Brazilian Society from a civil perspective.
Brazil march 2016. Brazil is currently experiencing the deepest recession in 25 years. According to the Economist, the public debt, is nearly twice that of Greece (to make it more relatable for the Europeans). With a total dysfunctional government it is not clear what will take Brazil out of this. The past 7 days has been shaking the country to its core - about a week ago the country had it's largest anti-government protest ever seen. As it is right now I personally have no idea of what is going to happen in the nearest future. The situation is extremely complex and I'm worried for the upcoming Olympics and for the Brazilian population. In line with the massive social problems that Brazil is facing, Lúcio and I talked about similar topics from a more civil perspective.. How are he and fellow Brazilians experiencing their country's current situation, and what is his personal experience with official institutions.
A: What is happening in Brazil atm from your perspective. It's hard for us foreigners to fully understand.
L: Okay, so a brush up from my point of view: Our government closes the public schools to open prisons instead. Our government steals money from the alimentation in the schools, doesn't pay the professors for teaching so they don't show up, leaves us without water and electricity AND uses the TV to deceive the population with no education that believes any lie told in the media. The Brazilian police force is the one that kills the most in the world, and the police are being sued to shut our mouths. They kill people who try to inform or transform the country, and also kill people from social movements who attempt to provide services that should be guaranteed by the state. Land speculation creates new slums and the same persons doing that is the ones that also pay the police to set fire to the shacks to clean up the areas to increase the value of other properties for sale around the area. Every day we are trying to resist this scenario in our trenches. It is at a stage where we live in an undeclared civil war, and a dictatorship of economic power. As many probably have heard up until and during the World Cup residents where expelled and homes where destroyed to make the most attractive scenario for visitors. Very little was done to help the population. Not to forget the killing of the Indians to expand lands of farmers and politicians, the poor peasants seeking land to plant and produce are also killed and persecuted, while the landowners are forgiven their debts and keeping thousands of hectares unproductive, which leads to starvation and locking the country's economy. I could easily continue...
A: Have you ever had to use your ability to talk to make up for peoples preconceptions of you?
L: When you grow up in risky areas in Brazil, you just have to develop some kind of survival skills. I try to use the language as the first option, especially in relation to the Brazilian military police. Many foreigners probably don't know about this kind of force, but simply put, it's a very violent official institution with one purpose: to kill. One time at a protest for some political cause, they tried to arrest me for disrespecting them. I'm sure that the reason for that was the fact that I look like the stereotype of a criminal and also that I was protesting. Nothing but that. And this is just an example of how an official institution is corrupted and you can hardly trust anyone nowadays in Brazil. I had to unfold myself verbally by dropping all these ethical and solid arguments related to official laws, just to make them understand that I'm capable of legitimizing my actions and it would cause them a headache to arrest me. Because they simply had no reason or arguments of doing so. It's sad it has to be this way. This is just one out of many times where I had to give a speech like a politician not to be abused because of prejudice. It can be seen like a war, where the discourse and the ideas are your the weapons. If you don't master your vocabulary they will constantly humiliate or abuse you. People often look at me with fear or with a certain stigma because of the tattoos, but I'm a calm person most of the time. I usually act as the mediator in conflicts in my social circle.
if you don't master your vocabulary they
will constantly humiliate or abuse you