I received an e-mail that inflamed my sensibilities the other day. It was from Freddy (pronounced Fred-gee). Fred is a lawyer. He's also a drummer in a band, a pot-smoker and a part-time English-teacher. But the point is that Fred is a lawyer; not just a guy with a law degree, but one on the minority of Brazilians that is nationalistic, with a true love of his country, AND he thinks a lot about national and international policies.
So, anyway, he forwarded me an e-mail that he had received. It contained an example of what was purportedly an American junior-high textbook that described our annexation of the Amazon rainforest. It was accompanied by a note from Fred, saying, "Now do you understand why you saw that anti-American poster at the University of Brasília?" I had seen a poster of an American flag with a red slash across it, and the motto: "Resist".
The "American" textbook was very interesting.
The graphic was a classic American textbook, complete with maps, illustrations etc (see illustration at the end). It described our righteous, North American indignation that the care of the Amazon be left to the "cruel, and primitive peoples of South America." It showed that the Amazon had already been unilaterally annexed by us and other first-world countries.
With this evidence, I could understand exactly why I had seen that poster at the University. Brazilians need someone to blame for their lack of progress and development. They need a "boogie-man" to relieve them from the responsibility of their own complicity in their nation's failures, and they are willing to support their accusations with false evidence.
The example of the textbook was very compelling, except, upon closer examination of the actual text, I noted many errors or formations of strange syntax common to my intermediate and advanced English-language students here in Brazil. It was a complete forgery. Intermediate and lower levels of English speakers may have missed the errors, but to an American English teacher they were glaring.
Of course, I was angered by this disinformation, but it also led me to ponder how we had arrived at this state of affairs. Brazilians are genuinely worried that the U.S. and some "coalition du jour" will come in and seize its territory. Perhaps, it sounds irrational to us well-informed, well-educated, first-worlders. Perhaps.
But there are those of us that remember that the U.S. created a Latin American country from the lands of cruel and primitive peoples, so we would have someplace to put the Panama Canal. When the admittedly criminally ruthless Manuel Noriega stopped playing our game, by our rules, getting "uppity" and all, we sent in a few divisions of troops to arrest him. Do we have jurisdiction in the sovereign territories of other nations? Are we allowed to arrest foreign heads of state, on criminal charges, in their own countries? It's hard to imagine the French or the Germans arresting Richard Nixon for violating international law.
The U.S. helped to create and maintain the state of Israel, its base in the Middle East. Remember South Korea, South Viet Nam and even my home state of Hawaii? All political creations of our illustrious democracy.
Fidel Castro is well-respected throughout much of Latin America, and Brazil is no exception. His country is relatively isolated, its economy insufficient to advance the status of its people, its political system aligned with a defunct and discredited superpower.
Yet, Castro is a heroic icon. Why? Because he alone has been successful in repelling U.S. domination. His tiny island nation took back their lands from U.S. criminal elements and commercial interests, militarily defeating the proxy forces of the U.S. If Americans want to understand what kind of image this portrays to Latin Americans, think of "Rocky" against "Apollo Creed", in the Sylvester Stallone movie.
Since that time, Castro has on various occasions given the political equivalent of "the finger" to the bully-of-the-North, sending his "undesirables" to the states as wretched masses yearning to be free, and by putting the U.S. into a perplexing situation regarding Elian Gonzales.
U.S. international policy is rife with "America knows best" practices and policies. So, to the common Brazilian, it is perfectly plausible that if we see something that would serve our interests, we will take it.
Now imagine if you are part of the Brazilian noble-elite; the 10 percent of the population that exploits its own country, and perpetuates a system that keeps 90 percent of the national wealth in its own hands. Perhaps you want to deflect attention from yourself, by calling attention to "American Imperialism." You point to the crushing burden of interest on loans made by the first-world and the International Monetary Fund. Of course, you neglect to mention that it was the Brazilian elite that were responsible for agreeing to the loans in the first place, or that a very large percentage of that money found its way into their own pockets instead of the development projects they were intended for.
Imagine if you are a political scientist teaching at a Brazilian University, and you are aware that the Brazilian elite are prostituting themselves, and your country to first-world interests. It's a difficult prospect to confront those that could take your job. Perhaps an oblique attack, against those who support the practices of the Brazilian elite is safer. If whores didn't have customers, there wouldn't be any whores.
Imagine if you are a well-educated Brazilian nationalist, who abhors "globalization" and "American cultural imperialism". You call for a boycott of American culture and consumer products although fully aware that, with few exceptions, national products (versus natural resources) are unable to compete in the domestic or international free marketplace. You neglect to mention that your countrymen have a natural preference for styles and products that are consumed all over the globe, not just the U.S. and Europe.
Imagine if you are part of the emerging generation of educated Brasileiros; the first generation in nearly 40 years, that has the ability to freely express its ideas and rancor regarding the status of Brazil.
Your leaders, your teachers, and your inspirational icons are all pointing to the aggressive bully-of-the-North. You aren't completely beguiled. You know that much of your country's problems are because of the inertia of the people. How do you get them motivated to throw off the system that impoverishes them? A little cut-and-paste and voilà! A textbook-example of American oppression.
John Roscoe is a 43 year-old Hawaiian-American living in Brasília. He studied journalism and communications at the University of Hawaii and has written, folksy, feature-stories for small island newspapers, as well as résumés for all of his friends. He currently works as an English teacher and can be contacted at johnthemedic@hotmail
