Deep Thoughts

O Chefao has been absent for awhile, but his absence was indeed eventful. Trust - the Bahia Boys have been busy this past weekend: Long nights spent overindulging in every aspect of Salvador’s night life, finally starting to really get in touch with the local university population here, attending birthday party, after birthday party, after birthday party, and juggling all sorts of new “friendships” - all of which has resulted in a trail of broken hearts (mostly Brazilian) from Pelourinho to Rio Vermelho, back along the coast past Barra and up through Campo Grande. But alas, this post is not about the recent adventures in awkwardness that have defined my social life and that of my compatriots. I haven’t blogged for a couple of days, so I’m going to take it slowly. Instead of dramatic encounters with the opposite sex and the subsequent amorous exchanges (or lack thereof) that have been taking place here in Salvador, I want to explore a much more mundane topic: drug trafficking, urban warfare, and the militarization of the streets that the news may or may not be telling you is going on right now in the sunny tropical paradise that is Brazil.

Fortunately, these phenomena have not yet hit us here in Salvador; although we have had a surprisingly high number of encounters with the military police so far. But, in Rio de Janeiro, home of Ipanema, Copacabana, and supermodels that wear string bikinis to the supermarket, tanks are blockading the streets, and military forces with high caliber weapons have their sites set on the hillside favelas and slums that exist throughout the city. This all began after a government military installation was stormed and looted of arms and weaponry in Rio last week. The assailants are assumed to have fled to the favelas where they are now hiding out…and it is almost universally accepted here that the attack was an inside job. A friend of mine here told me that if the armed forces really want to find the most dangerous assailants, they should blockade the military barracks instead of putting the millions of innocent people that reside in the cities favelas in danger during their aggressive invasions of their communities. The situation here really is crazy, and it is evident here in Salvador as well. A country so physically and culturally blessed is home to problems that legitimately put the solidarity of the state, the central administrative polity, in jeopardy. This instability is worrisome, but also creates an environment where social movement is dynamic and ever present. Unfortunately, drug dealers in the favelas of Rio are not exactly positive social transformers. Please excuse O Chefao while he goes into academic mode. You can take the man away from Harvard…but apparently that academic mentality may never die completely. But if you do have the interest/patience to continue reading…comments, criticism, and your thoughts are definitely welcome and appreciated. Enjoy:

The vast economic inequity and class repression that characterizes Brazil has apparently troubled historically conservative observers. In their study published in 2001, the World Bank warns that "The practice of social exclusion, clearly linked to poverty and to poverty-stricken groups within Brazil, will soon become more of a liability than an asset to the elite. Thanks to globalization, one of the region's main assets, its huge pool of cheap, unskilled labor, is fast becoming a liability." Eerily, it appears that this liability has turned into a fearsome reality in Rio de Janeiro. In September 2002, Comando Vermelho, a drug syndicate based in a local favela, brought the entire city to a halt through threats of violence and intimidation. Their authority, previously limited to the poor hillside communities of the favelas, has now spilled into mainstream Brazilian society, seemingly breaking the rules of firmly regulated geographic class separation and hierarchy. “Spray-painted slogans on the city’s walls left no doubt about the drug traffickers message: days before the shutdown in 2002, the slogan ‘Parallel power’ appeared on two downtown buildings.” Since then, the syndicate has continually used this threat as a means of interrupting life in this city of six million people. Utilizing traditional methods of patronage backed by a monopoly of armed force, Comando Vermelho has created a de facto claim of autonomy in the favela and boldly demonstrates its power by implementing periodic extensions of coercive force and intimidation into the lives of the middle-class and rich residents of Rio de Janeiro.

According to R. Ben Penglase, these new displays of force from the favelas are symbolic of the emergence of a new social landscape where “new forms of power are being constructed, and a new type of war being conducted, at the very moment when there is a deep, region-wide disenchantment with democracy, and when the role of the state as the central economic and political actor is increasingly being called into question.” However, the example here of Comando Vermelho is not proposed as a viable alternative to government rule. To many residents of the favela, accustomed to police brutality and the lack of public services and protection from the government, drug syndicates are simply seen as the lesser of two evils. Though they can create stability in favelas through systems of patronage and reciprocal protection, they enforce rules and regulations in the community to which they do not have to abide. Their authority is based on fear, periodically creates new cycles of violence, and does not lend itself to open dialogue and the development of democratic institutions within the community. However, the emergence of power within the drug-syndicates represents a tangible threat to state authority, and may possibly compel the state into a greater willingness to listen to the demands of social movements based in these impoverished communities. The show of force and coercive tactics of Comando Vermelho may shift the monopoly of power in a way that could potential create new space and opportunity for discursive dialogue between citizens of the favelas and the Brazilian municipal, state, and federal authorities. The potential for increased violence emanating from poor, neglected communities throughout the country, may compel the government to take the demands of poor communities, and the legitimate non-violent social movements they create, more seriously. At the very least, this development signifies a moment in Brazilian history where the current socio-economic status-quo, and the marginalization of the largely non-white under classes appears to be increasingly unacceptable and unsustainable.