Brazil's Dance With the Devil : Fight for Democracy (9781608464333) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Map of Brazil

  Acknowledgments

  List of Abbreviations

  Introduction - Finding Michael Jackson in Rio Brazil Is Not for Beginners

  Chapter 1 - Brazil: “A Country for Everyone” Danger: Stampeding White Elephants

  Priorities

  The Museum of the Slaves

  The Maracanã and the Death of Crowds

  Environment

  Security

  Chapter 2 - “There Is No Sin Below the Equator” Slavery in Brazil

  The Beginning of the “Mosaic”

  Rumblings of Independence

  Brazil as a Free State

  The Time of Vargas and the Military Dictat

  Goodbye to All That: The End of the Dictat

  Chapter 3 - Oh, Lula! Lula’s Rise

  Negotiating Neoliberalism: Lula’s Foreign Policy

  Lula’s Domestic Policy: Image and Reality

  A Political Root Canal

  The Election of Dilma

  Chapter 4 - Futebol: The Journey from Daring to Fear Soccer Comes to Brazil’s Shores

  Garrincha and Pelé

  The Cold Cool of Pelé

  The Unity of Garrincha and Pelé

  The Wisdom of Sócrates

  Women and Soccer in Brazil

  The Neoliberal Game

  Chapter 5 - Killing Santa In the Beginning

  Nazism, the Olympics, and the Birth of Hypernationalism

  Don Juan Antonio

  FIFA and the World Cup

  Chapter 6 - Neoliberal Trojan Horses and Sporting Shock Doctrines Greece 2004

  Beijing 2008

  Vancouver 2010

  South Africa 2010

  London 2012

  Sochi 2014

  Qatar 2022

  Chapter 7 - Target Favelas The Scramble for Rio

  Struggling Against Eviction in Vila Autódr

  The Port, Providência, and Maurício Hora

  Conclusion - “FIFA-Quality Schools” The Resistance

  The Real President

  The Nobodies

  Notes

  About the Author

  Praise for Brazil’s Dance with the Devil

  “People think speaking truth to power is easy, but if it was easy everyone would do it. This book does it. . . . It speaks truth to the powers that be, from Brazil to the US to FIFA to the IOC. It hits you like an uppercut that rattles your brain and sets it straight. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.”

  —John Carlos, 1968 Olympic medalist

  “Dave Zirin has long stood on the edge of the sports writing world, exploding topics many of his colleagues are scared to approach. With Brazil’s Dance with the Devil, he puts to bed any notion that the IOC and FIFA have the best interests of their host countries at heart. Brazil is a special country and Dave Zirin honors its people and history while mercilessly going after those who would undermine its people. This book is a remarkable mix of investigative sports journalism and insightful social history.”

  —Glenn Greenwald, author of No Place to Hide

  “In a sports journalism landscape where it sometimes seems there are only those who fawn and those who pander, where curiosity about the world at large is in short supply, Zirin is an altogether different kind of presence. He does care, until it hurts, and consistently delivers unique takes on the nexus of sports and race, globalization, politics, and human rights. In Brazil’s Dance with the Devil, Zirin’s at his best, on familiar and fertile ground. Like so much of his work, it’s incisive, heartbreaking, important, and even funny.”

  —Jeremy Schaap, ESPN, author of New York Times bestseller Cinderella Man

  “For years, FIFA and the Brazilian government have failed to understand the complexity of the Brazilian populace, that it’s possible both to love soccer and to be outraged over the organization of the World Cup at the expense of the people. Dave Zirin, one of our great chroniclers of sports and society, spent time on the ground in Brazil interviewing those most affected by the Brazilian World Cup and Olympics, and he comes away with the truth of it all: that the brutal expense of these mega-events isn’t worth the investment of so much public money and historical memory. Everyone who watches the World Cup should read this book.”

  —Grant Wahl, senior writer, Sports Illustrated

  “A vision from abroad about our Brazil from inside. It’s a vision at once critical, smart, truthful, and free of prejudices, and does not spare any criticisms of his own country, the United States. Additionally, it’s a generous vision that uplifts the great Brazilian people. Enthusiastically recommended!”

  —Juca Kfouri, columnist, UOL Esporte, Brazil

  “Dave Zirin offers a great, fast-paced primer for those who want to get up to speed with what is happening on the ground in Brazil as it prepares for the World Cup and Olympics. Zirin brings the reader through years of history in order to contextualize the tumult on the streets during the 2013 Confederations Cup and offers perspective on what the world can expect during the World Cup and Olympics. Brazil’s Dance with the Devil gives insight into the linkages between corruption, massive public spending, and the folly of mega-event planning in a country with huge wealth inequalities and major infrastructure challenges. Zirin has done his homework and fieldwork, consulting the classics and experts to bring together a fast-paced, focused read for an international audience.”

  —Juliana Barbassa, former Rio de Janeiro correspondent, Associated Press

  “Dave Zirin fans, of which I count myself as one, will relish his new book, Brazil’s Dance with the Devil. With his unique sports-politics lens and artful storytelling, this book focuses on Rio’s upcoming World Cup and Olympics. Readers will never again allow their love of sports to blind them to the repurposed political ends of big international sporting events.”

  —Nancy Hogshead-Makar, civil rights attorney, senior director of advocacy at Women’s Sports Foundation, and Olympic gold medalist

  “Dave Zirin does it again. In the way only he knows, he takes the political and makes it extremely personal and inserts us all into the heart of soccer in Brazil. You don’t have to have ever watched a soccer match to be caught up in this epic story. Sports needs Dave Zirin more than it even knows—although after this book he probably won’t be invited to carry the Olympic torch anytime soon.”

  —W. Kamau Bell, comedian

  “Like everything Dave Zirin writes, this book is impassioned, deeply informed, and very readable. It’s also a necessary book, because Brazil is a poorly understood country entering a crucial period. Zirin backs up his opinions with good, honest reporting. Brazil has a good friend in him.”

  —Simon Kuper, author of Soccernomics

  © 2014 Dave Zirin

  First published in 2014 by

  Haymarket Books

  P.O. Box 180165

  Chicago, IL 60618

  773-583-7884

  www.haymarketbooks.org

  [email protected]

  ISBN: 978-1-60846-433-3

  Trade distribution:

  In the US, Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, www.cbsd.com

  In Canada, Publishers Group Canada, www.pgcbooks.ca

  In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-uk.com

  In Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, www.palgravemacmillan.com.au

  All other countries, Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com

  Cover design by Ragina Johnson. Cover photo of graffiti depicting Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho in Vila Autódromo slum in Rio de Janeiro by Ricardo Moraes, Reuter
s.

  This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation and Wallace Action Fund.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  To Michele, Sasha, and Jacob. You are all changemakers.

  And to the people of Brazil fighting for their future.

  "Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.”

  —Sócrates, Captain, 1982 Brazilian World Cup team

  Acknowledgments

  There is no way I would have been able to write this book without my research partner, Zach Zill. Zach traveled with me all the way to Rio and stuck with me back in the States even when I was ready to bury my laptop somewhere in my skull. He will write books, I hope soon, that will tear down walls.

  This book could also never have gone to press without my editor Sarah Grey. She is the Pelé of book editing, or maybe Pelé is the Sarah Grey of soccer players.

  Also this book could not have happened without the incredible support of the people at Haymarket Books. I wish every single aspiring writer had the privilege to write for a press that is as supportive, creative, and dynamic as Haymarket. Thank you, Rachel Cohen, Eric Kerl, Ðào X. Trãn, Jason Farbman, Julie Fain, Jim Plank, Rory Fanning, John ­McDonald, Jon Kurinsky, Bill Roberts, Ahmed Shawki, and Anthony Arnove at Haymarket Books, and the whole team at Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. And, in particular, thank you to Rory Fanning, who has believed in this book even in advance of actually reading it.

  Thank you, especially, to everyone at the Nation magazine for their unflinching support as I shirked my duties as sports editor to travel, report, and write this text. Also big thanks to everyone at the Progressive, SLAM magazine, and Sirius XM Radio, especially Dan Baker, Mark Barry, and the Coach, Kevin McNutt, for their patience. Thank you to the people at the New Press as well. My book Game Over, published by the New Press, also includes some of my eyewitness reporting from past World Cups and Olympics and I am grateful to be able to use that same work in this text. Thank you especially to the late André Schiffrin, who founded the New Press and who passed away in December of 2013.

  Thank you to Emily White and Keri Smith Esguia at Whitesmith Entertainment—and W. Kamau Bell for the introduction—for believing in this kind of work!

  I also could not have written this without the assistance of the people in Brazil who showed me around and showed me the way. Thank you to Theresa Williamson, Catherine Osborn, and everybody at Catalytic Communities. Thank you, Christopher Gaffney. Thank you, Professor Marcos Alvito, for being the most quotable interview in the history of interviews. And thank you, Kay Alvito, for being such a wonderful host. My next-to-last thank-you goes, without question, to all the people in Brazil who showed me such incredible kindness. To every person who stopped to speak with me during an extremely tumultuous time in your country, thank you so much. This book is, of course, dedicated to you and your struggle for social and economic justice. I am so grateful that I was able to see and learn for myself that your country is so much more than a brand for export. You possess an invaluable tradition, culture, and history worth treasuring and worth fighting for.

  Lastly, thank you to Michele, Sasha, and Jacob. Love you.

  List of Abbreviations

  AMPAVA Association of Residents, Fishermen, and Friends of Vila Autódromo

  ANC African National Congress

  AOC American Olympic Committee

  CBF Brazilian Football Confederation

  CUT United Workers’ Federation (Central Única dos Trabalhadores)

  FIFA Fédération Internationale de Football Association

  FTAA Free Trade Agreement of the Americas

  GDP Gross domestic product

  ICC Indigenous Cultural Center

  IMF International Monetary Fund

  IOC International Olympic Committee

  LGBTQ Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer

  MST Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra)

  PSOL Socialism and Freedom Party (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade)

  PT Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores)

  SUDERJ Superintendent of Sports of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Superintendência de Desportos do Estado do Rio de Janeiro)

  UN United Nations

  Introduction

  Finding Michael Jackson in Rio

  Tell me what has become of my rights

  Am I invisible because you ignore me?

  All I wanna say is that

  They don’t really care about us

  —Michael Jackson

  On my first day in Rio de Janeiro, my research assistant Zachary Zill and I were jet-lagged out of our minds and had no clue what to do, so we decided to look for Michael Jackson. Not the man himself, who had passed away the previous year, but a statue of him that we had heard was located high up in Santa Marta, one of the famed favelas, or informal working-class communities, that are rooted throughout the city. Finding this particular Michael Jackson statue seemed worth the effort. In March 1995, the King of Pop released his ninth studio album, HIStory: Past, Present, and Future, Book I. It is remembered today mostly for the song “Scream,” which brought Michael and his sister Janet together, or the queasy video for “You Are Not Alone,” a song penned by R. Kelly, in which Michael disrobed with Lisa Marie Presley for a series of uncomfortable cuddles. Lost in the collective memory is HIStory’s searing protest song, “They Don’t Care about Us.” It has a stark immediacy as Jackson sings in a sharp staccato voice about protest, prisons, and state-sanctioned violence with a global vision and awareness. In Jackson’s own words, it was “a public awareness song . . . a protest kind of song.”1

  What does this have to do with Rio? In 1996, Jackson, along with the video’s director, Spike Lee, wanted to film in Santa Marta, a favela or “slum.” This caused agitation in Brazil’s corridors of power for multiple reasons. There was fear that by highlighting the favelas, Jackson would spread an image of Rio defined by crime and poverty. Then there was the even greater fear that, short of a military occupation, there would be no conceivable way to guarantee the safety of Jackson, Lee, and their crew in Santa Marta. In other words, government officials did not want the city to look unsafe, but they also didn’t want people to “get the right idea” (so to speak) about its actual conditions.

  It is true that at the time, by almost every metric, Rio was one of the least safe cities on earth. Brazil’s government was also desperate to project Rio as a global megacity suitable for hosting high-profile international events. For decades, instead of fighting the poverty and inequality that give rise to crime, Rio cracked down on the urban poor using elite police squads. The primary contact residents of the city’s favelas had with public authorities was by way of the police, particularly through violent police incursions where innocents were routinely killed and tortured and lives were constantly interrupted by stray bullets, shutting down schools and rendering homes unsellable. This led to the third anxiety related to Michael Jackson’s visit: that his very presence would shed light on this “cleaning out” of the favelas, ironically—or perhaps intentionally—one of the themes of the song.

  In 1996, Rio was making a serious bid to host the 2004 Olympics. Local authorities saw Michael Jackson’s presence as the turd in the proverbial punchbowl. The Brazilian state leapt into action: a judge issued an injunction to stop the filming. Soccer star Pelé, then minister of sports, even weighed in, saying that the video shoot should not go ahead as planned. International news footage of Jackson wearing a surgical mask (because of his anxiety over a conjunctivitis outbreak in Rio) did not exactly help ease concerns about his effect on the city’s image.2 While the government tried to move every lever to keep Jackson from filming, residents of Santa Marta had the opposite reaction. They welcomed Jackson both for his stardom and for the possibility of improving their lives through the publicity his video would generate. As one woman quoted in the New York Times said, “They’re ashamed of the condit
ions here, and they’ll have to do something.”3 A Santa Marta samba instructor described the favela as “a poor world surrounded by a rich world, an island of misery surrounded by wealth.”4

  Jackson and Lee did film their video and, for all of the drama, Santa Marta is on screen for just a few fleeting moments, with Jackson scampering up the steep and narrow favela steps as if he is fleeing from an attacker. But it does not look like an exposé of the poverty in Santa Marta. In the context of the video, it appears more as if Jackson is fleeing to safety and searching for refuge amid the favela’s poverty and community, and away from the injustice and “fame monsters” attempting to swallow him and his sanity whole. It is favela as oasis from the jarring indignities of his utterly unreal reality. In 1996, that would have been quite the unusual take; one would not have been wrong to accuse Jackson of romanticizing the poverty of a favela that no one would confuse with Neverland Ranch. Today it feels more like prophecy. Today developers are indeed chasing people up the favela steps in Rio’s elite Zona Sul (South Zone) in an effort to get their hands on what has become incalculably valuable real estate. Today the favelas are for many an escape from a city and a country where public space is dwindling, people are getting removed from their homes, and the poor are being marginalized in an effort to turn Rio into the megacity of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) dreams.

  We will get to all of this, but back to the King of Pop. Zach and I wanted to see the statue commemorating the moment when Michael Jackson and Spike Lee negotiated with both the Brazilian state and the local drug kingpins and ventured into the favela. We took the bus to Santa Marta in the neighborhood of Botafogo in the Zona Sul, just north of Copacabana and just east of the famous hundred-foot statue of Christ the Redeemer, and arrived at Santa Marta, home of thousands of residents—population estimates vary, anywhere from eight to thirty-five thousand—whose houses cling to one of the steepest hillsides in the city.