Brazil (5)

Rouanet Law

I have a confession to make. It`s about work. I work for the government of my country since 2006, right before President Lula`s reelection.

Well, what I have to say is directly linked to my view of my country and my expectations as a citizen. I don`t know! I thought I could help my country, I thought I could change its reality and make it a better place, but at this point I realize that governments are all the same. It doesn`t matter what the ideology is, at the end, all governments try to prove what they`ve improved, what they`ve done better, causing it to become a reckless, oblivious, neglecting entity. It works for the present time and for some specific purpose, which, oftenly turns out not to be the people, the citizens, the vox populi.

I feel so ashamed of myself, when I realize I`m part of it. All the time I thought I was helping, but "just coz you feel it, it doesn`t mean it's there". Even when you try to fight it, or confront it, you feel powerless "crushed like a bug in the ground". I began to think that I did good because I`ve always aimed at presenting new opportunities for my country, bringing changes that would contribute to its improvement; and because I try to do everything by the book, hoping that it would make a difference for its sucess. But then I realized, all this drama was not real. It was surreal. The thing is: I lived a different political moment, if you like that expression, or you could simply say I have a different point of view.

See, by the time I started working for the government, we were building the strategies, making medium and long term goals for our country, we were presenting a national plan for culture, bringing the importance of cultural expression to the core of development of a society. We were setting programs to accomplish our goals based on the information we had, which was very little I supposed. This was really hard and some things didn't really brought us very good results. But we knew that was going to happen, it's difficult to change the reality of a country, especially a big, populated, developing country like Brazil. And at some point we got the results from a study we requested for the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) that shoked us a little. We found out that roughly 80% of brazilian citizens have never been to the movies, theater, concerts and so on. At the same time we found out that brazilians spend around 11% of their income with cultural goods and services.

This numbers made it clear the gap between some regions of Brazil and their population. The typical unequal capitalist distortions of the developing democratic countries of South America. Caused by the unfair distribution of everything. In my country this maldistribution includes the population, health services, educational services, culture, infra-structure, etc. Thus we have rural exodus, in search of better quality of life.

Rouanet law

Well, the Rouanet law is mechanism of fiscal/tax renunciation, where a cultural project can be financed using the tax contribution. Actually, it's a trade, the sponsor pays up until 4% of his taxes to the project and he won't have to pay it later in the end of the fiscal year. So, the sponsor gets the right to have his name or label advertised in the cultural project and the cultural agent gets the financial support he needed. This mechanism is not new and it's not perfect either, and, in Brazil, it does not work as well as we expected. This is because a research made in 2008, I guess, showed that more than 80% of all renunciated taxes goes to only 5% of the projects. Clearly an unfair distribution, even worse is the fact that these projects are all based in the same regions, which is the biggest cities of Brazil (Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). The north of BRazil gets less than 3% of the taxes. It's a sad distortion, some my say, very sad.

But when you start analysing things more closely, you realized that this is actually not as bad as it looks. Let's face some facts based on reports of IBGE, 2007 and UNDP, 2005:

1- the north is formed by seven states that combined total up to a population of 15.023.331 and a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0,764 medium;

2 - The northeast of brazil is formed by nine states that combined total up to a population of 53.591.197 and HDI of 0,72 medium;

3- the southeast is formed by four states with a population of 77.857.758 and a HDI of 0,824 elevated;

4- the south part is formed by three states with a population of 26.729.883 and a HDI of 0,831 elevated; and finally

5 - the central-west part is formed by four states with a population of 13.269.517 and a HDI of 0,815 elevated.

Starting with the numbers presented above we can conclude that the population distribution in Brazil is unequal. According to the data 41% of brazil`s total population lives in the southeast region; 8% in the north, 28% in the northeast; 14% in the south; and 7% in the central-west part. Regarding the HDI also one can conclude that the north and northeast part are less developed than the rest of the country.

But the reference used above mentioned the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, both belonging to the southeast part of Brazil. Note that we're not referring to the States of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, but these states` capitals, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. So, if we take the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro which are considered global metropolis in Brazil, we have that:

1- the city of Rio de Janeiro represents 3% of Brazil's total population (6.186.710 inhab) and HDI of 0.842; and

2 - the city of Sao Paulo representes 5% of Brazil`s total population (11.037.593 inhab) and HDI of 0,841.

These two cities combined account for almost 10% of Brazil`s total population and they are both ranked between the most elevated HDI rates of the entire country. So, based on these numbers I don't think it's really a suprise that only 5% of the cultural projects correspond for more than 80% of the taxes renunciated, Do you?

A Sad Conclusion

Of course, we need to correct the unequal distribution that has been occuring with this mechanism, but, let's face it, the problem is hardly the mechanism itself. The problem relies on more difficult paradigms of the brazilian society, but I have to say that today the solution that has been presented, it's simply to redistribute the money. I can't see how this is going to help, seriously. I don't agree with this strategy. I think it's rather immediatist (that is to say: wants to see results immediately), reckless and dangerous, because doesn't take into consideration the distortions this redistribution may cause.

I like to take the safer approach, the approach I think will be better for my country and its citizens, the approach that chooses to tackle a greater issue: the knowledge issue, the inclusion issue, the information competency issue. The approach that searches for the deeper cause of these unequal scenarios and that instantly realizes that what needs to be better distributed is not money but knowledge, information, intelligentsia. The approach that realizes that these kind of goals aren't accomplished by short or medium term agendas. But they will certainly cause an impact and maybe cause something unexpected to happen. Maybe, one day, an e-business insight that will wipe the money factor off of the equation and give birth to a different system with different distortions but yet, something new. Evolution.

I don't know! I fail to obliterate these numbers whenever I hear the political speaches tackeling the Rouanet Law as an unfair mechanism that causes distortions and unequality. I'd rather face the reality, face that my country is unequal in many ways territorially, demographically, financially and so on, and based on these facts I build a strategy.

I must be a naive idealist, but I can't take all the political bull my co-citizens barely have the witz to analyse. I feel paralysed evey time I see the ignorant mass swallow open a bunch of political BS just because they don't know any better.

Anyways. I just needed to vent.

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Chico Mendes - a man ahead of his time

Silvestre Gorgulho said, and I quote: " A semente para germinar, virar árvore, dar frutos e produzir novas sementes precisa antes morrer. Chico Mendes foi semente que germinou." (in order to germinate, become a tree, produce fruitage and seeds, a seed needs to die. Chico Mendes was a seed that germinated (translated by me))Francisco Alves Mendes Filho Cena aka Chico Mendes (December 15, 1944 – December 22, 1988), was a Brazilian rubber tapper. He became known because of his work in the defense of the Amazonian Forest.He lived in the city of Xapuri, State of Acre, a small part of Brazil, that began to be invaded, literally, by landowners from the southern states due to the expansion of agriculture and catle breeding in Brazil, in the 1970's. I use the term invaded because these, so called, landowners wrongly assumed that the Forest had no owners and they literally expelled any community that lived in the lands they wanted to take over. They did not, I repeat: the landowners did not kill or exterminate any community. They did pay the hungry illiterate community members to do it on their behalf, though.And they were really succeful!!!!!

The communities of rubber tappers were freightened with the menace of the "landowners" taking over the forests and exterminating their homes and way of living. They were scared with the idea of having to leave their homes and working in these " landowners' properties". It was then that Chico Mendes realized two important things: 1. the executioners were local working men just like the rubber tappers; 2. this wasn't a matter of surrending to a landowner or executioner, but a fight against the unreasonable exploitation of natural resources of the Amazonian forest.Chico Mendes started something new in the Brazilian history: he started a peaceful resistance movement. Many of his friends thought he was indeed crazy, they did not want to resist the invasion of the cattle breeding farmers. But Chico did not fear these men, instead he used to line up with his friend making a human barrier. In other cases, he talked to the executioners to make them understand they were not different from each other; the rubber tappers were trying to make a living just like the executioners. Until the day they shot him in the back.Still, he accomplished a lot of good things, such as: the stablishment of the Rubber Tappers National Council (CNS), the Forest People Alliance, the creation of extractive reserves in order to protect the indigenous areas and the forest, and ensure the rubber tappers’ agrarian reform. Under his leadership, the rubber tappers struggle gained national and international exposure.Well, he did lots of things. but to me he was much more than that. Beyond the defense of a new concept in conservation where parts of land are set aside by the state for workers harvesting rubber, fruits, and nuts, he was an honest man that fought for a dignified way of life for his community and society as a hole. A simple man with an idea that changed his life, his community, and MYSELF. He went way further than sustainable development, he thought about dignity, fairness, rightousness, liberty. and he was killed because of it!Chico Mendes was killed in 1988 by landowners. A BRAZILIAN MAN WHO CHANGED MY LIFE.
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SUBWAY

I was thinking about something to write in here in English. Well, I decided to talk about the SUBWAY.First of all, let me set the picture. I'm a green person and I try to stay green. I take the bus or the subway, instead of driving my car (it`s on my "to do list" to get rid of it). Anyways, usually, I take the bus because it's faster and cheaper. It's less than 100 m from my house and it drops me less than 50 m from work. AND IT'S $ 1 REAL CHEAPER. The subway it's good when I feel like walking and walking on the sun, the sun of CERRADO, I'm not sure how to translate that. It's a dry hot weather typical of high altitudes. oh yeah, back to the subway. The subway here costs around R$ 3,00 (Brazilian currency) according to todays exchange rate it would be around $ 1, 72 US Dollars. I think it's expensive, specially because it only goes one way and because the brazilian minimum salary is around R$ 510,00 or US$ 292,45. Did I mention, I'm talking about the subway of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, one of the biggest countries in America and the world?Well, the subways has two lines, Samambaia and Ceilandia, which are both located in the same area of the Federal District. Also, it only goes half way Brasilia, to the Central Station.see for yourself

Source: http://www.metro.df.gov.br/005/00502001.asp?ttCD_CHAVE=5198.Note: this is a map available at the subway website and it does not reflects the map of Brasilia. To get the real picture you need to look the second picture below.As you can see in the photo, if you live in the middle of the way, it doesn't matter which way you're going. It's kinda of funny, because most of the people goes of the subway at the exact same place which is the central station. I mean, from the station to midway, the people only go in the subway. After that the wagon is crowed until you hit the central station. Which most of the times means you'll have to take another transportation and, HELLO, pay again. If you take the "integration bus" you don't need to pay, true. very true. On the other hand, the BUS TICKET ONLY COSTS $ 2,00 REAIS. And yes there is traffic and yes it is crowed, YES THEY ARE A THREATEN TO THE ENVIRONMENT, especially because they are shitty buses falling into peaces. Actually they are filthy engines in a nice carcases.Sometimes, it's difficult to make a choice, the subway is ridiculous. The price for the service they provide it's outrageous AND LET's NOT TALK ABOUT CORRUPTION FOR NOW, SHALL WE? Second, the buses are so pollutant as cars or more, because they are second-handed, LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT CORRUPTION, PLEASE.I really dream about a non-pollutant public transportation.I still can't believe that Niemeyer and Lucio Costa, the comunists designers of Brasilia, the modernists influenced by Le Corbusier, could design a city from scratch and simply forget subways. BRASILIA IS 50 YEARS OLD. maybe it was budgetary issues... as usual... How old are subways? I don't know.

Source: http://www.brasil-turismo.com/distrito-federal/mapas-df.htmNote: the original design of Brasilia was of a butterfly, but many people refer to it as the airplane city. And the lake was not there originally. some small rivers, I think, were sweved to make that lake around the city.Well, I'm a hepless optimistic, I have to believe there is going to be one day a decent public transportation in my country. I still prefer to take the bus, I think is better than the car considering I'm sharing the CO2 emissions with lots of other people. But what I really wish for it's a different kind of transportation, I guess.That's all for now. next chapter will be dedicated to cultural diversity and the french exception clause.
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