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2007 -
February 2007
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Written by Mister Trend
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Saturday, 10 February 2007 19:47 |
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Rather gruesome news from Rio. In one of the poorer parts of the city, an 18-year-old kid and his 17-year-old friend carjacked a lady in the suburbs. She tried to get her 6-year-old son out of the back seat, but he got tangled in the seatbelt. The 18-year-old proceeded to start the car and gunned it, dragging the 6-year old for 4 miles and killing him, presumably by decapitation (the head was found in a separate location than his body).
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The Brazilians I work with (and who are naturally shocked by this crime, as is every sane person) expect the state to do "something", not realizing that:
1) they, the people, are really the state. Thus "do not ask what your country can do for you, but ...". The level of activism is very low here, as if people have been subjugated somehow, silenced, deafened.
2) the state here is actually non-existent, in the sense understood in the West, as of not being an entity capable to guarantee services which are taken for granted in other countries (security, infrastructure, ... etc).
What's worse, the situation is getting worse, not better. I think that this superficial economic "growth" and "improvement of living standard" (as Lula likes to brag about) is actually hiding the real truth: the conditions of Brazilian society are rotting from within.