Brasil Observer #17 - English Version

FREE

LONDON EDITION AUGUST 14 – 27

ISSN 2055-4826

‘VULTURES’

LEIA EM PORTUGUÊS

How will Argentina’s debt affect the Brazilian economy? >> Pages 4 & 5

www.brasilobserver.co.uk

# 0 0 1 7

LEANDRO DE BRITO

ISOLATED

AS THE FIRST CONTACT WITH A PREVIOUSLY UNDISCOVERED INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY IN BRAZIL STIRRED THE WORLD’S IMAGINATION, BRASIL OBSERVER REPORTS ON THE DANGEROUS SITUATION THESE GROUPS FACE AND WHETHER IT IS POSSIBLE TO SAVE THEM

>> Pages 10 & 11

03

IN FOCUS Important news from last two weeks

04 05

BRASILIANCE Brazil evaluates the effects from Argentina

LONDON EDITION 06

BRASIL IN UK Book about the country of football is launched in London

PROFILE

08 09

EDITOR IN CHIEF Ana Toledo ana@brasilobserver.co.uk

Marco Antonio Rocha

EDITORS

10 11

Front Page Isolated indigenous found in Brazil

2014 ELECTIONS Luciana Genro and Pastor Everaldo: how can they influence the Brazil’s presidential election?

CONECTANDO

PUBLIC RELATIONS

14

CONTRIBUTORS

15 25

Notting Hill Carnival and much more…

Kate Rintoul kate@brasilobserver.co.uk

12 13

A story direct from FLIP

BRASIL OBSERVER GUIDE

Guilherme Reis guilherme@brasilobserver.co.uk

Roberta Schwambach roberta@brasilobserver.co.uk

Alec Herron, Antonio Veiga, Bianca Dalla, Gabriela Lobianco, Marielle Machado, Michael Landon, Nathália Braga, Ricardo Somera, Rômulo Seitenfus, Rosa Bittencourt, Shaun Cumming, Wagner de Alcântara Aragão

LAYOUT

16 - 17

18

19

E D I T O R I A L

22

23

24

16|17 GUIDE COVER STORY 18 NINETEEN EIGHT-FOUR 19 GOING OUT 22 NEW CANVAS OVER OLD 23 TRAVEL 24 MUSIC TO WEAR

IN THE LAND OF TRIBES

digala@wakeupcolab.com.br

GRAPHIC DESIGN Jean Peixe ultrapeixe@gmail.com

DISTRIBUTION Emblem Group LTD mpbb@btinternet.com

PRINTER Iliffe Print Cambridge iliffeprint.co.uk

ACCOUNTING ADVISORY Atex Business Solutions info@atexbusiness.com

By Ana Toledo – ana@brasilobserver.co.uk

It’s sometimes hard to imagine that in 2014 there are still some indigenous tribes in the world that have had no contact with “civilisation”. With the recent footage from Acre showing the first contact with an isolated community, went viral a few weeks ago, thoughts turned away from the imagination and instead raised questions about hazards that these tribes face and how can we help them. For more thoughts on their welfare and lives, read our news feature by Alec Heron on pages 10 and 11.

Brazil is also a young democracy made up of many political tribes that are vying for influence, resources and permanence.

In an election year we are hearing a lot more from them but a few days before the start of election campaigns are broadcast on TV and radio and with the obligatory tone of the Free Election Program, Brazil’s electoral process is not encouraging.

So far it has shown only shallow debates that will not question the deep structural issues such as political reform that are required for material change in country.

As I mentioned in my last editorial, this edition of Brasil

wake up colab

Observer has another 2014 Elections special. Having presented the political system of Brazil and the operation of the National Congress. Now, you can start read the profiles of five of the 11 candidates running for president. The choice of the order has been made according to the ir performance in the polls of voter intention.

On pages 12 and 13, you can find out more about Pastor Everaldo and Luciana Genro. We hope to help you see how they are most certainly “Opposites that do not attract” and be aware of their main points and policies.

And, as you may already know, August is the month of London’s very own carnival. In a few weeks, the streets of Notting Hill will be filled with the sounds and rhythms of the Caribbean. Although it wasn’t always so, to learn how this party got started, don’t miss pages 16 and 17 of Brasil Observer Guide.

Keep in contact!

Tweet us @brasilobserver | Facebook: Brasil Observer

BRASIL OBSERVER is a fortnightly publication of the ANAGU UK MARKETING E JORNAIS UN LIMITED (Company number: 08621487) and is not responsible for the concepts expressed in signed articles. People who do not appear in this expedient are not authorized to speak on behalf of Brasil Observer. The contents published in this newspaper may be reproduced if properly credited to the author and to Brasil Observer.

CONTACT contato@brasilobserver.co.uk comercial@brasilobserver.co.uk 020 3015 5043

SITE www.brasilobserver.co.uk

IN FOCUS RIO 2016 CELEBRATES TWO YEARS UNTIL THE GAMES RIO2016/DIVULGATION

The two-year countdown to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games began on 5 August, with a commemorative ceremony held at the Sambadrome (the focal point of Carnival), and a press conference given by local officials, including mayor Eduardo Paes.

Two days before, the International Sailing Regatta held in Marina da Gloria, was the first in in a series of 45 test events that will take place across the city over the next two years.

On 28 August, registration for the Volunteer Programme will be opened followed by the tickets and the debut of the mascots for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Regarding the construction of the essential venues, buildings have started to take shape. In Barra da Tijuca, the laying of foundations for the Olympic Park,is under completion and the first pillar structures can already be seen.

However the Olympic Public Authority have reported that less than 30% of the works were on schedule by July and that to date, the estimated cost of the Games has already reached R$ 3.7 billion.

After issuing harsh messages about the delays, the International Olympic Committee is now positioned more pleasant way. The executive director for the IOC, Gilbert Felli, who in April claimed that the committee would be intervening has since changed his stance: “I am confident that everything will be ok”, said Felli, who classified the earlier criticisms as “a moment of trauma”.

The mayor of Rio, meanwhile, said he does not think the city should be compared to London, the last host of the Olympic Games. Paes argues that because the South American city is better compared to 1992 host Barcelona, which also had to install a system of radical urban transformation and infrastructure, illustrating that, “We are spending five times more with legacy than Olympic equipment”.

The passing of the torch from the UK to Brazil and the general increase in collaborative projects and trade does mean that many Brits are also looking forward to the games in Rio. The UK, is already the principal partner for the event and after the success of the 2012 London Olympics in and Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow last month, the UK is confirmed as a global leader in organising major sporting events and ensuring a legacy for host cities. In London, the four-year goal established for boosting businesses was achieved in half the predicted time and is currently estimated at £ 14.2 billion.

The partnership of the UK and Brazil for sporting events has been going well. To date, 45 British companies closed 65 contracts related to the World Cup and 2016 Games with a cumulative value in excess of £150 million.

Among the success stories are companies that created media centres in the 12 host cities, equipped five Brazilian stadiums with 200,000 chairs, provided consultancy for transport planning in nine host cities and implemented IT supplies for 12 cities.

brasilobserver.co.uk 3

UK INVEST IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN BRAZIL The Newton Fund, which supports research in science and innovation for the British government, has opened a public call for funding submissions for projects that promote partnerships between emerging countries. The Fund’s objective is to develop joint research establishing sustainable collaborations between UK and Brazilian researchers.

The Fund will accept proposals that address: Health; Urban Transformations; Food, Energy, Water and Environment; Resilience of Biodiversity and Ecosystems; Economic Development and Social Welfare. Proposals in other areas will also be considered, provided they illustrate strong collaboration between the UK and Brazil and meet the criteria associated with the Official Development Assistance.

The benefits will be evaluated according to each proposal with a maximum grant of £100,000 being awarded.

First announced in Brazil by British Chancellor George Osbourne in April 2014, the Newton Fund will invest £9 million per year in Brazil over the next three years. Selected projects will also be eligible for funding from the Brazilian government.

PROGRAMMES PROMOTE BRAZIL’S CULTURE ABROAD

Comemorative act at Rio’s Sambadrome

In relation to the sporting successes of the games, the Brazil Olympic Committee stressed that it is ensuring the best possible conditions for achievement in both the organisation and the performance of Team Brazil. The goal of the COB is to win 13 more medals more than in the last Olympics to obtain a total of at least 30. That number is estimated to put Brazil in the top ten of medal winners for the games.

Through its Creative Economy Secretariat, The Ministry of Culture of Brazil has launched the CONNECTIONS BRAZIL CULTURE and CONNECTION CULTURE BUSINESS programmes in partnership with the Education and Foreign Ministries of Brazil.

The main aim is to promote the internationalisation of Brazilian culture by supporting the development of the 21st century Brazilian creative industries. It is hoped that an increased presence of Brazilian artists and entrepreneurs worldwide can be achieved through educational and internships at renowned cultural institutions and through participation in key cultural business events.

The first phase aims to enable approximately 400 people to pursue courses both in Brazil and abroad from November 2014 to March 2015 in areas such as cultural heritage, cultural expressions, performance arts, audio-visual arts and literature.

Interested applicants need to contact the host institution and have their proposed course formally accepted. The institutions that have expressed interest in receiving the Brazilians are the European Institute of Design (with bases in Milan, Florence and Barcelona), Federculture (an association represents the most important cultural companies of Italy), Bologna University, the British Council, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Barbican Centre, the SouthBank Centre, The Globe Theatre, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Science Museum and the Edinburgh Festival.

The second pathway is aimed at enabling delegations of up to 60 cultural entrepreneurs to participate in three relevant international cultural business events: Womex Music Festival 2014, held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain; the Santiago a Mil International Theatre Festival in Chile and ARCOmadrid, the International Contemporary Art Fair held in Madrid.

4

brasilobserver.co.uk

BRASILIANCE

‘VULTURES’ THREATENS TO EMBROIL BRAZIL Stand-off between Argentina and international funds over debt repayments causes apprehension over its effect on the Brazilian economy

By Wagner de Alcântara Aragão

REPRODUÇÃO

Authorities and businesses from Brazil are following the progress of the imbroglio involving Argentina and the so-called “vulture funds”. Although representatives of the Brazilian government have sought to convey tranquillity, evaluating publicly that the impasse should not have serious consequences for the national economy, there is concern that without a solution the dispute could harm foreign trade between the two countries, besides bringing instability to the financial market.

This risk was highlighted by president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff during the 46th Mercosur Summit, held on July 29 in Caracas, Venezuela. The president - as well as the heads of state of other countries in the bloc reiterated their support and solidarity with the Argentine government. “The problem now affecting Argentina is a threat not only to a brother country; it effects the entire international financial system. We cannot allow the actions of a few speculators to endanger the stability and well-being of entire countries,” Dilma said.

The “vulture funds” are made up of groups of U.S creditors of Argentina’s public debt, which did not accept the conditions set out in the negotiations by the government of that country to pay the same. This group represents 7% of the creditors. The story originated in 2001, when at the height of the economic and financial crisis faced by Argentina, the government opted for debt default. Between 2005 and 2010, the government proposed that debt’s renegotiation. The plan provided for the payment of debts in instalments, with discounts ranging between 60% and 65% of the initial value.

The plan was accepted by 93% of creditors. The remaining 7% encompassed international groups that had acquired the smallest prices, the public

Campaigns against ‘vulture funds’ occurring since the beginning of last year; pictured, protest in NY

debt at the height of the crisis, with the intention of profiting later - hence the nickname “vulture funds”.

1% of the group of “vulture fund” creditors challenged in the courts of the United States the rules laid down by the Argentine government. The American justice system decided in favour of the creditors and the Argentine government had until July 31 to make the payment.

The country chose not to pay – not because it could not afford to

(the amount is relatively low: US$ 1.3 billion), but to avoid a precedent that would open up to put in check the previous negotiations. The Argentine government appealed to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, where it filed a complaint against the United States, pointing out that the decision of the American courts violates the sovereignty of Argentina.

Until press time, Argentina had few expectations of reaching an agre-

ement with the American judiciary, according to the words of the chief of staff of the presidency, Jorge Capitanich. Shortly before an audience with the American judge Thomas Griesa on 8 August, the chief of staff considered that the chances of reversal of the sentence were void.

“The expectations are negative because the judge Griesa has shown bias and clearly responds to the interests of vulture funds,” said Capitanich, according to Agência Brasil.

brasilobserver.co.uk 5

There is a lack of economic strength and political will to get rid of the shackles Read below for the full interview with Pedro Henrique Evangelista Duarte, Doctorate in Economics and professor at the Federal University of Goiás, about the situation in Argentina.

Can the imbroglio between Argentina and the ‘vulture funds’ have an impact in Brazil? What kind of impact would that be?

Dilma Rousseff reiterated support and solidarity with the Argentine government during Mercosur meeting

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS In Brazil, the finance minister, Guido Mantega, has ruled out immediate consequences to the Brazilian economy. “The Argentine crisis will have no impact and no direct consequences [in Brazil]. Also it will not affect the international market,” he told the press. The president of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), Luciano Coutinho, dismissed the possibility of a negative impact on the bank’s operations in the neighbouring country.

Similar assessment was made by the doctoral student in economics Pedro Henrique Evangelista Duarte, a professor at the Federal University of Goiás, in an interview with Brasil Observer (read in full in the side column). The analyst said, “at least in the medium term,” Brazil may be immune to the consequences of the standoff between Argentina and funds. In fact, the professor explained, the current crisis can remember turbulence similar to the second half of the 1990s, “when crises in Asia and Mexico led to a depletion pattern of funding for peripheral countries, reaching Latin Americans countries, including Brazil.” However, continued Duarte, there are differences between the current environment and over a decade ago.

“Brazil today has a relatively comfortable position in the international financial market, achieved thanks to some results of the second term during Lula’s government, taking advantage of favourable external scenarios, exports increased and reached high levels of accumulation of international reserves,” he observed. “These are reserves,” added the professor, “sufficient for the payment of Brazil’s foreign debt, albeit not meaning that it has been paid.” He added: “Furthermore, the momentum of

the Brazilian economy served to increase foreign investments in Brazil.

Although the situation today is different and not so favourable, I do not believe an immediate impact.”

Notwithstanding the analysis between representatives of the foreign trade for fear that the litigation generated by the instability experienced by the neighbouring country could harm trade relations between Brazil and Argentina. The trade flow between the two countries fell from US$ 524 million between January and May last year to US$ 385 million achieved in the same period this year.

Only exports of Brazilian goods to Argentina decreased by almost 20% in the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2013.

Turbulence causes uncertainty, which impacts on the results of businesses.

The president of the Association of Foreign Trade of Brazil, José Augusto de Castro assesses the situation: “Companies will have difficulty receiving any exports [to Argentina]. Export sales will have to be made with advance payments,” he said. “Argentina is the main destination of [Brazilian] manufacturing. A total of 50% [of these products] goes to South America, especially Argentina.”

The clash between Argentina and funds is hard, but the teacher UFG demonstrates optimism regarding a favourable outcome to the neighbouring country - which would bring the stability necessary for business continuity between Argentina and Brazil. “I think the next chapters of this story should point to a possible agreement between the vulture funds and the Argentine government, renegotiation is the surest way, and should be right in the short term,” said Pedro Henrique Evangelista Duarte.

The focal point of this imbroglio is that a fundamental part of the bondholders [of Argentine public debt] accepted the offer of negotiation made by the government. The proposed renegotiating was to avoid a drain of Argentina’s public accounts, and to pay only part of the debt in cash, and the other part in a long-term bond. This proposal had the approval, by 2010, of 93% of creditors. The remaining 7% are precisely what make up the vulture funds, which now charge the Argentine government to pay US$ 1.3 billion in cash. While pointing to an Argentine diplomatic crisis, since there is the involvement of the courts of New York, the American Chamber of Appeals and the Court of The Hague, believe there is not, at least not in the medium term, the possibility that this situation has some consequence in Brazil.

Here one can refer to events occurring on the international scene in the second half of the 1990s, when the crises in Asia and Mexico led to a depletion pattern of funding for peripheral countries, reaching Latin American countries including Brazil. But this was a different external environment than we have today. But on the other hand, one should not ignore the consequences of the 2008 crisis. The international situation is still unstable, so we must be wary of a possible reversal of expectations, especially reversals in the market.

Argentina received the backing of the Mercosur countries in the most recent summit of the bloc. Does this decision bring the group to a position of greater sovereignty?

I believe that the position of Mercosur regarding the issue is not a surprise.

Probably, the position would be different if the proposal was to Argentina to default on these debts, but that is not being done. Instead, the efforts of the Argentine government headed for a negotiation attempt that does not promote a possible depletion of the public accounts of the country. One could argue against this attempt of the Argentine government, since the financial market instruments are known by those who participate. You need to be prepared for the game, especially in relation to their rules, if you want to play it.

On the other hand, we also know the wickedness of such instruments, such as being ensnared by vulture funds that acquired securities in the market for low sums and now try to get them in a more favourable moment. It’s a similar argument that is made by the left parties in Brazil regarding the need to conduct an audit of the public debt, given that the contribution already paid in interest is higher than the principal.

What we have in the Argentine case is not an attempt to cap, but an attempt to renegotiate within the rules of the game. One can even say that there is some position greater sovereignty of Latin Americans to assume support for countries Argentina, but with little impact from the point of view of the international scene and in the same sense, the economic point of view. We cannot forget the bonds of dependency that the core countries still maintain with the peripheral countries - especially Latin Americans.

For example, the whole issue involving Argentina could be used as a starting point for a discussion on financial market regulation at the regional level. However, this is not done because of the likely impacts that reverberates the international point of view - and not just from a financial standpoint, but also from a commercial point of view, and especially from the diplomatic point of view. Truth is that Latin American countries do not have the economic strength and political will to promote a possible break with the logic of international markets. This is not always because they do not want, but because the structure of economic and social dependence, historically constructed policy prevents them from walking in that direction.

What is possible to discern from the outcome for this story?

Two perspectives are open: either accept the funds into the agreement, as part of the lenders have already made, or you can walk to Argentina defaulted.

I do not see much willingness of the Argentine government to promote a new default, since it is already known - in their case, from personal experience the reflexes. If there were such a provision would not be invested many efforts to renegotiate, as has been done. And if the market sees such a position of the Argentine government, then it is difficult to see international pressure to another resolution. Therefore, I believe that renegotiation is the surest way and should be right in the short term.

6

brasilobserver.co.uk

BRAZIL IN UK

‘NOTHING WILL CHANGE IN BRAZIL’S FOOTBALL’

How did you select the essays for the book?

The book selected articles based on a historical, anthropological and sociological viewpoint. We present an overview of the national production of football, thematic ideas accumulated in recent decades, accounts from different departments of postgraduate and in different regions of the country.

We also included authors that we call “Brazilianists”, namely two Americans and a Frenchman who pored over the history of Brazilian football. The book has its own didactic purposes focused on reaching a foreign readership. The

themes are presented chronologically, we sought to explore the biggest topics of each, so the book conveys important moments of Brazil’’s wider national political-economic history.

DIVULGATION

Edited by Paulo Fontes and Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda, a new book of essays, The Country of Football: Politics, Popular Culture and The Beautiful Game in Brazil will be released in the UK on 19 August at an event organised by the Brazil Institute at King’s College London.

Bringing together several contributions that discuss football from a historical view, the book explores how sport has shaped Brazil and how the country developed its own style of football.

In an interview with Brasil Observer, Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda, (who is also assistant reader at the School of Social Sciences and researcher on Brazilian Contemporary History at the FGV Foundation in Rio), spoke about how the book was created and its goals. He also discussed the transformation of football had on Brazil’s “national identity” and was sceptical about the political recasting of the game in the country after the greatest defeat of the national team history.

To what extent do you think football was able to solidify Brazilian national identity?

Football was soldered onto the label of “national identity” - the term is problematic for its singular, univocal imagethanks to the articulation of the country’s mass communication. Newspapers, radio and television historically overwrote the construction of the national sentiment associated with football. Effective mediators, journalists, broadcasters and TV presenters knew catalyst of emotions football could represent. In Brazil, this has founded and maintained the centrality of football over other sports, especially if compared to countries like the United States and France, which have multi-sport traditions. The idea of a vacuum, of football taking the place of the official political and civic symbols is seductive and this was the interpretive hook that proved fruitful to essayists including Gilberto Freyre and Roberto DaMatta, but as a historian I am more cautious to general statements like this.

If football has come to represent the national identity, after the 7-1 defeat can we say that the nation will go through some existential crisis? Is Brazil still the country of football?

Indeed, the unexpected German rout in the semi-finals was a traumatic event, to a certain extent comparable to 1950 because of both took place on home soil.

offensiveness were raised. Or even the recent elimination in South Africa, when blame was rested on the player Felipe Melo, who, incidentally, is no longer heard of in Brazil.

As for the title “the country of football”, for some time researchers have been demystifying this idea, by demonstrating of its historical construction.

The idea started in the 1938 World Cup, when the French press labelled Brazil’s football as an art. However the presentation of hard data like low attendance to stadium games in Brazil, the low number of local sporting periodicals, low ratings in local leagues, etc. all testify against the imaginary status of the “country of football”.

How do you assess the need for a reformulation in Brazilian football?

Can we be optimistic about its direction?

Information about the book: http://goo.gl/wPHfne

But the existential crisis usually occurs when Brazil is eliminated: Brazil’s search for a culprit, a scapegoat for something is customary every four years when the team participates in the FIFA tournament.

There is a frequent oscillation of feeling between the “we are the best” and “we are the worst”. It is worth remembering the eliminations in 1974 and 1978, when criticisms of a “militarized” team who had lost their supposed primordial characteristics, individual quality and

After the crushing defeat to Germany it’s natural to assume that some structural change would occur. The Minister for Sport weighed in, claiming the need for some kind of interference by the State in its relationship with the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). The President has criticised the exodus of our “feet-to-work” in Europe. Of this year’s national team, only one player currently plays in Brazil, while seven Germans, were drawn from the Bayern Munich team. Sports journalists pointed out the need to review all the principles of training of athletes in the country’s clubs. The sport directors had a decidedly deaf ear to all these comments and rehired Dunga as coach, a sign that nothing will change in football policy under the command of those who head the CBF.

brasilobserver.co.uk 7

READ EVERY PAST ISSUE OF BRASIL OBSERVER AT ISSUU.COM/BRASILOBSERVER

8

brasilobserver.co.uk

PROFILE

Marco Antonio Rocha A survivor of the dictatorship Interview and Photo: Rômulo Seitenfus

During the military dictatorship in Brazil, journalist, Marco had to take the codename José. As a writer, former communist and a lucky person, he was saved by the owner of the newspaper, for which he still works for, O Estado de S. Paulo, and thanks to the man who had talked with the general, Marco Antonio Rocha survived the dictatorship.

It was while he was on the farm of his father in Guaratingueta, city of the São Paulo State, when he heard the official radio announcement of the 2nd Army stating that his friend and journalist fellow Vladimir Herzog had “committed suicide” the day before, at the premises of the notorious DOI CODI (centre of torture) in the city of Sao Paulo. The radio also informed that other communists were being traced, including himself.

Marco called the newspaper office and spoke with the owner, Ruy Mesquita, who suggested he go meet him directly to see how he could help.

I met Marco while he was in London, on holiday with his wife, fellow journalist, Ana Trigo. In this exclusive interview, the writer tells us about the facts that passed in the at times, dark history of his life, and of the Brazilians tortured and murdered by the military regime.

Marco recalled the tough times of repression, talks about the death of his colleague and friend Vladimir Herzog, reflected on recent protests in Brazil and the world, and also explains the transition between roles he has undertaken from active communist, during the dictatorship, to honing his craft as a writer for a conservative newspaper.

brasilobserver.co.uk 9

How do you think your life was shaped by the military dictatorship?

I am a product and a survivor of the dictatorship. The government of João Goulart was overthrown in 1964 by the military coup, which had two stated goals: ending communism in Brazil and rooting out corruption. I was in the Communist Party, as a journalist so the regime rose against me and many others.

Did have to use aliases?

After 1964, I did. When the Communist Party was pursued, I took the name José in the hope of surviving. But this was a bit silly because the persecutors had the ability and power to head directly to names and people. Codenames might have worked during the Russian Revolution, but they had no use for us.

When Vladimir Herzog was murdered, his fellow journalist and communists Paulo Markum, Anthony de Cristo, Duque Estrada and Rodolfo Konder were all tortured, how did you avoid the same fate?

I was in the Communist Party, as a journalist so the regime rose against me and many others

My connection to Ruy Mesquita and his newspaper, were of the utmost importance because it had supported the 1964 coup. While the newspaper broke with the military, it remained in a privileged position, despite being censored for years.

As director and owner of the newspaper, Ruy Mesquita helped me when I was arrested. I received orders to present myself in court and Ruy, together with the President of the Union of Journalists at the time, Audalio Dantas, and my wife at the time, Olinda all spoke in my defence.

When I arrived there, Ruy introduced me to general Ferreira Marques and said: ‘Look general, this is my official you are looking for. So I will tell you that from this moment my paper considers you personally responsible for what happens to him.’ The general replied, ‘You are talking as if we were wild.’ And Ruy turned to him: ‘I’m talking based on what happened last Saturday with Vladimir Herzog’. I had to stay a week and respond to interrogation, I was asked to write an entire history detailing my level of involvement and militancy within the party, but nothing happened to me, thanks to Ruy. This case of Vladimir Herzog still shocks people as his killers took such acts as to put him on the gallows to make it appear that he had committed suicide when if fact he was already dead. What the photos do not show is that witnesses said his feet were touching the ground. As

a photographer I find the ethics of this difficult, do you think that the photographer is in a way complicit in the crime as they did not show this?

The photographers were members of the Army, and so omitting this was a manipulation of image and just part of their job. Though many saw through the image, it is possible to see that he was placed in a simulated position. The most trouble fact was that Vladimir was not a communist. We all were, but not Vlado, and this is the great irony of his fate. He was chief of the news programme of TV Cultura and was accused of spread communism through his work in the media.

What about your fellow communists, what happened to them?

The military used terror with physical and psychological fear to break people down. To give you an idea of how it was, in Paul Markum’s case his wife was tortured in front of him, then after a week they let him out of prison in order to attend the christening of his son.

Were you accused of being subversive?

Yes. I was accused and later considered subversive because at the time, there was a process in military justice that you were of interest as a suspect for two years.

At my trial, I was accused of belonging to the Communist Party, to develop subversive activities and threats to the regime and the established government, under the National Security Act. The death penalty was stipulated for subversives who were convicted. This was the only time in the history of Brazil in which the death penalty had been established by law, and not against dangerous criminals, but against the political elements who opposed to the regime or thought differently to the system. Despite this legislation, there was not a single recorded case of a conviction resulting in a legally registered execution. All deaths as a result of torture and murders happened illegally in the premises of the Army, as was the case of DOI CODI in Sao Paulo, which was installed in an old police station. These acts were not those of the military exercising their legitimate power. It was criminal, and the military acted illegally.

Brazil’s recent wave of protest were an excellent for reflection of the accountability those in power now have to the population. But still, Brazil seems to lack a clear and rounded political spectrum. Do you agree that there is a lack of an ideology?

I agree. The recent protests only identified in widespread popular dissatisfaction with the system of government, the regime, with the gap between politicians and the people, but there is no clear direction of how to fix it.

There is no ideological line or thinking to justify this popular dissatisfaction.

This can lead to dangerous things: a military group that looks over the events and seeks an end to the disorder, eventually thinks ‘we must clean up this mess’. This thinking unifies the heads of the military, judges, lawyers who can form a core and once again propose a decisive dictatorial regime in the country.

This worries me a bit, despite finding it difficult to see how a new dictatorship would be allowed to form, because the increasing global media makes social problems visible. When you consider what is happening in the Arab world, for example, against the dictators, it seems that the international climate is beneficial to a democratic way. Today we have an outbreak of political movements, though none have been based on a defined ideology, so it is hard to analyse.

Today, as editorialist of O Estado de S. Paulo, you have moved very far from your communist background to write for a conservative readership.

How was this change for you? I do not believe that you do not retain part of that leftist vision in your heart...

I keep this in some ways. But I realised, or rather, I recognised the big mistakes in the leftist fights, not only in Brazil but also worldwide in the last 50 years in journalism. During this period as a journalist, I had to acknowledge the many mistakes made by the left, and the concrete fact that the left failed to produce a scheme to solve everyday problems of the popular economy.

The positive side to the left was to hold capitalism to account. Existing without opposition, without resistance, is actually a system that deploys social cruelty.

With the end of communist parties and organised resistance to capitalism, this sparked a revival of capitalist abuses that are now appearing. The fact that opposition no longer exists in an organised manner is bringing a disorganised resistance. Namely, the wave of worldwide protests, including those in the Arab world, which encapsulate violent forms of resistance against the abuses of capitalism and governance. The ideal scenario would be the appearance of organised forms of struggle. Once these shapes have ceased to exist, any other, less tested formula becomes influential.

10 brasilobserver.co.uk

FRONT PAGE

DISCOVERED AND IN DANGER First contact with isolated Brazilian indigenous group for the first time since 1996 reveals the problems Latin American countries face to protect their native populations. How can they be saved?

By Alec Heron

Fleeing massacre, crossing across a border they don’t know exists, chased by a race they can’t understand, seven naked members of an isolated indigenous community reach out for protection from the violence they’ve left behind, stirring up the world’s imagination and concern: life in the Amazon rainforest remains increasingly dangerous for its native human population since the colonisation.

Researchers have come into contact with seven members of a previously undiscovered indigenous community, in the state of Acre, northern Brazil. The group of seven; five male and two female between the ages of 12 and 21, are believed to be part of a larger community that recently crossed the border from Peru to Brazil, fleeing the violent attacks of loggers and drugs traffickers.

More than 70 undiscovered indigenous groups are believed to be based in the Amazon region of Brazil, according to the government’s indigenous affairs department, the National Indian Foundation – FUNAI (read more on the next page).

Many are losing their land to the violent advances of illegal loggers and drug traffickers harnessing routes through the dense forest for the shipment of their cargo.

Illegal logging has long been a problem in these areas and oil and gas exploration is now pushing into remote areas, particularly in Peru. Growing drug trafficking activity across the Peru-Brazil border may also be driving isolated tribes out of the forest. Peru has overtaken Colombia as the world’s biggest producer of coca leaf, the primary ingredient for cocaine and crack, and Brazil is the second biggest market for the drugs after the US. Guard posts in the area of the new contact were closed after being ransacked by suspect drug traffickers in 2011, and were reopened only last June, when the isolated Indians took the initiative to establish the first contact.

The last time an isolated tribe was discovered in Brazil was in 1996, when FUNAI searched for and contacted the Korubo community in Amazonas state, to warn

them of the imminent dangers in the area poised, again, by loggers and narcotraffickers. In 2011, an isolated community in Acre was filmed from the air by BBC cameras working with FUNAI in a bid to raise awareness that isolated communities did exist in the area and were in need of government policies.

DANGEROUS MEETING In two videos of the latest encounter, published by local journalist Altino Machado and recorded by research members of FUNAI’s Ethno Environmental Protection Front, the group are seen gesticulating the actions of a machine gun to explain violence they are trying to escape, with little but bow and arrows and knives to fight back.

On June 29, the two groups met and exchanged gifts before three of the isolated group - young men wearing no clothing - began to remove items from the camp at which the research team had been based since June 13, putting themselves at risk of contamination from outside viruses their immune systems are not equipped to fight.

The isolated indigenous group reappeared later in the afternoon, but were stopped by the researchers from entering the camp. Two indigenous members of the Jamináwa ethnicity named Júlio and Durines have translated the discourse of the isolated group.

The natives returned the following day, June 30, already showing signs of flu. On July 4, they returned once more and were given medicine before leaving the research group. Eventually, all seven of the isolated group were taken to a medical base on July 6 alongside the research team, where they received medical treatment until July 11, before returning to the rest of their group.

Alice Bayer of Survival International, a London-based NGO that works to protect indigenous communities worldwide, says that the risks posed to the isolated indigenous communities of South America are critical and come in the form of both

ALTINO MACHADO/TERRA

disease and violence.

“The most recent other contact we’re aware of happened in Paraguay, with the Totobiegosode tribe, in 2004. Very soon after, two elders of the group died from illnesses they had contracted”, she said.

“It is very worrying to think that [the discovered isolated group] are going back to a larger community who have no immunity to these diseases from the outside.

They may well still be carrying some illnesses that we just don’t know about. An epidemic would be devastating.”

POLICY APROACH Since 1986 FUNAI holds a policy of not making contact with isolated communities, respecting their right to self-determination and working to protect the communities and their territories without intervening in

the way of life or putting them at risk of life-threatening illness. FUNAI states that in principal, contact is only made when it is clear the isolated community members wish to make contact.

The former head of FUNAI, Sydney Possuelo, knows this from first-hand experience as a sertanista – whose job it was in the 1970s and 1980s to make first contact with remote communities in the Amazon. He fought to change Brazil’s policy from outreach to hands-off protection after seeing the dire consequences of ending isolation.

“They come into contact with you and start to die off like flies. Everything, everything, plays against them. They become so subordinate to us, for we break up their education, their health, their means of work, their mythical system. They become outcasts. For how long? Well, some of them have been outcasts for 500 years. Please name to me a single tribe

brasilobserver.co.uk 11 REPRODUCTION

Contact with seven members of a previously undiscovered indigenous community in the state of Acre (red)

obligation. If we do nothing now, if the Brazilian state does not move quickly and really begin understand that these people deserve to live, the Brazilian state will be leaving them to die.”

Because of national and international pressure, the Brazilian government passed a bill that provides for R$ 5 million over the next five years for the support and protection of uncontacted Indians in the state of Acre. The project establishes the revitalisation of the protection bases and the creation of two new bases in the area. It also educational and awareness projects of the surrounding communities, to ensure the protection and rights of those people who, of their own volition, decide to remain in voluntary isolation.

NO FEAR OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD

The group of seven (two pictured), five male and two female between the ages of 12 and 21, are believed to be part of a larger community that recently crossed from Peru to Brazil

in the last 500 years that became better off after contact. There is none”, he told Scientific American.

When assimilated into modern society, many tribes miss their former nomadic life.

Indigenous communities have some of the world’s highest suicide rates globally. As a result of land losses, unscrupulous exploitation of their resources and stark differences in culture and behaviour to others in society, they face conflict, psychological problems and prejudice. “They are not inserted in our economic standards. They live in another world, another time. That’s why our economic projects don’t seem to suit them”, Possuelo said.

The implementation of such non-interventionist policies can’t be assured across the South American countries that the Amazon spans, according to Alice Bayer of Survival International, where some countries are failing to protect indigenous communities.

“In Brazil, FUNAI has a dedicated team for uncontacted indians, which I am not aware of existing in Peru or Paraguay. In Peru, in this case, we’ve seen very little action from the government. They have committed to protecting from where these peoples have come from. But as we can tell, obviously not very effectively. It seems to be lacking protection in Peru, the situation there seems a lot worse than it is in Brazil”, it was said by the specialist.

However, a change in policy towards a push for contact may now be the best option, says José Carlos Meirelles a member of the FUNAI research group that made contact with the isolated tribe, speaking to Altino Machado about the day of the encounter.

“They are all young and the impression we get is that they want to reach out to people who will not kill them.

They are asking us to carry out our

“If you hurt us, we’ll place a spell on you”, said one of the three indigenous boys of the isolated group as he approached the FUNAI researchers physically blocking the entrance to the camp of the Asháninka community, a ‘contacted’ group – so called because they are in contact with the people outside of their community.

Appearing agitated as one of the researchers reportedly brandished a gun to keep them away from the camp and possible exposure to illnesses, the isolated group asked that the white researchers leave them alone with the members of the Asháninka group. Speaking in a branch the Panoan linguistic family found in indigenous communities in western Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, one of the boys explained the dangers they face in the rainforest and why they had decided to contact the Asháninka in search of help.

“We’re here because other people are killing us in the forest. This is why we are here. The others do not treat us well. People speak well of you.

That’s why we’re here. My father is there, but I’m here. We are accustomed to fighting with other people. You can kill one of us, but you will also die. How is life there? How is life?

We’re not angry.”

In the month of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People (August 9), the case is loaded with significance and places Brazil and Latin America to prove whether they have learned from the centuries of genocide committed by the ‘modern societies’ to their indigenous populations or will simply repeat the history.

WHO ARE BRAZIL’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE AND WHERE DO THEY LIVE? The Brazilian government’s indigenous affairs department, FUNAI, suggests that there are over 70 groups of uncontacted indians in the Brazilian Amazon alone. There are several more tribes across the border in Peru. Brazil is home to more uncontacted communities than any other country, with the western Brazilian Amazon home to the highest concentration in the world.

Isolated indigenous are the most vulnerable people on the planet. Many of their lands, on which they depend for their survival, are being invaded and contact with outsiders could be fatal, as they have very little immunity to outside diseases. It is not unusual for over 50% of a group’s population to die soon after first contact.

From 1500 to the 1970s the numbers of indigenous people in Brazil declined sharply. Many communities became extinct, killed by foreign diseases or enslaved and murdered by the colonising arrivals from Spain and Portugal. The disappearance of indigenous peoples was for a long time seen as inevitable. However, this picture began to show signs of change in the last decades of the 20th century.

The number of Brazilians who consider themselves as indigenous grew by 150% in the 1990s. The growth rate was nearly six times higher than the general population. In 2010 there was thought to be 817,963 indigenous people in the makeup of Brazil’s 200 million population, of whom 502,783 live in rural areas and 315,180 in cities.

There are 305 indigenous ethnicities registered in Brazil, including amongst the largest groups the Ticuna, Guaraní and Caiagangue, and 274 indigenous languages, including Apalaí, Kaingáng and Tucano.

The largest concentration of indigenous peoples in Brazil is in the northern states such Acre, Amazonas and Roraima, where in 2010 305,873 lived.

The second highest concentration of indigenous peoples in Brazil is the 208,691 living in the northeastern states (Alagoas, Pernambuco, Ceara, etc.), followed by 130,494 in Brazil’s central-west (Mato Grosso, Goias, etc.), 97,960 in the southeast (Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo etc.) and the lowest number in the southern states (Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Parana) of 74,945.

Uncontacted communities are aware of the existence of outsiders, including neighbouring isolated and contacted communities. There is often some form of interaction with neighbouring communities, for example, sometimes uncontacted peoples approach settled villages and take pots, pans and machetes.

The group encountered on 29 June in Acre were in possession of a gun they had retrieved from a logger or narcotraffickers camp elsewhere in the rainforest.

12 brasilobserver.co.uk

2014 ELECTIONS

OPPOSITES In the first report of the series that will profile the five presidential candidates best positioned in the polls for the October election, the Brasil Observer begins with the fourth and fifth placed, respectively Pastor Everaldo and Luciano Genro, who have little in common in their agendas and proposals for government

On one side, an evangelical pastor leader of the Assembly of God church whose purpose of candidature, by the Social Christian Party (PSC), is to defend the principles of family, openly oppose the decriminalization of abortion and homosexual civil unions, and advocate the reduction of criminal responsibility to 16 years.

On the other, a former student activist who was elected to National Congress by the Workers Party (PT), from where she was expelled a year later and found the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) – left-wing opposition - whose proposed policy is based on the citizen audit of public debt and a comprehensive reform of the tax system, including taxation of large fortunes, decriminalization of marijuana, the legalization of abortion and the guarantee of LGBT rights.

Everaldo Dias Pereira and Luciana Krebs Genro, best known only by Pastor Everaldo and Luciana Genro, have virtually nothing in common, except the remote chance of reaching at least the double-digit mark in the race for the presidency, on the 5th of October.

According to the latest IBOPE survey, released on August 7, Everaldo and Luciana had the support, respectively, of 3% and 1% of respondents, far behind the top three of that same poll: Dilma Rousseff (38%), Aécio Neves (23%) and Eduardo Campos (9%).

Either way, both candidates should enjoy greater exposure during the campaign to impose some of their flags in the debate among the favourites. In 2010, for example, the legalization of abortion was much debated, although not in the best possible way, I.e from the perspective of women’s health. At the time, seeking the preference of evangelical voters, the staff of the candidate José Serra (PSDB) accused Dilma Rousseff (PT) of having an abortion in her youth, which was promptly dismissed. Dilma escaped the trap and won the election, but did not advance the debate so as not to offend a portion of the electorate that has grown considerably in recent years.

Evangelicals of various denominations reach a total of 42.3 million people in Brazil, or 22.2% of the population, so make up a crucial mass of voters. It is the fastest growing religion in the country, at the expense of a slow but steady decline of Catholicism. The followers of the Church of Rome fell from 73.6% in 2000 to 64.6% in 2010, according to statistics from the IBGE. If the trend is maintained, protestants may represent a third of Brazilians in the next decade.

Proof of the importance given by the presidential campaigns to the evangelical community

THAT DO NOT ATTRACT was the attendance of several politicians, including President Dilma Rousseff, at the inauguration ceremony of the country’s largest religious temple, built by Bishop Edir Macedo, leader of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God at the beginning of the month of August in the city of Sao Paulo.

The main focus of evangelicals, however, remains in the legislative. Never has so many candidates been pastors in elections. The number rose from 193 in 2010 to 270 this year, an increase of 40%. As a comparison, only 16 Catholic priests are candidates across the country. Evangelical countertop projects a growth of 30%, reaching 95 congressmen and senators.

Currently, there are 73 congressmen, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Advisory Department.

In this scenario, it is up to Luciana Genro to pull the debate to a leftist leaning. Since the arrival of the PT to the federal government, and the consequent centralization of the party in the name of governance gained in Congress thanks to alliances with former political rivals, the PSOL are mainly intended for the historical flags of that party that many of its members also helped to found in the 1980s. One of them, for example, is for a democratic media law that would end the monopoly of the media today in the country.

With ten years down the road, the PSOL has gained momentum since the demonstrations of June last year thanks to a noisy militancy. You cannot, however, observe a real party unity.

Some of the main leaders of the party did not attend the launch of the application of Luciana Genro, as deputies Jean Wyllys, Ivan Valente and Chico Alencar. The only senator of the party, Randolfe Rodrigues, also did not attend - he was, after all, the initial choice for the election, but gave up nine days before claiming he needed to devote himself to politics in Amapá, fearing the return to power of a political group linked to former President José Sarney. In addition, the PSOL failed to close agreements with any other party of the left, like PSTU and PCB. Pastor Everaldo and Luciana Genro therefore are located at opposite ends of the Brazilian political-ideological spectrum. Among them are the candidates of the order, those who lead the intentions of votes and whose programmatic differences are smaller and harder to be noticed. The question is which of them - Luciana or Everaldo - will be able to influence the debate, or see which slice of the electorate Dilma, Aécio and Campos are more willing to reach.

brasilobserver.co.uk 13

PASTOR EVERALDO

RITO

O DE B LEANDR

Everaldo Dias Pereira, 58, is married to gospel singer Ester Batista and has three children. Everaldo was born in the poor neighbourhood of Acari in the northern zone in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a minister father and a missionary mother. He worked as a street vendor, construction builder and office junior in an insurance brokerage. He graduated in actuarial science from the Faculty of Economy and Finance in the State of Rio de Janeiro and opened his own brokerage.

nor Benedita da Silva (PT), who attended the Assembly of God and the Presbyterian Church, Everaldo reached condition of undersecretary of the Government in the management of Anthony Garotinho. There nursed the Citizen Cheque, a program of income distribution.

In 2002 he was one of the coordinators of the campaign for the presidency of Garotinho. Everaldo is pastor of Assembly of God - Ministry Madureira, a branch of the Pentecostal church.

He first became involved with politics in the first direct elections for state governor in 1982, when he served as campaign manager for Brizola, which won the bid. In 1989, he supported Lula for the presidency.

Saved a failed attempt as alternate senator in plate Jorge Picciani (PMDB-RJ) in 2010, he never played an elective office.

He occupies the position of national vice-president of the Social Christian Party His definitive entry into politics was in 1999 (PSC), the party which he joined in 2003. with the help of other evangelicals. On the One of his sons, Filipe de Almeida Pereira, recommendation of the then deputy gover- is a congressman by the party.

LUCIANA GENRO Teacher and lawyer Luciana Krebs Genro competes for the first time for the Presidency. Daughter of the Rio Grande do Sul governor and former minister of Lula, Tarso Genro (Worker Party PT), and Sandra Krebs Genro, Luciana was born in 1971 in Santa Maria. Due to kinship, she was prevented by the courts to participate in the electoral process in 2012. She is granddaughter of Adelmo Genro, who was impeached by the dictatorship when she was deputy mayor of Santa Maria.

In 1974, after the return from exile of the father, Luciana moved to Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul capital). At 14, she started his political career in the student movement. Then entered the Socialist Convergence, group of PT. During this period, she met with Roberto Robaina and had her son Fernando Marcel Genro Robaina in 1988.

the other PT, as the then Senator Heloisa Helena. All opposed the welfare reform proposed by President Lula. With former co-religionists, Luciana helped found the PSOL, which had registration granted in 2005. The following year, was re-elected federal deputy for Rio Grande do Sul. During its passage by the House, Luciana could approve the Committee on Constitution and Justice House bill regulating taxes on large fortunes.

The 1988 Constitution created this tax, but because there is no regulation, he was never charged. She also joined the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry Blackout Air Chamber.

In 2008, Luciana ran for mayor of Porto Alegre and finished fourth in the election.

Two years later disputed charge for Congresswoman of Rio Grande do Sul, but could not get re-elected, even winning At 23, Luciana was elected state deputy the eighth largest in the state vote. for Rio Grande do Sul, being re-elected to the office four years later. In 1997, Lucia- Graduated in law at Unisinos (Universidana married the journalist Sergio Bueno. de do Vale do Rio dos Sinos) in 2011, Luciana operates in the areas of pension law In 2002 he was elected federal deputy and criminal law. In the same year, joined for the PT. The following year, he was the Human Rights Committee of the Laexpelled from the abbreviation next to wyers Association of Rio Grande do Sul.

14 brasilobserver.co.uk

CONECTANDO

THE INSIGNIFICANT’S PARTY With newly published book, André Bonsanto Dias shoes his experience of being a “first-time author” at the 12th edition of the International Literary Festival of Paraty (Flip), which closed in early August

By André Bonsanto Dias

these streets I encountered the invisible, insignificant yet insightful writers searching to be known. It is daily struggle that makes every Flip a worthwhile experience for the momentary acknowledgements of recognition, and the chance to connect with readers.

Unsure of the the etiquette of a writer at these events, I walked the streets, with my own book tucked into one by Julio Cortázar. I spotted Paulo Cavalcante, a writer in his fifties from the North-eastern State of Paraíba. It was his tenth Flip as an author and his books sell well. He is well known so does not need to stop people , they come to him. He told me that this time he had came from Campina Grande on a motorcycle, stopping in 72 cities to deliver his books to public schools. “My dream is to go to Frankurt or FlipSide”, he says about his aspiration to attend other festivals overseas.

At just 19 Lisandra Almeida, is a young writing debutante. She attended to try and reach young with her suspenseful novel, written when she was just 13. On the first day, when we met she hadn’t sold a copy, neither had I. Fitting when I tell you that the subject of my book was insignificance. But insignificance is the essence of existence, as Milan Kundera teaches us.

I also met Emerson Alcalde the São Paulo poet who’s been a published writer since 2011, who brings his guerrilla-style

GUSTAVO SANTOS SILVA

Flip is one a huge party.

Every July this colonial city on the coast of the Rio de Janeiro State is taken by literature and this year’s event was even bigger. With the ambition of democratisation of literature, the latest edition was projected on big the screens with free transmission. For the first time the round table discussions that take place in the tents were transmitted to all those to enjoy in the sun.

But as always, in addition to the official tables, populated by an amalgamation of world-renowned authors, fans and first-timers, there is a big party that follows its own schedule during the festival. Messy and irreverent, the city enchants you as you stumble across the stones of the historic centre. There’s a whole party of the lesser known authors, haiku sellers, poets of chance and Hare Krishna groups.

Each year two Flips take place and this was the year that I attended for the first time as an author to both of them. With a newly published book, I felt myself searching for model readers and others to share the experience on the streets of Paraty.

I’m referring to the streets that border the official event, where unknown authors discuss cooking, depression and journalism. The street of the publishers’ houses, where I enjoyed a cappuccino with an old Chilean writer, who was a friend of Neruda. Through

poetry Slam Guilhermina to the party. It’s one of the off schedule events that creates an alternative space and integrates those who want to speak.

I know these people, myself included are the “insignificants”, but we make this city much more diverse.

So what for my contribution to the event? I decided to enter the house tent of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, which was one of the most crowded. My book, which is an analysis of the same newspaper during the military dictatorship in Brazil, stayed in my bag. I flicked through the leaves of a publication on the history of the São Paulo press.

Then having found a space, I took my chance to deposit my own book on the shelf. An insignificant action but now that put a bastard smile on the face of this little author.

It will have a reader, but who that is I will never know.

g

André Bonsanto Dias’ book is titled O Presente da Memória (The Present of the Memory). For more information, in Portuguese, accesses http://goo.gl/btAFKq

g

In October, the second edition of FlipSide, the English edition of the festival will be taking place, tickets and information can be found at www.flipsidefestival.co.uk

HOW TO PARTICIPATE? Conectando is a project developed by the Brasil Observer that aims to put into practice the concept of ‘glocal’ communication, helping a local story find a global audience of readers. You can be involved too, just send your story to us! Find out how to get involved by contacting conectando@brasilobserver.co.uk

brasilobserver.co.uk 15

Brasil Observer

GUIDE ZARINA HOLMES

NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL

THE OTHER STORY

There are many conflicting tales of how Notting Hill’s summer street festival began. But a new book by Ishmahil Blagrove Jr reveals that the greatest debt is owed to one remarkable woman. >> Read on pages 16 and 17

Há muitas versões conflitantes sobre como começou o festival de rua de Notting Hill. Mas um novo livro de Ishmahil Blagrove Jr revela que o maior crédito se deve a uma notável mulher. >> Leia nas páginas 16 e 17

INVISTA NO SEU FUTURO PROFISSIONAL! FAÇA A SUA GRADUAÇÃO E PÓS NO REINO UNIDO COM A AJUDA GRÁTIS E HONESTA DA UKstudy!

CONTATE ana@ukstudy.com | www.ofertasukstudy.com.br | UKstudy.com University Partners

UKstudyBrazil

16 brasilobserver.co.uk

THE REAL ORIGINS OF CARNIVAL

By Ishmahil Blagrove Jr

The story of the Notting Hill Carnival began on the backstreets of North Kensington in a community scarred by poverty and racial tension. Those living in the area had to endure overcrowding inside dilapidated accommodation with no bathrooms, hot water and, as late as the sixties, no electricity.

Two World Wars within thirty years had left the UK with a desperate labour shortage and so the Empire turned towards its colonies for help and invited mass immigration to Britain. West Indians arrived in droves, joining the working-class Britons, Jews, Irish, Greeks and Spaniards who were already living in the cramped tenements of Notting Hill. By the late 1950s, Notting Hill and Brixton had the most concentrated population of West Indians in the country.

Militant factions of working-class whites were quickly joined the bandwagon of the fascist Oswald Mosley, whose “Keep Britain White” slogan exploited their fears and the anti-immigration tendencies of the time.

West Indians were accused of taking their jobs, their homes, their women, and of playing loud music until the early hours.

The Notting Hill Race Riots of 1958, and the racist murder of Antiguan carpenter Kelso Cochrane the following year, brought the tensions to a climax. These events became the catalyst through which activists mobilised in an effort to bridge cultural gaps. The British Communist Party led protest marches throughout the area.

Meanwhile, Claudia Jones, a Brixton-based Trinidadian political activist and editor of the first black weekly newspaper in Britain, the West Indian Gazette, presented the idea of holding a Caribbean carnival to build unity by showcasing Caribbean culture.

Jones was a talented and determined woman who fought tirelessly for the human rights of oppressed peoples around the world. A resident in the US since emigrating with her parents from Trinidad, aged nine, she was jailed four times for her activism and membership of the Communist Party, and eventually expelled from America in 1955. The British colonial governor to Trinidad refused her re-entry to the country of her birth, fearing that her presence on the island “may prove troublesome”, so she was deported to Britain, where she wasted no time in immersing herself in the politics of the day.

Jones’s Caribbean Carnival took place on 30 January, 1959, at St Pancras Town Hall and was televised by the BBC. It was held indoors because it had been planned to coincide with the Trinidadian celebration traditionally held between January and March, but the English weather proved too cold for the event to be hosted outdoors.

Jones is often credited with having brought the celebration of Caribbean carnival culture

to Britain. However credit is also due to many others, among them the Trinidadian husband-and-wife team of Pearl and Edric Connor, who were the booking agents for the artists and organised many of the events.

The West Indian Gazette organised other indoor Caribbean Carnival cabarets that were performed at various London venues, including Seymour Hall, Porchester Hall and the Lyceum Ballroom, and continued until 1964, when Jones died prematurely from heart disease at the age of 49.

While Jones’ events proved popular among West Indians, they were in essence indoor cabarets and that did not have direct influence on the first Notting Hill Festival of 1966, out of which the Notting Hill Carnival eventually grew. That festival was the brainchild of social worker Rhaune Laslett, in collaboration with the London Free School, a community action adult education project co-founded by Laslett with photographer and political activist John “Hoppy” Hopkins and a group of collaborators.

Laslett, born in London’s East End to a Native American mother and Russian father, became a notable figure in the Notting Hill community that had adopted a proactive role in healing the racial tensions from the late Fifties. Laslett set up an adventure playground for children called Shanty Town and established a voluntary neighbourhood service that provided free 24-hour legal advice to immigrants, local residents and the homeless.

Laslett consulted her trusted neighbour and respected figure in the community, Guyanese activist Andre Shervington, about how to get the West Indian community to participate in the festival. She also consulted others and was advised to invite a well-known Trinidadian musician named Russell Henderson whose Sunday afternoon jazz gig on Old Brompton Road was popular among West Indians.

Henderson, who had also played for Claudia Jones at St Pancras Town Hall in 1959, readily accepted Laslett’s invitation to perform at the first Notting Hill street festival. It was the attendance of his band that changed the course of what might otherwise have become a traditional English pageant, albeit with a multicultural theme.

Laslett’s first Carnival featured a cornucopia of participants, all local residents but hailing from many places: India, Ghana, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Cyprus and elsewhere. Performers included Nigerian musician Ginger Johnson and his Afro-Cuban band, Agnes O’Connell and a white New Orleans-style marching band. Horse-drawn carts were borrowed from traders in Portobello Road to make floats and there was even an inter-pub darts match.

When Henderson’s group arrived and began playing “pan”, West Indians, upon hearing the familiar sounds from home,

flooded the streets. In line with the Trinidad carnival tradition of “making a rounds”, the group led a procession that wove up Portobello Road towards Notting Hill Gate and back again, gathering new revellers along the way. Henderson had inadvertently put a Caribbean hallmark on the festival and word quickly spread to the other West Indian communities in England about what had taken place.

In successive years, although the carnival was still diverse and eclectic and ran as a week-long Notting Hill Festival, it became progressively more West Indian, and specifically Trinidadian, in flavour. Steel bands such as the Blue Notes led by Pedro Burgess, Les Flambeaux, Bay 57 and Melody Makers came out on the road. Trinidadian costume-maker Ashton Charles began creating traditional “fancy sailor” costumes for children. More and more steel-pan players, performers and West Indians joined in, and the street celebration came to eclipse events at a variety of indoor venues.

The festival also began to take on more militant connotations in response to the pressures that black people and the counter-culture scene were experiencing at the hands of the police. The Black Power movement had spread across the Atlantic and gripped the imagination of the masses. It became increasingly uncomfortable to have a woman identified as white sitting at the helm of what was by now seen as a distinctly black Caribbean cultural affair.

Rhaune Laslett’s authority was challenged, and her influence and control over the event gradually diminished. She retired from organising the festival in 1970 due to ill health. She left, dismayed that the festival she had conceived had adopted a confrontational tone that had sidelined her contributions.

Over the years, the dominant Caribbean hallmark and a pervasive ignorance about the carnival’s early history has led to many erroneous and conflicting accounts as to who originally “founded” the event. And the contributions of Laslett and the London Free School have become cursory footnotes, thus perpetuating the belief that the Notting Hill Carnival is of uniquely black-Caribbean origin.

g

T his is an edited extract from Carnival — A Photographic and Testimonial History of the Notting Hill Carnival, by Ishmahil Blagrove Jr, £25 (ricenpeas.com). This year’s Notting Hill Carnival runs August 24-25 (thenottinghillcarnival.com)

brasilobserver.co.uk 17

ORIGENS DE UM CARNAVAL Por Ishmahil Blagrove Jr

g

E ste é um trecho editado do livro Carnival — A Photographic and Testimonial History of the Notting Hill Carnival, por Ishmahil Blagrove Jr, £25 (ricenpeas.com).

O carnaval deste ano ocorre dias 24 e 25 de agosto (thenottinghillcarnival.com)

A história do Carnaval de Notting Hill começa nas ruas de North Kensington, em uma comunidade assustada pela pobreza e por tensões raciais. A região sofria com superlotação aguda e alojamentos em ruínas – sem banheiros, sem água quente e, até o começo dos anos 1960, sem eletricidade. A desesperadora escassez de mão de obra no final da Segunda Guerra Mundial fez com que viessem para o Reino Unido milhares de imigrantes. Caribenhos chegaram aos montes, juntando-se às fileiras de operários britânicos, judeus, irlandeses, gregos e espanhóis nos cortiços apertados do bairro de Notting Hill.

No final da década de 1950, Notting Hill e Brixton tinham a mais concentrada população de caribenhos do país.

Facções militantes de brancos da classe trabalhadora eram facilmente atraídas para o movimento fascista de Oswald Mosley, cujo slogan “Mantenha a Grã-Bretanha Branca” explorava seus medos e as tendências antiimigração da época, acusando os caribenhos de tomar seus empregos, casas, mulheres e de tocar música até tarde.

A chamada Notting Hill Race Riots, revolta que aconteceu em 1958, e o assassinato racista do carpinteiro caribenho Kelso Cochrane no ano seguinte afloraram ainda mais os ânimos. Esses eventos foram o estopim que levaram ativistas a se mobilizarem em torno da construção de pontes culturais que preenchessem as lacunas existentes e acalmasse as tensões. O Partido Comunista Britânico liderou marchas pela região. Enquanto isso, Claudia Jones, ativista nascida em Trinidade e Tobago, mas baseada em Brixton, que era editora do primeiro jornal semanal de cultura negra do Reino Unido, o West Indian Gazette, apresentou a ideia de realizar um carnaval caribenho para construir uma unidade entre as pessoas pela cultura.

Jones foi uma mulher talentosa e determinada que lutou incansavelmente pelos direitos humanos ao redor do mundo.

Nos Estados Unidos, para onde emigrou com a família quando tinha nove anos, foi presa quatro vezes por conta de seu ativismo e militância junto com o Partido Comunista, até ser deportada em 1955.

O governo da colônia britânica de Trinidade recusou sua entrada no país, então ela acabou sendo enviada para o Reino Unido, onde não demorou muito para se inserir novamente no movimento político.

O carnaval caribenho organizado por Jones aconteceu dia 30 de janeiro de 1959, no St Pancras Town Hall, e foi televisionado pela BBC. A festa foi feita em lugar fechado porque tinha sido planejada para coincidir com a celebração da comunidade de Trinidade que tradicionalmente é realizada entre janeiro e março, mas as temperaturas estavam muito frias para um evento nas ruas.

Para Jones é normalmente dado o crédito de ter trazido a cultura de celebração do carnaval caribenho para o Reino Unido. Tal feito, porém, também se deve a outras pessoas, como o casal de Trinidade Pearl e Edric Connor, que eram agentes dos artistas e organizaram muitos eventos. O jornal West Indian Gazette realizou outros carnavais caribenhos em locais fechados até o ano de 1964, quando Jones morreu prematuramente por doenças no coração aos 49 anos.

A brochura oficial do carnaval de 1959 faz nitidamente uma referência à revolta de Notting Hill do ano anterior, revelando o caráter social de Jones. Mas, ainda que os eventos de Jones fossem bastante populares entre os caribenhos, eram essencialmente realizados em lugares fechados e não teve influência direta no Notting Hill Festival de 1966, de onde cresceu o Notting Hill Carnival.

Aquele festival foi idealizado pela assistente social Rhaune Laslett, em colaboração com a London Free School, um projeto de educação de ação comunitária para adulto fundado por Laslett com o fotógrafo e ativista político John “Hoppy” Hopkins e um grupo de colaboradores.

Laslett, nascida no East End em uma família cuja mãe era estadunidense e o pai russo, era uma figura notável na comunidade de Notting Hill, tendo adotado uma prática proativa na solução das tensões da região no final dos anos 1950.

Ela criou uma área de lazer para criança chamada Shanty Town e estabeleceu um serviço de voluntariado que prestava 24 horas por dia de consultoria legal para imigrantes, residentes locais e pessoas sem habitação.

Laslett consultou seu amigo e ativista respeitado na região, Andre Shervington, sobre como atrair os caribenhos para o festival. Ela também consultou outras figuras de respeito na área e foi aconselhada a convidar um bem conhecido músico de Trinidade, chamado Russel Henderson, que realizava shows semanais bem populares entre os caribenhos em um pub na Old Brompton Road.

Henderson, que já havia tocado no car-

naval organizado por Claudia Jones em 1959, rapidamente aceitou o convite para se apresentar no festival de rua de Notting Hill. Foi a presença dele e de sua banda que mudou o curso do festival que de outra maneira teria provavelmente se tornado uma tradicional festividade inglesa, mesmo multicultural.

A primeira edição desse novo carnaval reuniu diversos participantes, todos residentes locais, mas de várias origens diferentes: Índia, Gana, Tchecoslováquia, Ucrânia e muitos outros lugares. Entres as apresentações artísticas estava a do nigeriano Ginger Johnson e sua banda afro-cubana. Carroças puxadas por cavalos foram emprestadas de comerciantes de Portobello Road para fazer carros alegóricos.

Quando o grupo de Henderson chegou, os caribenhos tomaram as ruas. Alinhada com a tradição de “fazer rodas”, a banda liderou a procissão que caminhou pela Portobello Road até o Notting Hill Gate, atraindo cada vez mais simpatizantes.

Henderson acabou, assim, colocando uma marca caribenha no festival, o que logo se espalhou entre todas as outras comunidades caribenhas da Inglaterra.

Nos anos seguintes, embora o festival ainda fosse eclético e multicultural, passou a ser progressivamente mais caribenho. Bandas como Blue Notes, Les Flambeaux, Bay 57 e Melody Makers saíram às ruas. Ashton Charles começou a criar trajes tradicionais para crianças. Mais e mais artistas caribenhos se juntaram, e a celebração na rua eclipsou outros eventos em uma variedade de locais fechados.

O festival também começou a tomar conotações mais políticas em reflexo às pressões sofridas pelo movimento negro e da contracultura nas mãos da polícia. O movimento Black Power tinha atravessado o Atlântico e fomentou o imaginário das massas. Passou a haver então certo desconforto em relação ao fato de uma mulher branca liderar um festival majoritariamente negro de cultura caribenha.

A autoridade de Rhaune Laslett foi desafiada, e sua influência e controle sobre o evento, diminuídos. Ela se retirou da organização em 1970, revoltada com o fato de o festival que ela criou ter tomado uma aura de combate, afastando os contribuidores tradicionais.

Ao longo dos anos, a marca dominante do Caribe no festival e a ignorância generalizada sobre a história antiga do carnaval têm levado a muitas contas erradas e conflitantes a respeito de quem originalmente “fundou” o evento. As contribuições de Laslett e da London Free School tornaram-se notas de rodapé superficiais, perpetuando, assim, a crença de que o Notting Hill Carnival é de origem exclusivamente negro-caribenha.

18 brasilobserver.co.uk

NINETEEN EIGHT-FOUR DIVULGATION

HERE COME THE BRITS

By Ricardo Somera

People who live in the UK or the U.S. may find it strange that artists like Woodkid and Chet Faker sell-out tickets in a few hours in Brazil. For me, sometimes it’s also hard to believe, because Brazil has 200 million people that do like crowding stadiums and arenas across the country, but for national rhythms concerts like samba, axé and sertanejo. When it comes to international artists, rare are those who can attract more than 10,000 people, and among them are pop bands like One Direction, or music dinosaurs, including Madonna and Paul McCartney.

But, like never before in the history of this country, fans of British pop music will have four great attractions to sing and jump in loud and clear: Arctic Monkeys, Biffy Clyro, Metronomy and Spiritualized arrive on Brazilian ground in the second half of this year.

ARTIC MONKEYS In his third visit to Brazil, Alex Turner and company arrive in Rio and São Paulo in November, with the status of a super band.

In their last show in the country in 2012, the group was headlining the Lollapalooza festival and entertained more than 60,000 people at Jockey Club de São Paulo. This time, releasing the album AM with the opening of the Swedish Hives, they promise to make the show of the year.

BIFFY CLYRO, METRONOMY AND SPIRUTUALIZED Yes, I’ve put everyone in the same group.

I still surprise myself when bands like Spirutualized come to play in Brazil. Biffy Clyro, Metronomy and Spirutualized are pop in the UK, but in Brazil are seen as underground like Jungle or Milky Chance: they do not have any song on TV, or the radio, and are not among the most listened to bands on Spotify by Brazilians. Yet, here you will find hundreds of fans of each of these bands that buy expensive tickets (a festival with Metronomy, Beirut, Mixhell and Lumineers can cost up to R$ 1,100 – around £280).

It’s great that if before we were in parties listening to a cover of Gorillaz, now we have to decide between Chet Faker and Bonobo, who will play for the first time in Sao Paulo, but in different places.

PS: Franz Ferdinand is out of the list because they always play here and I already consider them a Brazilian band of British rock.

Artic Monkeys will play in Brazil in November

LÁ VÊM OS BRITÂNICOS

By Ricardo Somera

Quem mora no Reino Unido ou nos Estados Unidos pode até achar estranho que artistas como Woodkid e Chet Faker esgotam ingressos em poucas horas no Brasil. Para mim, às vezes, também é difícil acreditar, pois somos 200 milhões de pessoas lotando estádios e arenas por todo o país, mas em shows de ritmos nacionais como o samba, axé e sertanejo. Quando se trata de artistas internacionais, são raros os que conseguem levar mais de 10 mil pessoas às apresentações, e entre eles estão bandas pop, como One Direction, e dinossauros da música, como Madonna e Paul MacCartney.

Mas, como nunca antes na história deste país, os fãs da música pop britânica vão ter quatro ótimas atrações para cantar e pular em alto e bom som: Arctic Monkeys, Biffy Clyro, Metronomy e Spirutualized desembarcam em terras tupiniquins no segundo semestre deste ano.

ARTIC MONKEYS Em sua terceira visita ao Brasil, Alex Turner e Cia. chegam ao Rio e São Paulo, em novembro, com status de super banda. Em seu último show no país, em 2012, o grupo foi headliner de festival Lollapalooza e levou mais de 60 mil pessoas ao Jockey Clube de São Paulo. Dessa vez, lançando o álbum AM e com a abertura do Hives, prometem fazer o show do ano e se consagrar entre os festeiros em geral.

BIFFY CLYRO, METRONOMY E SPIRUTUALIZED Sim, coloquei todos no mesmo grupo. Eu ainda me surpreendo quando bandas como Spirutualized vem tocar no Brasil. Biffy Clyro, Metronomy e Spirutualized são pops

no Reino Unido, mas no Brasil são tão undergrounds como Jungle ou Milky Chance: não tocam em nenhuma novela, ou nas rádios, e nem estão entre as bandas mais escutadas pelos brasileiros no Spotify. Mesmo assim, aqui você encontra centenas de fãs de cada uma dessas bandas que esgotam ingressos caríssimos (um festival com Metronomy, Beirut, Lumineers e Mixhell podem custar até R$ 1.100) e animam produtores de outros Estados a cogitarem shows desses grupos fora do eixo Rio-São Paulo.

Lindo é pensar que, se antes íamos numa festinha escutar um cover de Gorillaz, hoje temos que decidir entre Chet Faker e Bonobo, pois vão tocar pela primeira vez em Sampa, mas em lugares diferentes.

PS: Franz Ferdinand está fora da lista porque aparecem por aqui sempre e já os considero uma banda brasileira de rock britânico.

brasilobserver.co.uk 19

GOING OUT DIVULGATION

Brazil is the destination of the moment and Small Wonder – The Short Story Festival is delighted to be hosting some of its writers. Tatiana Salem Levy (photo) was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young Brazilian Novelists. Her debut novel, A chave de case, won the São Paolo Prize for Literature and is due for publication in the UK next year. João Gilberto Noll is one of Brazil’s most distinguished and popular authors. He has written nineteen books and won more than ten literary awards. Lucy Greaves won the 2013 Harvill Secker Young Translator’s Prize.

Readings and discussion chaired by Susie Nicklin.

RIO BRIO 27 September Where Charleston, East Sussex Tickets £10 www.charleston.org.uk

Where 6 Somerleyton Road, Brixton | Tickets Free

Where The Forge | Tickets £8

Where Rose Lipman Building | Tickets Free

>> http://goo.gl/o8uHJI

>> www.clubedochoro.co.uk

>> www.casafestival.org.uk

BRASSSIL SUNSET SCREENING

CLUBE DO CHORO UK

CASA NIGHT OF IDEAS

16 and 30 August

30 August

13 September

At sunset on August Saturdays 16 and 30, Brixton Come Together, Infinitta Productions and ElevenCulture join forces to present FREE cinema screenings. Outdoor screenings will take with addition of a bar + performances + DJs and, of course, popcorn. On 16/8: The Clown (photo), by Selton Mello - astonishing fable about a clown who can make everyone laughs but is in a search for his own happiness. On 30/8: Madame Satã,

by Karim Ainuz - a portrait of Joao Francisco dos Santos, a flamboyant, fiercely proud drag queen with a hair-trigger temper.

Clube do Choro UK hosts one of the most revered cavaquinho players in Brazil, Henrique Cazes. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Henrique Cazes has been playing professionally since 1976. He started to play the guitar when he was six years old and gradually went on to play cavaquinho, mandolin, tenor guitar, banjo, twelve-string caipira guitar and lately electric guitar, all self taught! He is well known for his Beatles’n’Choro adaptations.

Inspired by the Institut Francais’ brilliant La Nuit de la Philosophie / My Night with Philosophers, Casa Latin America Theatre Festival is excited to announce the very first all night celebration of Latin American culture in the heart of East London. From 6pm to 6am there will be an amazing line up of talks and debates on politics, literature, drugs, sex, art, architecture and more alongside movie and documentary screenings, traditional board-games, playreadings, live music and genre-busting DJs.

“Desde 1992 servindo a Comunidade Brasileira”

Mudança segura e personalizada!

Horário de Atendimento: Segunda a Sexta das 08:00h às 19:00h Sábados das 09:00h às 12:00h Escritórios em Portugal e Espanha: E-mail: info@packandgo.co.uk

+44 (0)1895 420303 EE1 0660 PackAndGo_50x254mm_w_Portuguese_Local.indd 1

Mudança Doméstica e Internacional

Importação e Exportação de Frete Comercial

Serviço Aéreo, Marítimo e Rodoviário

Armazenagem e Empacotamento

Serviço Especializado para Antiguidades

Serviço Porta a Porta para qualquer lugar do Brasil

20 anos

Aniversário em 2012 – Vamos celebrar!

Garantia do melhor preço.

Entre em contato conosco para mais detalhes.

www.packandgo.co.uk 31/08/2012 23:05

20 brasilobserver.co.uk

TASTE OF BRAZIL IN LONDON Floripa will be celebrating flavours from different regions of Brazil over the next five months. Here we look at the first destination on this foodie trip - Minas Gerais State If you do a quick search on Brazilian food, will see that feijoada is almost always elected as the country’s traditional dish. But while some might think of this meat and bean stew as the national dish, in reality Brazil’s culinary culture is far more diverse.

Brazil’s continental scale, 14 states plus the Federal District, makes it impossible to say just one dish represents all its regions. So with the idea of showcasing this variety, Floripa bar and restaurant in the heart of Shoreditch, is hosting a series of events: Taste of Brazil that will take diners on a culinary adventure through the different regions of Brazil over the rest of the year.

Of course when selecting the dishes to include, they knew they would come into some criticism and suggestions so to start with a well-known foodie region, Floripa’s first event celebrates the food of Minas Gerais. This state’s cooking that combines flavour, history, simplicity and tradition. In addition to the unique characteristics and well known dishes, Minas was also home to Floripa chef Marcelo Barra, who no doubt had some say to start the journey there.

Decorated floor to ceiling with references from different regions of Brazil, the venue provides the perfect setting for total immersion in the country’s culture and no better way of starting the evening than with a traditional caipirinha with lime to start.

To whet the appetite Floripa will be serving, a portion of Pao de Queijo (cheese bread), traditionally made in Minas Gerais, which is region known for it’s rich agricultural traditions and great produce.

For the main course diners can enjoy Feijão Tropeiro, with a choice of beef or pork. For those unaware, the name of this dish has direct reference to Brazil’s colonial period, when the transportation of various goods was done by troops on horseback and the men who rode were called “tropeiro”. Until the mid-20th century, they travelled far distances across the country.

This dish of beans mixed with cassava flour, pork rind, sausage, eggs, garlic, onion and seasoning became a staple dish of those men and is so delicious that it’s country flavours are still enjoyed today. In the traditional Minas style, the dish is served in a clay pot that gives it a distinctive and appetising flavour.

To top off the experience, a sweet, Pudim de Queijo (cheese pudding) is irresistible, both in flavour and texture. As well as being delicious, it simply melts in your mouth!

The portions can be split and Floripa are also offering a special set menu with a starter, main course, dessert and a caipirinha for just £20.

To see what other culinary adventures lie ahead (and if your home state made the cut), see the box for the full program of Taste of Brazil, which will showcase delicacies from different regions until December.

FLORIPA – TASTE OF BRAZIL

brasilobserver.co.uk 21 DIVULGATION

SABOR DO BRASIL EM LONDRES Floripa traz, à capital britânica, sabores de diferentes regiões do Brasil; pontapé inicial é com a deliciosa cozinha mineira

g

g

g

g

g

g

g

Minas Gerais (4-31 August) São Paulo (2-16 September) Goiás (17-28 September) Bahia (30 Sept-12 Oct) Espírito Santo (14 to 26 October) Sergipe (28 Oct-9 Nov) Santa Catarina (11-23 November)

Floripa Restaurant 91-93 Great Eastern St | London, EC2A 3HZ

Se fizer uma rápida pesquisa sobre comida brasileira, vai constatar que a feijoada é eleita pela maioria o prato tradicional do Brasil. Podemos dizer que a feijoada é um prato nacional, mas não oficial.

O Brasil tem 14 Estados mais o Distrito Federal, então como seria um prato representando todas as regiões? Foi com a ideia de mostrar a diversidade do país através da culinária que o Floripa Restaurante, em Old Street, lançou o Taste of Brazil, que até o final do ano vai colocar no cardápio pratos de diferentes regiões brasileiras.

Para começar com uma impressão que não deixe suspeita, o Floripa elegeu Minas Gerais. Uma cozinha que agrega sabor, história, simplicidade e tradição. Além das características peculiares que justificam o pontapé inicial, nada mais justo que começar por Minas quando se tem na cozinha um Cheff de lá, o mineiro Marcelo Barra.

O ambiente ornamentado com referências de diferentes regiões do Brasil, agregado ao atendimento especial, deixa sua noite agradável e nada melhor do que uma caipirinha tradicional com limão para começar. Depois, para variar, uma caipirinha de frutas vermelhas.

Para entrar no clima, uma porção de pão de queijo, tradicional da região de Minas Gerais, abre o apetite para então deliciar o prato principal: o Feijão Tropeiro, com a opção de bife ou bife de porco.

Para quem não sabe, o nome do prato tem referência direta com a história do período colonial, quando o transporte das mais diversas mercadorias era feito por tropas a cavalo e os homens que guiavam eram chamados de tropeiros. Até meados do século 20, eles atravessavam o Estado conduzindo gado. O feijão misturado à farinha de mandioca, torresmo, linguiça, ovos, alho, cebola e tempero tornou-se um prato básico do cardápio daqueles homens.

A escolha é certeira. Com um tempero tipicamente mineiro, o prato é servido na panela de barro que deixa a comida deliciosa e a conserva quente por mais tempo, além de deixar o sabor bem mais apetitoso.

Para encerrar, se você curte um doce poderoso, o pudim de queijo é irresistível, tanto no sabor, quanto na textura. E quer saber? Prepare-se pra repetir a dose, porque além de delicioso, derrete na boca!

A porção da refeição pode ser dividida por duas pessoas e ainda conta com uma oferta especial: entrada, prato principal, sobremesa e uma caipirinha por £20. Confira no BOX a programação do Taste of Brazil, que traz delícias de diferentes regiões até o mês de dezembro.

22 brasilobserver.co.uk

NEW CANVAS OVER OLD DIVULGATION

Baratos do Riberio’s reading club

THE BEST BOOKSHOPS IN RIO AND LONDON Given that another instalment of FLIP, the annual celebration of Brazilian literature, just drew to a close and excitement grows for the English version, now seems a good time to look a little at the literary institutions I’ve encountered in Rio and also share some favourites in my hometown.

ded the fossil like curved staircase and away from the glaring sunshine and hubbub of the city I felt like I was perhaps taking a step closer to understanding the real Rio. This is a wonderful place for book lovers where you can get lost in the sometimes precarious stacks of the written word and where the staff are welcoming, even to an English girl with very rudimentary Portuguese!

RIO

LONDON

Prior to spending a long time in Brazil and having read about the foundations of the FLIP festival as a means of promoting a love of the written word within the country the discovery of many wonderful bookshops in Rio has been one of the best surprises on my current trip.

Baratos do Ribeiro - I first visited this unassuming used bookshop in Copacabana seven years ago on my first trip to Brazil and it is without a doubt the place that cemented my love of the county and my pledge to return.

Back then a friend and I spent so long talking about and listening to Brazilian music with the owner, Mauricio Gouveia that he forgot to close the shop and it was one of the best evenings of the trip and a recent visit showed thankfully that nothing had changed.

The store is committed to sharing ideas, sounds, images and conversations with the fellow bibliophiles and musos who visit and make it a special place.

Livraria Berinjela - This is a very recent discovery made in downtown Rio when I had in fact been visiting the better known Livraria Leonardo da Vinci that shares the intriguing basement space of the majestic edifício Marques do Herval. As I descen-

While skyrocketing rents have made London’s high streets become increasingly homogenous and with more and more Brits happy to turn a blind eye to the aggressive capitalism of Amazon, the city’s literary life is a shadow of its former glory. While lots of booksellers and shops have been lost over the last thirty years, thankfully a few are still around and are wonderful places to visit.

Bookmongers - This is a magical used bookshop in the heart of Brixton that has seen the area around it change a lot over the last 20 years, while thankfully staying true to it’s roots. With a great collection of fiction and a very knowledgeable shop owner, Patrick Kelly this is a great place to discover new authors.

You can meet Kelly and found out more about the shop in this lovely video: http://vimeo.com/47170288.

Daunt Books - I wanted to include at least one non-used bookshop that was still a truly special place and Daunt Books is definitely that. The original shop on Marylebone High Street is a beautiful Edwardian space with three levels, lovely balustrades and a stunning skylight that feels a little like a church of books rather than a shop.

By Kate Rintoul

AS MELHORES LIVRARIAS DO RIO E DE LONDRES Já que chegou ao fim mais uma edição da FLIP, a celebração anual da literatura brasileira, e cresce a expectativa para a versão inglesa da festa, a FlipSide, me parece um momento oportuno para escrever sobre algumas livrarias que encontrei aqui no Rio e compartilhar minhas opções favoritas em minha cidade natal.

que compartilha o espaço do porão do majestoso Edifício Marques do Herval. Enquanto eu descia as escadas me sentia como se estivesse talvez mais perto de compreender o verdadeiro Rio. É um lugar maravilhoso para os amantes dos livros, onde você pode se perder nas estantes por vezes precárias, e onde os funcionários são acolhedores até mesmo para uma inglesa com português rudimentar.

RIO

LONDRES

O fato de eu estar no Brasil há alguns meses me levou a ler bastante sobre os fundamentos da FLIP, que se destaca como um meio de promover o amor pela palavra escrita pelo país, por isso a descoberta de muitas livrarias maravilhosas no Rio de Janeiro tem sido uma das melhores surpresas da minha viagem até agora.

Baratos do Ribeiro - Visitei pela primeira vez esta modesta livraria em Copacabana há sete anos em minha primeira viagem ao Brasil e é sem dúvida o lugar que cimentou o meu amor pela cidade e minha promessa de voltar. Naquela época, um amigo e eu passamos muito tempo falando e ouvindo música brasileira com o proprietário, Mauricio Gouveia, que até se esqueceu de fechar a loja. Foi uma das melhores noites da viagem e uma visita recente mostrou, felizmente, que nada havia mudado. A loja se compromete a trocar ideias, sons, imagens e conversas com os companheiros que visitam o local.

Livraria Berinjela – Esta é uma descoberta muito recente feita no centro do Rio, quando eu visitava a mais conhecida Livraria Leonardo da Vinci,

Com os aluguéis exorbitantes que fizeram as high streets de Londres tornarem-se cada vez mais homogêneas – e com mais e mais britânicos felizes em fechar os olhos para o capitalismo agressivo da Amazon –, a vida literária da cidade é uma sombra de sua antiga glória. Mas, mesmo que muitas livrarias tenham sido fechadas ao longo dos últimos trinta anos, felizmente algumas ainda estão por aí.

Bookmongers – Esta é uma livraria mágica no coração de Brixton que tem visto a área ao seu redor mudar muito ao longo dos últimos 20 anos, enquanto que felizmente se mantém fiel às suas raízes. Com uma grande coleção de ficção, é um ótimo lugar para descobrir novos autores. Você pode conhecer o dono, Patrick Kelly, e descobrir mais sobre a loja neste lindo video: http:// vimeo.com/47170288.

Daunt Book – A loja original na Marylebone High Street é um belo espaço da era Eduardina com três níveis, lindas balaustradas e uma claraboia impressionante que você se sente um pouco como se estivesse em uma igreja de livros, em vez de uma loja.

Por Kate Rintoul

TRAVEL

brasilobserver.co.uk 23

A LIFE ON THE HIGH SEAS

By Luanda Esteche

Since childhood I have been passionate about the sea. Like many, I dreamed of exploring the great oceans by ship and travelling the world for work and leisure.

When it came to studying for my under and postgraduate degrees it made sense to choose tourism in the hope of making these dreams a reality.

Time passed and one day I met a boy who had worked on cruise ships. He shared several tips and countless stories with me. I was fascinated and thought, “I want to do that!”

So I found a recruitment agency that specialised in hiring ship crew. After completing a compulsory course focussed on health and safety on board, I

was called to do an interview. So I found myself being interviewed by and then working for Pullmantur Cruises, a Spanish company that belongs to one of the largest organisations in the sector, Royal Caribean.

I had many doubts before boarding as I had heard some horror storie. Some people had warned be about working 14-16 hours a day, sea sickness, cramped living spaces and so on.

So when I boarded for the first time, I was prepared for the worst, but in fact, the experience was very smooth.

The work was no harder than what I had been used to and the food was not that bad. The hardest part of life on board was the longing for family and homesickness.

Although I found ways of overcoming this and I can now say that after four years working on cruise ships and having visited 35 countries visited, I have realised my dreams, made new friends and created my own countless stories to tell. The ships became a home, one that could take me to places I had never imagined. The experience has given me the strength to overcome any kind of problem, the best of friends and taught me to live. There’s a sort of saying among crew members that those who survives on board can survive anything life throws their way.

Of the places I visited, I have three favourites: Greece, Malta and Curacao.

Greece is lovely, I’ve been to Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Katacolon, Athens

and Patmos Island. They are all wonderful places with unique pasts. Mykonos and Santorini have lovely white houses and beautiful beaches.

Wonderful Malta, whose capital is Valletta, is an archipelago located in the Mediterranean composed of seven islands, of which only three are inhabited.

Valletta has beautiful, a mix of stones and modernism, with blue sea and its own natural energy.

Curacao is a small country that could really be classed as a city. Despite being a small country, it does not lack in quantity of attractive locations. I have a very special affection for Curacao as it was the first place I visited outside go Brazil and it is home to beautiful beaches that are great for clear water diving.

UMA VIDA EM ALTO MAR Por Luanda Esteche

Desde pequena sempre fui apaixonada pelo mar. Como muitos, sonhava em viajar pelo mundo conciliando trabalho e lazer; no meu caso, de navio. Por isso, fiz graduação e pós-graduação em turismo.

O tempo passou e um dia conheci um menino que tinha trabalhado em cruzeiros.

Ele me deu várias dicas, me contou várias histórias. Fiquei fascinada e pensei: “eu também quero isso pra mim!”.

Busquei então uma agência de recrutamento de tripulantes para navio. Fiz um curso obrigatório para todos os tripulantes, chamado STCW, que visa predominantemente segurança a bordo. Pela agência, fui chamada para fazer uma entrevista.

Realizei a entrevista para a Pullmantur Cruises, uma companhia espanhola que hoje pertence a uma das maiores do ramo, a Royal Caribean.

Tive muitas dúvidas ao embarcar, já que ouvia muitas pessoas falando mal da vida a bordo. Falavam que se trabalhava de 14 a 16 horas diárias, que se passava fome, que os chefes pareciam carrascos.

Paguei para ver: foi o melhor que poderia ter feito.

Quando embarquei pela primeira vez, fui preparada para guerra, para enfrentar o pior. Mas, na verdade, não foi nada daquilo, foi muito suave. O trabalho não era nada mais daquilo que já não estava acostumada, a comida nem era tão ruim assim. O mais difícil da vida a bordo é a

saudades da família, a saudades de casa.

Há quatro anos trabalho em cruzeiros, contabilizando 35 países visitados, sonhos concretizados, amigos conquistados e inúmeras histórias para contar. A casa de lata, forma como chamamos os navios, me levou a lugares onde jamais imaginei estar, me fez viver coisas que jamais imaginei. Deu-me força para superar qualquer tipo de problema, me deu os melhores amigos, me ensinou a viver.

Quem sobrevive a bordo, sobrevive a qualquer coisa. É abrir mão das certezas da vida na terra para viver nas incertezas das ondas do mar.

Dos lugares que visitei, tenho três preferidos: Grécia, Malta e Curaçao. A Grécia é encantadora, já estive em Santorini,

Mykonos, Rodhes, Atenas... São todas cidades maravilhosas. Mykonos e Santorini são aquelas com casinhas brancas e praias belíssimas.

Malta, maravilhosa Malta. Malta, cuja capital é Valleta, é um arquipélago localizado no Mediterrâneo composto por sete ilhas, das quais apenas três são habitadas.

Valleta é linda, um misto de pedras e modernismo, com mar azul e dona de uma energia singular.

Curaçao é um país tão pequeno que poderia ser uma cidade, cuja capital é Willemstad. Apesar de ser um país pequeno, não deixa a desejar na quantidade de atrativos. Tenho um carinho muito especial por esse lugar, pois foi o primeiro lugar fora do Brasil que estive.

DIVULGATION

Mykonos (1), Malta (2) and Curacao (3)

24 brasilobserver.co.uk

MUSIC TO WEAR

By Marielle Machado and Bia Brunow

As we said in our first column for the Brasil Observer, one of the main reasons we created this space is to make the conversations we have in our day to day life public. Even though we’ve been living far away from each other for years, we still have a huge affinity regarding fashion and yet our styles have managed to stay completely different. With all these experiences, we ended up exchanging and sharing ideas.

We always inspire each other in our own way.

So from time to time we decided to challenge ourselves and try out different looks with the same piece of clothing. It’s an experiment and exchange of ideas that we publish the results of here and on our blog (www.musicaparavestir.co.uk). Besides living

in completely different countries and climates, several other factors influence us while choosing what to wear, which makes us see the same piece of clothing in a unique and distinctive way.

The item we chose this time is a nude trench coat with fake leather sleeves, to protect from the cold in the UK, and from the annoying drizzle in Brazil.

The cool thing about this type of coat is that it is the most versatile item you can have. The fabric is not that thick, so it’s ideal for the Brazilian winter and the late British summer. And honestly, it goes brilliantly with almost any outfit. To prove that, we tried not to style around the trench coat itself, but to focus more on the clothes we wanted to wear that day, then we just put the coat on top. We think it worked, don’t you?

INTERCÂMBIO DE IDEIAS Por Marielle Machado and Bia Brunow

time is a nude trench coat with fake leather sleeves, to pComo explicamos em nossa coluna de estreia aqui no Brasil Observer, um dos principais objetivos do Music to Wear é justamente publicar questões relativas a conversas – importantes ou não – que costumamos ter no dia a dia. Nesse tempo todo morando longe uma da outra, adquirimos afinidade enorme em relação à moda, mas conseguimos nos manter completamente diferentes em termo de estilo. Nesse amontoado de experiências, acabamos trocando, ou melhor, compartilhando peças em comum. E, cada uma a sua maneira, arrumamos um jeito de inspirar a outra com ideias legais.

Resolvemos, então, nos desafiar mais uma vez e publicar aqui e no nosso blog (www.musicaparavestir.com.br), de tempos em tempos, algumas produções e combinações que partem de pe-

ças em comum que nós temos – e assim fazer o nosso intercâmbio de ideias. E é mesmo um intercâmbio. Além de morar em países e climas completamente diferentes, vários outros fatores influenciam a gente na hora de escolher o que vestir, fazendo com que vejamos as coisas – no caso uma peça de roupa – de modo único e distinto.

A peça da vez é um casaco trench, na cor nude e com as mangas de couro – para se proteger um pouco do frio do Reino Unido, e para a chuvinha chata do Brasil. O legal dessa peça é sua versatilidade. O tecido não é muito grosso, ideal para o inverno brasileiro e o verão europeu. E, honestamente, vai bem com praticamente qualquer roupa. A prova disso é que para fazer essas fotos, tentamos não considerar tanto a peça em si, e sim a roupa que queríamos usar no dia. Depois é só jogar o trench por cima.

Funciona bem, não acha?

PERSONAL ARCHIVE

IDEA EXCHANGE

(Photo 1) Bia combined two different printed dresses with the coat. The first one is in leopard print and has the same colour palette of the trench. The second one is a very colourful embroidered dress, which contrasts with the coat’s neutral colours.

(Photo 2) Marielle came up with two very different looks. The first one mixed prints with black jeans, a striped top and leopard shoes. For the second look, the pink metallic skirt is the piece that gets all the attention, even under the coat.

brasilobserver.co.uk 25

JS

CURSOS

t stop!

age newlangu your nex

Manhã, tarde, noite e aos sábados Professores brasileiros e nativos

Inglês • Espanhol • Português • IELTS • FCE • Redução de sotaque Serviço de intérprete: Português-Inglês, Inglês-Português Atividades extra-classes: museus, teatros, viagens, shows de TV, parques temáticos e muito mais!

CURSOS A PARTIR DE

£60 MENSAIS

www.jsnewlanguage.co.uk | info@jsnewlanguage.co.uk Localização: bem próximo a

Tottenham Court Road

Central Line | Northern Line

51 Oxford Street, 1st and 3rd floor - W1D 2EF

7, 8, 10, 25, 55, 73, 98, 390

(Entrada pelo souvenir shop à esquerda)

075 8422 2796 020 7734 4237