Brazzil

A number of events has projected Brazil into the headlines of international news, besides the traditional stories about violence, natural catastrophes or environmental issues. Behind this news-buzz is a deeper sense of the giant Latin American country as having in some elusive but unmistakable way "arrived" as a global player. 

Though journalists, international affairs professionals, travel lovers, and international businessmen are already well aware that Brazil is the country to watch, there are still many gringos who aren't tuned in to Brazil's ascent or don't quite understand the country's importance. This list is for those gringos.

The latest issue of Veja, Brazil's largest circulation weekly news, with a little over 1 million copies, gives us a taste of how politics is made south of the Equator. The conservative magazine often more inclined to preach sermons than reporting the news, tells about Lula's growing anti-media feelings and how the Brazilian president and his team are molding in the president's own image Lula's pick to succeed him, Dilma Rousseff.

The downpour of odd government decisions,  apparently meaningless presidential phrases and so much propaganda perhaps will lead people with common-sense to ask themselves: After all, where are we going? I use the adverb "perhaps" because some are in such a way intoxicated with "the biggest show on earth," of easy money that benefits a few, that I have my doubts.

Nine months after President Barack Obama took office, Washington still lacks two of its key Latin America policy-makers. Obama's nominations for Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, and Ambassador to Brazil, Dr. Thomas Shannon, have been placed on "hold" by Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, over objections to the Obama administration's handling of the coup in Honduras.

The complaint one hears most commonly about Brazil from both Brazilians and outsiders regards the country's bureaucracy and burdensome laws and regulations. At first glance, the statutory burdens appear unnecessary at best, and wasteful at worst. But further review reveals the law's apparent intended purposes, and further scrutiny identifies their unintended consequences.

Recently, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) held a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss the importance of Income-Transfer Policies - initiated in 1995 in Brasília with the Bolsa-Escola and transformed into the Bolsa Família in 2004 - in the reduction of world poverty.

Everybody in Brazil knows that São Paulo state governor José Serra is desperate to become the next President. However, he is playing coy and showing no sense of urgency in gaining the official nomination of his PSDB party. By doing so, he is in danger of losing the big lead he currently enjoys over the likely PT candidate, Dilma Rousseff.

We continued our journey by night in the long helicopter ride from Manaus to Natal. 'Some purpose I have found,' I thought. 'Now I am running for my life, just trying to survive...' I looked over at Luiz and Emilio, who were sleeping, and reflected back to my arrival in Brazil, my first flight, as we bumped along:

Brazilians are always happy. I know this is a broad generalization, yet I'm not the first traveler to marvel at the carefree lifestyle in Brazil. Perhaps, like the inhabitants of some other Latin American countries, Brazilians are more easily satisfied than North Americans because they have lower expectations.

Along with the United States and Argentina, Brazil is now one of the strongest bastions of agribusiness on a global level. The world's tenth largest economy, Brazil is now the nation which suffers the greatest inequality, on a subcontinent which, in its turn, experiences the greatest wealth gap.

President Lula, Governor Sérgio Cabral, Mayor Eduardo Paes and Carlos Nuzman, the president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, have accomplished something historical: They united the will of the Brazilian people and were victorious in bringing the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janeiro.

The other day a Brazilian friend asked me if I had noticed that, within a single generation, forms of conduct described by psychiatry as neurotic or even psychotic have become accepted as normal. Not just normal - I responded - but normative, laudable, and obligatory. The next steps are: (a) marginalize and criminalize every reaction of revulsion, (b) make revulsion psychologically impossible, expelling it from the repertoire of conduct admitted by society.

Although there are different evaluations of how much impact the newly House-approved Statute of Racial Equality will have on the reality of racism in Brazil, the majority of black movements in Brazil claim the statute as a victory, at least symbolic in nature.

The recently signed agreements between Brazil and France are about much more than the purchase of armaments. They indicate the creation of a military industrial complex, a goal which forms part of the National Defense Strategy of Brazil. This new industrial superpower, owner of the seventh largest oil reserves of the world and the world's largest area of natural biodiversity in the Amazon, is now seeking to protect its riches and assert itself as a new military power.

Simon Bolivar was not the first to dream of a united Latin America, and he certainly has not been the last. Integration has been on the agenda of many Latin American leaders, and of today's most visible presidents, Lula da Silva of Brazil and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela have pursued their distinct versions of it for regional integration. 

Last Monday, I was very happy to learn that the IOC had awarded Rio de Janeiro the right to host the Olympic games in 2016.  When I first heard the news, I just thought that it was about time. After all, several South American cities had submitted proposals over the years (including Rio, which I believe had tried at least a couple of times before) only to be rejected in favor of North American or European  towns.

In the span of a few days two events occurred that reveal that in small Latin American countries that were previously subordinate to Washington, the ex-superpower no longer controls their decades-old allies. The recent episodes in Paraguay and Honduras reveal that the empire's withdrawal from its own backyard is accelerating in the present systemic crisis.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the great Gods of International Sport have deemed Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, worthy of its finest competition: the 2016 Summer Olympics. I want to be excited about this; even the most cynical of persons will sprout a few goosebumps while watching jubilant crowds roar for their city's "victory". But when the crowds part, the beach is emptied, the police go back to their posts, the robbers and slum-dwellers return and the politicians down the last few gulps of congratulatory champagne...what then?

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is becoming an international superstar. He turned up in Copenhagen on October 2 and oversaw Rio de Janeiro's victory in hosting the 2016 Olympic Games. To mark the occasion, he pulled out a huge handkerchief and blubbered like a baby, something it is impossible to imagine any other world leader doing.