Brazil’s national team, the Pentacampeões, are five-time football champions and yet the people of Brazil are less than happy to see them competing in the World Cup on their homeland soil. Instead, they have taken to boycotting the team and the World Cup. In Sao Paulo alone, the country’s largest city, nine different protests took place in a single day. As early as June 2013, a million protestors took to the street in at least 80 cities across the country.
The main reason for their outrage is the $11 billion cost incurred by the World Cup, money which could otherwise be used to fund funding schools, housing, health care, transportation and other social and urban development projects. The bulk of this state funding, of which 42% was deducted from public resources and the rest from the private sector, has gone into the construction of the Itaquerao football stadium in São Paulo, which stays unfinished a week before the Cup begins, with the bleachers and roof still not fully functional.
The Maracana Stadium in Rio
Brazil has an illiteracy rate that reaches 21% and averages 10% and ranks 85 in the HDI. 13 million people are underfed every day. According to a survey by the Pew Research Centre, 72% of Brazilians are dissatisfied with their country and 60% believe that the World Cup would have a negative impact.
Another major criticism has been the displacement of Brazilians from their homes due to the construction of infrastructure. The bulk of protestors include state workers, indigenous groups, slum dwellers, the homeless and the gang Black Boc, consisting of radical lower-middle-class youth. The government has reportedly forced 250,000 families from their homes in cities across Brazil, mostly in low income housing areas and favelas near sport stadium zones. The evicted usually struggle to find new homes, are moved to undesirable housing alternatives, and do not receive proper compensation by the state.
Protestors in Rio with a sign reading ‘If the fare doesn’t drop, Rio is going to stop’
Another cause of the June 2013 protests was an increase in public transportation fares. Although the Sao Paulo and Rio authorities eventually reduced transit fares, the Pew Research Centre survey still reports that 76% of the population still disapproves of Brazil’s transportation services, especially pertaining to the failure to implement transportation improvement projects. Bus and truck drivers also protested against reduced pay and increased state fines outside authorised parking areas. Britain’s federal police also demonstrated and were more successful, with 250,000 police officers receiving a deal for a 15.8% salary increase starting in July.
A favela in Porte Alegre
This kind of instability does not bode well for a country hosting the World Cup, as it would not only endanger countless foreign tourists, but also cripple Brazil’s image in the public eye. The government has been trying to reshape the situation in Brazil for this very reason since 2008, through a ‘pacification’ programme, posting up to 9000 police officers within the slums or ‘favelas’ to contain gang activity. However, this has only highlighted many of the problems plaguing the major cities of Brazil, such as drug rings – the favela of Jacarezinho is popularly known as ‘cracolandia’ or crackland and Brazil is the number one consumer of crack in the world. Also notable is the sex tourism industry, particularly underage prostitution – with 250,000 children being sexually abused each year – and a pressing concern is that the presence of tourists as potential clients would only feed this industry. With an increase in police raids and evictions, police brutality has also become predominant, endangering civilians during clashes with criminals as well as through the use of force, including tear gas, on dissenters and peaceful protesters alike. Amnesty International estimates that Brazil’s security forces kill about 2000 citizens each year. In this way, one can say that the World Cup does not so much create problems in Brazil as much as it brings pre-existing problems to light.
Police suppress protests
However, opponents of the boycott argue that the World Cup would provide a long-term economic benefit to Brazil, through development, the creation of jobs and a boost in tourism. A study made for the Ministry of Sport calculated that the World Cup will generate R$ 183 billion for the country over the next decade, and Ernst & Young estimated that it would generate R$ 143 billion. But even if this is not an over-estimation, the expected economic return may be undermined due to urban shutdowns, accidents and, ironically, the strikes themselves. Furthermore, there is undoubtedly a sense of international prestige and nationalistic pride that comes with hosting the World Cup, but is this worth the economic downsides and human rights violations that come with it?
The Brazilian government – undoubtedly pressured by the upcoming 2014 Brazilian elections, that will take place three months after the Cup – issued a statement that the World Cup would motivate a drive for change within the country. “What country needs an incentive to take care of its people?” asks Carla Dauden in her video ‘No, I’m not going to the World Cup’. But to take a positive spin on the issue, Brazil could use the media and tourist attention to highlight the problems in the country – though this would no doubt create bad publicity for the government, it would also increase awareness and thus incentive for aid. Furthermore, it is the reactions of Brazilians to the Cup that have created a sense of national harmonised sentiment and awareness. Dauden’s video has gone viral, becoming the voice of the protest, and artists have showcased their work on the streets of the cities. One of these such graffiti artists, Pao, told the Guardian:
‘It’s a good way to expose the country’s problems. If the government doesn’t want to expose these things it’s because they feel ashamed. If they feel ashamed by this they might take it more seriously – at least, that’s our intention.’
One of the popular slogans used by protestors translates to: ‘World Cup for Who?’ which captures the Brazilian sentiment that the event taking place is more for foreign tourists than for natives, or rather that it prioritises the former over the latter. It raises the larger questioning, pertaining to all sporting or indeed cultural events such as the Olympics – who benefits from them? In 2003, the 450 residents of Clays Lane housing estate were evicted from their homes by the London Development Agency to clear a space for the site of the London Olympics in 2012. They were relocated into more expensive accommodation, forced to leave their jobs, and the Community-Based Housing Association was always late or inconsistent with the compensation they were supposed to receive. Russian oligarchs invested billions in the Sochi Winter Olympics and reaped most of the benefits. After the 2010 Olympics in South Africa, the country recouped only 10% of its $3 billion cost, which did nothing to alleviate its devastating poverty.
But such ugly details and by-products are overshadowed by the glory and glamour of the World Cup and Olympics and the thousands of people who show up to watch them. In the bigger picture, it’s about what the World Cup represents – not only a recognition of athletic talent, but a forum for nations to come together and compete on a peaceful level, an events that, despite its inherent divisiveness along national boundaries, also creates a sense of unity and allows for cultural integration and involvement. It is in many ways an ideal, but an ideal should not neglect reality. And the reality is that the people of Brazil are suffering, as they were before the World Cup, and as they would be without the World Cup.
The boycott, though it’s short-term effectiveness could be called into question, fulfils a more long-term goal of highlighting the juxtaposition between the extravagant spending on the World Cup and the poverty within the country on which those resources could have been utilised – and in this way, the disparity and inequality within Brazil itself.