Waking up drinking organic coffee is something you all should try someday. It’s really tasty for a start, and you can definitely feel the roast and all the flavors. People who know me personally, know my taste buds are awful, even if my loved one, Owner, Mistress and reason to be alive, Suzana, is doing intensive cleaning and re-education ( I’m eating more fish to start with ).
I’m here writing, drinking coffee and Susie’s package of Mentos is here on the desk. She loves this stuff, I can’t figure out why. From all minty stuff she could love, she does dig Mentos. Alongside with some credit card printouts ( those small coupons the machine tives ) from our trip to Paraty, we have to go out more. We have a few trips scheduled, nothing we have to sleep over, just to reduce cost, we have a planned trip to Thailand and Australia next year, paired with a very important surgery. If we can come up with the money in time.
Talking about which, some friends felt it could be a good idea if I got my portfolio alongside me while traveling to Australia. Of course I won’t be hired, it would be silly, but just present myself, my work, to new people across the globe. Because, Brazil is getting to a limit, and we may eventually want to move, and if we love the place as much as everyone says we will, and being a familiar faces to editors may be a good point to move my career as well. I suspect I may have a little help, which is always nice, but if I learned something on these 34 years of life on this planet, is that if you want something, you must go get it.
My rants about Brazil are somehow reminding me about Fuzzy’s rants about Denmark. Just, here there are big issues to back up the small issues I have. I have always felt kind of alien here, not conforming to how people usually think. We were discussing some things, like mandatory bribery, the amount of ceremony that goes into public affairs and the judicial system. To change my name, I’m spending months collecting evidence that a male name does not suit me properly. And, written statements from friends that as representatives of the society I live in, they do not oppose my name change. There is an inherent power leverage thing working in Brazilian society that doesn’t allow it to function as it should. If I were friends with a judge, or had a politician in the family, or were rich, this lawsuit would be much less of a burden, because I would be amongst those whose asses are to be kissed. But since I am nobody, in the sense of being just a normal citizen ( which here means, nobody ), I’m the one who have to bend over and leave lipstick marks on others.
Has always been like that. Huge farmers also collected political power. And their employees owned no land, lived on paying rent for their boss and also kissing his ass. Any favor he would ask would be simply seen by the workers and lower casts as a favor being asked by the boss, a very important man, and if you did that favor, you’d be scoring points with him, and maybe gaining more favors than your other fellow workers, and being put in a position of advantage. But on the boss’s point of view, he didn’t ask for favors, he just simply stated his wishes, and as such, being who he is, it’s normal that everyone will move heaven and earth to have it done. And indeed, it’s true. So, the worker gains no favors for doing something his or her boss thinks is only a normal natural part of things.
This kind of thinking… that who’s below kisses the ass of who’s above, and the person above thinks his ass ought to be kissed, no matter what, created the whole mechanics of modern Brazilian society, derived from it’s rural origins, and if you think of Brazil as being industrial and so on, let me remind you, Brazil was a rural power in 1910. The only real serious industrialization came in as a rush in the 1940’s and 1950’s. And if affected nothing more than maybe 20% of our territory. Meaning, this is a rural country, who elect rural representatives, who sometimes the press finds out still hold slave labor camps in their farms today. And the Brazilian rural worker was never, and still isn’t, a land owner. There is a title for huge land owners whose farms include even towns inside of them, and who are elected mayor every year without much formal ado or real competition, and that title is “Colonel”.
In the 1800’s, the emperor ( yes, while France was cutting out the heads of their kings, we were getting ourselves one… Brazil became independent from Portugal in the 1800’s – where the Portuguese prince and heir to the Portuguese throne, Pedro I, decided he would make Brazil independent and rule it as a reward, while his father ruled Portugal… that’s independence for you ) use to give to land owners the army title “Colonel”, so that they were also a presence of the state on the huge landmasses they owned, and to the population they controlled. That also gave them some sort of army-like loyalty structure ( think Sicilian mob – you know the word Capo is derived from Captain, don’t you? ). They had, and still have, an army of hit men and thugs to make sure things went accordingly to their plans.
So, is it much surprising that in the verge of 2010, Brazil has the social makeup that we see today? Travel 100km from any major city, and you’re back into the rural areas. And even in the big cities, we don’t have as of today, a true cosmopolitan reasoning, but instead, one derived from the rural way of thinking. Most of our people still don’t own land, that including, any small apartment. We pay the highest bank and loan fees in the world. We’re double and triple taxed summing up to 45% of the yearly whole GDP ( Gross Domestic Product ) and growing. And, even if we pay 15% taxes on income that go to healthcare, the public healthcare system, regardless of it’s gigantic resources, is broken down from too much people stealing from it, and a joke. So, we pay taxes like in Sweden, but live like in Bolivia. We have to pay for private health care, private education and private security ( the police doesn’t patrol our street, so, we pay a private contractor to patrol it for us ), and still have problems.
I don’t think I’m going to see much change in my lifetime here. I don’t honestly believe, during my lifespan this time, I’ll see honest politicians, the dismantling of the rural mindset, and the increase on basic education for the gross of our populations, so at least we could say 100% of our people know how to read or write, or that at least, 100% of the children that finish high school know how to read and write ( shocking? Yes, but also true – Government approved some form of automatic promotion in schools because the fail rate was just too high… that solved the impossibly high fail rates problem, and now is creating the good-fake-numbers problem ) which are crucial for change.
If I were rich, like Antony Bourdain said when he came over to São Paulo, I would be much less bothered by these affairs. First of all, my ass would be the one in the lineup for kissing. Secondly, anytime I got bothered, I’d just take a couple of weeks in Paris ( I did photo school in a rich people school… I never believed it until I saw everyone there just “took two weeks in Paris to clear up their minds” whenever they decided… or London… or NYC… or taking a US$10.000 diamond covered slipper to class for a product photoshoot when you brought a can of coke ). Bourdain at least was decent enough to see the glass wall, notice not everybody had friends who could take him on helicopter rides across town to avoid traffic jams. He made some effort to show the real deal society here, but a very watered down version of reality.
Mistress tends to say “São Paulo is what would happen if LA thew up in NYC”.
I think a city is made by it’s people. A country is made by it’s people, and no matter how much I try, it seems I can’t manage to leave a lasting effect here to at least influence the area we live in. The rural Kiss Ass mentality means everyone expects things to come top to bottom. That the Colonel will do something. And whatever he decided will be fine. It’s common to see how politicians can steal and get away, because, the normal Joe just says “If I were in his position, I would do the same”. Maybe if Joe didn’t, Joe would be outraged, and understand the money is his. Maybe, we could hope for some critical mass someday that would change the mindset.
And the truth of what is a banana republic and why it’s so, sinks deep down. And you come to understand why all Brazilian authors you like say the same, and most live outside Brazil.
There are two ways out of this mess Brazil put itself into.
GRU and GIG
São Paulo International and Rio International if you’re wondering.
Coming back here will be a huge sacrifice if we love Australia, and to be honest, it will be a temporary one.
