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 The recent killings
of homeless people in São Paulo led to
politically correct indignation and a demonstration organized by
the Catholic Church and the Workers Party. This protest showed
the nauseating sight of Mayor Marta Suplicy helping to carry a cross,
trying to compare the sufferings of the homeless with those of Jesus.
By John
Fitzpatrick
The Brazilian media has devoted a lot of space recently to the killings of
homeless beggars in the old center of São Paulo. There are thousands
of these people in the city and many of them congregate in the downtown area
around the Praça da Sé and Anhangabaú regions.
Most Paulistanos
could not give a damn since the down and outs are generally filthy, smelly,
uncouth and, at times, menacing. I once made the mistake of walking under
the Viaduto do Chá when about 20 of them were hanging around.
They were nearly all male
alcoholics and I found myself being pursued and harassed virtually up to the
Banespa building in Avenida São João. No-one has any sympathy
for this type of homeless person and there are some people who would be glad
to get rid of them in any way possible, even if it meant killing them.
There are, of course,
more sympathetic cases, such as the women you often see who have been abandoned
by their worthless male partners and left to cope with hordes of children.
There are also old people, the mentally ill and hundreds of homeless children.
The killings led to politically
correct indignation and a demonstration organized by the Catholic Church and
the Workers Party (PT). This protest presented us with the nauseating sight
of Mayor Marta Suplicy helping to carry a cross which presumably was meant
to compare the sufferings of the homeless with those of Jesus.
This antic was particularly
distasteful since Marta comes from a wealthy background and is as much a socialite
as a socialist. Although she is personally responsible for running the city,
she tried to pin the blame on the PSDB state governor, Geraldo Alckmin, since
the state is, in theory, in charge of security.
Who Did It?
Conspiracy theories also
abounded as to the identities and motives of the killer or killers. Take your
pick from the following list: a mentally unbalanced serial killer, a motorbike
gang, a two-man team, one black and one white, operating by car and motor
bike, a gang of skinhead racists although how anyone can be a racist in a
country where more than half the population is of mixed race or black is beyond
me, policemen or professional killers hired by shopkeepers etc. Naturally
the foreign press picked the story up and Brazil's reputation abroad was tarnished
once more.
It will come as no surprise
to anyone familiar with the Brazilian police to learn that no-one has been
arrested in connection with these killings. The police say they are investigating
and they have questioned a number of suspects but to no avail.
The story is already fading
and giving way to another horror story involving a serial killer who has been
hiring taxis in Minas Gerais to drive him to São Paulo. Along the way
he has murdered the drivers and stolen their vehicle.
In one case, the police
failed to identify the body and the driver was buried in a common grave alongside
the unclaimed bodies of beggars and the homeless. The toll so far is six and
the killer is still on the loose. It's always the killing time in Brazil.
X-rated Mayors
Municipal elections will
be held across Brazil in October and the campaign is in full swing. In big
cities like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte the race is
being seen as a kind of opinion poll on the government of President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva.
People in São Paulo
can choose their next mayor from a list of qualified people with hands-on
experience such as the incumbent, Marta Suplicy, former presidential candidate,
José Serra, former mayor, Luiza Erundinha, and former mayor and state
governor, Paulo Maluf.
Whether you like or loathe
them you must admit that they are credible candidates. However, in some smaller
places in more remote regions, voters do not have the same choice in terms
of quality.
Readers in Europe or North
America may not believe this, but in many parts of Brazil people who are barely
literate are standing for positions which will give them power to run municipalities
and distribute the financial resources.
Thousands of would-be
candidates have taken literacy tests and many have failed. Even those who
have passed have levels f literacy which would not be accepted in a more developed
country.
It may seem unfair to
prevent people who are illiterate, through no fault of their own, from standing
for office but how can someone who can barely read or write understand what
he is "reading" or documents he is "signing"? The X should
be for the ballot paper not the mayor's signature.
Another survey, just released
by the TSE electoral supervisory body shows that of the 377,000 candidates
standing as mayors and local counselors, 30% have the basic grade of education,
27% have medium grade and only around 16% have college grade.
If people were to be prevented
from standing for office because of their lack of education then Lula would
not be our current President. No-one would want this but, at the same time,
this low level of education and the worrying levels of semi-literate candidates
shows that Brazil has a long way to go before becoming a developed democracy.
Elis Lives
To happier matters. Brazilian
music has a rising new star called Maria Rita who is the daughter of Elis
Regina, the singer who died in 1982 when she was in her late 30s. Maria Rita
looks and sounds like her mother and has won many fans among people who recall
Elis Regina as well as the younger generation.
Her debut CD has been
a great success and I would recommend it to readers. On top of this, she has
just won a Latin Grammy award as an up-and-coming new artist and for the best
CD of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira—Brazilian Popular Music).
(By the way Milton Nascimento won the prize for the best Brazilian song, with
"A Festa.")
It's still a little too
early to say whether Maria Rita will go on to establish herself. Although
I like her style, I feel her repertoire is a bit repetitive and rather old-fashioned.
A friend of mine who is
a fanatical admirer of Elis Regina told me she was impressed but wondered
if the daughter had the staying power. Let's hope so because we need a new
voice to follow Gal Costa and Marisa Montes.
John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish journalist who first visited Brazil in 1987
and has lived in São Paulo since 1995. He writes on politics and
finance and runs his own company, Celtic Comunicações—www.celt.com.br—which
specializes in editorial and translation services for Brazilian and foreign
clients. You can reach him at jf@celt.com.br.
© John
Fitzpatrick 2004
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The United States gets more coverage than the rest of the world combined for gun violence for example, many, many times over. Yet Brazil (like many Latin American nations) has levels of firearm violence that positively dwarf those found in the USA. South Africa is one of the better reported countries outside of the richest nations and has a higher murder rate than Brazil, yet it's also a much smaller country and the worst parts of Brazil have higher murder rates.