation or for having beer included in the 1988 constitution, among them the rights of children born from artificial insemination, the possibility of donation of organs when the donor is still alive, and the ability to sue for damages in cases of moral harm. I While the present code says that "demented people from any kind are absolutely incapable of exercising acts of civil life," he new text gives mental patients some civil rights depending on the gravity of the disease. The new code deals with modern concepts as ecological law in order to protect flora and fauna. The project also ends the tyranny of commercial contracts. With the new law a judge wjill be able to void a contract if it imposes an unreasonableil burden to one of the parties, is unethical, or hurts the community. LET'S JUST FORGET IT ALL Despite the years of discussion, the project for the code has beer considered too secretive by some and its authors have been accused of refusing to listen to the society at large. According to Rodrigo da Cunha Pereira, lawyer and professor of family law at PUC-MG (Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais), there was not enough discussion about the subject. "It is an absurd," he told daily Folha de Seto Paulo, "that once again we wake up with a newIl law that was not discussed." A group of family lawyers from around the country sent Senator Josaphat Mariitho a letter in which they demanded that he publicized the project. Some people, on the other hand, are questioning the need for such a code when all the norms included in the document are already in one way or another covered by existing laws. There are those who would just keep the old code. In an artible published in the Folha de Selo Paulo, Harvard-graduate lawyer and former secretary general of the Justice Ministry, Jose Paulo Cavalcanti Filho, wrote: "The argument that the code is old, from 1916, is unconvincing. The German code is from 1896, and the French one from 1804.1 "The novelties announced as justification for abandoning a code of excellence, as ours, are extremely modest. They include the reduction— what is very much arguable—of the civil legal age, which could be achieved by altering the Caption of one article (the 9th ) and new rules about illegitimate filiation. They are too few in relation to the 1807 articles of the current code." • 13
UNGODLY BIAS I wou • 1 e o comp am a • out.a tendentious article on Ayahuasca Uniao do Vegetal and Santo Dame published on your pages. It was written with the clear purpose of vilifying the Santo Daime Doctrine image and exalting . the Uniao do Vegetal. ft is easy to imagine how it happened, as one of th e main editors of Correio Brasiliense (the Brasilia newspaper quoted on the article) is a mestre of Unlao do Vegetal and we all know the power of this kind of people and how they use it. I know it is difficult for the magazine to check all the information sent, and, after all, people have the right to express their opinions but I think that the truth must be respected and so there is an important thing that should be corrected. The hymn about Santa Maria is quoted as: Whoever knows Santa Maria / Uses her every day / And always lives in agony. The real version is: Whoever DOESN'T know Santa Maria /AND uses her every day /Always lives in agony. Isn't it an ill-intentioned information? I have an article about the Santo Daime urban communes,. which could be a response to this misunderstanding and it might. balance the information about the issue if Brazzil decides to publish it. Jose Murilo Costa Carvalho Junior Ceu do Planalto, Santo Daime Com. Brasilia, Brazil
FICTION AND FACTS Regarding the artic. e "Amazon Ablaze in your December issue concerning proposed industrial logging in the Amazon, the author, Beto Borges, makes some highly erroneous statements over the practice of sustainable logging. -Sustainable logging has been successfully practiced for thousands of years in China, for hundreds of years in Europe, and since the last century in the southern United States. I have. visited sustainable logging operations insoutheast China, southern Brazil and the United States. Indeed, in Brazil sustainable logging operations are major industries in the States of Santa Catarina, Parana, and Sao Paulo. Wood products from these areas reduce the need for logging in more environmentally sensitive areas. If, as Mr. Borges suggests, sustainable logging doesn't exist, where exactly is the world obtaining its supply of wood products? Can sustainable logging be undertaken everywhere? Of course not! Should sustainable logging be attempted in the Amazon? Probably not. However making fictitious and easily disprovable statements does not serve the cause of protecting the world's rainforests, it only alienates people. K. Andrew Knapp Boise, Idaho / kaknapp@aol.com
DUMBED DOWN I ave a ways enjoye rea ing Brazzi , back from the days it was called News from Brazil. However, I must say that I was quite upset at your cover story entitled You are invited to participate in this dialogue. Write to: Leiters to the Publisher
P.O. Box 42536 Los Angeles, CA 99059-0536 Or send E-mail to:
brazzitit brazzil.com Please. include a phone number in the CS Clii 550 need to reach son. Thanks
14
"Are We Sex Mad?" (October 1997). To make matters worse your November '97 issue took full advantage of former landless activist Debora Rodrigues's new profession by further displaying pudenda. It seems the publication will now change its name to Brazil T&A! The funny thing is that editorially speaking, the publication seems to be critical of this apparent extreme sex craze in the minds of Brazilians. Yet, by displaying full-unabashed nudity, you are doing what everybody/ else (media-) is doing, and any sign of intelligence from your text vanishes. The publication appears as an apologist for this kind of media behavior, in spite of a critical stance. . Notice I mentioned "apparent" extreme craze. I for one think the Brazilian media, which has run out of good and intelligent ideas, creates all this and forces it upon people. Many Brazilians (dare I say the majority) don't really want to see Carla Perez and Co. on TV, but that is what is forced upon them. Even the most "serious and respectable" Brazilian newspapers, like Folha de Silo Paulo and Estado de S. Paulo, carry literally dozens of "Relax for Men" ads on a daily basis, which bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue, on an yearly basis. You would never dream of reading such ads in the New York Times, but what really matters to the Brazilian papers is the loss of revenue, not a possible dent on their respectability. What really shocks me is the total lack of subtlety, and apparently, Brazzil has joined the bandwagon. So, no wonder that most Brazilian young women (even ugly ones) seem to think that the only way to advance in life is to use their bodies, either by posing nude or finding a sugar daddy. Because that is exactly what the media, including Brazzil, is telling them. CecIlio Ribas New York, New York
PROFESSOR HELPER Your magazine as been very he. p ul.to my Portuguese classes at the Folk University in Gothenburg and to the seminar about Brazil that I make here in town. I have been living in Gothenburg, Sweden, for six years, but I-come from Recife and I received this great gift, Brazzil, from my .dearest friend I('crib Hughes from California. Since I got my first issue I cannot live without reading Brazzil with its fresh news and interesting information about music and tourism. You wouldn't believe how much your magazine has helped me. Maria Clara Neto Andersson Gothenburg, Sweden
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HIGH-BROW LOWDOWN wou • i e to o er my congratu ations on the excellent job you are doing at your Internet site, which I have followed closely ever since my introduction to the WEB. Not only do you tackle difficult subjects reasonably well but also,, you possess a rare quality these days... a journalistic backbone. Please, keep up the good work! Amman Mohammed Said New York, New York
NO TO HEEDLESS SEX P ease renew my su iscription an. enter a new subscription for all 15 (fifteen) new names below. Suggestion: Many people in Brazil have noticed that it is possible to make .money by exploiting sexuality. But I'd. like to see less uncaring sex in the magazine. Michael Jennings Portland, Oregon
BRAZZIL GOES TO SCHOOL am preparing an ant o ogy or students to be called The Brazil Reader. May I reproduce Kathleen Azevedo's piece on candomble and Ted Goertzel's on Fernando Henrique Cardoso? I will give full citations and send you a copy of the anthology when it is ready. Robert M. Levine University of Miami, History Dept. Coral Gables, Florida
WE COULD USE A HAND I ove Brazi and I love Brazzil. I want two more years. Thank you so much for existing. I id like very .much to help in any way; I see notices asking for proofreaders and such in the magazine. Tell me if you need anybody, I'd be more than happy to devote some time to Brazzil. Kathy Macpherson Portland, Ore: on
A GOOD TURN I think your magazine is wonder ul especially to those of us who love Brazil. Could you please help me. I am not able to find much info on Sao Luis, in the state of Maranhao. I am seriously thinking about visiting there and need to know in depth about the people, places, etc... I've checked out the _government site but again, very little into. R. Smith Houston, Texas
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Unlike the English Magna Carta or the American Constitution, Brazil's Carta, as it is often called, has an interesting history of frequent and dramatic changes. In 1889, after a long imperial period, the Portuguese royal family was sent back to their homeland and the Republic of Brazil was then instituted. The republican period brought phases of great expansion and economic development, but also times marked by government instability and corruption. As a result, the year of 1964 culminated with yet another form of government when the military, overlooking the constitutional provisions, overthrew the government ofthen President Joao Goulart. Under military ruling, where freedom of speech was curtailed and dissidents persecuted, the constitution had to quickly be changed in order to reflect the style of the new administration. Nonetheless, after 20 years of imposed governments upon the Brazilian people, the military dictatorship ended, and in 1985 power passed to a civilian president. Once again the Brazilian Constitution had to be changed in order to suit the new era Brazil was entering. In 1986, federal deputies and senators were elected to compose the National Assembly, and its 559 members were given the task of creating the new Constitution of Brazil. One year later, the new Constitution of 1988 was promulgated and the nation, under a substantially different social and political organization, held its first direct presidential elections of the post-military era, in 1989. The new Carta of 1988 is a beautifully overencompassing collection of rights and freedoms that any human being would wish to be granted. And regardless of the fact that we fail to see the application of all constitutional provisions in the everyday lives of Brazilian citizens, Brazil's fragile democracy and still fresh Carta has already given Brazilians a great victory when in 1992, President Collor de Mello, amid charges of corruption, was impeached and removed from office without any military interference. The Judicial System An explanation of the entire federal and state judicial system of Brazil is beyond the scope of this article. The Brazilian system is cer16
Tangled Law Brazil loves constitutions. Since the first one in 1824, the country has had six others: in 1891, 1934, 1937, 1946, 1967, and the most recent in 1988. And this does not include amendments. In its 150 pages, the latest Brazilian Magna Carta not only deals with provisions fundamental to a democratic society but also with environmental protection, divorce, labor affairs, hunting, and children's rights among more than 400 subjects. According to the Justices themselves, the Supreme Court has become almost inoperable. They have to hear close to 30,000 cases a year even in suits as mundane as the one in which a goat that crossed a fence ended up in a neighbor's pot. In the meantime, the really important actions remain untouched. YARA MORTON
tainly more complex, although not necessarily more efficient, than its U.S. counterpart. Unlike America, Brazil is a Civil Law country with a judicial system organized in a manner that resembles many of those found in Western European countries. For example, similar to France's specialized courts of labor, commerce, social security and rural affairs, Brazil also has specialized courts which handle matters related to labor, military and electoral issues. Thus, if the subject matter of the cause of action is within the realm of the so-called Specialized Justice, the specialized courts will have original jurisdiction over the case. By exclusion, what is outside the Specialized Justice falls under the Common Justice umbrella, where either a tribunal of first instance or a small claims court will have original jurisdiction. Among the many differences between the American and Brazilian systems, one deserving special notice concerns the type and number of cases that can end up at the highest court of the land. While U.S. Supreme Court Justices adjudicate an average of 100 cases per year, last year, the Ministers of Brazil's Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) ruled on a total of 28,000 cases, which is about 280 times the workload of U.S. Justices. The reason for this overload lies in the fact that, while the American constitution is only approximately 10 pages long, the Brazilian Carta, with its 245 articles and 73 transitional provisions, occupies more than 150 pages. The Brazilian Constitution, besides enumerating provisions fundamental to a democratic society, actually encompasses a total of 455 different subject matters. Included are provisions for environmental protection, divorce, labor affairs, science & technology, public entertainment, fishing, hunting, children's rights, eviction laws, and much more. Consequently, since the main role of STF Ministers is to prevent any violation of the Constitution, virtually any case that enters a state court can end up before the STF. Under this rule, the STF ends up operating just like a small claims BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
court. In contrast to U.S. Supreme Court Justices who have the power to choose to hear only those cases which present a really important question, Brazilian legislation does not afford such authority to STF Ministers. On the contrary, a Brazilian law states that any claim, no matter how foolish, cannot be discarded. This is also the rule in France, and as much as this rule seems to be the prototype of a truly democratic society, the reality is that such a rule can jeopardize the effectiveness of the highest court of the land as well as the whole judiciary system. Although France's highest court of appeals does not adjudge on the constitutionality of matters, since this is done by a constitutional counsel prior to laws being promulgated, French Justices are still constantly overburdened, causing a severe delay on the delivery of justice. Statistics show that in 1990 the Counselors, as the French Justices are called, adjudicated 25,951 cases, leaving behind 33,858 still pending. Unfortunately, the number keeps growing. Worse yet is Brazil, where the rule that any case is entitled to be heard has led to proportions so extreme that the Ministers themselves have claimed that, save an urgent reform, the STF may eventually become inoperable. To illustrate the absurdity of what ends up at the STF is this one case from a rural area of Brazil where the plaintiffs goat crossed over into the defendant's yard who quickly turned the goat into barbecued meat. A baffled Minister Mauricio Correa had to rule on the constitutionality of the defendant's feast. He, nevertheless, complained that this matter should have been resolved by the tribunals of the parties' state, but because "matters related to cows, butterflies and horses are all constitutional matters," he had to hear the case. In an even more absurd example, the plaintiff, a shanty town dweller, filed a suit against Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso after he read in a Brazilian tabloid (National Enquirer-style) about a new law that the President had just promulgated. The article purported that, as a measure to maintain controlled population size, a law had been passed which required all citizens above 65 years of age to present themselves to a Rio de Janeiro's crematory in order to be cremated. Each person was to bring 2 cubic meters of wood or 18 litters of gasoline and BFtAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
a plastic bag where their own ashes would be deposited. The distraught 77-year-old plaintiff, filed a suit immediately with the STF for his right to live. Although it goes Without saying that such law had never existeld, the nonsensical case, with its 23 pages of, court documents, was only dismissed after the Republic's general procurator (the attorney general) gave his opinion on the matterl Another frustrated Minister is Moreira Alves, who has been in the STF for more than two decades. When he was first appoinied to the position in 1975 by then President Ernesto Geisel, the STF adjudicated 9,000 cases per year. Since then, he stated, the Brazilian population grew 50%, the GNP doubled, and the number of cases grew more than three times. Being overburdened with cases is not a problem exclusive to the STF ministers. In 1996, the 10,000 magistrates who compose the entire Brazilian judiciary adjudicated More than 5 million cases; an average of 500 per capita. With this workload, even if the country had doubled the present number of judges, the work might still not get done. Moreover, due to the specialized courts and the fact that appeals can move not only vertically but also horizontally, some courts will be more overwhelmed with work than others. For example, the Military Tribunal gave its judges a rather manageable year. However, out of all the many tribunals and instances no one worked as much as the Ministers of the STF, having each adjudged 2,800 cases. STF Ministers regularly choose to adjUdicate the trivial cases first in the hope of reducing their pile of cases faster. In the meantime, the really important actions pertaining to the frequent corruption scandals, embezzlement, abuse of power, bribery, tax evasion, election fraud, nepotism, to name just a few, remain untouched. In fact, of all actions adjudged 14st year, 40% had the federal government in t e position of defendant and another 20% w re against a state or a municipality. This demopstrates that the same government that provided the Brazilian people with a truly democr4c Constitution either resists in complying with its provisions or merely disregards them. Endless Appealing The losing party of a suit in Brazil 4n appeal a decision so many times that it makes the American procedural system seem extremely simple. STF Minister Sanches stated that he ruled on a case that had been appealed 28 times in the lower courts before it finally got to the STF. Although a case that has al ready been appealed so many times and grante0 the same judgment will most likely never ol:) tam n a different result from the STF, the federal and state codes of procedure allow a losing party an indefinite number of appeals, a procedure that contrasts strongly with the one followed in America. This rule seems to be just another display of democracy, but one that again is far from being effective, since it only contributes to the overburdening of the judgeS and serves to further delay the administration"
of justice. In contrast, in the American system, the losing party of a suit will have the opportunity to appeal a judgment a maximum of two or three times, depending on the nature of the action, and once a final judgment is rendered by the court of last resort that judgment is resjudicata, that is, conclusive as to the rights of the parties and constitutes an absolute bar to a subsequent action involving the same claim. One of the reform proposals for the STF presently before congress is the so-called "Sumula Vinculante" which, in essence, closely resembles the American tradition of precedent or case law. For those thousands of cases that end up at the STF which are categorized as Common Actions (i.e. an action by a citizen against a public entity), when being of identical character to a previously decided case, the Ministers would give them an automatic decision following the precedent. This approach would expedite the application of justice and would dispense with the case-bycase method of adjudication. This is the way justice is rendered by Spain's Constitutional Tribunal which is also a Civil Law country. Another urgent reform being sought by the STF is the reinstatement of the power the Ministers of the STF once had under the former Brazilian Constitution, which is the power to choose which cases to hear, a practice common to U.S. Supreme Court Justices. As Minister Moreira Alves stated, "Out of each ten actions that end up here, only two or three involve serious constitutional questions. The rest is trivia." Lastly, there is a need for the codes of procedure to urgently be revised, but as of now, there are no proposals before Congress. A very optimistic side to this scenario is that Brazilians, like never before, are not only becoming more aware of their rights granted by the new Constitution, but they are also seeking the judicial channels to assert these rights. This growing awareness of one's rights and intolerance to abuse by the administration can only benefit Brazil and its people who have been plagued for far too many years with deeply corrupt governments and outrageous impunity. The time has come for a change, and a dose of hyperlexophobia is not bad. As the old adage says, better late than never. Yara Morton is expecting to receive her Juris Doctor in 1999. 17
Hardly Working There are between 16.5 million and 30 million Brazilians working in the informal economy meaning that between 15% and 50% of Brazil $ gross domestic product (GDP) is being generated by the informal work force. Although 60% of these workers have less than eight years of formal education, 300 thousand completed high school, and at least six thousand of them have a college degree, an indication of lack of job opportunities. What to do? Experts aaree that the government must act swiftly and invest in education and technical skills training. MARTA ALVIM
Brazil's informal economy, which has boomed in the past decade, is likely to reach new heights as Brazilians brace themselves for the growing threat of unemployment. According to Fundacdo Seade/Dieese (a labor union statistics institute) the unemployment rate in the Greater S-ao Paulo metropolitan area hit a record high of 16.5% in October of 1 1997. With the announcement of the fiscal package and the hefty increase in interest rates imposed by the government in November, chances are that more layoffs in industry, commerce, and other sectors will follow as a result. The informality phenomenon is not restricted to Brazil or to developing nations. The International Labor Organization estimates that there are close to 300 million informal workers spread all over the world under different economic regimes. In Brazil the extent of the informal economy has yet to be determined, mainly due to the complexities in defining what is and what is not an informal market activity. Depending on the methodology used, there may be anything between 16.5 million and 30 million Brazilians working in this sector. In other words, between 15% and 50% of the gross domestic product (GDP) may be generated by the informal work force. In general terms, informal activities in Brazil are performed by mostly selfemployed workers and unregistered micro enterprises, involving the production or commerce of a wide variety of goods and services: from street vending to household repairs; from sewing to independent carpool operation; from domestic workers to home-based web designers. Also included in the category are the unregistered workers employed by formal sector companies that do not require them to have the carteira de trabalho (an official workers' type of card that must be signed by employers). By doing so, they avoid paying a series of taxes, while depriving their workers of the employment and welfare benefits guaranteed by the Brazilian labor legislation. However, the most visible face of Brazil's informal sector are the hordes of vendors (also called camelos) found on the streets of all major Brazilian capitals. Dieese estimates that in the city of Sdo Paulo alone there are approximately 270 thousand people who have resorted to street vending as a direct result of the rise in unemployment. Avenida Paulista, the city's major thoroughfare, has become a huge open-air mall, although it is not by any means the only area occupied by the growing number of street vendors. Cameros can be found in many other areas of downtown Sdo Paulo, selling a wide range of merchandise from bugingangas (trinkets) to quite sophisticated articles. Sunglasses, food, flowers, imitations of well-known perfumes, such as Chanel and Givenchy, CDs, assorted electronic equipment, all of which are sold at much lower prices than the goods offered by conventional shops. It is only natural that traditional storeowners in areas with a high concentration of came/Os complain about what they see as an unfair competition by the street vendors. While the former have high operating costs, such as rent and salaries, the latter have little expenditures, and are accused of systematically evading payment of taxes, specially the ICM (tax on sales and services). However true the argument, one must point out that tax evasion is not a 18
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privilege of the informal sector, as many would like to believe. It is a well-known fact that the same practice is rampant among numerous legally-registered Brazilian businesses. Meanwhile, local governments try to accommodate the demands and needs of shopkeepers and vendors alike. Authorities realize that the informal economy will keep growing in proportion to the unemployment rate and to the uneven income distribution. The way they see it, the informal market serves as an escape valve in times of an economic slowdown, therefore they have attempted to come up with solutions that might appease both sides. Restricting the number of stalls allowed in a given area and defining specific areas where vendors would be allowed to work have been measures adopted by several city officials around the country, although not always successfully. In the 80s, Leonel Brizola, then governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, ordered the relocation of the city's camel& to an open-air area in downtown Rio built for the sole purpose of clearing major streets of the mobs of vendors and their stalls. Dubbed the camelodromo by city folks, Brizola's enterprise was a complete failure, as Rio's camel& rebelled against the decision and were soon back to their spots of choice. Faced with the same dilemma, cities have also tried to control the chaotic growth of street vending by issuing licenses and by enforcing other local ordinances. Usually, the non-compliance with the orders can cause the vendors to be either fined, have their merchandise confiscated or both. However, it's no secret that corruption is widespread among the very same governmental inspectors in charge of enforcing the law, and vendors are constantly harassed and forced to pay the agents weekly bribes in order to guarantee a good spot. Moreover, authorities themselves tend to relax their own rules whenever election season is coming along. A study conducted by the Applied Economics Research Institute (IPEA), an entity linked to the Ministry of Planning„ estimates that 60% of the informal commerce's work force have less than eight years of formal education, while 150 thousand workers have not finished high school. The research also shows that there are approximately 300 thousand informal vendors who have completed high school, and at least six thousand of them have a college degree. According to the institute's analysis, that's a sure indication of the lack of job opportunities in the formal market. As far as wages are concerned, the informal vendors earn from six to 20 minimum salaries (currently at $110) depending on the region, although the vast majority earns between two and six minimum salaries. Only a minority—approximately 1.5 thousand workers—are able to reach the top 20 minimum-salary range. In many cases, workers who have turned to this type of activity after losing their jobs are said to be earning more than they did while employed. The research also notes that the female presence in the informal commerce is still very small. Nevertheless, their participation in the direct, or door-to-door, sales of cosmetics, clothing, jewelry, and even food has increased , especially in the country's southern region. The rise of this type of activity is a good example of the thin line that sometimes separates the formal economy from informality. While the production of those goods are legally registered by the multiBRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
level ma keting giants, the sales force's income— mostly coinmissions—is not. So far, policy makers have yet to find adequate mechanisms to deal with the Brazilian informal economy s a whole. However, economists and labor experts agree that the government must act swiftly and invest a gr at deal in the education and technical skills training o1 the country's economically active population. The irreversible globalization process will require a significant increase in productivity and efficiency levels if a country is to remain competitive in the global ularket. Many of the job vacancies caused by present and future layoffs may never be recovered if the Brazil* working class is not prepared to deal with the shifting of new industrial technologies. Secondly, the government must take a serious look into its wage policies and into the country's obsolete labor legislation. Entitled Consolidacao das Leis• do Trabalho (CLT), this ample body of laws was a landmark for Brazil's labor movement when it was implemented by 'Getfilio Vargas in 1943. The legislation, which established the 8-hour day, the right to vacation and to strikes, and a guaranteed minimum salary, among other measures, was without a doubt a major and just victory for Brazilian workers. However, many of its nearly one thousand articles and paragraphs have become outdated in face of the changes in the economy, which in turn have led to a different employer/employee relationship. Analysts believe that employers are overwhelmed by the payment of taxes and of social welfare contributions imposed upon them not only by CLT but also by the numerous constitutional amendments. It is e$timated that those contributions represent an additional cost of 102% over the salaries, which only gives incentive to the exploitation of workers and their migratiOn to the informal economy. Another IpEA research revealed that Brazil's minimum wage should be 120% above the current salary in order to confOrm to the international standard, which is around 40% 1 Lof the average industrial wage. Critics contend that if the government could guarantee minimum living tandards by means of adequate wages, much of the onerous payroll taxes could be removed. To be fair, Brazilian authorities have developed a few well-intentioned programs to help informal workers make a smoother transition into the formal market. The Brazilian Center for Assistance to Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (CEBRAE), an entity linked to the Ministry f Industry and Commerce, has assisted thousands of micro-entrepreneurs by helping them obtain credit nd by offering administration and management train ng during the transitional phase to the formal sector. The National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES) also has a special line of credit aimed at financing small productive enter1 prises. 1 The succes of governmental programs will depend largely on the policy makers' abilities to envision and understand th different regional economic realities. Furthermore, he Brazilian government must take speedy action to eliminate the discouraging factors— bureaucracy arid corruption included—that prevent most of this huge mass of informal workers from being absorbed by the mainstream economy. 1 Marta Alvim is a Brazilian journalist, freelance translato and interpreter. You can reach her at mbralvim@aol.com 19
e're in the year 2228. In the United different independent republics, of greater or lesser imStates, an elite government is alarmed: portance. This is the result of the historic division of the statistics show a population of 108 provinces, the rivalries that exist among them, the divermillion Blacks vs. 206 million Whites. sity of the climate, of character and of the interests and the As the black birth rate continues to force of local ambitions. Already, more than one time the rise, the white preservation instinct rises up in legitimate provinces have made energetic separation attempts: and defense. There is talk about a "white solution" and a separatism becomes in these times, one of the most pow"black solution". The white solution is, obviously, to erful factors of politics. (...) expatriate the Blacks. This vision is proposed by Miss "The states, once separated, will not be able to keep Jane, character of the Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato peace among themselves, being abundant the reasons for (1882-1948) in 0 Presidente Negro ou o Choque das conflict —the border disputes, hydrographic questions Ragas (The Black President or the Racial Shock). and Customs since all will naturally want to create inAt the same time, the old Brazil is separated into two come. Each state, left to itself, will develop its own countries, one that centralizes all the South American history, under its own flag, according to its climate, the grandeur, child of the immense industrial focus that specialty of its agricultural area, its interests, its men, its emerged along the banks of the Parana River and the education and its immigration. Some will prosper, others other, a tropical republic, still having fits in political and will falter. Maybe there will be rich Chiles and certainly philosophical debates, discussing voting methods and they will be grotesque Nicaraguas. South America will be pronoun placement in the semi-dead Portuguese lancovered with the broken pieces of a great Empire!" guage. The sociologists of the time "saw in this the reflex If Brazil still didn't divide—in spite of suggestions of the bloody unbalance as a consequence of the fusion of every year of "indigenous nations" with pretensions of four distinct races, white, black, red and yellow, the last autonomy —there already are the rich Chiles and the one predominantly in the Amazon River valley". grotesque Nicaraguas, confirming Eca's intuition. But Miss Jane is the daughter of an American scientist returning to 0 Presidente Negro. Senhor Ayrton doesn't living in Brazil, Professor Benson, who can obtain an understand the reasoning of Miss Jane. Why divide Braanatomical cut of the future via a type of crystal globe zil? Just populate the north the same way as the south.... called a porviroscopio (futurescope) . Through this de—A country isn't inhabited as you like, Senhor Ayrton, vice, Jane analyzes the world of the 23"1 century. (The nor as idealists would like. A country is settled as it can. action of the novel takes place in 1926). Sir Ayrton, her In our case, it was the climate that established the separaBrazilian interlocutor, displays sadness about the future tion. From the Europeans, the Portuguese got accustomed of the country. to the hot part, where, thanks to affinities with the black "I don't see any reason for your sadness," Jane reman, they continued the old process of crossbreeding, sponds. "I even think that the division of the country ending up creating a people mentally incompatible with constitutes an excellent solution, the people in the south. the best possible, given the initial The inflation error of racial mixing. The hot part of pigment remained to suffer the error and its In order that Senhor consequences; but the temperate Ayrton understand the part was saved and can follow the United States of the 23rd right path. Your sadness comes Century, Miss Jane exfrom a territorial illusion. But conplains the ethnic comsider that a lot of land isn't what position of the country. makes a people great, but the qualAmerica would be the ity of its inhabitants. Temperate privileged region that Brazil, besides this, continued to would attract the most It is the 23rd century in America. For be one of the biggest countries in eugenic elements of the the first time in history, Blacks are the world in territory, since it united best European races. going to elect one of their own to the in the same block Argentina, UruWho were the people on presidency of the United States. The guay and Paraguay. the Mayflower? new President decides to divide the This idea of a territorial frag—Men of such temcountry in two: the South for the mentation of Brazil isn't new in perament, characters so Blacks and the North for the Whites. Lobato's time. In Cartas Ineditas Shakespearean, that beThe White majority, however, is not de Fradique Mendes (Fradique tween renouncing their ready to give up its power and Mendes' Unpublished Letters), concocts a diabolical plan. This convictions and emigratwritten at the very end of the last futuristic scenario, which includes ing to a wild and empty century, the Portuguese novelist, plans of mass expatriation of land, where everything Eca de Queiroz was already anticiAmerican Blacks to the Amazon, was was inhospitable and pating this possibility, in a text written in 1926 by Brazilian author difficult, they didn't Monteiro Lobato. called "A Revolution in Brazil": waiver. Emigrating, "With the empire, according to even today, requires JANER C RISTALDO all probability, Brazil also comes much daring, a heightto an end. ened tonus vital. To "This name of Brazil, that in leave your country, your the beginning had grandeur, and home, your friends, your for us Portuguese represented a glorious endeavor, belanguage, to cut all the roots you have had since infancy comes an antiquated name of old political geography. A that tie us to our one homeland, is there a greater heroism? little while from now, the Empire will be breaking up into Who does this is someone strong, and just this fact, is a
W
Black Dead End
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great indicator of courage. But emigrate to an uninhabited land, leave your homeland for the unknown, this is amazing! Immigration laws became selective and the masses that yearned for America, already good in themselves, are sifted through. Europe is drained of its best elements and in the New World, the cream of the immigrants is left over. Then what Miss Jane calls the "initial error" takes place: the black man is plucked out of Africa. Senhor Ayrton notes that the same mistake took place in Brazil, but our solution was admirable: —Within one hundred or two hundred years, our black man will have completely disappeared in virtue of successive cross-breeding with the white man. Don't you think we were happy in our solution? Miss Jane doesn't think so. She regards such a solution as mediocre, since it destroys the two races while fusing them. She prefers that both evolve parallel within the same territory, separated by a barrier of hate, the deepest prophylaxis. Hate stops a race from denaturing, decrystalizing the other, conserving both in a relatively pure state. Ayrton doesn't understand how such an angel of goodness can defend such evil. With the coldness of a scientist, Jane decrees: —There isn't good or bad in the game of cosmic force. Hate loosens as' many marvels as love. In Brazil, love killed the possibility of a supreme biological expression. In America, hate created the glory of the human eugenics... The most beautiful examples, strong and intelligent, were discovered where they would have been found and attracted by the American Canaan. Being that the country is fairly populated, it closes its doors to the European flux and the nation begins to grow vegetatively. This is when "pigment inflation" appears. The elite thinkers had convinced themselves that the restriction of the birth rate it is a must, since quality is Worth more than quantity. The balance was then broken: "The Whites had quality while the Blacks continued with quantity. Later, when the eugenics completely took over and the Department of Artificial Selection was created, the black boom was tremendous." There is the urge to get rid of the Blacks. The white solution is simple: —All white Americans only want one thing: to export, to oust the one hundred million Black Americans to the Amazon. This, meanwhile, would constitute a formidable task, or rather, impracticable, not only in virtue of tremendous material difficulties, but by wronging the American Constitution. Monteiro Lobato wrote his novel,—or analysis—in 1926. By transporting the action of his work to three centuries later, the author was creating fiction. But, an expert in the history of the United States, he relied on nonfictional projects already fed by the Americans. A country for Black Americans BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
Between 1840 and 1860, an obscure lieutenant in the United States Navy, a mixture of "scientist, visionary and businessman,, Matthew Fontaine Maury, employee of the Letters d Instruments Department of the navy in Washington, thought seriously about the subject. The project of the American officer was simple and pragmatic: once the black slaves of his country were released from slavery, they would be sent to colonize the Brazilian Amazon. The Republic of Liberia, in Africa, wus a result of one of these projects. And why not colonize the area with Whites? Maury grasped at arguments about geographic order: "The Amazon valley is a region for slaves. The European and the Indian were fighting its jungle for 300 years and didn't make the slightest mark. If one day, its vegetation has to be tamed and made use of, if one day the soil would have to be recaptured from the jungle, as well as the reptiles and wild animals, and subjected to the plow and spad , it will be done by the African. It is the land of parrot and monkeys and only the African is capable of the iork that man has to accomplish there". In truth, Maury's project only originality had to do with the insistence on colonizing the Amazon with freed Blacks. From the end of the 1830s, the United States had aimed to open navigation of the Amazon River to all nations. Beforel the military dreamer, a certain Joshua Dodge proposeI establishing 20,000 American immigrants along th Amazon. All promising to recognize Brazilian sover ignty, at least during the first years of colonization. Deep down, there was a similarity with what was done with Texas, aspiring to annex the region to the United States. The strat gy was simple. Just "buy" some Brazilians in Manaus t at would become "legitimate representatives" of an"'mazon Republic", which would declare itself independe from Brazil, including disagreeing with the way the cou try was governed, by monarchy." In case the razilian government would have sent ships and troops t • reestablish its sovereignty, the citizens of the new inde e endent Amazon state would appeal for American protec on. And a force of armed men would go to the Amazon to "protect the life and threatened possessions of the Ame ican citizens". Who tells us his almost unknown American expansion project is Pr • fessor Nicia Vilela Luz, in A Amazonia para os Negros mericanos (Amazon for Black Americans). In this wo k, the author shows that many Americans, well before he Civil War, thought it would be more attractive to free all the slaves and send them out of America. The gre test interpreter of this desire is Lieutenant Maury: "He was worni d about the problem of the black man in the United Sta es, since the abolition of slavery was close at hand. Co vinced of the white man's superiority, he could only acce t the Black in a condition of servitude and never in an equal position with the white man. What 21
to do then with this black population once liberated and whose multiplication could still overwhelm the white ' race?" . —The institution of slavery such as it exists in this country — mused Maury—fills the thoughts of its statesmen with anxious concern. What will be its destiny? If abolished, how would so many people be discharged? If maintained, what to do to control it? But, "God himself, his all knowing providence, will dictate the destiny to be fulfilled by the black and white races, whatever it may be". "And God had preserved the Amazon solitary and uninhabited in order that the problems of the South could be resolved—continues Vilela Luz. Cornered in the North where they would not find more "Missiisippis to cultivate" nor more "cotton fields to pick", the Southerners, to free themselves of their excess Black population, saving at the same time their economy and their "strange" institution would find a "safety valve" to the south, in the • Amazon valley. It was the "only ray of hope" to shine on them in that dramatic moment in which the American regime of slavery was debated". et's return to the fiction of Lobato. For Miss Jane, the Blacks talked of a more viable solution: they wanted the country divided in wo, the South for the Blacks and the North for the Whites, since America emerged from the efforts of both races. If it wasn't possible to enjoy ' together the work done together, it would be reasonable to divide the land into two pieces. We have then, at the beginning of the century, a Brazilian writer anticipating the proposals of contemporary leaders like Farrakhan. It's important to remember that at this time Lobato still had not traveled to the United States. The Whites didn't want to give up their status-quo and the problem became threatening. This is when a candidate capable of uniting the black electorate came forth: Jim Roy, with a slightly copper complexion, appearing to be a mixture of Senegalese and redskin. The color of his skin was nothing like the color of today's Blacks (this is 1926, the year in which the author situates his story). —No—Miss Jane responds. This wasn't influence from the middle, nor something particular of Jim Roy's. Almost all the black population of America had the same skin as he had. Science had resolved the case of color by destroying the pigment. So if Jim Roy should appear in front of us today, it would be a more disconcerting surprise, since this pure black man, without a drop of white blood in his veins, was, in spite of having frizzy hair, horribly whitish. The visionary spirit of Lobato anticipates, en passant, the Black American tendency that spawned Michael Jackson. Sr. Ayrton says astonished: —Peeling cockroach, I know... —But not even eliminating with the means of science the essential characteristic of race, did Blacks stop being black in America—Miss Jane continued. Instead they aggravated their social situation, because the Whites, proud of their ethnic purity and the privilege of the white color, wouldn't forgive that camouflage of depigmentation. Jim Roy, leader of the Black Association party, wasn't even a threat to power. He represented 100 million Blacks, against 200 million Whites. It just happened that among the Whites, a serious dissension was taking place, a party of women. The old Democratic and Republic parties had fused into a strong block called the Masculine party, led
L
by Kerlog, the incumbent President who was running for reelection. This block wasn't certain of victory, since the opposition party, the Feminine, possessed a larger number of voices, led by Miss Evelyn Astor. Statistics gave the Masculine Party 51 million votes, the Feminine 51.5 and the Black Association, 54 million. The election depended, therefore, on the posture of Jim Roy. The election was getting close. In 2228, elections occurred within a few minutes, due to technological advances predicted by Lobato. Lobato predicts the Internet Through Misi Jane, the writer of Taubate begins to describe the future society of America: —By today's system—Lobato refers to 1926—man goes to work, to the theater to a concert, in a coming and going that constitutes an enormous loss of energy and is the creator of millions of vehicles cluttering up space, streetcars, cars, bicycles, trains, planes and others. With the fecund discovery of Hertzian waves and similar findings and its consequent use in the interests of man coming and going was reduced to a minimum. Work, theater, Concerts started to come to peoples' place. The transformation of the world was fabulous when the larger part of industrial and commercial work began to be done from a distance via radio-transport." For the less attentive reader, the text could be a production of some more or less contemporary utopian, planning for the near future a society where every citizen would depend on public transportation either a little or not at all. Utopian, perhaps. Contemporary, not so much. Clairvoyant, without a doubt. Let's go! Let's see his journalistic vision, in the eyes of Miss Jane: "With today's system, the journalist writes his topic at home or he goes to write it in the editorial room; after writing, he gives it to the typesetter; he typesets it, gives it to the form maker, who puts it in a form and gives it to the proofer, he make a proof and sends it to the proofreader; he proofreads it and sends it to the corrector, he makes the corrections and it never ends! It's a chain of uncountable links, this inside the offices, since the newspaper on the street starts a whole new chain on the way to the reader—mail, agents, delivery men, vendors, the devil". "I was in a newspaper office and I know what you are talking about. Pure hell...", Ayrton responds. According to Miss Jane, "all these complications disappeared. Every writer of Remember transmitted from his house, at a certain time, his article, and immediately his written ideas appeared in shiniiig characters in the house f the subscriber." "How marvelous!... "Yes, there wasn't an industry, like that of the newspaper, that wouldn't undergo a simplifying influence from radio-transport—and that took from daily living the old trait of being trampled and agitated." At a time in which the computer, fiber optics and satellites belonged to the mental universe of visionaries, obato speaks of radio-transport. If we would substitute th is expression for fax/modem, we have the creator of entinho and Jeca Tatu anticipating, seven decades beforehand, a newspaper business that only exists today. he correspondents of any of today's leading newspapers for some time have sent their "shining characters" to their ditorial offices. The reader at the end of this century already receives on a screen practically all the newspapers on the planet. When the great quantity of universal literature is çligitized, you will be able to consult, from your house, 11 the libraries in the world.
22 BRA72IL - JANUARY 1995
"The streets became friendly, clean and with little traffic"—Lobato continues. "Vehicles still glided along on them, but rarely, like in the long ago, old, provincial cities that had little commercial life. Man delighted in walking and lost his old habits of haste. He found out that haste is just an index of a defective organization and antinatural. Nature doesn't hurry. Everything in it is calm." This prediction, better to credit it to the utopian disposition of the writer, who didn't manage to glimpse this Brazilian provincial side, who feels naked and humiliated if he doesn't have a four-wheels carriage. After all, you don't have to pay taxes to dream. But Lobato goes even further. Miss Jane considers old-fashioned the revolution of the wheel. According to the girl, "man took the first giant step in transportation with the invention of the wheel. But it ended there. Note that our industrial civilization developed the wheel and now wants to extract all the possibilities from it. Centuries from now, when man can see a vast version of his history, all of this period that comes from the dawn of history and that is going to continue for many generations will be called the Age of the Wheel". "Radio will kill the wheel", Miss Jane concludes. "The wheel, which was the greatest mechanical invention of man, and today reigns supreme, will have its end and man will walk again. What will happen is the following: radio-transport will make today's rush useless. Instead of the employee going to work every day in a street car that glides over noisy steel wheels, he will do his work at home and transmit it to the office. In summary: long distance work". Lobato speaks of radio, the must of the 1920s. If he couldn't have predicted the clouds of terabytes transmitted daily from one end of the planet to the other by the WEB, he perceived very well its consequences. Long distance "telework"—work "transmitted" to the office, as Lobato would say—is already a phenomenon in expansion. Today, any intellectual worker, as long as he has a telephone nearby, can send his product to any corner of the world, fugitive in a chalet in Itatiaia or in search of solitude and wilderness in Tamanrasset. Printed newspapers thousands of kilometers from their offices aren't a novelty anymore. ccording to the French historian Roger Chartier, the revolution taking place to d ay is much bigger than Gutenberg's of 1455, "since it transforms the very forms Af written transmission. The passing of a book, newspaper or magazine, as we know them today, to the computer screen, breaks the structural materials of written text. The only possible historical comparison is the beginning of Christianity, in the second and third century when the book of Antiquity, in the form of a scroll, gave way to the book bequeathed by Gutenberg, the ancient manuscript, with sheets and pages united in notebooks.". Inhabitants of the end of this millennium, we are privileged witnesses of the revolution predicted by Lobato. A good revolution, without blood and without return. Without even imagining the existence of computers, the writer from Sdo Paulo heralded the coming ofthe Internet. Remember that in 1996, Brazil was one of the first countries to institute electronic voting, an institution already functioning in this work of fiction done seven decades ago. The Black victory BRAZZIL -JANUARY 1998
It is this possibility of "radio-transport" of information that prodOces an about-face in the elections of 2228 in the United States. Jim Roy is going to cleverly exploit this new elemOnt, speed. The elections had been scheduled for 11 am. and would last just 30 minutes. The candidate of Ole Black Association advised his district agents that only at 10 a.m. he would announce the name in which the Mucks should vote. Upon his announcement, the uncomfortable surprise came: it wasn't Evelyn Astor, the leader of the Feminine Party. Much less Kerlog, President and aspiring to be reelected by the Masculine Party. —The candidate of the black race is Jim Roy—Jim Roy announceil. To the amazement of everyone, after 87 white presidents, the first lp lack would come, elected by 54 million blood brothers., The Masculine and Feminine parties had more or less tie0i, with somewhere around 50 million and a half votes. "The astonishment of the defeated Whites wasn't any less' than the black winners. They had acted automatically; tiley gave their vote to Roy like they would have given it to, Kerlog, or Miss Astor, or they wouldn't have given it to any of the three if they were told. And now they looked at dach other in a bewildering victory absolutely unpreced‘nted for them". The perplexity passing, Blacks and Whites were hit with reality the 'following day. "The old racial contempt of the White for the Black transformed itself into rage, and restrained hate o'f the Black for the White, baring its teeth, showed a monstrous smile of revenge. (...) Slowly, the black mass wolce up from its long, lethargic submission and its nostrils qoivered in the wind, like a tiger loose in the jungle. All thp atavistic barbarism, all the appetites in repression, impotent rancor, long suffered injustices, all the skin lacerate4 by whips until the advent of Lincoln, and after LincolO, all the humiliations of unequal treatment—this legioi f of ghosts burst forth from the black soul like snakes om under a slab that an imprudent hand raises up". For Kerlog, 87th president of the United States and a defeated candidate, there comes a historic headache: he sees in the black victory America transformed into a volcano and threatened by death. Considering that the reins of the two monsters—black inebriation and white pride—weren't hUld in check, the massacre would be terrible. Jim explains his project: • —America is s much yours as it is mine—Jim says. I have it in my han s. I'm going to divide it. —Justice is ith you, Jim. Order justice to divide America. But Blo d is above justice. Blood has its justice. And for the justic of White Blood, it is a crime to divide America. Summing up thO story: Six white leaders meet together and discuss a solution for the impasse. The solution, kept secret, is unanimoUsly accepted. At the time, John Dudley, an inventor and one of the members of the group, had just discovered Omega rays, that had the miraculous ability to change African ha•r. With the treatment, the most rebel curly hair became ot only smooth, but also fine and silky, like the most refin d hair of a White. Omega rays flowed in the follicle and e iminated the kinkiness, the last stigma of the black race, hich had already solved its pigmentation problem. I The White Solution For Senhor Ay on everything was becoming clear. He hit his hand on his forehead and said to Miss Jane: 23
—I can guess the real solution of the black problem in America! Not sending the Blacks out of the country, not the division of the country. Just whitening the Black, making him equal with the White! But the strategy wasn't so simple. Like in a game of chess Miss Jane explains—a humble move of the peon has as much importance for a check-mate as a spectacular move by the queen. The capillary episode should be seen as a move of the peon. Still not recuperated from the emotions of victory, 100 million individuals thanked the heavens for the new discovery, that would result in the physical betterment of the race. The pigment was destroyed, but the whitening of the skin didn't manifest an agreeable color on sight. With the Omega rays, there was hope of obtaining, with time, the perfect similarity in skin. In all neighborhoods in all cities, the Dudley Uncurling Company established unkinking posts, posts that multiplied without stopping, as if a hidden force was pushing the business of the inventor of Omega rays to unkink Black America in the least amount of time possible. It was one of the most simple processes. Just three applications, each one lasting three minutes, at a cost of ten cents a head, made Blacks run to the posts like hungry dogs. Whites, initially irritated with what they called the "second camouflage of the Blacks" ended up enjoying the spectacle of the subtle hair transformation of 100 million individuals. "The manufacturing plants of combs, barrettes, lotions, shampoos, pomades, hair colorings, etc., worked day and night without managing to meet the sudden demand of such products. New barbers and hairdressers appeared on every corner and no matter how much they
worked, they couldn't keep up. Black women, above all, lived perpetually smiling at themselves, as if in paradise. They spent days in front of the mirror, enraptured, pleasurably combing and uncombing. Their enchantment at running their hands through their soft, "Omega-rayed" hair made them forget the humiliating past of curly hair. They were White! Finally free from the horrible stigma!" On the eve of his inauguration, Jim Roy, in his private residence, dreamed the biggest dream dreamed on the continent, when his servant announced to him the visit of a "natural white man". It was President Kerlog, the defeated adversary. He approached the black leader and placed himself against his shoulder in a gesture of compassion: —Yes, President Kerlog, the White that comes to assassinate you, Jim... Jim thinks it is a gag. Mercifully, Kerlog announces a new fact: —You won't go up the steps of the White House, Jim... —Why? By any chance are the Whites conspiring against the Constitution? Do they want to commit a crime? —Nothing like that—Kerlog answers softly.— You won't enter the White House because there's no room there for a Samson with his hair cut. Your presidency will be useless. Everything is useless when the future doesn't exist... The black man is becoming impatient with Kerlog's mysterious tone. —Your race was victim of what you will call the white's betrayal and what I will call the white's good sense. Kerlog explains to Jim that there aren't morals between races, just like there aren't morals between peoples.
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There is victory or defeat. highly sensitive author, felt close to catastrophe, the most —Your race died, Jim... colossal unthirtaking of mass extermination dared in hisKerlog then tells him that the Omega rays of John tory. Before dying, he saw the German scalpel trying to Dudley have a double virtue: at the same time that they annihilate an ethnic group. He was only wrong with straighten hair, they sterilize men. respect to the' geography. On the day that the 88" president of the United States would take office, the first black president of America, Janer Cristaldo is a Brazilian writer, translator and Jim Roy, was found dead in his study. The Blacks immejournalist. He got a Ph.D. in French and Compared diately thought about a crime having taken place and there Literatare from Universite de la Sorbonne Nouvelle was almost a rebellion. But ancestral fatalism rose above (Paris III) with the thesis La Revolte Chez Albert Camus et the hate and the large body without a head pulled back Ernesto Scibato (The Revolt in Albert Camus and Ernesto instinctively and put itself in its humble place from where Sabato). He published among other books: 0 Paraiso Roy's victory had taken it. New elections took place and Sexual Democrata (The Democratic Sex Paradise) (essay) , Kerlog was reelected by 100 million votes. American life Assim Escrevem os Gatichos (Thus Write the Gauchos) returned to normal. (antholog*), A Forca dos Mitos (The Power of Myths) "For the first time in the history of people, a surgical (cronicas), Ponche Verde (Green Poncho) (novel), operation took place on a large scale. The cold scalpel of Mensageiros das Furias (Messengers of the Furies) a human group ablated the future of another group of 108 (essay). You can get in touch with him via his E-mail: million without the patient realizing anything. The white cristalibm.net race, used to war as the last motive of its majesty, wandered from the old path and imposed a peaceful final ethnic end to the group that helped to create America, but with which it could no longer live in common. It had it as an obstacle to the ideal of an Aryan super-civilization AIR - IATA 01-1-9279-012 that in that land was beginning to bloom and it wasn't going to OCEAN- FMC 3853 give up to weak feelings, noxious to the splendid bloom of the white man." Blood circulation stranguTO ANY AIRPORT IN BRAZIL lated, the race extinguished itself in a painless crepuscule. "Decades later, in the marvelous American garden where 0 only camellias bloomed with FULL CONT , INER & CONSOLIDATIONS petals slightly coppered by the mysterious force of the enviTO ANY PORT IN BRAZIL ronment, there was at the top of (EXCELLENT CONTAINER RATES) the monument in homage to the black partner, the bust of the old magician who in 2228 cured the historic headache of the 87" President..." Not exportation to AmazoSHIPPER'S DOOR PICK-UP mmi AIR/OCEAN FREIGHT nia, nor whitening with the elimination of pigment and CUSTOMS CLEARANCE (INCL. ALL DUTIES) mil curly hair. But pure and simple extinction of a race for the full flowering of the Aryan supercivilization... In his autobiography, Nikos Kazantzakis tell us of certain sensitive lips and fingertips that tingle when a storm is coming. "The lips and fingertips of the author are of this type"—the mystic Crete writes. "When the author speaks with such certainty, what he says isn't his imagination, but his lips and fingertips that have already begun to receive the initial sparks ofthe storm". Monteiro Lobato,
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—Pronta para comecar? Eva sentiu o coracdo disparar. Ndo que nao estivesse, era praticamente a unica coisa que conseguia pensar nas filtimas vinte e quatro horas. A iddia, depois de pensada, repensada e consolidada, nunca chegou a assusta-la. Claro, quando se deposita toda a confianca que se pode dispor em um &rico e ultimo refagio, nao ha como duvidar da prOpria insistencia em veneer. Tabua de salvacdo, agarrar-se a ela corn unhas e dentes. Tudo se resumia em confiar no proprio instinto. Mais uma vez, ele ndo a trairia. Ainda mais neste momento, quando todas as evidencias indicavam caminhos sem futuro. Ele, instinto, ndo falharia. 0 coracdo disparou sim, em evidente sinal de que o temor perante toda aquela situacao subsistia, escondido por entre tantos desejos de solucdo. Estar preparada para tudo era a unica certeza que Eva podia dispor naquele momento. —Acho que sim—disse. 0 medico ligou o pequeno gravador. Trouxe-o mais perto de si. —Quinta-feira, vinte e cinco de agosto. Nove horas e quarenta minutos. Paciente: Eva Miller. Segunda sessdo. Ele moveu o aparelho para perto dela. Dispersa em adrenalina, Eva sentiu-se mais do que nunca forte, disposta a lutar ate as altimas conseqitencias. Os sinais involuntarios que seu organismo exibia nada tinham a ver corn o ideal que dominava sua mente e espirito. —Procure relaxar, Eva—ele disse num torn suave.—Procure ndo se preocupar corn as coisas a sua volta. Concentre-se apenas na sua tranqiiilidade, apenas no que sente neste momento. Seguindo suas instrucdes—alias tudo parecia mais facil quando ele estava no comando—ela procurou relaxar. Deixou que a respiracdo fluisse normalmente; soltou pernas e bracos, relaxando todos os musculos. Em momento algum pensou que pudesse ter seu caminho desviado para dar lugar aos recentes "transes' , embora o momento fosse mais do que propicio para este tipo de manifestacdo. Paz, tranqiiilidade, meditacao, e uma repentina serie de visaes que tomariam sua mente como naquele dia no escritorio. Tudo entdo desfeito na bolha de sangue. Mas ndo foi nada disso que aeonteceu. 0 que Eva teve a sua frente, para sua propria surpresa, foi o mar. Aguas serenas e delicadamente aquecidas, num movimento quase que imperceptivel. Azul, limpido como o ceu, regado ao fundo pelo leve toque de uma brisa. A vida au, intensa, ainda que nao existisse de forma concreta. NA° era a forma. Era a essencia. Suficiente para retornar seus batimentos cardiacos ao ritmo normal. Suficiente para sentir o corpo flutuando no espaco, como se de repente a poltrona vinho, entre ela e o chdo, ndo fizesse mais parte daquele ambiente. Como se tudo ndo passasse de magica... —Vejo que estamos progredindo— observou o medico assim que percebeu que a fisionomia dela vinha se alterando, 28
Era
She might have lost her cool and might have told him that it was none of his business what she was doing or that maybe she was in love. She could have said that he was nothing more than a scoundrel, an irresponsible, trying to prove something to himself, putting at risk her life. This would just worsen things though. And the weapon was still there within his grasp. Now that he was calm it would be better to keep him this way. There was a chance to end the night without further damage. ANDRE CHARAK
exatamente para o ponto onde queria chegar. Suas palavras pareceram ecoar do fundo de algum lago subterraneo. Naquela atmosfera, era como se ele nunca tivesse estado au. Ele ndo mudou seu comportamento. Deixou que Eva seguisse procurando por si mesma seu equilibrio. Apertou o botdo de pausa, e so voltaria a desaperta-lo cerca de oito minutos depois, no instante em que Eva parecia ter atingido um ponto imaginario ideal. — Quase oito minutos em estado de relaxamento—disse ao pequeno aparelho.—Sente-se perfeitamente bem, tido é mesmo, Eva? Ela acenou positivamente. imo. Quero que vá, lentamente, incor— Ot porando novas imagens ao que esta vendo. ve alguma coisa, nao? —0 mar. —Perfeito. Estamos comecando muito bem. ye voce nele?
—Nao. —Tern certeza? —Absoluta. Nao ha vida. Apenas imagens. —Pois bem, vamos dar vida a estas imagens. Quero que projete a sua pr6pria imagem no mar. Da maneira que quiser, ndo importa. Consegue fazelo? Ela viu entao sua pr6pria figura surgindo nas Aguas claras. Como urn Deus, pairando acima delas, sem deixar o equilibrio de toda aquela situacdo desaparecer. —Sim—disse finalmente.—Estou au. —Muito born. Muito born mesmo. Pois bem, nada do que vamos fazer daqui para frente e dificil ou perigoso. Trata-se apenas de urn jogo, e cabera a voce coordena-lo. Estarei aqui apenas para Ihe fornecer algumas instrucees e fazer algumas perguntas. Esta bem assim? Novamente um sinal positive. —Otimo. Podemos dar seqiiencia. Alguma coisa era diferente. Cores vivas, vida onde ndo havia vida. As palavras do medico a ecoar em seus ouvidos. Estava gostando da viagem, e tudo parecia ter comecado sem que tivesse chance de perceber. Nunca tinha experimentado drogas ou qualquer tipo de alucinogeno mas achou que a sensacdo ndo poderia ser muito diferente. 0 que sentia, naquele momento, era urn bem-estar sem precedentes. —Eva—a voz dele voltou a soar do infinito.—Concentre-se. Quero que vá buscar em sua mente os tempos em que era mais moca. 0 mar dara espaco para novos quadros, mas voce permanece. Ndo se preocupe corn o que ye, nada de mal podera Ihe acontecer. Sao apenas imagens. Responda apenas as minhas perguntas, estd bem? Outro aceno. Em seguida, urn mergulho nas profundezas do tempo. A MIC, os primeiros desafios, as tentativas corn o primeiro Miller. Blake,o orfanato, irmd Angelica. —Onde estamos, Eva? A voz dele ndo a interrompeu, apenas flutuou pelo aposento ate invadir seus ouvidos. Sem perturbar as imagens. — Em Campinas. — 0 orfanato? —E. Tenho doze anos. —Doze anos...Vamos um pouco mais alem. 0 que ye antes disso? As imagens retrocederam ainda mais. Sua expressdo nab se alterou. — Tenho oito anos—disse de repente. —E onde voce esta? —Em casa. Papai, mamde e Dick, meu cachorrinho. Tudo e verde. —Verde. Otimo. Sente-se bem? —Sim, muito bem. —Entdo vamos avancar no tempo. Lembra-se do piquenique a beira do riacho? —Fizemos varios. —Palo de urn em especial. Urn domingo, Eva. —Fizemos varios—ela repetiu— sempre no domingo. BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
—OK. Vejamos, hd urn domingo em que tudo foi diferente, muito triste. Nao sao boas lembrancas. Sabe de que estou falando? Ela parecia buscar alguma resposta. —Sei—disse por fim.—Nunca me senti tAo triste. Estou s6.—Vamos do comego. A sequencia seria automdtica. ***
Ele se acostumou a ver cenas como aquela. Mudava o local, as pessoas que queriam fazer parte da noticia, o espocar dos flashes. A rotina? A mesma de sempre. Identificar-se, procurar o delegado da area, assumir a situagao. Tao automatic° que nao havia mais qualquer constrangimento. Mario era, mais uma vez, o responsayel direto por urn assassinato, e este peso—ainda que o afligisse nos momentos solitdrios de reflexao--parecia nao incomodar. Era como dizer "Dane-se, faz parte do meu trabalho. Enquanto estiverem morrendo por ai, terei alguma coisa para fazer." Avenida dos Bandeirantes, e Ia estava o corpo. Alguma identificagao?—adiantouse ao delegado da Area. —Aqui estd. Carteira de motorista, identidade. 0 nome dele é Jose Daniel Spigel. Mario levantou o lengol. Gordo, um pouco maior do que de costume. Quarenta, talvez nem isso. Ingenuidade nos tragos. Urn ser aparentemente inofensivo. — Uns moleques encontraram-no dentro do carro, por volta das seis e meia. JA estava completamente morto. " Completamente morto? 0 que me diz de parcialmente morto, estüpido? optou por nao se pronunciar. Quando se extrapola os limites, seja numa serie de assassinatos, seja no trato corn seres que parecem ter caido de outro planeta, é da natureza humana se conformar. Para que se preocupar em demasi a corn os fatos se eles insistirao em ocorrer, queira voce ou nao?Nao se pode fazer muito a respeito. Claro, urn dia tudo chega ao fim, mas sua atitude nao muda o processo. Pensar diferente ndo mudaria as coisas. 0 conformismo—nao do ponto de vista de uma solugao final, mas na maneira como aquilo poderia afeta-lo— jd fazia parte de si mesmo. ***
sol...—Eva continuou, os olhos ainda fechados.—Muito calor, dia ideal para urn piquenique. Adoro urn domingo assim, me faz mais feliz. Sei que vamos ao riacho, e ajudo mamae a preparar a cestinha: sanduiche de queijo, presunto e ovo. Salame, tomates e uma lata de sardinha. Argh, detesto sardinhas. Tern tambem dgua e cocacola. A cerveja é para o papai. As uvas e as cerej as levamos de casa; as amoras colhemos por Id. Ah, o Dick fica corn a carninha moida que a mamae prepara para ele. Acho que ele é o que mais gosta destes piqueniques. Fica correndo BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
pelo mato, por entre as drvores. Nao se c nsa de brincar. 1 1 — Voce brinca coin ele? — Brinco. Sempre. Agora estou brincando corn ele. Mamae diz que é hora de parar para ele comer alguma coisa. Diz que ele esta corn cara de fome, mas para mim os cachorros sempre estao c1in . cara de fome. Papai pede que eu o leve para pe to das drvores, onde eu tinha deixado o pratinho 1 com a comidinha dele. Entao nos vamos para pert° das drvores. 1 Samuel presumiu que logo o clima ficaria mais pesado. Mas, se de fato al estava a chgtve de todo aquele problema, nao havia como evita-lo. 1 —E entdo, Eva, o que acontece? Pela primeira vez eta mudou sua expresSao. 0 ar alegre de crianca deu lugar a angitstia, refletida no movimento dos labios e no tremular das palavras 1 que passou a pronunciar. 1 —Papai se afasta, vai na diregao do lago. Primeiro sobe ate as pedras, depois desaparece la pare baixo. Mamae vai atris dele. "Aonde ilyoce vai, mamae?", eu pergunto. Eta diz que papal esta Id e que vai traze-lo de volta. Diz para eu continuar ali corn o Dick. I Parou por urn instante. A primeira lagrima nao hesitou em escorrer. I —Mas voce nao continua ali, nao 6? I A situagao iria piorar. —Nao. Deixei Dick ali e tambem subi para ver o que estava acontecendo. Nao fui pelo memo lado, mamde me daria a maior bronca se me Yisse por ali. Mas tambem nao fiquei muito longe.11 —E o que voce ve, Eva? I —Oh, IA°, por favor, nao deixe isso acontecer!—ela pareceu perder o controle. 1 De novo nao! — Procure manter a calma, Eva. Ndo hd o tiue temer. 0 que voce ve? —Vejo papai, conversando corn dois homens. Eles tem cara de mau, nao parecem ser boas pessoas. Um deles tira uma faca e... nao, isso Oao pode estar acontecendo! Ele esta furando papai, papai esta sangrando! Ele caiu e estao bateddo nele! Transpondo a cena, como se tudo aconteceSse naquele exato momento, Eva nao tinha mais controle sobre qualquer sentimento. Chorando, era a prepria garotinha, vinte e quatro anos antes, diante de urn abalo que a marcaria para o rest° Iola vida. —Nao consigo me mexer, estou corn medo. Vejo mamae procurando por mim, masnao consigo chamd-la. Oh, ndo, os homens maus estao atrds dela! Mas gratas a Deus eta me viu. Vem vindo Oa minha direcao, diz para fugirmos dali depress. "Mas e papai?", eu pergunto. "Papai se foi, Eva" Nao entendo, o que ela quer dizer corn "se foi'? Agora nao importa, temos que correr. Tenho med , muito medo. Eles estao atrds da gente, corrend ands da gente, e eu nem sei onde esta o Dick! Onde ele se meteu? Deveria estar corn a gente! — Ndo se preocupe corn ele agora. Dick estd bem, salvo perto das arvores. Me conte o que estd acontecendo. — Hd um homem, bem na nossa frente. E urn deles! Mamde me empurra para urn lado e diZ "Fuja daqui, meu bem. Fuja depressa!". Nao quero ficar sozinha, tenho medo. Mas se eu ficar o outr° vai me pegar tambem! Mamae mandou fugir, e isso que tenho que fazer. Correr, correr...—Estou correndo o maxim° que posso. Vi quando o homern bateu em mamae e eta caiu. Nao quero que o outro faga isso comigo. Por isso you continuar correndo, nao quero olhar para trds, o outro homem mau deve estar bem al, atrds de mim. Mas nao posso, sinto as pernas doendo, nao consigo respirar direito. Tenho que parar, mas e se ele me pegar? —Ele ndo vai pegar voce, Eva. Pode parar se 1 quiser.
Eta parou. A fala fez o mesmo. Parecia tomar folego. —Ele nao esta mils de mim. Ha uns arbustos aqui, e posso me esconder entre eles. Espere, vejo eles Ian° fundo, mas eles nao podem me ver. Oh, Deus, mamae estd ali! Tiraram toda a roupa dela, e o outro homem, em cima dela, tambem esta sem roupa. Ougo os gritos dela. Por que eles ndo a deixam em paz?! 0 outro homem tambem esta tirando a calga. Acho que vao deixd-la em paz depois desta brincadeira. Ou sera que nao? Sera que... oh, ilk), por favor, nao! Eva estremeceu na poltrona Agarrou-se aos bracos como se fosse arrancar fora o tecido. —0 que esta acontecendo, Eva? —Estou vendo a faca novamente! Estao enfiando nela! NA° deixe que isso acontega! Por favor, nao deixe eles fazerem isso! 0 medico entao se aproximou. Procurou conte-la, antes que comegasse a se debater. — Eva, é o Doutor Samuel que esta falando corn voce. Quero que apague imediatamente as imagens que ve. Voce esta no meu consult6rio, ndo hd nada para temer. Foi como um estalo. Eta abriu os olhos encharcados e olhou paraos dedos que segundos antes queriam arrebentar o m6vel. Olhou entao para o medico, numa clara expressao de quem nao entendia absolutamente nada do que estava se passando. —Esta tudo bem agora—ele disse.—Estamos aqui, eu e voce. Tome isso,—estendeu um pequeno alice corn uisque.—Vai se sentir melhor. Eva tomou-o num s6 gole. Estava atonita. Sabia que tinha acabado de passar por uma experiencia inddita, mas nao sabia precisar o que havia sentido ou imaginado. —Confusa?—perguntou o medico. —Muito. Pode me explicar o que aconteceu? —Claro. Voce acaba de retornar de parte do seu passado. Eta pareceu duvidar. — 0 senhor quer dizer... — E exatamente isso que quero dizer. Oito anos, Eva. E a idade que tinha. Nao havia restado nada. Nenhum flash, nenhum vestigio. —Nao se preocupe, nao hd nada para lembrar. Estranharia caso se lembrassse de alguma coisa. —E entao? —Procure relaxar agora. Nao hd motivos para se preocupar. —Nao se trata de preocupagao, doutor. Quero saber se hd algo esclarecedor, algo que nos permita chegar a uma saida. Ele a olhou por sobre os 6culos. —0 que quer ouvir exatamente? —Apenas a verdade. Hd ou nao alguma saida? Ele nao respondeu de imediato. Tambem ndo teve como intengdo criar urn clima de suspense, mas foi exatamente por at que a coisa caminhou. — Sim—disse por fim.—HA uma solugao. Estamos ainda longe dela, lembre-se que este é apenas o inicio do 29
processo. Mas sei que este é o tipo de resposta que the trail mais confianca, e isso é importante para a continuidade do tratamento. —Pode apostar. Esta era a (mica resposta que eu gostaria de ouvir, doutor. —Pois entdo fique tranquila. Ha material de sobra para encontrarmos um caminho. Estas perturbaceoes que voce vem tendo tern uma causa, e nOs acharemos o ponto em que tudo parece se romper. S6 ndo podemos nos deixar levar pelo entusiasmo. Ainda ha muita coisa para ser anal isada. —Entendo. Minhapreocupacdo nao é sair correndo desesperadamente em busca de alguma coisa, mas sim ter a certeza de que ha alguma coisa para se correr atras—se havia algo que ela sabia, em meio a todas aquelas questOes, era que nada se resolveria num passe de magica. Estaria sujeita As oscilacOes do processo, e isto apenas o tempo poderia resolver. Naquele momento, bastava urn sinal, um sinal de que existiam alternativas. E ele parecia te-lo dado. — Otimo. Prosseguiremos entdo amanhd, se ndo houver nenhum problema de sua parte, Eva. —Ndo, claro que ndo. Trato isso como prioridade. Apenas nao sei se minha presenca aqui, urn dia alp& o outro... — De modo algum. Enquanto especialista, voce tambem é minha prioridade. Trocaram urn caloroso aperto de mdos. —Por enquanto, doutor, o que posso lhe dizer é muito obrigada. —No ha de que. —0 senhor acendeu um fio de esperanca, em todos os sentidos. —Fico feliz em ouvir isso. Mas lembre-se que dependera quase que exclusivamente de voce o sucesso deste tratamento. —0 senhor sabe, no que depender de mim... —Tudo dara certo. Eva saiu e o medico voltou ao seu pequeno gravador. —Onze e quarenta, fim da segunda sessiio. A paciente Eva Miller acaba de retratar o que parece ser o momento mais delicado de suavida: o assassinato do pai, seguido de estupro e morte da mac.. Ao que consta, acompanhou a cena, mas nao ha nada que a Jaya lembrar. A lembranca estimulada, via hipnose, remete a paciente a urn estado de completo panic°. E é justamente este pcinico que a leva a esconder, subconscientemente, todo o mal que a cena representa. Por alguma raztio que tentarei descobrir numfuturo proximo, esta memoria, acostumada a viver no vazio, insiste em se manifestar. Esta é a chave; bem trabalhada, poderemos ter excelentes resultados—ele deu uns goles antes de prosseguir.—Caso contrario, ela jamais podera voltar ao seu estado normal. Ele desligou o gravador. 0 botdo interrompia apenas urn mov imento mecanico, porque seu cerebro continuava trabalhando, no Anico prop6sito de reverter todo aquele processo. 30
deste seu humilde servo. — Pare corn isso—ela riu—ou juro que o chamo de delegado Ventura pelo resto da noite. — Oh, ndo, eu ndo suportaria. Como em qualquer grande aglomerado urbano, o tempo parecia evaporar, transformando em noite Permite que eu me sente? Eta apontou para a cadeira. o que poucos minutos antes era dia. 0 ritmo —Desculpe se a fiz esperar. Isto alucinante—como sempre—era esse. Ainda haveria espaco para os aventureiros, dispostos a ndo teria acontecido se tivesse aceitado enfrentar mais barulho e agitacdo. 0 transit° ainda minha carona. —Ndo se preocupe. Faz parte do perduraria por mais algumas horas, ndo haveria espaco para tantos carros. Pior: tinha jogo do jogo. — Jogo?—ele repetiu. Entendia, Corinthians no Pacaembu. Mario ndo conseguiu se ocupar de outra coisa claro, mas forcar uma situacdo parecia durante o dia a nao ser o fato de que mais tarde interessante.—Que jogo? — Ora, ndo seja cinico. Este papel estaria sentado novamente corn eta, disposto a retomar urn fio semi enrolado. Culpa daquele ndo fica bem para voce. —Mesmo? E voce ndo me parece intrometido, Fernando. Ndo era esse o nome dele? Tudo bem, ndo importava. Importava que o grande do tipo que gosta de jogos. Seria, momento estava prestes a chegar, era apenas uma equilibrada, nada de apostas. Em que questdo de tempo. Fantasias que colocavam de especie de jogo gostaria de entrar? —Que tat comecarmos tudo de lado a MIC e seus problemas (embora sua disposicao em ajudar ndo houvesse mudado), Liza novo?—Ela apontou para a porta. Voce e seus escolhidos. Ah, al estava eta de novo. Ate entra, pede desculpas pelo atraso, eu quando? Pelo que o SIA tinha conseguido levantar, the indico a cadeira. Mario ameacou levantar-se e eta o o tal Jose Daniel ndo passava de urn pobre coitado, solitario e sem maiores pretensiies na vida. A interceptou de imediato. —Mario!—eta riu.—Onde pensa sexta vitima, condenada pela insonia e sujeita a vagar pelas ruas para nao entrar em paranOia. Fim que vai? Eu estava brincando! —Eu sei. Gosto das coisas assim. do seu caminho, sem poder entender porque. E a Anica coisa que ele poderia fazer a respeito era Faz parte do meu jogo... Ambos tinham a impressdo de se esperar. Mesmo? Ou seria esta a desculpa mais conhecerem ha muito tempo. Qualquer conveniente que ele mesmo se impunha para ndo urn que os observasse durante aquele ter que agir? Medo? Talvez. De qualquer maneira, jantar descontraido teria dito o mesmo. questdes sem respostas que o tempo se encarregaria Mario acreditava estar diante de alguem de solucionar. E o tempo, a sua maneira, se que, depois de muito tempo, era capaz encArregaria de aumentar o namero de vitimas. de mexer corn ele. Eva, sem entrar a Enquanto ndo houvesse nada de concreto que fundo nas questOes expressas por seu pudesse ser apurado, ou urn novo encontro que o coracdo, estava certa de que aquele destino the reservasse, ndo havia muito a fazer. homem, qualificado e seguro, enconAguardar, ate onde a paciencia do Hermes pudesse traria os culpados dentro da MIC. Estava ali ndo por simples acaso, mas por obra alcancar. divina. Um anjo? Era esta exatamente a Hora para outros afazeres. Quando se tern a imagem que tinha diante dos olhos oportunidade de estar a s6s corn a mulher que se quando a voz dele quebrou o encanto. —Nada como urn belo sushi... —ele ama (ainda que seja eta quem pague pelos seus ainda limpava a ponta dos labios. servicos), qualquer preparacdo para a ocasido —Concordo, voce fez uma boa motivo de euforia. 0 n6 da gravata tinha que ser dado em frente ao espelho, mas ao entrar no escolha. —Alan do mais gosto particularbanheiro ele se lembrou que não tinha mais urn. Tarde demais, teria que improvisar. Entre se mente do lugar. Me tras boas recorarrumar e abusar de urn frasco de perfume barato dacOes. — Recordacaes...—ela repetiu. nao se seguiram mais do que vinte minutos. Tempo suficiente, ndo haveria atraso. Qtie otimo eta Parecia querer se lembrar de alguma coisa. tambem gostar de comida japonesa. — 0 que C que tern? Eva tinha insistido em ir sozinha, e chegou ao — Voce falou em recordacOes, estou restaurante antes dele. Trazia na bolsa apenas uns trocados, urn batom e cartbes de credito. Na cabeca, tentando me lembrar do nome. Espere urn pouco... Como era urn volume menor de preocupaceoes, entre elas o proprio Mario. 0 melhor que tinha a fazer, pensou, mesmo? — 0 nome... era deixar que tudo se desenrolasse naturalmente. — E, o restaurante. Tudo bem, nao 0 que ndo percebeu, assim que deixou o predio, foi a presenca do vulto encapotado da noite ante- importa. Me lembro de ser um lugar rior. Estava parado ali ha horas. Seguiu-a ate o muito parecido. —Onde? Aqui mesmo, em São restaurante, tomando o cuidado de estacionar do outro lado da rua, uma esquina antes. Permaneceria Paulo? — Ndo, em Martha. ali, atento, ate que eta saisse. E imaginava que Mario engasgou e quase perdeu o fosse acompanhada. controle. A frase teve urn efeito No banco traseiro, escondida por baixo da devastador, e ele estremeceu dos pes cabeca ao ouvi-la. capa, havia uma pequena pistola. —0 que foi? Por acaso eu disse * algo errado? — Marflia? Voce disse Marilia? —Disse. Algum problema? —Por aqui, senhor-0 garcom indicou uma Ele tentou minimizar o efeito. mesa mais ao fundo. Para sua surpresa, Eva já —Ndo, claro que ndo. Esteve estava ali. —Boa noite—disse, enquanto se curvava num mesmo la? — Por que acha que eu mentiria? galanteio.—E obrigado por ter aceitado o convite
Penoso, pensou. Recompensador, ao mesmo tempo. ***
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
—Desculpe, ndo foi isso que quis dizer. Mas sei do que voce esta falando. 0 Nishi. Eta sorriu. —Entdo voce conhece. .1d esteve Ia tambem? —Sim. Ndo faz muito tempo, mas ndo era uma ocasido das melhores. —Nada de passeios, suponho. —NA° tratava-se de uma investigacdo. Assassinato. Prefiro conversar sobre isso outra hora, ndo acho que este seja o melhor momento. —Tudo bem, sem problema. Inclusive, já esta ficando tarde. —Pianos para amanhd de manha? —Estarei de novo corn...—foi tao automatic° que mat teve tempo para conte-las. As palavras sairam, embora ndo fossem comprometedoras.—... Uma reunido fora da MIC. Fornecedores— completou. —Me permite levd-la? Ou usar seu chofer na volta tambem faz parte do jogo? Eta riu, consentindo corn a cabeca. Tinha vontade de estar corn etc. Sera um prazer, senorita. Em meio As luzes que brilhavam na cidade de Sao Paulo, navegava um Santana azul, seguido de perto por urn Kadett cinza que haviaestacionado uma esquina antes. Eta estava acornpanhada, como previsto. Era hora de receber seu castigo. 0 Santana parou em frente ao predio, mas ela ndo desceu. 0 carro cinza estacionou urn pouco mais atrds. A escuriddo e a finagaroanao permitiam uma boa visdo, e logo seu motorista estava fora do carro. Escondeu-se atras de uma arvore—embora ali tambem ndo tivesse uma visa° privilegiada—mas ao menos estava protegido da chuva. — Voce ainda ndo me disse por que esteve em Martha, Eva. —Nada demais, apenas uma visita a urn de nossos maiores clientes. JD & Cia., atuam junto ao pequeno varejo e cobrem quase que todo o interior do estado. Claro, tern uma excelente estrutura de distribuicao, sdo capazes de... Desculpe. Acho que me empolgo quando comeco a falar de neg6cios. —Ndo hd nada de errado nisso. que as vezes acho que pode ser chato para quem tido entende do assunto. 0 vulto permaneceu na escuriddo. Impaciente. Vez por outra, limpava o rosto molhado, sempre corn a mdo esquerda. A direita, dentro do bolso da capa, segurava a pistola. — E quando foi isso, Eva? —Hd cerca de urn mes. Faz alguma diferenca? —NA°, claro que ndo. Pensei apenas que poderiamos ter estado la na mesma epoca. —Quando voce esteve em Marilia, Mario? —Humm... deixe-me ver. Acho que ha pouco mais de urn ano. —E voce esteve no Nishi... — Isso mesmo. —Mario—eta diminuiu o volume do radio—o Nishi ndo existia ha urn BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
ano. Conheco Martha hd urn born tempo. —Ndo?—teria sido mais facil conta que estivera la na mesma epoca, e que tudo ndo p sava de uma simples coincidencia. Segurament , ndo havia qualquer razdo para poupd-la, e el ndo sabia dizer como tinha se metido numa m ntira sem sentido.—Tem certeza? — Claro que tenho. Onde voce quer che ar? —Eu? A lugar nenhum. Devo ter confu dido as datas, s6 isso. Hd quanto tempo... —Sete meses—ela interrompeu de imedia o.— Ndo mais do que isso. 0 Nishi esta ali ha sete meses. Etc parou para pensar. —Vejamos... sete meses, isso dd... jan iro. Fevereiro, 6 isso. Estive Ia em fevereiro, agor me lembro. Era dia onze, voltei mais cedo porqu era aniversdrio do meu irmAo. Eta não respondeu. —0 tempo passa rapid°, ndo C mesmo? Po eria jurar que estive la hd mais de urn ano. E, tam • dm, que diferenca faz? Nenhuma. Claro que nenhuma. S6 estranhci, nada mais. A pistola foi lentamente sendo erguida ara fora do bolso. 0 vulto deu dois ou tres passo4 na direcdo deles, enquanto fazia o movimeifto. Deveria correr e disparar dois tiros pela janela. Um para eta, outro para a testemunha. Sem vestigios. — Tenho que ir, Mario. Foi uma noite das mais agraddveis. —Sem amigos desta vez, certo? Eta riu. — Certo. —Tudo bem, Eva. Mas antes de voce ir, hd algo que gostaria de dizer. Ndo tive oportunidade de dizer no jantar, ou tive medo, eu acho. — Medo? E, sei Ia, medo do que pudesse acontecer, medo de que pudesse perder todo o encanto. Gostaria que ndo fosse aqui, no carro, mas nao tern outro jeito. Etc se aproximava, mais e mais. Pert°, bem perto dela, e quando preparou-se para fazer mira... Ndo sou apenas urn policial interessado e resolver os problemas da MIC. Gosto de voc Eva, muito mais do que voce pode imagin Desde aquele dia que nos encontramos n veterindrio, ndo tenho pensado em outra coisa. Duas pessoas vinham na direcdo contraria Etc recolheu a arma, escondendo-se novament por entre as drvores. Teria outra oportunidade. —Mario... —Por favor, Eva, deixe-me ir ate o fim. Aceite. esse trabalho muito mais por saber que poderi estar perto de voce. Sabia que s6 assim conseguiri chegar a situacOes como esta. —Voce quer dizer, sair, jantar, se divertir? —Isso mesmo. Ndo se trata de abdicar da minha condicao de profissional, longe disso. Apenas usei-a como um meio de me aproximar de voce. Eta parecia receptiva. —Tudo bem, eu entendo. Por outro lado, acho que usei desta sua fraqueza para fazer com que se aproximasse de mim a fim de resolver meus problemas. Interessante, ndo? Este 6 o jogo, Mario.
— E quern leva vantagem? —Os dois. Tudo comecou corn urn determinado proposito, exclusivamente profissional. Voce, muito mais interessado em estar proximo a mim do que resolver qualquer coisa. — Espere um pouco, isto ndo significa que eu ndo estivesse disposto a esclarecer as coisas na MIC. Estava e ainda estou. —Claro, quanto a isso ndo tenho drivida. Eu, por minha vez, muito mais interessada em ter o melhor policial de Sao Pauloà minha disposicao. E já que estamos abrindo o jogo, devo confessar que este era meu 6nico propOsito. Jamais pensei que pudesse estar urn dia jantando corn voce. —Ve algum mal nisso? —Ndo, claro que ndo. Aprendi que voce significa muito mais do que um simples policial. Tudo parecia caminhar melhor do que etc esperava. — Bem, isto faz corn que me sinta muito melhor. Voce sabe, desde o inicio, aquele seu torn profissional e distante. Nada que pudesse me levar para perto de voce. —Mas nunca houve qualquer falsidade nisto tudo. Como disse, minha unica intencdo em te-lo ao meu lado restringia-se ao seu aspecto profissional, nada mais. 0 resto, bem, acho que fui descobrindo, ainda ndo sei ao certo se... Mario se aproximou dela. Do lado de fora, o vulto estava a ponto de executar sua tarefa. Chegou a quase urn metro do carro, e novamente ndo teve outra alternativa send° baixar a arrna. Beijavam-se, e aquilo deixou-o desnorteado. Voltou para o meio das arvores. Eva afastou-se rapidamente. —Desculpe, rid° pude evitar— ele disse. —Ndo quero que se desculpe, estamos nisso juntos—ainda assim procurou evitar os olhos dele.—Bem, agora tenho que ir. —Espere,..—ele a segurou pelo braco.—S6 queria dizer que tudo tern valido a pena. E que encontraremos o responsdvel na MIC. —Obrigada. Falamos amanhd, certo? —Pode apostar. *4.*
Chegava a se surpreender corn a velocidade dos fatos. Primeiro, exigira seus servicos. Segundo, parecia desejalo. E terceiro, ali estava, beijando-o. Acabava de transformar um vinculo profissional em algo muito mais particular, que poderia ate prejudicar os negocios na medida em que ele, movido pela ansia de estar junto a eta, se afastasse de suas atribuicOes na MIC. 0 fato era que eta preferia ouvir—talvez pela primeira vez na vida—a voz de seu pr6prio coracdo. 31
E aquilo tinha uma razao especial. desencadearia tamanho drama. Minada em suas virtudes em urn Se bem que, no que dizia respeito aos momento de fraqueza, parecia refletir problemas do coracao, nao era nenhuma sumidade sobre tudo que tinha acontecido nos no assunto. ultimos dias. Valores? Ideais, claro. Tirou-lhe a capa cinza e teve a sensacao de Sem eles nao poderia viver. MIC? estar carregada coin algo pesado. Buscou nos Exclusiva, prioridade. Mas ate que bolsos, e de repente o susto. Uma pistola. Sua mao ponto? Estava ali, ajoelhada diante de chegou a tremer e a arma quase caiu. Ao que tudo uma nova realidade, e nem por isso indicava, ele tinha ido ate Ia para matd-la. Isso sentia-se menos feliz. Talvez nao fosse mesmo, matd-la, e por alguma razao tinha desistido exatamente paixao, amor, ou qualquer no meio do caminho. Amor ao extremo, capaz de outra coisa que exigisse total despreen- sacrificar a vida da mulher amada caso nao pudesse dimento. Era querer estar perto dele, possui-la? Romantismo ou psicose? sentir-se protegida. Eva despertou de suas reflexOes Molhado daquele jeito ele nao poderiaficar. A assim que a porta do elevador se abriu. arma tinha ficado para tras, e corn ela o impulso Entrou, apertou o doze e encostou-se que premeditara tal ato. Ndo deveria haver mais no espelho. A porta ia se fechando motivo para medo. Ele continuava ali, anestesiado. quando de repente alguem pulou sobre Eva tirou-lhe as calcas e as meias encharcadas. ela. Ela se assustou e instintivamente Abrigou-o num roupao azul, procurou ir para trds, onde já nao colocou urn cobertor por cima. Ele havia mais espaco. A tremia, e nao era de frio. Eva fez porta fechou-se novaurn cha e se sentou ao lado dele. mente. A porta se fechou. corn duas pessoas dentro Ele entao abriu os olhos. do elevador. Tudo tinha se passado muito Mais uma de suas alucirapido, quase nao podia se nacOes. 0 que viria em lembrar. Por Deus, tinha seguida? Umardpida descida desistido! Tornado pela louate o pogo, urn voo na direcao cura sim, guiado por uma do inferno. Tudo nao passava forca que nao sabia ao certo de... de onde vinha. Passou, e As maos dele se prenderam ele agradecia por ndo ter em seu pescoco. Came sobre feito nenhuma bobagem. came. Geladas, molhadas pela Restava ainda o constranchuva. Nao se tratava de mais gimento de uma situacdo uma fantasia. ridicula: a vitima no —Mentiu para mim, vagabunpapel de salvadora. Digda! Porque?! Por que fez isso no de novela mexicana, digno de comigo?! seu arrependimento. Apertou corn mais forca. Ela —Vamos, tome o chd enquanto ainda esta tentou se soltar, mas ele a impedia de quente—Eva levou a xicara aos labios dele. fazer qualquer movimento. A cabeca —Voce deve estar pensando que... ficou mais pesada e logo sentiu o ar —Fe, por favor; nao estou pensando nada. faltar. Suas maos se prendiam nas dele, Apenas tome o seu chd, vai se sentir melhor. mas nao haveria qualquer chance. Era 0 desnivel persistia. Sempre presente e apenas uma questa() de tempo ate que tendendo a aumentar numa situacao como aquela. estivesse morta. Ela por cima, ele por baixo. Inferiorizado psicologicamente, sem opcOes de escolha. 0 Entao, uma inesperada mudanca de controle da situacao, mais umd vez, nas maos comportamento salvou-lhe a vida. dela. Lentamente, as maos dele comecaram a —Nao tive a intencao, jamais conseguiria. ceder, cortadas por lamurios, ate que Voce sabe o quanto eu gosto de voce. ele se ajoelhou aos pes dela. Aos poucos, parecia recobrar sua condicao. Eva se levantou e ficou caminhando sem rumo Por que tudo insistia em acontecer pela sala. ao mesmo tempo, sem deixar um espaco —Loucuras em nome do amor. Nunca pensei natural? que pudesse chegar a esse ponto, Fernando. Nao *** me bastam todos os problemas que já tenho? — Perdi o controle. Quando vi voce corn aquele —Fernando, levante-se, por favor. cara, ontem, quase enlouqueci, achei que seria capaz de fazer qualquer coisa. Sinto muito Ele nao fez urn movimento sequer. Ela poderia ter jogado tudo para o alto, dizer Continuou estirado, aos solucos. A raiva que o que fazia da vida nab era da conta dele e que havia se transformado em dor e ele talvez estivesse apaixonada. Poderia dizer que ele sabia, desde o comeco, que seria incapaz nAo passava de um moleque, irresponsdvel, de ir ate o fim. Ate agradecia pelos tentando provar alguma coisa para si mesmo, obstdculos encontrados ao longo do colocando em risco a vida de outras pessoas. caminho. Pioraria as coisas, corn certeza. E a arma ainda A porta do elevador se abriu e Eva estava ali, a seu alcance. Uma vez calmo, melhor rezou para que estivessem no decimo seria mante-lo assim. Havia a chance de encerrar segundo. Mao gostaria de dividir aquela a noite sem maiores danos. cena patetica corn mais ninguem. Al — Fe, aquele cara de ontem e urn policial. estavam, ultimo andar. 0 cara conti- Contratei-o para resolver alguns problemas na nuava ali, do mesmo jeito, e nao teria MIC, nAo tern nada a ver corn o que voce esta outra alternativa senao colocd-lo para pensando. "E alem do mais, seu bostinha, nao dentro de casa. Arrastou-o para fora do tenho que ficar dando satisfaca es a voce." elevador e boa parte do caminho, ate — E estar corn ele de noite faz parte do trabalho, jogai° no sofa_ Jamais poderia ter Eva? E o beijo, o que me diz do beijo? Vi voces imaginado que uma simples separacao dois no carro. 32
—Digamos que ele tern uma queda por mim e nao p6de evitar. Isso nao significa que exista algo entre nos. —E isso a impede de ficar cornigo... —Nao se trata disso. Voce sabe que tomei a decisao de me afastar de voce por outras razOes. — E esse tempo todo juntos? Nao significou nada para voce? "Controle, Eva, controle. Procure nao piorar as coisas, a auto-estima dele ja estd Id embaixo. Diplomacia e tudo acabard bem." —Claro que sim, voce sabe disso. Passamos momentos maravilhosos nao foi? Ele assentiu. — Mas voce sabia, desde o comeco, como seriam as coisas, a MIC e tudo mais. Tenho o major carinho por voce, Fe, e nao quero ve-lo largado por ai, sempre correndo ails de mim, sem ser correspondido a altura. Voce nao merece isso. Merece alguern que possa se dedicar a voce. Ele se encolheu no cobertor. Tudo parecia estar sob controle. —Voce pode dormir aqui, se quiser. Ele nao respondeu. Envolveu a xicara corn ambas as maos, como se quisesse aquece=las. — Nunca estive aqui antes... Fique, se quiser. Estarei no meu quarto se precisar de algo. Tenha uma boa noite. Nao se tratava de urn convite. *4.* 0 tempo tinha a enorme habilidade de condensar as coisas e, num simples intervalo, transformd-las nos mais inimaginaveis contornos do destino. ZAP, tudo de forma rapida e certeira. Inesperado, e tudo ndo passaria de mais urn conjunto de hipOteses, juntando peps sem encaixe, acelerando o ritmo dos fatos. Nada acontecendo ao acaso, mas misturado num redemoinho de cluvidas. Marilia. Mario nao se conformava. Tantos os lugares no mundo e ela estava Nao haveria nada de anormal nao fosse a data, coincidindo corn a investigacao. Por mais que nao quisesse admitir—e nao havia razOes para fazeIo,já que seres pensantes e que possuem duas pernas podem se locomover livremente pelos p6los do mundo—era uma enorme coincidencia. Quantas centenas de pessoas nao teriam estado em Marilia na mesma epoca, sem que ele soubesse? Nao fosse ele a conduzir as investigacoes e aquilo nao faria a menor diferenca. Se havia realmente algo, ela sabia disfarcar. E muito bem. Sua noite no passou de um emaranhado de situagOes ficticias. A ansiedade e os possiveis desdobramentos da situacao pareciam querer deixd-lo completamente louco. Era como se duas paralelas que haviam iniciado seu caminho hápouco tempo— de um lado uma paixdo repentina por uma mulher que nunca tinha visto antes, de outro sua mais dificil missao, dificultada por seu passado e obrigandoo a conviver corn seus fantasmas— quisessem se encontrar num mesmo BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
ponto. Convergiam, como forcas opostas que se atraem, e ele fazia questa° de isola-las. Se abrisse espaco para a razdo e o equilibrio, veria que tudo ndo passava de duvida, numa probabilidade muito remota de ocorrer. Mas nesse estado valia tudo. Ate pensar no caminho inverso: ela, a assassina, o atraindo para perto de si para resolver urn problema imaginario e elimina-lo no meio do caminho. Provavel absurdo? Acreditava que sim. Deus no poderia estar jogando desta maneira corn ele, dando-lhe corn uma mdo urn caminho para o amor, para em seguida, corn a outra, arrancar-lhe. Enlouquecido, adormeceu. Passava das duas. *** Fernando olhou para o relOgio: duas e tits. Tinhaperdido sua Ultima batalha. 0 instinto animal tinha ficado para tras, verdade, e corn ele. sua chance de yinganca. NA° havia mais espaco para o Odio em seu coracdo. Levantou-se e caminhou pelo corredor. Havia uma luz ao fundo e foi em sua direcdo, aproximando-se de uma porta entreaberta. 0 quarto dela. Pela pequena fresta, ficou a observ a-la. Deitada, um livro na mdo, a luz do abajur. Encostou urn dedo na porta, e ela foi lentamente se abrindo. Eva olhou para ele, e desta vez nAo se sentiu acuada. Ele parecia o homem mais desprotegido do mundo. —Ndo posso ficar aqui—disse. Eva fechou o livro e o largou sobre a cama. —Nao depois do que fiz. — Fe, voce nao fez nada. Pensou em fazer, mas teve tempo e cabeca para desistir. —Desculpe, nao queria que fosse assim. — Esta tudo bem. Ele se aproximou. NA° havia como impedi-lo. —Tambem ndo pretendia assustala, ontem no telefone. —Voce... Por que nao disse nada? —Nao sei, ndo havia nada para dizer—ele se sentou na beirada da cama.—Me sinto se. Encolheu-se sobre ela, pousou a cabeca em seu cob. Eva o abracou. Ficaram assim por urn longo tempo. Seria o iItirno momento ao lado dela. Dali para frente, teria que seguir seu proprio caminho. Claro que ele sabia, como tambem sabia que faltava so mais um detalhe. Baixou uma das alcas da camisola, ela nao se opos. Temiapor aquilo, mas ao mesmo tempo temia pelo que poderia acontecer caso negasse. A arma ainda estava na sala, e desde que ele se dispusera a cometer uma loucura, nada era definitivo. Faria, se fosse preciso. Ele teria, enfim, sua Ultima chance. Nao importava se por desejo ou ameaca. Devolveu-a nua sobre a cama, e quando se preparava para se encaixar por cima dela, ela empurrou-o para o chdo. Fernando caiu, rolou para o lado, e mal teve tempo de reagir. Eta estava sobre ele, pele corn pele. Aquele corpo que sempre desejara, agora em seus bracos. BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
Prazer, puro prazer. Eva beijava-o, por to4as as partes, num ritual de extase que o deixou itudovel. Meio mulher, meio animal. Meio difidil de entender. Novamente era ela quern tinha o ctllitrole da situacdo, mas agora ndo fazia a menor dife Se ela assim queria, se cabiaa ele tambem satisfazela. Seria inesquecivel. Eva parou por urn instante. Precisava oe um copo de agua, disse. Ele poderia espera-la na cama, local mais apropriado. Fernando acompanhou corn os olhos aquele corpo nu deixar o quarto e em seguida deitou-se, ainda surpreendido corn tudo aquilo. Da agua para o vinho. Como se nao estivesse diante da mesma mulher. Virou-se, na expectativa de que seu sonho pudesse se realizar nos proximos minutosll De costas, nem percebeu quando ela voltou, urn ou dois minutos depois. Eta teve tempo de vir por tras, sutilmente. Ele so se deu conta assim clue um leve movimento de seios passou a acariciar Suas costas. 0 resto da noite se confundiu entre prazer e alucinacdo. Estava feito.
***
Hermes já esperava por Mario, e desta vez hao em sua sala, mas na sala dele. Surpresa, claro, as aquilo so podia significar uma coisa: mais urn crime tinha sido cometido. Depois do Daruel, algum outro infeliz. 0 setimo passageiro. — Perdemos o controle, Ventura.-0 diretor atirou o 0 Estado de S. Paulo sobre a mesa. 0 jornal trazia, na primeira pagina, em letIras garrafais, a manchete: "Deputado é vitima do serial killer. Policia abafa o caso."—E isso no tudo--ele prosseguiu. Veja o editorial. Mario abriu naprimeira pagina. 0 artigo falava sobre a onda de violencia que tomava conta I da cidade, a confianca do cidaddo na policia quase nenhuma—e o panic() que poderia tomar conta da populacdo caso ndo se chegasse rapidamente a tun culpado. A morte de urn deputado, entre pelo menos outras duas já confirmadas, certamente exigiria major empenho por parte da policia.Il A policia? Ineficiente, sem respostas. Truculenta, esse era o termo empregado para se referir a urn soco desferido por urn delegado do Departamerito de Hornicidios contra o rep6rter Gil Gomes. —Filhos da puta!—Mario esbravejou. P lo menos agora se lembrava do nome. — 0 secretario de seguranca e o Governad r pediram uma reunido. Mario largou-se sobre a cadeira. Nab a s a, Hermes estava sentado nela. Aquilo parec. a reforcar o seu fracasso. —Puta merda, chefe. Quando? —Segunda-feira. Prepare-se, ndo vai ser fac 1. Ele apenas balancou a cabeca. —Sei que tern sido dificil, que temos pouc s pistas, mas voce sabe que isso ndo funciona corUo justificativa. Eles querem resultados, querem essa mulher fora de circulacdo. — Estou fazendo o que posso, chefe, mas que posso parece que ndo e suficiente... — Eu sei, eu sei. Ndo o culpo por isso. coloco no seu lugar e vejo como e complicadb lidar corn tudo isso. A pressdo faz parte, voce sabe, ndo tenho outro caminho. —.Id me acostumei. —E, so que daqui pra frente, a cobranca vai ser ainda maior. Eles vdo ficar de olho, voce pod apostar. 0 importante e evitar que mais crimes acontecam. Quer dar uma olhada no ultimo? I — Ele esta al? — Claro que ndo. No IML.
Perguntas estiipidas como aquela davam ao diretor a certeza de que alguma coisa ndo ía bem coin ele. — Sua equipe liberou o corpo cedinho, achei que tudo bem se voce fosse ate ia depois. —Tudo bem, eu you. Quem sabe da pra colher mais algumas evidencias. —Quem sabe... Mario partiu, mais do que nunca cercado de insegurancas. Teria uma reuniao e ndo saberia por onde comecar, nAo havia nada que pudesse alimentar de forma mais concreta as investigagOes. Tratava-se de uma mulher, e isso nao era nenhum achado. Qualquer idiota chegaria a essa conclusao depois do episodio corn o deputado Emilio. Loira, exuberante, garota de programa. Choviam aos montes nas esquinas. Sete assassinatos e ele já nao era a mesma pessoa. 0 tempo, nessa espiral maluca, insistia em consumi-lo. Autoconfianca? Zero. Persistencia? Zero. Agressividade? Zero. Sem falar no medo, o mesmo medo que ele pensou que nunca mais voltaria a sentir e que ali estava, grudado a ele como sua pr6pria sombra. Tudo rapid° demais para que pudesse perceber. E, misturada ao caos, Eva Miller. Reservando-the um lado mais seguro para que ele nao explodisse antes do tempo. Estava ali justamente para isso, rid° para complicar ainda mais as coisas. Arrependeu-se de tudo que havia pensado na noite anterior, de todas as loucas tramas que havia tracado. Eta ndo estava ali por acaso, mas sim para ajuda-lo. Essa era a Unica resposta. *4.* —Quero ver o cara que chegou hoje pela manha.—Foi logo mostrando a insignia. —Qual deles?—perguntou o funcionario.—Quatro corpos deram entrada. — 0 que foi morto a facadas. —Ah, voce quer dizer o cara novinho. Venha. 0 funcionario acompanhou-o ate uma das camaras, e a gaveta 6463 se abriu. , —E este aqui. Mario ficou diante do corpo, ainda coberto pelo lencol. Pela setima vez era obrigado a fazer a verificacdo, e nem por isso se sentiamais a vontade. Muito menos ali dentro. 0 funciondrio levantou o lencol e Mario quase caiu para tras. Sentiu a cabeca rodopiar e teve que se apoiar na ponta da gaveta para ndo cair. — Sente-se bem, doutor? A perguntando teve resposta. Mario saiu em disparada, ainda sem acreditar no que tinha acabado de presenciar. Arrastou-se ate a calcada e, num ultimo movimento, amparado pelo cap8 de urn carro, vomitou. Ironias do destino. This is an excerpt from Tanatos by Andre Charak, Geracao Editorial, Sao Paulo, 1995, 256pp. 33
Amazonas, covering an area of over 1.5 million sq. km , is Brazil's largest state. Approximately 75% of its two million inhabitants live in the metropolis of Manaus or in the much smaller cities of Manacapuru, Itacoatiara, Parintins, and Coari. Amazonas state is one hour behind Brazilian standard time. MANAUS Manaus lies beside the Rio Negro-10 km upstream from the confluence of the SolimOes and Negro rivers (which join to form the Amazon River). In 1669 the fortress of So Jose da Barra was built by Portuguese colonizers, who named Manaus after a tribe of Indians who inhabited the region. The village which grew from the fort was little more than a minor trading outpost populated by traders, black slaves, Indians and soldiers until the rubber boom pumped up the town. Although Manaus continues to be vaunted in countless glossy advertising brochures as Amazon Wonderland, the city itself has few attractions. In addition, it is dirty, ugly and becoming increasingly crime-ridden, while the flora and fauna has been systematically despoiled for hundreds of km around the city. Many travelers now only use the city for the briefest of stopovers before making excursions far beyond Manaus, where it is still possible to experience the rainforest wonders that Manaus glibly promises but cannot deliver. There is a new governor of Amazonas, Armando Amazonino Mendes, who replaced the long-standing Gilberto Mestrinho at the last state electibn, in November 1994. Mestrinho styled himself as 'the governor of men not animals and the forest', and maintained 'there are hardly any healthy trees in Amaz6nia and they should all be used before the woodworm gets to them'. Since Eco '92, comments such as these are no longer considered politically correct, but apparently the new governor has similar policies to the previous one, with promises ofjobs and development, and such exploitation of the natural resources as is needed to satisfy business interests and win the popular vote. In the long term, this is clearly neither a recipe for sustainable use of the region's resources nor a viable option for producing jobs and development. Critical observers describe such a policy as 'smash, grab and run'. Although hunting is widely practiced, it is illegal. Hunting has already brought peixe-boi and many species of turtles close to extinction. Fishing, however, is acceptable anywhere, and is best from September to November. These are also the best months for swimming—rivers are low and beaches are exposed.
The Amazon Conundrum Living on past glories, Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, has overrated itself in colorful glossy brochures distributed all over the world. Jammed with cars, crime-ridden, and dilapidated, the city has little to offer to adventurous souls eager to take on the jungle and the mighty Amazon river.
History In 1839, Charles Goodyear developed the vulcanization process which made natural rubber durable, and in 1888 John Dunlop patented pneumatic rubber tires. Soon there was an unquenchable demand for rubber in the recently industrialized USA and Europe and the price of rubber on international markets soared. In 1884, the same year that Manaus abolished slavery, a feudal production system was established that locked the seringueiros (rubber tappers) into a cruel serfdom. Driven from the serteio by drought, and lured into the Amazon with the false promise of prosperity, they signed away their freedom to the seringalistas (owners of rubber 34
BRA77IL JANUARY 1998
plantations). The seringalista sold goods to the seringueiro on credit—fishing line, knives, manioc flour, hammocks— and purchased the seringueiro's balls of latex. The illiteracy of the seringueiros, the brutality ofpistoleiros (the hired guns of the seringalistas), deliberately rigged scales, and the monopoly of sales and purchases all combined to perpetuate the seringueiro' s debt and misery. The seringueiros also had to contend with loneliness, jungle fevers, hostile Indian attacks, and all manner of deprivation. Seringueiros who attempted to escape their serfdom were hunted down and tortured by their pistoleiros. The plantation owners, the rubber traders, and the bankers prospered, and built palaces with their wealth. Gentlemen had their shirts sent to London to be laundered, while ladies sported the latest French fashions. Manaus became Brazil's second city after Rio de Janeiro to get electricity, and an opera house was built in the heart of the jungle. Despite Brazilian efforts to protect their world rubber monopoly, Henry Wickham managed to smuggle rubber seeds out of the Amazon. Botanists in Kew Gardens (London) grew the rubber-tree seedlings and exported them to the British colonies of Ceylon and Malaysia, where they were transplanted and cultivated in neat groves. The efficient Asian production was far superior to the haphazard Brazilian techniques, and the Brazilian rubber monopoly eroded. As more Asian rubber was produced, the price of latex on the world market plummeted. By the 1920s the boom was over, and Manaus declined in importance. During WW II, when Malaysia was occupied by the Japanese, Allied demand created a new rubber boom. The seringueiros became known as the rubber soldiers and 150,000 Nordestinos were once again recruited to gather rubber. In many ways the international port of Manaus is still the capital of a land far removed from the rest of Brazil, and there has always been a fear of foreign domination of the Amazon. As a result, the government has made a determined attempt to consolidate Brazilian control of the Amazon by creating roads through the jungle and colonizing the interior. It has also made Manaus an industrial city. In 1967 Brazil established a Zona Franca (FreeTrade Zone) in Manaus, and multinational industries, drawn to the area by tax and tariff benefits, have set up manufacturing plants. Although the Manaus free-trade zone has not spawned Brazilian industry—Brazilian entrepreneurs have not successfully competed with multinationals in the Amazon—the infusion of money has invigorated Manaus. Since the Brazilian government relaxed restrictions on imports, the Zona Franca has been less profitable. Climate Manaus is hot and humid. During the rainy season (January to June), count on a brief but hard shower nearly every day—the area gets over two meters of rainfall per year. During the rainy season, temperatures range from 23°C to 30°C. Dry-season weather (July to December) is usually between 26°C and 37°C. The city is 40.33 meters above sea level. Orientation
BRAZZ1L - JANUARY 1998
The city of Manaus lies 3° south of the equator, on the northern bank of the Rio Negro, 10 km west of the confluence of the lesser Rio Negro and the greater Rio SolimOes, whiCh form the mighty Amazon River. Iquitos (Peru) and Leticia (Colombia) are 1900 km and 1500 km upriver, and Satitarem and Belem are 700 km and 1500 km downriver. The most *eresting parts of Manaus as far as the traveler is concerned are close to the waterfront: Mercado Municipal, the Customs house and the floating docks. The opera house is one of the most impressive reminders of Manaus' past oimilence. I
Information
Tourist Office Emamtur (Tel.: 633-2850; fax: 2339973), the state tourism organization, has its headquarters at Avenida Paes de Andrade 379 (previously called Avenida Tarum4), open from 8 am to 1 pm Monday to Friday. It's a bit of a hike from the city center, but worth a visit. You maY also be able to get some information at the opera house.' For details about national parks in Amazonas, contact either IBAMA (Tel.: 237-3710) at Rua Ministro Jodo Goncalves de Souza, BR-319, Km 01, Distrito Industrial, or the Secretaria Municipal de Desenvolvimento do Meio Ambiente (Tel.: 36-4122), at Rua Recife, AdrianOpolis. Dangers & Annoyances Theft at rock-bottom hotels is common—double keys are sometimes uSed to gain access to your room. When travelling by boat, watch your gear very carefully. Taxi drivers in ManauS have a poor reputation. Watch out for blatant rip-off attempts: spurious 'extra charges', slack use of meters and cozy 'deals' whereby hotel clerks are paid a fat commission by taxi drivers who are willing to pay for the privilege of being able to rip off foreign tourists. Eseadaria dos Remedios Port The Escadaria dos Remedios port, by the Mercado Municipal, is quite a scene, and well worth a visit. 1, Mercado Municipal Looming above the Escadaria is the imposing castiron structure of he Mercado Municipal, designed in 1882 by Adolfo isboa after the Parisian Les Halles. Although the art- ouveau ironwork was imported from Europe, the place as acquired Amazonian character. In and around the m rket, you can purchase provisions for jungle trips: strang fruits, old vegetables, several varieties of biscuits, sa ks of beans and rice, lanterns, rope, straw hats, perhap some Umbanda figurines, powders and incense. At the back end f the market, there's a grimy cafeteria where you can h ve lunch and contemplate Manaus' complete ignoranc regarding sanitation. The water which keeps enormous fi h and fly-covered meats cool, drains from the stalls, mi gles with meat, fish and urine, flows underfoot, runs off into the river and mixes with discarded meats and produce nd all the sewage of Manaus. Urubu vultures swarm aro nd the refuse and roost in the rusty ironwork of the caf teria. Take the tables at either end for 35
14:*; • the best view.
9400) receives most of its funding from the World Bank. One of the institute's central projects is a joint study with the Smithsonian Institute to determine the 'minimal Located off Rua Isabel, facing the Igarape dog critical size of ecosystems'—the smallest chunk of land Educandos, this old water-treatment plant has now been that can support a self-sustaining jungle forest and all its converted into an art gallery (Tel.: 234-7877), which attendant creatures. Various-sized parcels of jungle are often has some interesting exhibitions. It's open from 9 studied, first in their virgin state, then later, after the am to 6 pm. surrounding land has been cleared to create islands of jungle. Changes in plant and animal populations are Teatro Amazonas carefully scrutinized. Initial results suggest that the complex interdependence of plants and animals and the Teatro Amazonas, the famous opera house of Manaus, heterogeneity of species pose a barrier to maintaining an was designed by Domenico de Angelis in eclectic neoisolated patch of jungle. classical style at the height of the rubber boom, in 1896. INPA scientists are also studying jacare, fresh-water The materials and artists were imported from Europe, and manatee, river otter and porpoises. These animals are on more than any other building assodisplay in the botanical garden and ciated with the administration of zoo. Avoid feeding time at thejacare Mayor Eduardo Ribeiro, this opera enclosure if you don't want to see house is symbolic of the opulence live mice sacrificed. that was Manaus. Renovated in The grounds, located at Bairro 1990, it's now open daily from 10 Coroado Alameda Cosme Ferreira am to 5 pm. Admission costs $4.00 1756, Km 4, have recently been exand includes a compulsory guided panded to include raised walkways tour. Opera and ballet perforthrough the trees. The Casa da mances are held here throughout Ciencia has a permanent exhibition who lived in th interior, far from the the year. Ask the guide about the of the institute's activities. Other cinity. The woman became Pregnant, and schedule or check the entertainprojects include: the environmental the course of her pregnancy, she had ment section in the local newspaimpact of deforestation and of hythe misfortune to kill a cobra Whe per. droelectric dams; mercury poisonher nine months were up, she gave n ing of the rivers by gold mining; kit birth to two cobras, a male and a Palacio Rio Negro housing for impoverished locals; male, which she raised as her ow fe stingless bees; and the study of mechildren. The Palacio Rio Negro, built as dicinal orchids and bromelias. There As the cobras began to grow,th a home for eccentric German rubis a giant leaf on display, measuring mothefr was unable to control her une ber baron Waldemar Scholz, now about two meters high. em inro fsri 0 ruly ng, so she threw th serves as the seat of the state govThe grounds are open from 8 am the river. The female cobra earned a ernment. It's on Avenida 7 de to noon and 2 to 6 pm Monday to reputation for being evil by tipping Setembro, beside the first bridge Friday. Call ahead (642-3377) to over riverboats, devouring children and over the Igarape de Manaus. find out the topic (and language) of drowning adults—killing simply for Thursday's seminar series. To reach the pleasure of it. Her brother was of a British Customs House INPA, either take the bus marked milder temperament, and the two oO'Sao Jose' or use a taxi. bras fought continuously One day the The British Customs House male snake killed his sister but'not (Alfandega) dates back to 1906. Museu do Homem do Norte without suffering the loss of'one eye. This sandy-colored building with He is still alive and well, and has grown its neat, brown trim seems out of The Museum of Northern Man considerably over the years Caboctos place in such a dilapidated city. (232-5373), at Avenida 7 de believe that he now livesbeneath ' Imported from the UK in prefabriSetembro 1385, is an ethnology and Manaus, his enormous head supportcated blocks, the building now anthropology museum dedicated to ing the Teatro Amazonas and his body serves as the Inspetoria da Receita the lifestyle of the river-dwelling supporting the many river beaches of Federal do Porto de Manaus. Caboclos. It has an interesting disthe Amazon. play of Indian weapons, including Porto Flutuante the vicious furador de olhos (eye piercer). It's open from 9 am to The Porto Flutuante (floating docks), also installed in noon and 1 to 5 pm Monday to Thursday and from 1 to 1906, were considered a technical marvel because of their 5 pm on Friday. Admission is $1.20. ability to rise and fall as the water level of the river changes with the seasons. It's well worth a visit—you can Museu do Indio watch the boats being loaded with produce, and the This Indian museum (234-1422) is on Avenida Duque swarms of people using river transport. de Caxias, near the intersection of Avenida 7 de Setembro. Displays include ceramics, featherwork, weaving, huntInstituto Nacional de Pesquisa da Amazonia ing and ritual objects of the tribes of the upper Rio (INPA) & Bosque da Ciencia Negro. Bad luck if you can't read Portuguese! The museum is open from 8.30 to 11.30 am and 2.30 to 5 pm The National Amazon Research Institute (Tel.: 23on weekdays and from 8.30 to 11.30 am on Saturday. Arts Center Chamine
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
Admission is $2.40. Museu do Instituto Geografico e Historic° do Amazonas This historic museum (232-7077), at Rua Frei Jose dos Inocentes 117, has archaeological objects, fossils and stuffed animals from the region. It's open from 8 am to noon and 2.30 to 5 pm Monday to Friday. Museu do Porto de Manaus This museum of the Manaus docks (232-4250), at Travessa Vivaldo de Lima, has displays of maritime instruments, maps and projects of the Manaus docks from the beginning of the century. It's open from 8 to 11 am and 2 to 5 pm Monday to Friday and from 8 am to 1 pm on Saturday. Museu de Ciencias Naturals da Amazonia Run by the Associacao Naturalista da Amazonia, this natural-science museum (644-2799), at Estrada Belem, Colonia Cachoeira Grande, has a comprehensive exhibit of fish, insects and butterflies from the Amazon region, with descriptions in English and Japanese. The aquarium has two-meter-longpirarucu fish. The museum shop sells Indian crafts. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 9 am to 5 pm, the museum is somewhat out of the way, but it's worth the trip. Take the 'Sao Jose' bus to INPA, then catch a taxi. Parque ZoolOgico—CIGS This military zoo makes you feel sorry for the animals cooped up in small cages. It claims to have more jaguars born in captivity than any other establishment in the world. The zoo is attached to the Centro de Instrucao de Guerra na Selva (CIGS), a jungle-warfare training center. The animals on display—tapir, monkeys, armadillos, snakes and birds—were collected by Brazilian soldiers on jungle maneuvers and survival-training programs. The zoo is on Estrada da Ponta Negra, Km 12, near the beach and the Hotel Tropical. To get there, take a taxi, or a municipal bus marked `Compensa' or Sao Jorge'. Zoo hours are 9.30 am to 4.30 pm Tuesday to Sunday. Admission is free. Amazon Ecopark & Amazon Monkey Jungle The Amazon Ecopark, a private nature reserve with a tourist center, is located half an hour by boat from Manaus. The park runs survival courses in the tropical rainforest, with a local rainforest ranger. Next to the Ecopark is the Amazon Monkey Jungle, set up by the Living Rainforest Foundation for the rehabilitation of orphan animals. For information about tours, contact the Amazon Ecopark office (234-0939), Praca Auxiliadora 04, grupo 103, Centro, Manaus. Half-day tours cost about $30. Praia da Ponta Negra & Waterfalls Around Manaus Praia da Ponta Negra is a popular river beach with a full range of amenities, including restaurants and bars. The best time to go is between September and November (and sometimes as early as July), when the waters recede, BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
but it's a popular hangout even when the high waters flood the sand and cleanse the beach for the following season. From the city center, take the bus marked 'Praia da Ponta Negra'. If you've Missed the beach season, December to February is the bet time to visit the waterfalls near Manaus: Cascatinha do Amor and Cachoeira do Taruma. Further west from Manaus, near the opposite bank of the Rio Negro, is Cachoeira do Paricatuba. Sao (Rabbi) Moyal In Cemiterio Sao Joao Batista, the general cemetery of Manaus (Praca Chile, AdrianOpolis), is the tomb of Rabbi Moyal of Jerusalem. The rabbi came to the Amazon to minister to a striall community of Jewish settlers, mostly merchants whO had established a cacao, lumber and rubber-trading nerwork. He died in 1910, and over the years his tomb has become a shrine for an odd Roman Catholic cult. This cult, complete with rosary beads, candles, coins, and devoted followers, probably arose with the Jewish custom Of placing pebbles on tombs when visiting grave sites. ThC people of Manaus, unfamiliar with Jewish customs (of Brazil's 120,000 Jews, less than 1000 live in Manaus), attribute the mysterious pebbles to the miraculous powers of the dead rabbi. Followers believe that the rabbi is a saint and insist that he performs miracles for faithful supplicants. Encontro das Aguas An interesting phenomenon is the Encontro das Aguas (Meeting of the Waters), the point where the inky-black waters of the Rio Negro meet the clay-yellow waters of the Rio Solimbes, though it's not absolutely necessary to take a tour—it can be seen just as well from the balsa (ferry), which shuttles between Careiro and the Porto Velho highway l (BR-319). If you do include the meeting of the waters in your tour, you may lose time that could be better spent exploring the more interesting sights further along the river. I Escadaria dos Remedios Port Most of the people you will observe at the Escadaria dos Remedios Port have Indian features, with straight, jetblack hair and tawny skin. These thin, stoop-shouldered stevedores lug barrels, casks and boxes between the trucKs and riverboats. The curved decks of the riverboats are filled with cargo and people, and draped with hundreds of hammocks. Fisnerfolk look on from the sidelines, while they smoke cigarettes and drink beer. Men toss banana stalks Excerpts from Brazil from their dugout canoes A Travel Survival Kit onto the shore and from there 3rd edition, onto the waiting trucks. A by Andrew Draffen, speaker blares nonstop love Chris McAsey, songs from warped tapes Leonardo Pinheiro, until the boats piJill out, at 6 and Robyn Jones. pm. The boats le ve one by For more information one: bells ring, 1orns blow, call Lonely Planet: and thin boys sc rry about (800) 275-8555. selling their last lengths of Copyright 1992 Lonely rope to tie up tray lers' hamPlanet Publications. mocks. Used by permission. To be ontinued 37
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It has been said that the year does not start for Brazilians before Carnaval is over. This festivity was introduced in Brazil as entrudo, a Portuguese celebration in which people would go to the streets and throw mud, dirty water, and very suspect liquids at one another_ Chiquinha Gonzaga composed "0 Abre Alas", the first song to be written specifically for Carnaval, in 1899. But the escolas de samba haven't become an integral part of Rio's Carnaval before 1-928. They have evolved into an overwhelming experience, with dazzling floats, outlandish costumes, and thousands of dancers. CHRIS MCGOWAN AND RICARDO PESSANHA
A poor man's happiness resembles
The gr nd illusion of Carnaval "A Fe! cidade" (Happiness) by Tom Jobim nd Vinicius de Moraes Carnav 1, disillusion I left p in waiting for me at home And I s ng and danced Dresse up as a king But on ednesday the curtains always fall "Sonho de Carnaval" (Carnaval Dream) by Chico Buarque de Hollanda Eve year, seven weeks before Easter, B azil stops. It is Carnaval time. For four days from Saturday through Tuesday as a climax to the Southern Hemisph re summer, the country sings and danc sin dance halls and clubs, on the stree s and beaches, or wherever there are people and music. In cities like Salv dor, the celebration may go BRA7_ZIL - JANUARY 1998
39
on for seven or eight days. The music may be provided by a three-hundredpiece escola-de-samba drum section, a horn-and-percussion band, or a spontaneous group of people beating cans and bottles. Some wear special outfits for the occasion, some don't. You'll see clowns, pirates, sheiks, Indians, and lots of men dressed up as women. On display are as many different costumes as the imagination can conjure. Women dress in sophisticated costumes or in very little at all—sometimes just shoes, miniscule bikinis, and some body paint. Carnaval is a hedonistic party in which all that counts is joy and pleasure. As an office clerk told us, "During Carnaval the devil is on the loose. Nobody belongs to anybody." Not every city in Brazil has an intense street Carnaval. In some all you'll find are relatively wellbehaved indoor balls. People with less carnavaksco souls use the holidays to travel to places where they can relax far from the drums during the day and, if they feel like it, go dancing at night. But between New Year's Eve and Carnaval nothing really important is decided in Brazil. Quoting a popular Chico Buarque song, most people will say, "I'm saving myself for when Carnaval comes." The weather is hot, people become more outgoing, and sensuality is in the air. But amidst all the craziness and frivolity, Carnaval serves the important purpose for Brazilians of maintaining cultural traditions—encoded in the music, dance, and costumes of the celebrations across the country. Carnaval is a pre-Lent celebration (like Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnival in many Spanish-speaking countries) that has its roots in pre-Christian festivities held by the ancient Greeks, Romans, and others. Around the sixth century B.C., the Greeks held spring festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and the power of wild nature. Often, merrymakers would parade down the streets of their towns, sometimes with floats. The Romans carried on the seasonal celebration, expanding it into Saturnalia, wherein slaves and masters would exchange clothes and engage in orgiastic behavior, and Bacchanalia, drunken feasts in honor of Bacchus, the Roman version of Dionysus. It was, and is, a time to make merry, to drink, dance, and be crazy. The normal social order is turned upside down and mocked, and anything goes. Despite their pagan origins, these festivities were assimilated into the traditions of Roman Catholic countries in Europe. As Carnaval evolved, it retained some of the characteristics of the ancient celebrations, such as the use of masks and the time of year—generally February—but started losing its orgiastic features. It remained an important societal safety valve, a time to vent pent-up frustrations. Entrudo, Zi Pereiras, Cordd es, and Ranchos Carnaval arrived in Brazil in the form of the chaotic Portuguese entrudo, in which celebrants would go to the streets and throw mud, dirty water, flour balls, and suspect liquids at one another, often triggering 40
violent riots. The first masked Carnaval ball in Rio took place in 1840 at the Hotel Italia, with waltzes and polkas as the music of choice. Out in the streets, a young Portuguese shoemaker named Jose Nogueira Paredes had the idea in 1848 of entering a Carnaval parade and beating a big bass drum. In the following years many Ze Pereiras (a name that possibly was a distortion of Jose Paredes) filled the city with their songs and drums. The first European-style parades appeared in 1850, and these would become competitive events with horses, military bands, and adorned floats, often sponsored by aristocratic groups called sociedades. Around this time, Rio's poor people, who could not afford tickets to the expensive masked balls, and who were bored by the orderly parades, formed cordoes, male-only groups that celebrated violently in the streets and paraded to Africanbased rhythms. This Afro-Brazilian influence increased after 1870, when the decline of the coffee plantations in northern Rio de Janeiro state forced a great number of slaves and former slaves to emigrate. Many came to Rio, the capital, looking for work. From cordaes came ranchos, a more civilized type of cordelo that includes women. They made their first organized Carnaval appearance in 1873 and are important in the history of Carnaval for their introduction of themes to their parades. Like moving theater pieces, ranchos today still tell stories, even though their space in Carnaval has largely been taken by the escolas de samba. Ameno Reseda, Flor do Abacate, and other famous ranchos parade now on the Monday of Carnaval's four days. They have maintained their elegance of past years and dance to marcha-ranchos, slow and more melodically developed variations of the marcha. The Marcha In 1899, the cordlio Rosa de Ouro asked composer Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935) to write a song for their parade. She composed a tune that incorporated a boisterous rhythm that she had heard cordaes parading to as they passed by her house. The result was "0 Abre Alas" (Make Way), the first registered marcha as well as the first song to be written specifically for Carnaval. It was also an enormous popular success, having just what it takes to be a successful Carnaval song: a contagious rhythm and simple, easy-to-memorize lyrics. Hey, make way I want to pass I like parties I can't deny that In the 1920s, the marcha (or marchinha) began taking over Carnaval celebrations, especially the indoor ones. It was based on the song form developed by Gonzaga but gradually added influences from ragtime and the North American one-step. Today, marcha is a happy, festive style. It has a strong accent on the downbeat, lots of horns and drum rolls on the snares, and simple, humorous lyrics that often contain some kind of social criticism. The 1930s were the golden decade of Carnaval song BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
writing. Innumerable marchas and sambas written then are classics today. The generation of composers that became popular around that decade—Noel Rosa, Ary Barroso, Lamartine Babo, Braguinha, and others—are legendary and their songs are still sung during Carnaval and frequently recorded by contemporary artists. Other famous and successful Carnaval song writers of this era include Caninha, Sinho, Eduardo Souto, Haroldo Lobo, Joubert de Carvalho, Benedito Lacerda, Antonio Nassera, Romeu Gentil, and Wilson Batista. Samba has been the most popular Carnaval music in Rio since the early sixties. But even though marchas have taken second billing ever since, the old standards from decades ago are still performed every year during Carnaval time, especially at indoor balls. And bandas, which pass through Rio's streets with crowds trailing behind, primarily play marchas. Bandas have drums and a brass section and are informal in their structure, with some people wearing costumes or T-shirts with the banda's name, and others dressing as they wish. In many ways, bandas have brought back the spontaneity of Brazil's old street Camavals. Almost every neighborhood and suburb of Rio has its own such group now, following the example of the pioneering Banda de Ipanema, founded in the 1960s. Another type of celebration in Rio's Carnaval comes from blocos de empolgaceio, great masses of people wearing the same costume that parade in one solid block, dancing very enthusiastically. To see a big bloco like Cacique de Ramos, whose members always dress up like Indians, or Bafo da Onca (Jaguar's Breath), with their six to seven thousand members coming down the street, is an unforgettable sight as they dance to thundering samba de bloco, played by the bateria that closes the parade. Samba, of course, is also the mainstay of Rio's most important Carnaval institution, the escolas de samba (samba schools). The Escolas de Samba Since their beginning in 1928, the escolas de samba have been an integral part of Rio's Carnaval and have evolved into a grand spectacle, an overwhelming experience for both participants and observers. The parade of the escolas encompasses dazzling floats, outlandish costumes, thousands of dancers, and veritable symphony orchestras of rhythm. It is like a giant popular opera, with so much happening, musically and visually, that you can't possibly take it all in at once. The first escola de samba, Deixa Falar (Let Them Talk), was founded on August 12, 1928, in Estacio by Ismael Silva, Bide, Armando Marcel, Nilton Bastos, and others. Apparently, the name "samba school" was an ironic reference to a grade school across the street from where the group met. Deixa Falar was more like a club or a fraternity, dedicated to making music and parading during Carnaval.• At the time, however, the police discouraged the blocos (Carnaval groups) of blacks and mulattos from celebrating downtown. This wasn't unusual, because the police were still repressing many manifestations of Afro-Brazilian culture at the time. In defiance, Deixa BFtAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
Falar went out for a small parade during the Carnaval of 1929 in Estado and Praca Onze, where also appeared blocos from Mangueira, Oswaldo Cruz, and other neighborhoods. Deixa Falar was short-lived: by 1933 it was defunct. But a seed had been planted, and other samba schools were soon created. On Apri 30, 1929, the members of several blocos, formed an e cola that ultimately proved to be the most traditional nd longest-lived of them all: Estacao Primeira d Mangueira (Number-One Station of Mangueira), whose founders included famed composers Cartola nd Carlos Cachaca. Mangueira made its debut as a s mba school in the Carnaval of 1930, and has since a acted many illustrious songwriters and singers, inc uding Nelson Sargento, Elza Soares, Alc one, Leci Brandao, and Jamelao. Another milestone came in 1935, when Paulo da Portela (Paulo Benjamim de Oliveira), Heitor dos Prazeres, and others created Portela. The new escola had its roots in the bloco Baianinhas de Oswaldo Cruz, which was founded in 1923 and later turned into Vai Como Pode. Portela was the most innovative of the escolas for many decades. Also in 1935, the Getulio Vargas federal administration stopped disco rag- ing Rio's escolas and officially recognized th ir parades. Consequently, the festivities moved from Praca Onze to the wide avenues of downtown Rio. Every year grandstands were assembled, drawing large audiences, generating big expenses, and creating terrible traffic hazards. This problem was solved in 198 when the city built the Passarela do Samba (Samb Path), on Rua Marques de Sapucai. Cariocas call t the SambOdromo. Designed by the famous archite t Oscar Niemeyer, it is a seven-hundred-meter-lon pathway flanked by concrete stands .that seat ninety housand people. At its end is the huge, aptly named Pr ca da Apoteose (Apotheosis Square). Over the pat few decades, the escolas have grown to become vita cultural institutions, and their importance stretches far beyond just staging parades. By 1990, there wer fifty-six officially registered escolas de samba in Ri • de Janeiro and dozens more in other Brazilian cities Today, there are also several dozen informal samba schools and blocos located in countries such as Ge any, Japan, Great Britain, the United States, and Finl nd. Although so e escolas in Rio are located in middleclass neighborh ods, many are in favelas or workingclass areas, wit mostly low-income people as their members. For th m, the escolas are a source of pride and in some case the center of the community in which they are located, hey are often social and recreational clubs, and some sponsor schools and nurseries and provide medical Issistance and other services to their members. The ms ney for all this comes from members' donations, and in ome from dances, record sales, open rehearsals, and p rformances all over the world. The escolas are also s pported by the rich, including many 41
engaged in questionable activities such as illegal lotteries and drug-dealing. The parade during Carnaval is a ninety-minute climax, around which life in an escola revolves the whole year. "The parade is the realization of people. They feel like kings for a day," says Herminio Marques Dias Filho, director of the Arranco do Engenho de Dentro escola de samba. Much of the passion Cariocas display toward their escola's presentation is generated by the event's competitive nature. Parade presentations are judged on music, theme, costumes, and other criteria. Those parading at the SambOdromo vie to remain or become one of the sixteen samba schools showcased in the select "Group A," which is the focus of the media's attention. Each year, the two lowest scoring escolas are demoted to "Group B," while the two highest ranked "B" units are promoted, and they will parade with the top group at the next Carnaval. The Parade Mounting an escola-de-samba parade is a vast undertaking that involves tens of thousands of people, including musicians, dancers, craftsmen, costumemakers, and other contributors, but its basic format is always the same. To begin with, every parade must have a theme, the• enredo, which might be political or historical or a tribute to a particular person. Until 1996 the enredo had to be related to Brazil. It is chosen by the carnavalesco, a type of art director who is responsible for the visual aspect of the escola. After the enredo is approved by the board of directors, the carnavalesco writes a synopsis of it, describing the message he wants to visually convey in the parade. Then, around June, this synopsis is distributed among the escola's composers so that they can begin writing sambas on the theme. Such a samba is called a samba-enredo. When the composers have their sambas ready, they submit them to the directors, who choose the best ones. Around September, rehearsals begin in the escola's headquarters, where musicians play old sambas and the contending samba-enredos. The reaction of the members to the new sambas will be decisive in the picking of the samba-enredo for the parade. On a certain night, usually at the end of October, the escola chooses the winner from the finalists. It is a very special night. The escola-de-samba headquarters is noisy and crowded, and the composers organize groups of rooters who dance and sing loudly, carrying flags adorned with the name of their favorite samba. The competing sambas are sung in sequence, and at the end of the night the escola's president announces the winning song. The result is not always welcome and fights can break out. The tension is understandable: the samba-enredo is crucial for a good parade and also generates money for the winning songwriters. The samba-enredos from the escolas in Group A are included in an annual album that usually sells more than a million copies. For Carnaval in 1988, Mangueira's samba-enredo was "100 Anos de Liberdade: Realidade ou Ilusdo" 42
(One Hundred Years of Freedom: Reality or Illusion), commemorating the centennial of Brazil's abolition of slavery in 1888 and protesting the poverty of many blacks in the country. The lyrics, written by Helio Turco, Jurandir, and Alvinho, included an allusion to Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil." Today, in reality, where is freedom Where is that which nobody has seen Little boy, don't forget that the Negro also built The riches of Brazil Ask the Creator who painted this watercolor Free of the plantation's whip Imprisoned in the misery of the favela Vila Isabel's samba-enredo that year, "Kizomba, Festa da Rap" (Kizomba, Festival of the Race), sang of Zumbi, the famous leader of the Palmares quilombo, samba singer Clementina de Jesus, and other aspects of Afro-Brazilian culture. In contrast, other escolas in 1988 took themes such as Brazil's deepening economic crisis, Rio's worsening problems, the magic of cinema, and the highly popular TrapalhOes comedy troupe. In any year, some samba-enredos are celebratory, while others are serious protests. And by the time Carnaval comes round, most people in Rio know many of that year's samba-enredos by heart, having purchased the annual album (recorded and released before the parades), or having heard the most popular enredos played over and over on the radio. After an escola's samba-enredo is chosen, all energy is focused on preparations and rehearsals for the parade. By this time, the carnavalesco has already designed and ordered the costumes for the alas—the parade units into which escolas de samba are divided. Each ala wears a different costume and plays a specific part in the development of the theme. A big escola like Mangueira has sixty-five alas with an average of eighty members each—more than five thousand participants. Most have to buy their costumes from the escola, and many do so by making small monthly payments (some costumes are inexpensive; others are quite elaborate and costly). Sometimes wealthy contributors pay for the outfits of poor but loyal members. Two alas are mandatory. The ala das baianas, introduced by Mangueira in 1943, includes older ladies dressed Bahian-style who wear turbans and broad, long-laced dresses. It recalls the Bahian women who practiced candomble and participated in the blocos that merged to form Mangueira. The other obligatory ala is the comistho de frente (front commission), a group that usually wears costumes related to the enredo. They open the parade, walking solemnly or performing a slow choreography. Practically every Brazilian can dance to samba, but few master its specific steps. Those men and women who do are called passistas. The most important passistas in the escola are the porta-bandeira (flagbearer), always a woman, and the mestre-sala (master of ceremonies), a man. These characters made their first appearances with the nineteenth-century BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
sociedades. Dancing elegantly, the porta-bandeira carries the escola flag, while the mestre-sala dances around her, providing symbolic protection. In between alas come the carros alegoricos—huge decorated floats that depict important aspects of the enredo. These floats are true pieces of art, mixtures of sculpture, architecture, and engineering. On top of them stand the destaques—men and women wearing either luxurious, expensive costumes or almost nothing at all. The making of the floats employs hundreds of people for at least six months. Seamstresses, sculptors, carpenters, smiths, and painters work busily together like a colony of ants up to the last minute so that everything is ready for the February parade. Each big escola typically has from four thousand to more than five thousand members who perform in its parade. To organize this many people is extremely complicated. That is what the diretores de harmonia (harmony directors) are for. They do not have fun. They just work. Hours before the escola enters the SambOdromo, the harmony director begins organizing the parade in an outside area, the concentracao (concentration), putting the arriving ala members in their proper places and setting the alas in the right order. Some time before the parade, the puxador (main singer) in the sound float begins to sing the samba-enredo. He is responsible for keeping five thousand voices in time with the drum section, the bateria. He will sing the same song for almost two hours and must make no mistakes. Slowly the members start singing with him, stimulated by the harmony director, who also takes care of keeping the energy high during the parade. After the whole escola has sung the samba two or three times without accompaniment, the most exciting moment in the parade preparation occurs: the musical entrance of the bateria. Anyone who has witnessed this moment will never forget it. Some three hundred percussionists under the command of the mestre de bateria (percussion conductor) Start playing perfectly in synch with the singing, coordinated by the me.stre's whistle—which serves as his baton. The Bateria The number and type of percussion instruments used varies from escola to escola. Arranco's Herminio gives the following as a typical line-up for a large bateria, by instrument and number of musicians playing that instrument: surdo (30), caixa (40), tarol (40), repique (40), tamborim (70), pandeiro (15), prato (10), cuica (20),frigideira (20), agogo (20), reco-reco (20), and chocalho or ganzci (40). But each escola has its own mix. For example, in 1997 Mangueira used only surdos, caixas, repiques, tamborins, cuicas, agogos, reco-recos, and chocalhos. There are three types of surdos usually used by the baterias. The most important is the surdo de marcacdo (marking surdo), also called the surdao, surdo de primeira, or surdo maracand. It is the heaviest surdo, BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
the one thai plays on the second beat of the 2/4 samba. The surdo de marcacao holds the rhythm and is the base for the whole bateria. The second largest surdo is the surdo resposta (answering surdo). As its name suggests, it answers the surdo d marcactio by playing on the first beat, though les forcefully than the latter. The surdo cortador (c tting surdo) is the smallest surdo, and it plays on the beats and off-beats, "cutting" the rhythm and adding yncopation. In small samba groups, the percussionit uses one surdo to play all three parts by himself—Arto Moreira provides an example of this technique oi the samba-based. song "Dreamland" on Joni Mitchel 's album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. The con uctor has a truly educated ear: during rehearsals h is able to spot one percussionist making a mistake a ong thirty playing the same instrument and a hun red playing others. He goes up to the e ing musician and shouts instructions or tells him to stop and listen. And he must be able to keep all the percussionists synchronized in complicated viradas (changes in percussion patterns) and paradinhas (full stops), in which a bateria ceases playing during the parade so that everyone can hear other members carrying the rhythm with only their voices. Then the playing resumes. This operation is the musical equivalent of stopping a jumbo 'et's take-off at the end of the runway d then getting it to take off again, but th y do it. A bateria ercussionist is, together with the composers, passts as, destaques, baianas, and directors, part of the elit in a escola de samba. It's challenging to be one of th m. Lobao, a rock drummer and singer who has playe tamborim for Mangueira, says, "I took a test to enter, very hard one. The technique is very sophisticated. ou've got to be very precise with a tamborim. Yo play together with seventy others, but everybody's g t to play at the same time. You've got to hear only on beat. If not, the effect is lost." In the conc ntrac 'do, when the bateria starts playing, the energy evel rises incredibly. As Lobao puts it, "The sound is ice as loud as a heavy metal band." Excitement tak s over. Everything is ready for the parade. Right befor the gates open and the clock starts running, firewo s explode in the air. Then the comissâo de frente steps i to the Sambodromo, greeting people and asking pe ission to pass. One more parade has begun. The bateria ollows the first half of the escola into the passarela. ey pass in front of thousands of spectators, and long the way come to a space set off to the side for t e bateria to play in front of the jury. There, the drum ers and percussionists play before the judges, whil the second half of the escola passes. Then, the batert , following the last ala, closes the parade. By this ime the next escola is preparing to enter the Sambo romo. The jury giv s grades from one to ten for theme, samba-enredo, h rmony, comissao de frente, mestre43
formation of the escolas into giant artistic and comsala and porta-bandeira, costumes, evoluccio (dance mercial enterprises. Paulinho da Viola, a major samba and escola), bateria, baianas, performance of the figure of the last four decades, left carros alegoricos. The results are known Portela for many years because he felt on Ash Wednesday. The winning escola that the escolas had become overly comcelebrates in its headquarters, stretching Those parading at the mercialized and bureaucratized, a comCarnaval for one more night. Samb6dromo vie to mon complaint in the 1970s and 1980s. One big escola parade may cost more Paulinho da Viola feels that something remain or become than a million dollars. It may seem abgot lost along the way. "Nowadays comsurd for poor people to spend so much one of the sixteen mercial interests are more important money on something that lasts just ninety samba schools than cultural ones," he told us. "What minutes. But what moves them is passhowcased in the was spontaneous has become official. sion. Just as they are crazy about soccer, now has an average escola de samba An select "Group A," people in Rio love their escolas de samba. of five thousand members. You can People do not say, "My favorite escola is which is the focus of imagine the fights there are to choose Mangueira" or "I like Vila Isabel." People the media's attention. the suppliers for all these people who say, "I am Salgueiro" or "I am Portela." Each year, the two will need shoes, costumes. That has It's part of them. It's in their blood. It's lowest scoring attracted people to the escolas who don't in their souls. belong to that cultural environment." escolas are demoted Although today's escolas are comAnd, what is worse, the funding needs prised of people from all races and social to "Group B," while of the samba schools has made many classes, they remain vital strongholds of the two highest dependent on the financial largesse of Afro-Brazilian culture. As a standardranked "B" units are drug lords and gangsters who run the bearer from a So Paulo escola told us, jogo do bicho (animal game) lottery. promoted, and they "Candomble and escolas de samba are But, despite having suffered some highthe twentieth century's quilombos." will parade with the profile defections, venerable escolas like top group at the next Portela and Mangueira continue to TV Coverage and Growth Carnaval. mount ever more ambitious and lavish parades each year. At the start of the 1960s, the escola Acadern icos de Salgueiro hired Fernando The Major Escolas de Samba Pamplona (born in 1926), who became the first outside professional designer to be a Portela has been responsible for setting most of carnavalesco and design an escola's float and cospatterns that the others have followed. Its founder, tumes. When Salgueiro, with Pamplona in charge, won Paulo da Portela, and his associates introduced into the the samba school parade in 1963, it was indicative of parade such now obligatory items as the enredo (theme), and the ambitiousness of how the role of carnavalesco commisdo de frente (front commission), and the the presentation had both expanded greatly. each escola's carros alegoricos (decorated floats). In addition, many From that point on, the parades became increasingly famed composers and singers have been associated theatrical and grandiose. This trend coincided with the with Portela, including Ze Keti, Paulinho da Viola, growth of the Brazilian television industry, and since Candeia, Jo-do Nogueira, and Paulo Cesar Pinheiro. the 1960s the parades have been televised live every Portela is located in the neighborhood of Madureira, year, from start to finish. as is another historically important escola, Imperio The parades were generating huge amounts of Serrano. Composers Silas de Oliveira (1916-1972) money, but at first the samba schools received very and Mano Decio da Viola (1908-1984), singers little of it. Riotur, the state tourism agency, had a lock Jorginho do Imperio (Mano's son) and Roberto Ribeiro, on the ticket sales and broadcast rights income and and Ivone Lara, the first woman to have one of her handed out only a small percentage of the profits to the compositions sung by an escola, are among those escolas. Then in 1988 the major samba schools formed associated with Imperio during its history. an association and demanded a new deal. They got it: While Salgueiro set the precedent for ever more 40 percent of Sambodromo ticket sales and a oneostentatious parades, Beija-Flor has taken this tenmillion-dollar contract with TV Globo (of which Riotur dency to its extreme and is now famous, though occareceived 10 percent). The escolas also formed their sionally criticized, for its visually glittering and luxuown record company to release the lucrative annual rious presentations. Fittingly, Joaozinho Trinta—who compilation album of samba-enredos. worked under Pamplona at Salgueiro—was Beija-Flor' s The samba parades are now of an enormous scale carnavalesco in the 1970s and 1980s; he later moved and technical sophistication that would have been to Unidos do Viradouro, which was champion in 1997. inconceivable in 1928 to the founders of Deixa Falar. Aside from its audacious floats and costumes, BeijaThey are also vital to Rio's tourist business and generFlor has also had talented singers such as Neguinho da ate huge sums through broadcast, record, and video Beija-Flor, a puxador who has recorded several bestrights. Not everyone has been happy about the trans44
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
selling samba albums. Mocidade Independente, another major force, is famed for the perfection of their bateria, generally conceded to be the most synchronized and precise of any escola. One of its past conductors, Mestre Andre, was the inventor of the immensely difficult, aforementioned paradinha maneuver. Today's escolas have a faster, more uniform batucada than in the days of old, in large part because of time constraints. If a samba school takes longer than ninety minutes for its parade, it loses precious points in the final judging. Before the events were so organized, the samba schools played slower, mellower, and more melodic samba-enredos. Nowadays they are faster, jumpier, and less musically differentiated. Still, there are clear differences between the escolas. For example, Mangueira sounds different because traditionally all of its surdos play only on the second beat of each bar. Salgueiro displays a heavier use of cuicas, which adds more flavor to the general sound and lessens its percussive impact. And Imperio Serrano's extensive employment of agogos gives its sound a more metallic texture. Other important samba schools include Unidos do Cabucu, Unidos
da Tijuca, Sdo Clemente, Estacio de Sá, Vila Isabel, Imperatriz Leopoldinense, Caprichosos de Pilares, Lins Imperial, Academicos de Santa Cruz, Imperio da Tijuca, Grande Rio, Unidos da Ponte, and Unido da Ilha. Escolas de samba have many talents, old and young, traditionalists or revolutionaries. They exemplify the creative power of a Carioca population that, in general, lives in very poor socioeconomic conditions. The escolas are often their community center, and samba itself their spiritual sustenance. Excerpted from the samba chapter of
The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil by Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha, the second edition of which is being published by Temple University Press (800) 447-1656; http:// www.temple.edu/tempress and is also available in Los Angeles at Culture Planet in the Westside Pavilion, (310) 441-9808. The book's other chapters cover bossa nova, MPB, Minas Gerais, Bahia, the Northeast, Brazilian rock and Brazilian jazz and instrumental music. The 285-page book contains 167 illustrations and a large glossary and discography. The authors can be reached at jancgowan@aoLcom and
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RIO Juvenissimo —Written by Minor Fernandes and Flavio Marinho. Directed by Flavio Marinho. Comedy. Over 70,000 people have already seen this collection of international texts about youngsters and their conflicts. With Tadeu Aguiar and Tina Aguas. Teatro Clara Nunes. Auto da Compadecida (Auto of the Compassionate Lady)—By Ariano Suassuna. Classic ofBrazilian dramaturgy turned into a multimedia show by directors Antonio Abujamra and Jodo Fonseca. Joao Grilo and his tribulations to solemnly bury his dog. He ends up on a heavenly court before God, the Devil and the Virgin Mary. With Os F... Privilegiados. Teatro Dulcina. Um Bonde Chamado Desejo (A Streetcar Named Desire)—Tennessee Williams's classic commemorating the 50th anniversary of its first staging in Brazil. Directed by Kik° Jaess. With Flavia Pucci, Roberto Bomtempo, Irving Sdo Paulo, and Fabio Pilar. Nitered's Municipal Theater. Brasil S. A. (Brazil Inc.)—Written by industrialist-turned-playwright Ant6nio Ermirio de Moraes. Directed by Marcos Caruso. Conflicts of an industrialist when he decides to go into the pharmaceutical business. With-Lucinha Lins, Jonas Bloch, and Rogerio Marcie°. Teatro Adolfo Bloch. As Meninas (The Girls)— Based on Lygia Fagundes Telles's novel of same name. Adapted by Francis Mayer. The adventures of Lia, Lorena, and Ana Clara at a for-girls-only boarding school. With Juliana Martins, Bianca Rinaldi, and Daniela Faria. Teatro Candid° Mendes.
SAO PAULO Ela (She)—By Jean Genet. Directed by Ze Celso. Translated by Ze Celso and Catherine Hirsch. Interpreting life through the eyes of a photographer. With Marcelo Drummond, Fransergio Aranjo, and Vadin Nikitin. Teatro Oficina. Sinfonia de uma Noite Inquieta ou Livro do Desassossego (Symphony of a Restless Night or Book of Disquietude)- Inspired by the work of Bernardo Soares, one of Fernando Pessoa's heteronyms. Adapted and directed by William Pereira. With Adriana Mendonca, Patricia Zuppi, Frederico Foroni and Cesar Guirão. ECA's (Communication and Art School) Laboratory Theatre. Zambaione—Written and directed by Lena Whitaker. The sweet-sour emotions of being in love. With Aury Porto, Diogo Granato, and Lena Whitaker. At Piccolo Espaco Cultural Perola (Pearl)—Written and directed by Mauro Rasi. A comic view of a family from the interior during the '50s. With Vera Holtz, Sergio Mamberti, Claudio Fontana, Sonia Guedes, Lucia Romano, and Edgar Amorim. Teatro Jardel Filho. 46
American films just released: The Jackal (0 Chacal), Anastasia (Anastasia), Sunday (Domingo E Dia), The Devil's Advocate (Advogado do Diabo) Viagem ao Principio do Mundo (Trip to the Beginning of the World)—Portugal/ France-1996--French actor goes in search of his roots in Portugal. Directed by Manuel de Oliveira with Marcello Mastroianni, Leonor Silveira, and Isabel de Castro Ma Vie en Rose (Minha Vida em Cor-deRosa)—Belgium/France/England1997—By Alain Berliner. With Michele Laroque, Georges du Fresne, and JeanPhilippe Ecoffey. A little boy fantasizes about being a girl, creating chaos at home. The Sweet Hereafter (0 Doce Amanhci)— Canada-1996— By Atom Egoyan. With Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, and Bruce Greenwood. A Canada little town ordeal after several kids are killed in a school-bus accident. Ta'm-e-Ghilass (Gosto de Cereja) — Iran-1996—Directed by Abbas Kiarostami. With Homayun Ershadi and Abdolhossein Baghesi. A man in search of someone to help him kill himself. 0 No Rebelde (The Rebellious Novice)—Brazil--1997— Directed by Tizuka Yamasaki. With Renato Aragdo, Dede Santana, Patricia Pillar, and Tony Ramos. Comedy. A runaway novice goes to work as a babysitter in Rio. Unagi (A Enguia)—Japan-1997—Directed by Shoei Imamura. With Koji' Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, and Mitsuko Baisho. Wife killer starts new life after eight years in prison. Winner of Cannes's Golden Palm. Anahy de Las Missiones (Anahy From the Missions)—Brazil-1997—Drama during the Farroupilha Revolution (18351845) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. A family survives during the war by looting dead officers. Directed by Sergio Silva with Araci Esteves, Marcos Palmeira, Giovanna Gold, and Fernando Alves Pinto. 0 Cineasta da Selva (The Jungle's Filmmaker)—Brazi1-1997—Documentary about Silvino Santos, the first Brazilian filmmaker to shoot a movie in the Amazon. Directed by Aurelio Michiles with Jose de Abreu and Denise Fraga. Navalha na Carne (Razor in the Flesh)— Brazi1-1997—Veludo, a homosexual is accused of stealing, when prostitute Neusa Sueli's money disappear. Adapted from Plinio Marcos's play of same name. Directed by Neville D'Almeida, with Vera Fischer, Jorge Perugorria, and Carlos 'Loftier.
FICTION 1.0 Plano Perfeito, Sidney Sheldon. Record, 300 p. R$25 2.Todos os Nomes, Jose Saramago. Companhia das Letras, 280 p. R$20 3.0 Livro das Virtudes para Criancas, William J. Bennett. Nova Fronteira, 112 p. R$19 4.Minutos de Sabedoria, Torres Pastorino. Vozes, 280 p. R$3,80 5A Senhora de Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley. Rocco, 504 p. R$28 6.0 Feitico da Ilha do Pavdo, Jodo Ubaldo Ribeiro. Nova Fronteira 324 p. R$24 7.A Versa° dos Afogados, Luis Fernando Verissimo. L&PM, 344 p. R$22 8.A Casa do Poeta Trrigico, Carlos Heitor Cony. Companhia das Letras, 184p. R$18 9. Novas Comedias da Vida Privada, Luis Fernando Verissimo. L&PM, 344 p. R$2,1,60 10.1cone, Frederick Forsyth. Record, 560 p. R$25
NONFICTION 1.Verdade Tropical, Caetano Veloso Companhia das ;.,etras, 524 p. R$27 2.Nova York E Aqui, Nelson Motta. Objetiva, 218 p. R$21,80 3.Inteligencia Emocional, Daniel Goleman. Objetiva, 376 p. R$34,50. 4.As Melhores Piadas do Planeta e da Cass eta, Casseta e Planeta. Objetiva, 128 p. R$10 5.As Sete Leis Espirituais do Sucesso, Deepak Chopra. Best Seller 104 p. R$13,50 6.Ernesto Geisel, Celso Castro and Maria Celina D'Aranjo. FGV, 496p. R$28. 7.0 Sucesso E Ser Feliz, Roberto Shinyashiki. Gente, 198 p. R$20 8.203 Maneiras de Enlouquecer um Homem na Cama, Olivia Claire. Ediouro, 125 p. R$10 9.Sanduiches de Realidade, Arnaldo Jabor. Objetiva, 280 p. R$22 10.Cazuza: S6 as Maes Sao Felizes, Lucinha Araujo. Globo, 397 p. R$27
COMPUTERS 1.Pentium Expert, Laercio Vasconcelos. LVC, 450 p. R$30 2.1niciacdo ao Windows 95, Jose A. Ramalho. Makron Books, 240 p. R$24,75 3.Usando o Visual Basic 5, Michael McKelvy and Ronald R. Martinsen. Campus, 1124 p. R$98 4.Windows 95—Rdpido e Friel! para Iniciantes, Sue Plumley. Campus, 272 p. R$31,90 5.Dominando o Delphi 2 para Windows 95, Marco Cantu. Makron Books 914 p. R$88,79 According to Jornal do Brasil BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
1' .000 V 00 0 BIG TV SPECIAL The forests of the Amazon region have been called 'the lungs ofthe world,' and with its thousands of tributaries the amazing Amazon River basin covers an area of 2.2 million square miles. That's a lot of baseball fields. This reviewer likes exaggeration as much as the next guy, but when the invitation for a press screening of Kieth Merrill's Amazon tells us that "the mighty Amazon stretches 48,000 miles" one can't help but whistle, considering that the circumference of our planet is merely half that distance. A misplaced comma can do wonders, unless the Amazon really does begin somewhere between here and the Moon. Filmed in the IMAX system, Amaion is a 40-minute docudrama whose narrative is jerry-rigged around two medicine men, one from Western Civilization and the other from Bolivia, who embark from different directions on the same quest, which is to discover the medicinal properties of native plants. Mamani is a Bolivian Callawaya Shaman (so what's he doing in Machu Picchu?) who descends from the headwaters ofthe Amazon while Dr. Mark Plotkin, a U.S. ethnobotanist who looks like Indiana Jones as played by Tom Waits, has apparently been delving into the interior from someplace downstream. In this country, Plotkin is perhaps best known for his book, Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice. Amazon has impressive aerial views, and its animal photography is first-rate, but our brief glimpse of the Zoe (pronounced Zo-ee) tribe, accompanied by the explorer Sydney Possuelo, is surely one of the highlights. This is an aboriginal tribe of about 160 people which only became known to the outside world in the late 1960s, and whose distinctive feature—among the adults—is a six or eight inch wooden tube that they wear through their lower jaw. FUNAI, Brazil's Indian agency, zealously protects them— or at least tries to in the face of sometimes-unscrupulous miners, ranchers, and loggers. It might be noted that in Brazil alone some 90 indigenous tribes have gone extinct since the turn of the century, and there's a saying that when a shaman, or medicine man, dies it's like a whole library burning down. BFtAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
Wanting us to draw our own conc usions, the filmmakers have refrained from taking a pedantic stance. The rain forest of the world are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the problem—as the novelis John Fowles has repeatedly pointed out— boils down to overpopulation. How els can we account for mass migration in times of drought and flood? Ironically, Merrill's one-page biography mentions that he and his wife have eight children. What if 4ach of these offspring spawns eight more? There used to be an idea called ZPG—Z ro Population Growth—but no one's talking much about it these days. Although Amazon is well photographed and carefully edited, it lacks the grandeur that seems natural to the subject, something vital that might elevate it above the level of a TV special. The film's rather overblown musical score by Alan Williams doesn't help. This isn't to knock the relevancy of such a cinematic endeavor, only to suggest that the end result is smaller than the screen on which it's being projected. BW
SOUND STREAM Originally from Recife, in the no heastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, musical director Miguel Kertsman has a sembled in Amazonica (Sony Records) an enlightening collection comprised of tra itional pieces, some historical reconstructions, and rounded it out with a few inspi ed originals of his own. Kertsman's intent is to show how colonial-era northeast B azil absorbed a bevy of influences—from the Christianity of the Iberian peninsula t the African cultures of the Yoruba, Bantu, and Gegue—and handed back to itselfa tru y unique blend ofworldly and otherworldly sounds. One shouldn't be misled by the title i to thinking that Kertsman has taken us up the Amazon River with stops in Manaus o Iquitos. No, this isn't riverport music, and in fact Pernambuco certainly seems to be the epicenter on this disc, with one of the highlights being the modinha (' little song ) called "Pernambuco" sung opera-in-thejungle style by Julie Cassia. Kertsman, w th help from the ensembles Angaatanamu and Camerata Cantione Antigua, succeed in his endeavor to show us what the early stages of the musical melting pot might ave been like. His composition, "Aboio Grande," which concludes Amazonica, i his attempt to synthesize the tributaries into a gushing stream. An underlying dan e of Afro-Brazilian percussion helps him pull it off. BW
SONGS
41
F LOVE
The modinha, a genre fundamental to Brazilian music, crosses the boundaries between popular and erudite forms. These urban love songs talk of sighs, of flattering words, and of refined affairs. In early time , the form was indignantly criticized for its poetry, which was considered harmful t young ladies who might be deluded by these poisonous potions of passion. Much of the previously recorded repe oire suffered from an operatic treatment which was alien to the form's spirit and w ich took away much of the natural grace and spontaneity of the genre. But with the release of Modinhas Brasileiras: Songs from 19th Century Brazil on Nimbus Rec ds, this sensuous tradition of Brazilian poetry and song has been recreated with el gance and feeling. Andrea Daltro, a singer from Salvador Bahia, has unequivocally captured the atmosphere of Brazilian nineteenth century song by avoiding the alien European classical treatment that these songs have been subject to in the past and has instead brought out their 11(11)1 \IIIS KR ItilliEIRIS particular Brazilian charm and Soo from 19th t'Amtury Brazil allure. Daltro's voice has an ethendthI 11J1tro. loaf real quality, and the ensemble arrangements are matchless, but what sticks in your mind long after the CD stops playing is the poetry. These love verses have inspired an enchanting set of songs that transcend the ordinary. They are sensual and real, the outcome of experience. As is customary with all Nimbus CDs, the packaging includes copious liner notes. You'll want to add this one to your CD library. BG 47
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BRAZZIL -JANUARY 1998
FEIRA LIVRE OPEN MARKET BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Get paid at home!!! Assembly, crafts, stuffing envelopes, etc. Send $3.00 and S.A.S.E for details. Work at home. 150 South Glenoaks Blvd. #9205Z Burbank, CA 91502 [142] International Company exporting to Brazil. High $ potential for individuals with contacts in Brazil. (805) 449-5507 [147] Vending Route for Sale - 50 locations. $800-$1200 per month income. Cost $2995 1(800) 9636123 [142] CLASSES
Conversational Brazilian Portuguese Method - "I tried several methods to learn BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE, but when I started lessons with NILSON, I knew immediately that I'd found the best one. And in just a few months, I was able to communicate on a one-on-one basis." Individual, Total Immersion, Corporate Group and Semi-Private. Phone (310) 379-0738 [144] Portuguese Courses in Salvador da Bahia, Dialog°, http:// www.brazilstudy.com, E-mail: dialogo brazilstudy.com, fax: 01155 71 336-6329 [155] COOKING
Delightful Brazilian Cooking by Eng Tie Ang, two for one sale $14.95, plus $5 shipping and handling. Over 130 authentic, quick and easy recipes. P.O. Box 30818 - Seattle, WA 98103 - Tel/ Fax (206) 789-3693. [142] DISCOVERING OPPORTUNITY
Artist Needed. Talented Performers, Entertainers, Song Writers Musicians, Producers Looking for Exposure, Contacts, Connections, Education. Visit our Web Site www.entertainersnet. corn. A WorldNetwork. Call Toll Free 1-888-310-,tNET [142] Estabeleca seu credit° e ganhe dinheiro! Aprenda como obter cartao de credit° internacional sem precisar de deposit°. Aprovacao garantida. Ligue ja. 1-888838-0939 [143]
single dad care for two-year-old daughter - Irvine, California (714) 551-8479 [144] Singers wanted. Male/Female English/Portuguese (310) 5595052 [143] MISCELLANEOUS
Brazilian Style: Hair Cut, Nails, Waxing. Call Sueli (310) 4538779 (Sta Monica) [146] Estude a Biblia por correspondencia na privacidade do seu lar. Inteiramente gratis. Envie seu endereco postal para: BCCI, Box 3841, Springfield, IL 627083841 [144] Swap post cards with everyone around the world. Fabio. P.O. Box 5765, Astoria, NY 11105 [142] Tickets para o Brasil - Cheap Baratos -1 (800)643-3910. Tudo legal. [157]
Music Brazilian Music in its totality. Samba, bossa nova, chorinho, baiao, axe, and more. Merchant Express (954) 785-5991 NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES
Jornais e revistas do Brasil. Recebemosjornais diarios e todas as principals revistas, incluindo masculinas e femininas. Tel. (954) 785-5991 Used Brazilian adultmagazines Playboy, Ele Ela... on sale for just US$5 each plus $3 for postage each. Also available Hong Kong Playboy and Penthouse (used). Mail check to Tenko U.S.A., P. 0. Box 1096 Temple City, CA, 91780 or call (626) 299-1176 [146] PERSONAL WOMAN SEEKS MAN
Americana corn cdracAo brasileiro, bem educada, que adora a o samba, a cultura, a linguae o povo brasileiros, queria conhecer urn brasileiro solteiro de 40 anos oumais, em boa forma, morando em New York City ou pertinho. Messages to E-mail: sylvia2125@aol.com [130]
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PERSONAL MAN SEEKS WOMAN
American, male, white, 45 years old, would like to meet a Brazilian or Portuguese lady. I speak English only. Age open. Call
FEIRA L RAE RATES: 50i.t a word. l'hone is one word. DISCOUNTS: For 3 times deduct 5%. for 6 times deduct 10%. for 12 times deduct 15%. POLICY: All ads to be prepaid. Ads are accepted at our discretion.. Your canceled check is your receipt. Please, include address and phone number, which w ill be kept confidential. DEADLINE: The 25th of the month. Late material will be held for the following month if appropriate. TO PLACE AD: Send ad ith check, money order or your Credit Card number (plus our name and expiration date) to: BRAZZIL P.O. Box 42536 Los Angeles, CA 90050-0536. (415) 757-1946 (Eves) [142] Americano, 28, en repreneur seeks Brazilian lady 8-36, open mind and attractive. end letter/ photo. Chris - 109 Minna St. #338 - San Francisco, CA 941053728 [136] Americano, 36, attaente, romantic° e sincerol. Procura brasileira 18-45. Envi foto para: 2440 - 16th St. #179 San Francisco, CA 94103 [1'8] Americano, 38 anos, olhos azuis, fala portugu s, queria conhecer brasileira de 18 a 30 anos. Chamar William 310) 2047913 [139] English male, 39,1 Antique dealer, own business, financially secure, attractive, sophisticated, has toured Brazil, seeks slim attractive Brasileira for long-term relationship and to Share life. Send letters and photo to Mike, 50, Cranworth Rd., orthing, West Sussex, England N112JF [141] Hello, I am a 38-year-old man. I live in Central Florida I have a very successful busin ss and I work as a psychic co nselor. I am single, 5'10" and I vill send you my photo in first leltter. I am looking for a single lacy who is from Brazil. 23 to 34.'Tice and good looking. You can E-mail at psychic@bitstorm.net [143]
American 33, 6' 185" brown/ blue, seeking Brazilian uys for friendship or more. Plea e call 1619-850-3163 or E-mail Itnamerica@aol.com [1 4] esterner„ living i Hong Kong, 5'10", 160 lbs, thletic, banker, wants to meet Brazilian males visiting Hong K ng for sex or relationship. Prefet 30 and up, tall, not thin, well en owed. E-mail tfontana@hotm*il.com
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Chronic & Life Threatening illnesses,A.D.D. & dyslexia, life transitions, bicultural & relationship issues, sexual identity conflict — Edison de Mello, M.D.; Ph.D./MFCC — Portuguese/ Spanish/ English. (310) 656-6987 [137] Emotional & psychological help - Elizabete Almeida MFCC licensed psychotherapist. English/Portuguese. Reasonable rates. (310) 281-7536. [146] RENTAL
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Dialogo Translates from and to Brazilian Portuguese: http:// www.brazilstudy.com [155] Translations - Barbara Maglio, to & from Portuguese, General and Computer. Tel.: (561) 3911057, Fax: (561) 391-2174, Email:bjmaglio@ compuserve.com [134] TRAVEL
Touristic services in Salvador da Bahia: Dialog°, http:// www.brazilstudy.com [155] 49
ax our Calendar info to ( 213) 257-348 7, E-mail it to brazzil@brazz il.com - ma il to P.O. Box 42536 L.A., CA 90050 or ca ll (213) 255- 806 2. Deadline: t e t
calendar - jangeb 98 - u.s.a. TV & RADIO COAST TO COAST SHORT WAVE RADIO Radio Nacional da Amaz6nia - Daily, especially on evenings and early morning - 6,180 & 11,780 Khz Radiobras - All universal time - From 12 noon to 1:20 PM, in English and from 1:30 PM to 2:50 PM, in Spanish 15,445 Khz BOSTON Coracao Brasileiro - Every Monday, 8:00 PM - 10:30 PM with Dennis Miller 88.1 FM - WMBR Brazilian Style of Music Every Friday, 11-00 am 2.00 pm, 91.5 FM, WMFO with Marlon Catao CHICAGO The Sounds of Brazil - Every Saturday, 10:00 pm Midnight, 95.5 FM, WNUA with Scott Adams Show Brazil - Every Friday, 8.00 am - 11:00 am, 91.5 FM, WMFO with Edna Moreno DENVER Brazilian Fantasy - Every Sunday, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm, 89.3 FM, KUVO LOS ANGELES TV Brazil TV - Buena Vision, Ch 6 & 56 (Mon - 8.30 pm); LBCT/Charter, Ch 57 or 65 (Wed - 6 30 pm); TCI, Channel 27 (Wed - 7:30 pm) ; Cox Cable, Ch 33 (Tue. 4.30 pm), Check for Media One (Ch 38) and Century (Ch 3) RADIO Sounds of Brazil - Every Saturday, 1:00 PM - 3:0 pm, KPFK, 90.7 FM with Sergio Mielniczenko Brazilian Hour - Every Saturday and Sunday, 9:00 am - 10:00 am, KXLU, 88.9 FM with Sergio Mielniczenko MIAMI RADIO Brazilians Love Jazz - Every Sunday, 8.00 pm - 10:00 pm with Gina Martelli - 93.9 - Love 94
u: LUJ:4-1971VA MM. BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM-Carlos Oliveira & Liza Silva at Nino's
LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Lula & Afro-Brasil plus Luizinho and Paulinho at Zabumba 10:00 PM-Kleber Jorge band & Meia-Noite at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 659-4999 111111111611 Miala=.
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Kleber Jorge at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM-MILA Samba School at Cafe Danssa 10:00 PM-Lula &Afro-Brazilian Band at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 659-4999
1111114E1101 ON& MEI FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at BrazilBrazil (954) 561-8200
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Kleber Jorge at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM & 12 MIDNIGHT-Velly Bahia & Capoeira Band at Luna Park, 665 N. Robertson Blvd, West Hollywood (310) 652-0611 9:30 PM-Flavia de Mello with ULA Samba Band at Zabumba 10:00 PM-Constellation Band at Café Danssa
mimyramikimum FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
LOS ANGELES 12:00 Noon to 4:00 PM-Sambacustic in Clube do Choro at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 659-4999 8:30 PM-Andrea Miranda at Zabumba
1: LIPT-1 BLVE*MIII BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM-Carlos Oliveira & Liza Silva at Nino's
LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Lula & Afro-Brasil plus Luizinho and Paulinho atZabumba 10:00 PM-Kleber Jorge band & Meia-Noite at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 659-4999
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Sergio 2000 at GP-1ga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM-MILA Samba School at Cafe Danssa
so
10:00 PM-Lula & Afro-Brazilian Band at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 6594999
i ImmujIlki FORT LAUDERDALE, FL.
7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Sergio 2000 at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 9:30 PM-Flavia de Mello with ULA Samba Band at Zabumba 10:00 PM-Constellation Band at Café Danssa
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Andrea Miranda at Zabumba
BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM-Carlos Oliveira & Liza Silva at Nino's
LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Lula & Afro-Brasil plus Luizinho and Paulinho at Zabumba 10:00 PM-Kleber Jorge band & Meia-Noite at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 659-4999 IIIMIMIRaatgNaEINNNMM
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY 7:00 PM-Nego Gato - Afro-Brazilian dance and music at Bardavon Opera House, 35 Market St, (914) 454-3388
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Lois Sings Brazil at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM-MILA Samba School at Café Danssa 10:00 PM-Lula & Afro-Brazilian Band at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 6594999
URDAY 31 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Lois Sings Brazil at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 9:30 PM-Flavia de Mello with ULA Samba Band at Zabumba 10:00 PM-Constellation Band at Cafe Danssa
I mmaagl umisamm I NDAY 1 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil , :254) 561-8200
LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Andrea Miranda at Zabumba BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1598
calendar - jan/feb 98 - u.s.a. BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM-Carlos Oliveira & Liza Silva at Nino's
LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Lula & Afro-Brasil plus Luizinho and Paulinho at Zabumba 10:00 PM-KleberJorge band & Meia-Noite at Mamagaya, 401 N La Cienega (310) 659-4999
SAN DIEGO, CAL. 8:30 PM-Carnaval '98- Carnaval and Football - at US Grand Hotel, Downtown (619) 224-4684
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Kleber Jorge at Ginga Brasil LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM-MILA Samba School at Cafe Danssa
10:00 PM-Lula & Afro-Brazilian Band at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 6594999
joiainvjummo
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
LONG BEACH, CAL 8:00 PM-SambaLa Blue and Yellow Carnaval Ball with Lula at Tonys Restaurant
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Kleber Jorge at Ginga Brasil LOS ANGELES 9:30 PM-Flavia de Mello with ULA Samba Band at Zabumba 10:00 PM-Constellation Band at Café
9:00 PM-Carlos Oliveira & Liza Silva at Nino's LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Lula & Afro-Brasil pl s Luizinho and Paulinho atZabumba
10:00 PM-Kleber Jorge band & Meia-Noite at Mamagaya, 401 N. La Cienega (310) 659-4999 mmit aurffikam i
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Sergio 2000 at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM-MI LA Samba School Café Danssa
10:00 PM-Lula & Afro-Brazilia Band at Mamagaya 401 N. L Cienega (310) 659-4999
iIJ 1 BMW FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
ANAHEIM, CAL 7:00 PM-Sergio 2000 at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 9:30 PM-Flavia de Mello with ULA Samba Band at Zabumba 10:00 PM-Constellation Band at Café Danssa
y iii
117N1%
SAN FRANCISCO 8:00 PM - The 30th Friends of Bazil Carnaval Ball at the Galleria - A Salute to Soccer (415) 3340106
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Danssa
LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM to 3 AM-Brazil Carnaval '98 at the Hollywood Palladium.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 7:30 PM-Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil
More information at http:// www.brazil-carnaval.com (213) 634-7811
(954) 561-8200
LOS ANGELES 8:30 PM-Andrea Miranda at Zabumba
at the Kava Club, 8415 Pershing I Dr. (562) 863-3463
BERKELEY, CAL.
ANAHEIM, CAL. Ginga Brazil - 821 N. Euclid,
(714) 778-0266
BERKELEY Ashkenaz - 1317 San Pablo Ave. (510) 525-5054 Nino's - 1916 Martin L. King Jr. (510) 845-9303
LOS ANGELES 14 Below - 1348 14th St., Santa Monica - (310) 451-5040 Cafe Danssa - 11533 W. Pico Bl. West L.A.- (310) 478-7866 Tony's -701 Long Beach Blvd.
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
PLAYA DEL REY, CAL. 8:00 PM - Masquerade Carnaval
(310) 628-9789 La Ve Lee - 12514 Ventura Bl. - Studio City - (818) 980-8158 Zabumba -10717 Venice Blvd Culver City - (310) 841-6525
MIAMI
SOB - 200 Varick St. (212) 3077171 Supper Club - 240 W. 47 St. (212) 921-1940 Scala Brazil - 35-50 31st St. Astoria (718) 937-0352
Brazil Samba Café - Hollywood (954) 920-4426 Scala Miami - (305) 371-5604
Yoshi's - 6030 Claremont Ave. (510) 652-9200
OAKLAND, CAL.
NEW YORK
S. FRANCISCO
Blue Note - 131 West 3rd St. -
Bahia Cabana - (415) 861-4202 Chambord - 152 Kearney St.
(212) 475-8592 Café Wha - 115 MacDougal St. -(212) 254-3706
TV & RADIO TV BTN (Brazilian TV Network) 11:00 pm - 1.00 am, DCI ch. 40, S. South ch. 51, Adelphia ch. 52, Gold Coast ch 99 Luqui Corporation - Jornal Bandeirantes - 11:00 pm 1:00 am, Dynamic ch 20, S. South ch 41, Gold Coast ch. 44, DCI ch 45 NEW YORK RADIO Brasil corn S - Every Saturday, 9:00 PM with Judith King, 88.3 FM - WBGO Canta Brasil - Every Saturdday, 8 00 AM -93 1 FM -WPAT Radio Amaz6nia - Every day, 6:30 PM on short wave - 6.185 MHZ TV Brazil News - Every Wednesday, 8.30 PM - Channel 34 Brazil Update - Every Saturday, 3:30 PM - Channel 69 Brazilians in America-TV Every Sunday, 5:30 PM-Channel 16 Media Flux: Brasil - Every Saturday, 4:00 PM - Ch 16 S. FRANCISCO Brasileirinho - Every Wednesday, 9:30 PM, KZSC, 88.1 FM with Renato Frota Brasil Musical - Every Sunday, 1.00 PM - 5.00 PM, Radio Bilingue, 91.5 FM via satellite, with Ricardo and Amarina Pugh - Fresno Canta, Brasil - Every Sunday, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM - KKUP, 91.5 FM, with Xuxu, Maria Jose and David Heyman The Sounds of Brazil - Every Sunday, 11.00 PM - 1 00 AM, KKSF, 103.7 with ScottAdams So Da Brasil - Every Friday, 8.00 PM - 9:00 PM, KUSF, 90.3 with Jorge Lima & Simone Odom WASHINGTON, DC Sounds of Brazil - Every Thursday, 9:00 PM, Pacifica Radio with Tony Carr and Ana Cecilia Rocha - Live on the Internet at www wpfw org Waves of Patropi - Every Saturday, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM, WDCU, 90 FM with Andre Lacerda
(415) 434-3688 Coconut Grove-(415)776-1616
51
Boston Area Books Livraria Plenitude (800) 532-5809 Consulate Consulado G. do Brasil (617) 617-542-4000 Dentist Sylvio P. Lessa (617) 924-1882 Food & Products Aqui Brazil (617) 787-0758 Brasil Brasil (617) 561-6094 Jerry's Cachaca (617) 666-5410 Instruction Approach Student Ctr (617) 787-5401 Braz. & Amer. Lg. Inst. (617) 787-7716 Music Brazil CDs (617) 666-3747 Publications The Brazilian Monthly (617) 566-3651 Bossa: Braz. Jazz Guide (617) 262-9997 Restaurants Cafe Brazil (617) 789-5980 Ipanema (508) 460-6144 Tropicilia (617) 567-4422 Pampas Churrascaria (617) 661-6613
Chicago Consulate Consulado G. do Brasil (312) 464-0244 Translations Portuguese Lang. Ctr. (312) 276-6683
Los Angeles Accountant Sheila Shanker
(310) 836-3436 Airlines \Twig (800) GO VARIG Vasp (310) 364-0160 Arts & Crafts Bakari Art Studio (213) 938-0523 1,Ak Creations (310) 693-2844 Culture Planet (310) 441-9808 Zebi Designs (310) 391-6530 Auto Repair Cosmo Auto Parts (213) 259-9818 Banks Banco do Brasil (213) 688-2996 Catering Joy's Catering (562) 438-3415 Churches Igreja Evang. Bras. (714) 534-9437 Clothes Samba Collection 52
(562) 437-1939 Summer Brazil (310) 455-1772 Clubs & Associations Brazil-Cal. Chbr of Corn. (310) 665-0166 Centro Cultural Gaucho (213) 256-6548 MILA - Samba School (310) 391-6098 SambaLi -Esc. de Samba (562) 437-1939 Consulate Brazilian Consulate (213) 651-2664 Dentists Gilberto Henriques (213) 464-0524 Events Promotion Brazilian Nites Prod. (818) 566-1111 Pegasus - Parties & Ent. (818) 549-0383 Sayegh Promotions (800) 507-3653 Health & Fitness Herbs from Brazil (213) 851-7016 Westside Acupuncture (310) 914-1624 Instruction Brasil Brasil Cult. Ctr (310) 397-3667 Modern Lang. Center (310) 839-8427 Legal Services Meiojas & Ferraz (310) 360-0901 Loans Finance Plus Mort. Corp. (310) 585-8911 Music Braz. Jazz /All Occasions (310) 839-3788 Jazz - Richard Samuels (818) 798-5424 Physician Paulo Coharte (310) 285-9670 Decio Rangel (310) 828-7454 Ingrid Rodi - Gynec. (310) 451-8144 Nilson A. Santos (213) 483-3430 Psychother/Counsel. Elizabeth Almeida, M.A. (310) 281-7536 Dr. Jefferson Si (818) 592-0402 Tania Haberkorn, M.A. (310) 840-5380 Publications Brazzil (213) 255-8062 Real Estate Cent. 21 - Vlad. Bellemo (714) 406-0121 Cent. 21 - Solon Pereira (562) 924-9633 Cold. Banker -J. Freitas (818) 304-9562 Restaurants & Cafes Big Fish (310) 676-9962 Bossa Nova (310) 657-5070 Brazilian Tropical (714) 720-1522 By Brazil (310) 787-7520 CafĂŠ Brasil (310) 837-8957 Ginga Brasil (714) 778-0266 Lulu's Alibi (310) 479-6007 Rio CafĂŠ (310) 204-4060
Yolie's Brazilian Steak (714) 251-0722 Zabumba (310) 841-6525 Translation/Interp. Brazilian Int. Affairs (310) 854-5881 Tocantins Communic. (818) 248-3667 Travel/Tours Around the World Trl. (800) 471-6333 Brazil Air (800) 441-8515 Brazil Tours (818) 767-1200 Cheviot Hills Travel (310) 202-6264 Traveland (800) 321-6336 TV Brazil TV & Production (562) 437-6404
Miami Airlines Transbrasil (800) 872-3153 yang (800) 468-2744 Vasp (800) 732-8277 Banks Banco do Brasil (305) 358-3586 Banco Nacional (305) 372-0100 Banco Real (305) 358-2433 Banespa (305) 358-9167 Clubs & Associations ABFC - As. Bras. da Fier. (407) 354-5200 Cam. Corn. Brasil- EUA (305) 579-9030 ARARA - Amazon. As. (813) 842-3161 Consulate Consulado do Brasil (305) 285-6200 Dentists Arnaldo Souza (305) 595-3238 Hedimo de SA (305) 262-8212 Food & Beverages All Braz. Imp. & Exp. (305) 523-8134 Guarani Esteves (305) 345-1540 Via Brasil (305) 866-7718 Physicians Dr. Jorge Macedo (305) 271-7311 Dr. Mario Sanches (305) 541-7819 Dr. Neri Franzon (305) 776-1412 Publications Florida Review (305) 374-5235 Restaurants Brazilian Tropicana (305) 781-1113 Brazilian Delight (305) 374-0032 Brazilian Pie (305) 866-1001 Cheese Bread House (305) 443-5358 Gula Gula (305) 532-3636 Travel Agencies 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 Venture Travel (305) 379-7678 Via Brasil Travel (305) 866-7580
New York N. Jersey Books Luso-Brazilian Books (800) 727-LUSO Clubs & Associations Brazilian Ch. of Corn. (212) 575-9030 Brazilian Coin. Bureau (212) 916-3200 Brazilian Trade Bur. (212) 224-6280 Consulate Brazilian Gen. Cons. (212) 757-3080 Food & Products Amazania (718) 204-1521 Coisa Nossa (201) 578-2675 Merchant Express (201) 589-5884 Publications The Brasibans (212) 382-1630 Brazilian Voice (201) 955-1137 OCA Magazine (516) 596-1853 Portugal-Brasil News (212) 228-2958 Samba Newsletter (718) 937-0574 Restaurants 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 Tapaj6s River (201) 491-9196 Travel Agencies Barb Tour Service (201) 313-0996 Odyssea Travel Service (212) 826-3019
San Diego Clubs & Associations Clube Bras. San Diego (619) 295-0842 Sunday Night Cl. Brazil (619) 233-5979 Import/Export Brazil Imports (619) 234-3401 Money Remittance Vigo-California (619) 479-VIGO
San Francisco Airlines yang
(415) 986-5737 Vasp (800) 732-VASP Attorney Manoel Faris (510) 537-3533 Ralph Baker (510) 444-8100 Auto Nelson Auto Body (415) 255-6717 Matts Auto Body (415) 565-3560 Beauty Salon Bibbo (415) 421-BIBO Carmen's International (415) 433-9441 Neyde's (415) 681-5355 Clubs & Associations B.A.S.O. (415) 661-2788 Bay Area Brasilian Club (415) 334-0106 Brazilian Cult. Movem. (415) 437-6991 Corn puter Micronet (415) 665-1994 Consulate Brazilian Consulate (415) 981-8170 Dance Instruction Aquarela (510) 548-1310 Birds of Paradise (510) 863-3651 Brazil Culture & Arts (510) 215-8202 Ginga Brasil (510) 428-0698 Escola Nova de Samba (415) 661-4798 Samba do Coracao (415) 826-2588 Samba, Swing & Suor (415) 282-7378 Dental Care Roberto Sales, DDS (510) 451-8315 Events Promotion F. B. C. Events (415) 334-0106 Nativa Productions (408) 287-9798 Food Brazilian Coffee Dist. (415) 648-5966 California Produce (415) 586-6200 HGC Imp. Wholesale (408) 947-8511 Instruction Portuguese - A. Frame (510) 339-9289 Portuguese Lang. Serv. (415) 587-4990 Money Remittance Vigo (415) 863-0218 West Brazil (415) 695-9258 Music Celia Malheiros (415) 738-2434 Damien's Intercambio (415) 595-2274 Fogo na Roupa (510) 464-5999 Marcos Silva (510) 945-0138 Terra Sul (415) 752-9782 Viva Brazil (415) 342-8508
Voz do Brazil
(415) 586-2276 Musical Instruments Tamborim & Samba (415) 871-2201 Physician Dr. Guilherme Salgado (415) 832-6219 Printing M. C. Printing (510) 268-8967 Publications Brazil Today (510) 526-1115 Brazzil (415) 587-4990 RestaurAlight Clubs Bahia Cabana (415) 861-4202 Balboa Braz. Rest. (415) 387-1118 Cafe do Brasil (415) 626-6432 Cafe Mardi Gras (415) 864-6788 Canto do Brasil (415) 626-8727 JoAo's Restaurant (408) 244-1299 Little Rio (415) 441-3344 Michelangelo Cafe (415) 986-4058 Mozzarela Di-Bufala (415) 346-9888 Nine's (510) 845-9303 Porto Brasil (510) 526-1500 Stelladoro (415) 928-2662 Translation Port. Lang. Services (415) 587-4990 Travel Agencies Paulo's Travel (415) 863-2717 Rio Roma (415) 921-3353 Santini Tours (510) 843-2363 Travel Americas (415) 334-0404 Tropical Travel (510) 655-9904 Tucanos Travel (415) 454-9961
ashington DC Airtmes Transbrasil
(202) 775-9180 Varig (202) 331-8913 Vasp (202) 822-8277 Banks Banco do Brasil (202) 857-0320 Banco do Est. de S. Paulo
(202) 682-1151 Clubs & Associations Braz. Am. Cult. Inst. (202) 362-8334 Inst. of Brazil. Business
(202) 994-5205 Embassy Embaixada do Brasil (202) 238-2700 Restaurants Amazonia Grill
(202) 537-0421 Travel Agencies Intern. Discount Travel (703) 750-0101 BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
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An excerpt
Jeitinho Land In cases where regulations have to be confronted, Brazilians pride themselves on being especially creative in their array and variety of gambits suitable for bending rules. Some veteran despachanfes seemed to have magical powers. Passports for which mere mortals had to wait on Fine for hours, then return to wait a second, third, or fourth time at the Federal Police headquarters, were issued in minutes. Documents not available at all by legal means materialized the same way. ROBERT M. LEVINE During most of the twentieth century. Brazil's political culture diminished the status of citizens. Part of the problem stemmed from the swollen bureaucracy at all levels of government. Everyday life in Brazil necessitated constant interaction with bureaucratic regulations, government officials, public agencies, and other representatives of authority. The system treated individuals differently according to who they were. -The poorest Brazilians often were excluded entirely from the system and the social benefit's it provided because, as marginals living below the thin safety net provided for salaried workers, they lacked proper papers. This problem was severest during the military dictatorship, when police frequently stopped people randomly and arrested them or beat them if they were found to be without papers. "Without identity documents," a large billboard in downtown Rio near the bus station proclaimed in 1969, "you do not exist." In the interior of the country, patronage politics maintained almost complete control of social and economic exchange. Ordinary Brazilians living documented lives spent untold time entangled in the bureaucratic labyrinth. Some cases of hopeless dealings stretched out for years. For those who could afford it or who possessed political influence, however, an antidote soon emerged in the person of the despachante, a professional facilitator able to cut through red tape. Sometimes bribery was involved, or small favors, but usually despachantes simply got things done (for a fee) faster and without hassle because they knew the right people on the inside. Some veteran despachantes seemed to have magical powers. Passports for which mere mortals had to wait on line for hours, then return to wait a second, third, or fourth time at the Federal Police headquarters, were issued in minutes. Documents not available at all by legal means materialized the same way. Most people had no access to these agile geniuses, but they used other devices to beat the system. M., a maid working in an affluent condominium complex in Sao Paulo, at age twenty-four married a seventeen-year-old young man and had a child. When her mother-in-law to ld her that she couldn't care for the baby all the time, M. sent for an eleven-year-old girl from the interior, telling people that she was "adopting" her. The girl, who presumably attended school a few hours each day, otherwise worked without papers (or wages) for M. as her servant. What M. did is as much a part of the informal economy as a legal ruse since she did not have to obtain permission from any civil authorities to bring the girl to her home. In cases where regulations have to be confronted, Brazilians pride themselves on being especially creative in their array and variety of gambits suitable for bending rules. Most of these ploys work best, of course, for those with connections, even as low-level as a friend of a relative who works in a certain office or department. The system also bends for those who can throw their weight around. Thus, facing down a policeman trying to write a ticket on an illegally parked car is easy for someone who is wearing a Rolex and has been educated in an elite private school, because the weaker party to the action knows full well that society expects him to back away. One element in the political culture that is available to almost everyone possessing a modicum of poise and self-respect is the jeito. The jeito (diminutive, jeitinho), is the "way" to grease the wheels of government or the bureaucracy, so as to obtain a favor or to bypass rules or regulations. Jeitos fall halfway between legitimate favors and out-and-out corruption, but at least in popular understanding they lean in the direction of the extralegal. Favors, in addition, imply a measure of reciprocity, a courtesy to be returned. One never pays for a favor, however; but ajeito, which is often granted by someone who is not a personal acquaintance, must be accompanied by a tip or even a larger payoff. Peter Kellemen's 1963 tongue-in-cheek Brazil for Beginners offers an example of how the system worked even within the bureaucracy. A recent graduate of a European medical school was applying at the Brazilian Consulate in Paris for a visa to emigrate to Brazil. When he appeared, the Brazilian consul changed the applicant's profession from physician to agronomist. When the candidate protested, saying that he did not want to sign a false statement, the consul told him: "In that way I can issue you a visa immediately. You know how these things are? Professional quotas, confidential instructions from the department of immigration. Utter nonsense!... In any event, this way will make it perfectly legal." The consul explained that he was helping the applicant by employing the jeito. After the physician took up residence in Brazil, he understood: he had immigrated to a country, law professor Keith S. Rosenn notes, "where laws and regulations are enacted upon the assumption that a substantial percentage will be disobeyed," and where, quoting Kelleman, "civil servants, be they small or powerful, create their own law. Although this law does not happen to correspond with the original law, it meets with general approbation, provided that it is dictated by common sense." Several kinds of behavior are associated with the jeito. Officials fail to perform a legal duty (e.g., they issue contracts to the highest briber); persons employ subterfuges to circumvent a legal obligation that is proper (they may underinvoice import shipments, or receive part of a purchase price abroad in foreign currency to evade currency control and taxes on part of their profits); speedy completion of paperwork is available only in exchange for a bribe or because the official knows the applicant; officials skirt an unreasonable or economically prejudicial legal obligation (for example, laws requiring compensating bank balances or deposits at low interest); they fail to enforce rules or
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
laws because they think the law is unjust or person is something as meaningless as a unrealistic (as in the above example of the free cafezinho. Even if it is true that haple s visa applicant). The first three cases are peoples can benefit from jeitos, there mu t corrupt, but the last two fall into a gray area be an enormous difference in scale in co where public purposes are arguably served parison to the kind of arrangement or spaby evading legal obligations. Some appli- cial favor a poised, educated, well-co cations ofthejeito, of course, involve mixed nected member of the affluent classes c kinds of motives, combining payoffs or manage. favoritism with a sense that the outcome Senator Roberto de Oliveira Campo will be reasonable and even legitimate. an economist, ambassador, and politic' Jeitos affect everyone. Once I was trav- who seems to have obtained more than hi eling to the interior of Rio Grande do Norte, share of jeitos during his public career a desolate backlands region with few signs defined the jeito as a "paralegal" action of life. The van in which I was riding broke neither legal nor illegal, and understand down outside a tiny, dusty town. The pas- able in the light of Brazil's historical (Latin sengers and driver walked to the town to not Anglo-Saxon) and religious history (i attempt to find parts to fix the motor; while Roman Catholic countries, he writes, dogm we were sitting in a café, waiting, a man is rigid and intolerant, so ways have to b came in and identified himself as the police found around things). By granting the jeito chief. He wore no uniform and showed no legally neutral status, of course, Campos badge, but everyone in the café showed him seems to be justifying it as a forgivable deference and we assumed that he was some transgression. Without it, he suggests, Brakind of official.. He then asked to see our zilian society would find itself either paradocuments. The Brazilians had their fed- lyzed by compliance or exploded over ineral identity cards; I had my passport. The compatibilities among laws, customs, and official demanded that each of the Brazil- facts of life. For Joao Camilo de Oliveira ians pay the equivalent of $6 for being Torres, another old-school critic, jeitos are given "refuge" in his town, and he "fined a way of being "particularly Brazilian." the driver of the van a slightly lower amount Clovis de Abreu, examining the results of for having obstructed the roadway. Then he an interview survey of twenty people at turned to me. He asked me what a foreigner various bureaucratic levels carried out by a was doing in his town. I told him. He then group of researchers in Rio de Janeiro durasked to see my passport, taking it and ing the early 1980s, came to some very thumbing through the papers one by one. specific conclusions about thejeito, calling "Why had I gone to Mexico?" he asked me, it, in the end, a "recourse to power." Some seeing a visa stamp issued in Merida. "Ven- of that study's conclusions included the ezuela?" "France?" Was I working for the following points: that theleito system arises "U.S. Intelligence Service"? as a response to unbending bureaucracies; I assured him that I was carrying out that jeitinhos occur anywhere people have historical research. "Why are you carrying to deal with hierarchies; that jeitinhos conequipment?" he asked. I showed him my firm the duality of a system that distincamera and lenses, and my notebook. He guishes between haves and have-nots. then grabbed my camera bag and my passJeitos, in the end, say more about the port and stalked out the door. system that rationalizes their value than More than two hours later, well after about the theories spun about them. How midnight, he returned. The van had been far does the system stretch to accommodate fixed and was sitting with its motor running sweet talkers, people who need personal because the driver was impatient to leave. favors or exceptions or exemptions? AnBy then I had visions of being stuck in this thropologist Barbosa asserts that according town or even being put in jail. Then the man to Brazilian popular wisdom, women are returned. With a broad grin, he handed me more effective in obtaining jeitos because my camera case and my passport. On one of their personalities make them better able to the blank visa pages, he had painstakingly twirl people around their fingers. They know entered a "visa" for me to enter his town. It how to charm. They are spontaneous. The was handwritten, with various misspell- need for jeitos, after all, arises unexpectings, and it had a cut-out printed paragraph edly; one cannot plan for them. from what probably was the state Dicirio ' Rationalizing the jeito as a flexible tool Oficial pasted in—a regulation covering to expedite action from an obdurate system one rule or another that did not seem even implies acceptance of the unfair advantages closely pertinent to this case. He then de- given to those who know how to bypass the manded $140 for the "processing fee." At system or to gain speedy treatment, espethis point, my Brazilian host interceded, cially when payoffs are involved. Jeitos pulling him aside in conversation. He then that facilitate the evasion of taxes or reguhustled me and the others out to the van, lations drive up prices (since the price of and we drove off. He told me later that he corruption is passed on to the consumer), had given the man about $2 and told him and hurt workers for whose benefit the that he "should be honored to have a uni- bypassed regulations have been enacted. versity professor passing through his juris- The economist Gunnar Myrdal adds: "Cordiction.' ruption introduces an element of irrationalLivia Barbosa, a Brazilian social an- ity in plan fulfillment by influencing the thropologist, has argued that obtaining jeitos actual course of development in a way that does not depend, at least directly, on ele- is contrary to the plan or, if such influence ments that make up a person's social iden- is foreseen, by limiting the horizon of the tity, such as wealth, status, family name, plan." religion, and color. Someone who does not Rewards of Incumbency hold a privileged position in society is as In Brazil, an underlying thread running capable of obtaining a jeito as someone from colony to republic in various guises who does, as long as he/she knows how to has been the historical aversion to developask, is a good talker, and is pleasant and ing autonomous political participation. Pocharming. This is so only to a certain ex- litical decisions have always been made by tent. Such an assertion ignores the realities the elite- stratum of professional governof Brazilian life and insults the poor, unless ment administrators drawn from the classe what is meant as ajeito in the case of a poor conservadora—the "conservative class." As
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
early as 1885, the abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco complained that complacency had preserved a rotten system by which the state "sucked up all resources and redistributed them to its clients." For generations, politicians regardless of ideology saw themselves as members of a "political class," entitled to obtain patronage and resources for themselves, their families, and their clients. It was never important whether individual members considered themselves "liberal" or "conservative." Such distinctions in Latin America usually referred to views on religion, or on federalism versus centralism; but on most matters, opposing political views simply represented squabbling within the same family. Members of this class were traditionally referred to as the gente decente, "the decent people." They offered little sympathy for the principle of citizens' rights because their privilege shielded them. The system presupposed the wisdom of hierarchy and rationalized its power as a paternalistic duty. Top-level administrators and civil servants rewarded supporters by bestowing favors—special investment incentives for a group of industrialists, for example, or the construction of a road or water storage facility for an important landowner. Business groups received exemptions from import duties. To the growing urban middle class and to the controlled labor unions, the system gave patronage benefits in exchange for acquiescence. The political elite diversified after 1930, extending membership to industrialists, businessmen, and technocrats as well as large agribusiness interests. It expanded again still later to take in representatives of multinational firms, retired career military officers in the private sector, and financiers. Politicians had always taken for granted that holding an appointed or an elected office carried with it the right to generous patronage. With the advent of federalism (and the establishment of states as more autonomous units), opportunities for patronage multiplied. What all these versions shared was a closed, hierarchical, and elitist outlook dominated by insiders jealously guarding their prerogative to profit from their control of power. The political process permitted the ancient regime to survive, even if in new clothing; holders of olitical power, as always, agreed to make 'concessions to new power contenders" only 'f they could hold onto their original privieges and benefits. Weak central institutions early in razil's history led to the development of nformal systems of local rule as well to nformal (and extralegal) forms of enforceent. Conflicting interests and suspicion f a strong central state in deference to ederalist 'demands hampered the developent of a fair formal legal system. Land law nded to promote conflict, not resolution, ecause it set the terms through which usuration of land was legalized. The extraordiary ability of illegal institutions to survive i symbiosis with the political and legal s stem—the logo do bicho, for example, e century-old numbers game intricately t d in with police corruption, protection fi r racketeers, and political spoils—underined efforts to reform the system. For a country with a tradition of politic lstability, Brazil has experienced remarka ly few open and direct elections in its h story. Authoritarianism has had a long a d unshakable tradition. During the transi ion from colony to Empire, in the early
nineteenth century, voting rights were limited to literate adult males from "traditional families" of European background, whose annual income from property or employment exceeded 100 mil reis or about LIO in 1830. During the course of the Empire, these income requirements were made even more stringent, and prospective officeholders had to show even more substantial wealth, although at the same time participation in the voting process became more widespread. In 1846, illiterates were allowed to vote, a concession to the rising power of rural coroneis, who manipulated vote totals and sent mostly fraudulent results to their provincial capitals, contributing, in turn, to rural overrepresentation within most provinces. Voting rights for illiterates, however, were stripped away during later decades, and out of 8 million Brazilians in 1870, only 20,000 held the right to vote. The 1881 Saraiva Law, which implemented direct legislative elections and was supposedly an electoral reform, retained the income requirement for voting, although it expanded suffrage rather than contracting it. There were many reasons for this reluctance to enlarge the power of voters. During the nineteenth century, slavery still flourished in Brazil, and elites kept a cautious eye on free people of color. The Brazilian Empire had been buffeted during 1848 and 1849 by separatist movements in the North and Northeast relatively analogous to the rebellions sweeping Europe from France to Hungary during 1848-51. Mountaineers in the Barousse, in Hautes-Pyrenees, destroyed government registers as well as schoolbooks in a protest against outsiders. Brazil saw efforts to launch a "Confederation of the Equator" in 1848 and a socialist-led insurrection in Recife, the Praieira, in 184849. In all cases, the uprisings were suppressed. They never touched the hearts of the ordinary population, unaware of the larger world. Down to the present century, political power descended from family to family, anchored by powerful clans. The Albuquerques traced their lineage back to Jeronimo de Albuquerque and his brotherin-law Duarte Coelho, first proprietor of Pernambuco. Other powerful clans included the Cavalcantis in the North and the Prados, the Lemes, and the Buenos in the South, who were even more powerful when their dynasties merged, as in the case of the Albuquerque Cavalcantis. Secondary clans, no less powerful, rose to power at the provincial level during the nineteenth century: the Maltas (Alagoas), the Nerys (Amazonas), the Aciolis (Ceara), the Leites (Maranhao), the Lemos (Para), the Rosa e Silvas (Pernambuco), the Garcias (Sergipe), the Pessoas (Paraiba), and so on. Political and economic leadership remained over the long term unusually close, at least down to the eve of World War II. In the Northeast and, especially, in Sao Paulo, political power continued to be concentrated in the hands of owners of vast properties, producing a powerful elite class always looking out for its own interests. One reason for the power of family clans was the lack of alternative sources of power outside the landed oligarchy. Brazil had few effective voluntary associations or political clubs (as France did after the midnineteenth century), and the absence of comprehensive universities delayed the rise of a meritocracy. Access to positions in public life had to be obtained through direct
dealings with the oligarchies and their agents. Newspapers reflected entirely the outlook of their owners, who invariably were prominent citizens with interests to protect. Freemasonry did exist across Brazil, but mostly in ceremonial fashion; unlike European masons, Brazilian masons rarely entertained revolutionary notions or proposals about democracy or fraternity. There is little evidence that Brazilian masons were interested in politics. Auguste Comte's doctrine of positivism was grandly influential in Brazil among power brokers, who used the philosophy as an excuse to hold off democratic reforms and to concentrate on material progress and the importation of foreign ideas. Republicanism, when it was organized in opposition to the monarchy in 1870, always remained a movement for the rich, although republican clubs superficially looked like their European counterparts. Republican proselytism reached virtually no one in the general population, unlike France, where towns and small cities were the centers of the movement and most republicans petty bourgeois or artisans. Nor were Brazilian republicans in favor of democracy. They abhorred the idea of reform, preferring to preserve class distinctions; in Argentina and Chile, in contrast, positivists demanded improved educational resources to elevate the population at large. In the late nineteenth century, citizens who had enough money to buy newspapers could choose from a broad spectrum. In small cities there often were three or four newspapers from which to choose and in larger cities as many as twenty. The leading newspapers campaigned furiously for their political allies, and paid minute attention to the ins and outs of political fortunes. Every time a banquet was held honoring a landowner or a notable civic figure—and banquets were de rigueur in the years before the First World War—newspapers published photographs of the guests sitting down to eat, next to an outline key identifying each person sitting around the table or tables. By looking to see who was seated where and in proximity to whom at the banquet, readers could chart status and shifting political fortunes, just as Kremlinologists in later decades charted the rise and fall of Soviet political influence by analyzing photographs of the order in which officials stood on their balcony reviewing patriotic parades in Red Square. When republicanism surfaced in earnest in 1870, its partisans did not advocate democracy. Rather, they endorsed longstanding notions about the inherent backwardness of the population and tended to ignore social problems in favor of economic development. After the fall of the monarchy in 1889 and the Republic's first elections a half-dozen years later, although income requirements were removed, fewer than 2 percent of the adult population voted in presidential elections. The 1891 Constitution gave the vote to literate males over twenty-one years of age who were employed or possessed certifiable sources of income. Through 1929, the median level of electoral participation remained at 3 percent. Fewer than 5 percent of the adult population voted in the hotly contested 1930 presidential election, when in any case the results were thrown out by the coup which placed in power the bloc that had officially lost the election, blighted by imposing fraud on both sides. From 1872 to 1930, the country's urban population had grown by
more than 450 percent, but the electorate had remained static. The climate had grown more confrontational: some workers, especially stevedores as well as printers .and textile operators, had become organized into unions, but after a wave of strikes in 1919 and 1920 in large cities that were repressed, labor activity dwindled. Even after the fall of the First Republic in 1930, dominated chiefly by rural landed interests, sparsely populated rural areas remained overrepresented, whereas flourishing urban districts were underrepresented. At all levels of government, voting was manipulated; many officially certified results were plainly fraudulent. Getalio Vargas's electoral reforms during the 1930s gave the vote to women and expanded the overall size of the electorate to 1.5 million of the total population of 39 million. However, between 1931 and 1945 the expanded electorate was permitted to participate in national elections only twice: to elect representatives to the Constituent Assembly in 1933 and to vote for one of two generals to replace the ousted Vargas in 1945. Women voted in 1945, but not illiterates or men in military service. The 1945 election saw the Communist Party candidate, Yeddo Fiuza, win 10 percent of the vote and carry the northeastern state of Pernambuco. Luis Carlos Prestes, the Communist leader imprisoned since 1935, was elected to the Senate. Still, the two major postwar political parties, the Social Democrats and the National Democratic Union, each headed by a general, prevailed, and in 1947 President Dutra decreed the Communist Party back into illegality. Under the corporatist Estado Novo from 1937 to 1945, Getulio Vargas decreed hundreds of laws and regulations, extending government protection and benefits to individuals and groups willing to work within the nationalistic framework of controlled, state-sanctioned agencies. One possible reason for the great attraction of Rio de Janeiro as a pole of internal migration was that rural people heard about Vargas's social security system, which was not extended to rural areas. Not only did the federal government make cities a mecca for bureaucrats and employment seekers, but it also instructed Brazilians how to act. Sambas were composed extolling civic virtues as well as punctuality, moral living, and honest work. The Estado Novo's 1942 Consolidation of Brazilian Labor Law maintained the decadeold practice of granting legal status only to unions authorized by the Labor Ministry, which collected an annual membership fee, the equivalent of one day's work per worker, to be used by the unions and their national and regional federations and by the state. These funds could be frozen if regulations were broken. The labor minister could remove union officials at will and close down unions entirely. If more than one group attempted to organize in a given sector, the Labor Ministry could choose one from among them; the others would have to disband or operate as outlaw unions. The Estado Novo forged a multiclass alliance shaped by an emerging populist pact based on acceptance of state corporatism. The 1946 Constitution enhanced the forms if not the substance of democracy. It legalized the right to association and implemented a multiparty system on the national level. This probably was the inevitable result of the shift of the population from a rural to an urban majority, but electoral power remained disproportionately
weighted in favor of rural areas dominated by large landowners and their patrons. By 1945, the electorate had grown to nearly 7.5 million. By 1950, when Getnlio Vargas, ousted by the military as president in 1945, ran and was elected to the presidency, the electorate had reached 11.5 million, about 20 percent of the population, in a system where voting was now obligatory for those who met the qualifications. In 1960, 15.5 million Brazilians voted, about a fourth of the total number of Brazilian citizens. By 1970, 30.6 percent of the population was registered to vote, although by then the military dictatorship rendered voting rights meaningless. The military also suppressed efforts at independent union organization, intervening in unions no fewer than 536 times during the 1970s and the early 1980s. Democracy was being restored nominally, but only under tightly controlled circumstances. A massive metalworkers' strike in the industrial region of Sao Paulo (dubbed the ABC region because it was centered in Santo Andre, Sao Bernardo, and Sao Caetano), was ruled legal by the labor court, but under military pressure the decision Was reversed. More than 200,000 workers struck despite the ruling, and in retaliation the government ordered the union closed and arrested 1,600 union activists, including Lula, the union's president. Strikers returned to work after forty-one days without winning any of their demands. The regime was not ready to make any concessions to challenges to its hegemony. Corruption became more open than ever. City government took on the shape of a topdown pyramid dispensing favors in exchange for votes, other forms of allegiance, and acquiescence. The classic example was Sao Paulo governor Adhemar de Barros, who maintained widespread popularity despite popular cynicism about his personal corruption ("Rouba mas faz," the slogan went: "He steals but he gets things done"), a darker version of Chicago boss Mayor Richard Daley's making sure that garbage was collected regularly and that his constituents always knew whom on his staff to approach for favors. Popular wisdom accepted avarice on the part of office-holders; it seemed simply to go with the system. Some political figures (for one, Getfilio Vargas), led austere lives, profiting little from their offices, but many went to the other extreme, flaunting their illicit gains. At the same time, the growing size of the electorate indicated even more sweeping changes in the lives of Brazilians. In many ways, the turning point came in 1958. Vargas's death had rocked the system and threatened to return it to Old Republic levels of instability, but the inauguration as president in 1958 of Belo Horizonte's Juscelino Kubitschek, a populist politician skilled in cultivating relations with the mass of voting Brazilians, ushered in considerable change built on the foundation of Vargas's record. Kubitschek relied on patronage to buy political support, and counted on his massive public works projects to provide jobs. External factors contributed to make 1958 a fateful year as well. The drought of that year was the worst in decades: when President Kubitschek traveled to the Northeast to survey the calamity— the first sitting chief of state ever to have done so—he publicly cried about what he saw. The same year saw the inauguration of the construction of Brasilia, not only a nationalistic symbol and apork-barrel project of monumental proportions, but the impe-
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
tus for streams of migrants from all parts • f Brazil to flow to the vacant central part • f the country. Brasilia was a new pole •f attraction that rivaled the gold rush to Min Gerais in the eighteenth century. The late 1950s also saw the massiv influx of foreign investment capital, in vited by Kubitschek as part of the rhythm o national development, and the acquisitio by foreign multinational corporations of share of domestic industrial production Reformist Catholic clergy, drawing fro what soon would be called "liberation the ology," began to organize in favor of mas sive redistribution of agricultural land. Sput nik went up in 1958, highlighting Brazil' need to catch up in its scientific and technological capacity. Brazil's internationalization took other forms as well. President Kubitschek' s daughter made her social debut in France, at Versailles. Brazil's first supermarkets opened in 1958, as did the first shopping mall, Iguatemi in Sao Paulo. Cultural patterns changed overnight. Men stopped wearing dour black suits with thin black ties—or, in more traditional places, suits of white linen with black ties—and began wearing fashions imported directly or copied from Italy and France. Teenagers in the 1960s began to wear jeans (Calfas Lee) and sneakers, to go crazy over foreign music and films, and to chew gum. Hollywood always had been influential, but now a more generic, internationalized kind of popular culture soared in popularity, couched in the ambiguity of captivating affluent urban Brazilian youth wholly while at the same time spawning trendy antiAmericanism, attacking the United States for what was derided as its superficial culture and for its imperialist politics and economy. Millions watched the Miss Brazil and Miss Universe contests—before 1958 always lily-white and usually blond in the selection of its contestants chosen to represent Brazil abroad, lest foreigners get the wrong idea, and in later decades almost always white or light-skinned mulata. Television made a major impact in the late 1950s, giving greater power to skillful manipulation by handlers of telegenic candidates and ending the hallowed tradition of the comicio, the public campaign rallies at which it was not only candidates who orated; common people could come up out of the audience and challenge speakers. Carolina Maria de Jesus did this often, and was known to the mayor and the governor of Sao Paulo even before her diary was published. Television and growing reliance on political advertising after 1958 made the comicio obsolete. The abrupt resignation from the presidency of reformist Janio Quadros in 1961 elevated Joao Goulart, his vice president, to office. The getulismo of the 1950s, based on the personal popularity of Vargas, elected president in 1950 after five years of domestic exile, had given rise to two distinct but parallel political movements, the middleclass Social Democrats whose mantle had been assumed by Juscelino Kubitschek, and labor movement trabalhismo, headed by Joao Goulart, one of Vargas's proteges. Under his presidency, labor unionism grew in strength, reaching even the remote interior. The left, consistent with its past record, throughout the 1960s crippled itselfby splitting into warring ideological factions. There were the Maoists, the Stalinists, a socialist Leninist group, and a radical Catholic movement that would ally itself with the Maoists. The official line of the Communist Party
was, in the words of Emir Sader, in Without Fear of Being Happy: Lula, the Workers' Party, and Brazil "formally wedded to Goularesgovernment." The left's tiresome exercise in self-destruction alienated any potential followers among affluent groups except for militant students and academics, and the country slid into military dictatorship after the 1964 coup. Brazilians were just learning how to deal with open elections in a multiparty structure when the door slammed shut. Military rule, especially after the term of Humberto Castelo Branco, who (unlike those who followed him) showed a human face to the generals, hardened. Left-wing militants led by Carlos Marighella, who had quit the Communist Party in disgust, launched guerrilla resistance to the regime, a tactic that resulted not only in its being crushed but in repression for thousands of moderates and liberals not connected in any way to the radical left. Under Chief of State General Emilio Garrastazu Medici, every branch of the armed forces perfected its own kidnapping and torture apparatus. A later military president, the ill-tempered General Joao Figueiredo, admitted that he preferred the smell of horses to the stink of the povo, and an equestrian photograph of him on horseback Jumping over a prone subordinate was distributed widely. A few courageous individuals spoke out against the regime, including Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns of sao Paulo, a soft-spoken Franciscan who went to army bases and prisons and demanded information about prisoners, and Heraclito Sobral Pinto, a civil rights lawyer who defended persons charged with subversion. Most opposition was stifled by the blanket of authoritarian rule. Despite promises for democratization as early as the mid-1970s, the first direct election for the presidency since 1960 did not take place until November 15, 1989. The bleak military years saw dramatic economic growth at the cost of human rights and meaningful civil participation in government, especially between 1969 and 1984. Strikes were suppressed and labor unions kept under surveillance or completely disbanded. Businessmen and industrialists welcomed the government's role and reerred to Brazil's "economic miracle." Oponents called it the triumph of "savage apitalism," the victory of technocrats who ombined countercyclical investment poliies with exchange controls, subsidies, negaive rates of interest, and the deliberate reation of monetary disequilibrium to chieve a forced transition from backwardess to modernity. The results benefited the ealthy and the powerful to the detriment f other Brazilians. Income concentration i creased substantially during the period. After 1985, when civilians readied t emselves to return to power, domestic i terests generally prevailed over military eferences, although the military continu d to exercise decisive influence over gove nmental decision making. During the trans tory period of "decompression, as it was C; lied, during the late 1970s and the early 1 80s, when civilians began to be reinteg ated into political leadership, the old forms o political behavior resurfaced. Despite s me talk on the part of individual high armed forces officers that Brazil should not return to its old political ways, clientelism survived, especially at the local level. This arrangement, by which officeholders and ot ers in power distributed favors in direct ex hange for political support, had domi-
57
nated the political arena from the 1930s through 1964. Clientelism was especially dominant in the rural interior and in slum districts in the cities. The military's seizure of power, however, bent the rules of the game if it did not change them entirely, adapting clientelism to a political arena inhabited by powerful new players, most notably the television screen and, on the political left, the Workers' Party (PT). Lower-class Brazilians, however, rather than flocking to the PT's banners, responded to the advertising blitz and defeated the candidate who spoke for them. More than anything else, the new atmosphere reflected new resistance to the authoritarian regime. Professional middleclass groups raised their voices, as did some members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, especially in Sao Paulo. New neighborhood associations, no longer tools of incumbent machines, began to organize and to join in statewide federations. The PT, which was founded in 1979, was led by intellectuals but emphasized a grassroots membership base. That political style proved very resilient, and it has survived well into the 1990s. Illustrating this is the example of Vila Brasil, a favela an hour's bus ride west of downtown Rio de Janeiro. Vila Brasil, founded in 1946, now was crowded, with many houses gaining new second stories because of lack of space to expand laterally. It was small for a mature favela, with 524 residences housing a total population of about 2,700. Although poverty-stricken, especially at its center, by 1986 it boasted running water, electricity, and paved roads and alleyways. Vila Brasil achieved this, Robert Gay asserts, through successful clientelistic negotiations on the part of the new president and directorate of the dweller association, first elected in 1979. Clientelism, in other words, may leave a bad taste in the mouth for purists, but for Vila Brasil's residents it was a valuable resource, a vehicle through which the favela's needs could be realized. The arrangement worked through the alliance forged between the favela association and a local politician, for whom Vila Brasil's president worked as apolitical organizer (cabo eleitoral). The politician, Jorge Leite, spent most of his time cultivating a "network of personal relationships that [were] sustained through the trafficking of favors and the promise of favors." It paid off in 1982 for both sides, on the occasion of the first election for federal legislators permitted under the military regime. Leite received Vila Brasil's support and in turn saw that the favela's roads and alleyways were paved in the eight days leading up the November 15 elections. Leite also sent lorry loads of sand and cement to assist in the reconstruction of the association building. He won his election with more than 170,000 votes, by far the most voted-for candidate in his party. Not only did he come out ahead, but the association president's own influence increased enormously. He was credited personally for improving the lives of "his" favelados, in ways "that had seemed beyond the realm of possibility before he took office." Because the system had not worked for the favelados in the past, the president's success with it made it seem all the more a case of personal skill and effectiveness. Basking in his suc-
cess, he was quoted as saying that politi- Maluf, and scores of other self-described cians were "all thieves," but that he was "a "outsider" politicians thrived through the much better thief than any of them." They use of alliances bought with patronage and are unconcerned with anything but per- donations. As governor, Maluf personally sonal power, he said; they manipulate the sent ambulances to every municipio in the poor as a source of cheap votes. He ex- state of Sao Paulo, with the implicit mespressed no allegiance to any political party sage that more such plums would come in or group: he simply extracted the best deal exchange for support. Clientelism remained he could for his community. He expressed alive and well despite the political changes absolutely no loyalty to Leite, whom he had that emerged in the 1980s. Vila Brasil's supported off and on for nearly five years. voting-age residents, nearly 60 percent of When Leite decided to run for mayor in whom had not completed the first grade, 1985, he promised Vila Brasil's president put their trust in their association president cash and patronage jobs for his children if to make the best deal. By 1986, he had elected. He lost, however, receiving only become skilled enough to win gifts from 8.6 percent of the vote. The favela's leader- more than one candidate (one sent two sets ship was now open to offers from other of soccer shirts to the favela, although in candidates. In the gubernatorial election of the end he was not supported). Vila Brasil's 1986, Vila Brasil's president, receiving at president, through pragmatism, good negoleast one call a day from candidates seeking tiating skills, and a single-minded determito purchase the community's vote, finally nation to get things for his constituency, made a deal with five of them, telling each emerged as a kind of modern-day coronet, one that the first to help complete the sec- a power broker of sorts lacking any power ond story of the association building would or influence himself except for the value of receive his support. The asking price, how- the votes of his fellow favelados. The truth ever, was too high, and all of the candidates is, however, that he did not win jobs or balked. Vila Brasil finally settled for the schools, and except for the soccer shirts and construction of two bathrooms in the build- bathrooms for its association building, Vila ing. Ten days before the election, the candi- Brasil gained nothing through him but the date showed up with a check for the agreed paved roads that the municipality should amount. He was immediately endorsed as have provided in the first place. For the country as a whole, the slow the "president's candidate" and taken from pace of the restoration of democracy during door to door to greet his new followers. The new practice of favelados using the mid-1980s had brought widespread disvotes as leverage to gain favors was only a illusionment. This was felt most keenly in small part of the system. Favela associa- the 1984 Diretas Jå campaign seeking the tions, in fact, not only had to deal with direct election of the president. Under preselected and appointed officials, but with sure from the military, Congress refused, other latter-day coronets, most notably num- despite overwhelming public support. Popubers bosses and drug dealers (estimated to lar pressure for change then led to the elecnumber 6,500 in Rio de Janeiro alone) us- tion, by indirect vote, of Tancredo Neves, a ing the fave las as sanctuaries or as institu- civilian who had mildly opposed the militional sources of power. Among the broader tary regime. His victory generated even urban population, another category of higher levels of euphoria, but he died on the coroneis, the cartolas, have held command- eve of his inauguration after being stricken ing influence for decades. Cartolas ("top unexpectedly. His death ushered in the ophats," the men who control soccer clubs, portunistic government of Jose Sarney, a federations, and their resources) amassed Maranhao-based hardliner who had firmly tremendous power when professional soc- backed the military government previously. Sarney 's five-year term (1985-1990) cer emerged in the 1930s as Brazil's national passion. Indirectly (or directly) tapped not only dampened the hopes of electors into the patronage system, these men often who had hoped for a sharp break with the commanded empires of fans, benefactors, civilian hardliners who had supported the players, and the media, holding more last- military dictatorship, but saw Sarney, as ing power in local settings than more tran- president, use gross political bartering and payoffs to retain power, as a result cripsitory elected officials. Political alliances continued to operate pling the federal government and fanning through the networking system of the inflationary fires. The 1988 Constitution panelinha. Unlike the United States, where removed the literacy requirement and empolitical ties are usually to a home district powered sixteen-year-olds to vote. More or locality, or to certain interest groups (the than half of the population were now regisdefense industry, or agriculture, or inner tered voters. city residents), connections in Brazil usuRobert M. Levine has chaired the ally follow personal business interests or other private agendas based on friendship Columbia University Seminar on Brazil and is past chair of the Committee on or allegiances with inside people. Orestes Brazilian Studies of the Conference on Quercia, a veteran Sao Paulo politician and Latin America History. He is director later governor, used his claimed lack of of Latin American Studies at the establishmentpane/inha ties to defend himUniversity of Miami, Coral Gables, a self as an outsider discriminated against by corresponding member of the Instituto the "insiders." Geografico e Historic° in Rio de He was implicated in a corruption scanJaneiro, and the co-editor of the Lusodal when he was candidate for governor in Brazilian Review. He has published 16 1986. Quercia, formerly a small-time local books on Latin America. politician, declared, "What is being flung against me," he said, "is prejudice: I'm a Excerpted from Brazilian Legacies by businessman, I come from the interior, and Robert M. Levine, M. E. Sharpe, I'm not connected to the university. Elitism 1997, 212 pp is what is being used against me." Quercia,
BRAZZIL - JANUARY 1998
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Speak Portuguese like a Diplomat!
What sort of people need to learn a foreign language as quickly and effectively as possible? Foreign Service personnel, that's who. Members of the United States diplomatic corps are assigned to embassies abroad, where they must be able to converse fluently in every situation. Now you can learn to speak Brazilian Portuguese just as these diplomatic personnel do—with the Foreign Service Institute's Programmatic Portuguese Course. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent by the United States government in developing this course. It's by far the most effective way to learn Portuguese at your own convenience and at your own pace. The Programmatic Portuguese Course consists of a series of tape cassettes and an accompanying textbook. You simply follow the spoken and written instructions, listening and repeating. By the end of the course, you'll find yourself learning and speaking entirely in Portuguese! This course turns your cassette player into a "teaching machine." With its unique "programmatic" learning method, you set your own pace— testing yourself, correcting errors, reinforcing accurate responses. This Programmatic Course comes in two volumes, each shipped in a handsome library binder. Order either or save 10% by ordering both: O
Basic Portuguese Vol. 1. 16 cassettes (19 hr.), 783-page text, $215.
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Intermediate Portuguese Vol. 2. 18 cassettes (16 hr.), 618-page text, $245. (CT residents add sales tax.)
The Foreign Service Institute's Portuguese course is unconditionally guaranteed. Try it for three weeks. If you're not convinced it's the fastest, easiest, most painless way to learn Portuguese, return it and we'll refund every penny you paid. Order today! Our 56-page Whole World Language Catalog offers courses in 96 languages. Call or write for your free copy. Our 25th year.
To order by phone, please call toll-free 1-800-243-1234 Or fill out coupon below and send to:
auDIcaRum® Suite P706, 96 Broad Street, Guilford, CT 06437 Yes! I want to speak Portuguese like a diplomat. Rush me the course volumes I've checked below. O Vol. I: Basic 0 Vol. II: Intermediate (CT residents add sales tax.) I understand that if I'm not completely satisfied, I may return the course materials within three weeks and receive a full refund. Name Address City
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Method of Payment: • Enclosed is my check or money order, for $ ID Charge to my credit card: 0 VISA 0 MasterCard o AmEx 0 Diners Club 0 Carte Blanche 0 Discover Card
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