Behavior

Old and Spicy

The latest Brazilian sex symbol is 92 years old. She is Dercy Gonçalves who started her career as a vaudeville actress playing foul-mouthed naughty girls and has been playing variations of this character on stage, big screen and TV for some seven decades now. In June, the nonagenarian entertainer, who is considered by some a cult figure, will be shown in magazine spreads across the country in Marilyn Monro-esque poses modeling a red bodice for women's underwear manufacturer Du Loren.

Always the provocateur, the actress asked photographers—the picture session became a media show—while photos were being taken: "Should I make a whore-like face?" After seeing the result of her efforts, she commented: "That was beautiful. I am convinced that I am still sexy."

The actress said that she accepted the invitation to pose for the risqué pics because she wanted to show that older women are also full of life: "I decided to expose myself not for the sake of showing off or for sex, but to make the statement that life starts at 60. It is at this age that people feel free from any criticism. I had this change at age 80 when I stopped dating."

And she added: "At my age I don't care about showing my underwear. The problem is showing my dentures, wig and artificial eyelashes. I had never made a work like this. I only accepted to make these pictures because they were in good taste, well produced."

Du Loren is investing $170,000 in this ad campaign. The company has a mere 15 percent share of Brazil's women's underwear market. Compared to previous ads from the firm this is very tame. In a previous ad campaign that became worldwide infamous, the company at the end of 1995 showed First Lady Hilary revealing more than a little of her yellow panties during a visit to Brazil. The two-page magazine ad came with a message for Bill Clinton: "Mr. President of the United States of America: Your Excellency can't imagine what a Du Loren is capable of." At the bottom, in smaller letters, there was this caption: "A Du Loren's homage to one of this decade's most important women."

In 1998, the Catholic Church became enraged and made a public appeal for a boycott of the lingerie manufacturer when another publicity piece from the company showed a young woman dressed in a lacy bra and panties being raped. The ad was accompanied by this caption: "Legalize abortion fast. I don't want to wait."

Du Loren's owner himself, Roni Argalji, was the one who chose Dercy as the new Du Loren' girl. He met her when flying from São Paulo to Rio in February. Denise Areal, Du Loren's marketing director, has only praise for the actress: "She is the true woman of the century. She always had pioneer attitudes without forgetting the respect. She represents the woman that seduces and not the one that stays awaiting to be seduced."

Dercy let it be known that she is ready to pose in the nude. She is taking offers right now.

Brazil 500

No Indians Allowed

It wasn't a flattering scene for Brazil while celebrating its 500 years. Far from it. There it was on TV all over the world the military police violently repressing with tear gas and rubber bullets a peaceful march by some 2000 Brazilian Indians representing more than 200 different peoples and sympathizers with their cause, in Porto Seguro, state of Bahia. That on April 22, the same day Brazil was celebrating the arrival of the Portuguese to the land, 500 years ago and in the same area Pedro Álvares Cabral's ships are believed to have arrived.

In a dramatic picture published on the newspapers and on the Internet, a bare-chested Indian, wearing only swimming shorts, is seen lying down on the road trying to prevent the advance of the police that just walked over his body. The police action left dozens slightly injured. Several people including a Xukuru Kariri Indian, who had both legs burnt, had to be hospitalized.

A meeting between the President and the Indian leadership, scheduled for Coroa Vermelha on April 22, never happened. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso accused the Indians of "throwing the President's invitation back in his face". The Indians backed out after considering that a meeting with Cardoso, on that symbolic date, could be misinterpreted. They did not want to be seen as supporting the celebrations they are against. Instead the Indian movement chose to prepare a document denouncing the government and the violence they were subjected to by the Bahia police.

The Indian march should have been a moment of affirmation of the Indian culture and their rights. As Maninha Xucuru, a Xucuru-Kariri leader, declared before the repressed demonstration, "We hope that, as a result of this process, the indigenous movement in Brazil will be consolidated. The March and Conference will be moments for reflection on these past 500 years, and they are useful to strengthen the ideals and struggles of indigenous peoples. Together we will be building paths to the future and writing the first chapter of a new history for our children and the generations to come".

Here is the final document of the Conference of Indigenous People and Organizations of Brazil: 

We arrived in the Pataxó village of Coroa Vermelha, in the municipality of Santa Cruz de Cabrália, state of Bahia, on April 17. On our way to the village, we have fulfilled the commitment to march on the trail of the great invasion of our territories, which has lasted 500 years.

We are more than 3,000 representatives of 140 indigenous peoples from all regions of Brazil. We have crossed lands, rivers, mountains, valleys and plains once inhabited by our ancestors. Filled with emotion, we saw the regions where indigenous peoples were once the masters of their own future for 40,000 years. Filled with emotion, we saw the regions were indigenous people were killed defending the land cut by bandeirantes (members of early colonial expeditions called bandeiras), adventurers, miners and, later on, by roads, farms, and businesspersons craving for lands, profit and power.

We marched through these lands in remembrance of our struggle and pain to retake history in our own hands and once again point to a positive future for all indigenous people.

Here at this Conference, we have analyzed Brazilian society in these 500 years during which it has thrived in our territories. More than ever, we have confirmed that this society, whose progress was based on the invasion of our territories and on the extermination of the people who once lived here, was built at the expense of slavery and of the exploitation of black and low income groups. It's an infamous and undignified history.

The ones who have really shown dignity are those who have been persecuted and exploited during these five centuries. Rebellions, insurrections, political and social movements have also marked our history and have established a continuous line of resistance.

For these reasons, we want to recover this remarkable past and project it into the future by joining black and popular movements and building a larger alliance: the Indigenous, Black and Popular Resistance.

Our main demands and proposals are the following:

The main demands and proposals pointed out by indigenous peoples for the Brazilian State are the following:

1. Assurance of the indigenous rights provided for in the Federal Constitution:

a. Demarcation and official confirmation of the bounds of all indigenous lands by the year 2000;

b. Revocation of Decree n. 1,775/96;

c. Assurance and protection of all indigenous areas;

d. Return of all territories claimed by different indigenous peoples throughout Brazil;

e. Expansion of the bounds of areas that are not large enough for indigenous families to live and grow;

f. Removal of invaders from all demarcated areas, payment of damages for and recovery of all degraded areas and rivers, such as, for example, the São Francisco river;

g. Recognition of peoples that made a resurgence and of their territories;

h. Protection against encroachments upon the territories of isolated peoples;

i. Dissolution of municipalities illegally established within indigenous areas;

j. Respect for the right to exclusive enjoyment of the natural resources contained in indigenous areas, paying special attention to biopiracy;

k. Interruption of the building of power plants, waterways, railroads, highways, and gas pipelines under way and indemnification for damages caused by projects that have been implemented already;

l. Allocation of funds to agricultural projects, among others, for indigenous communities, so as to ensure their independent subsistence.

1. Immediate approval of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO);

2. Passage of the Statute of Indigenous Peoples being reviewed by the National Congress, as approved by indigenous peoples and organizations (Bill 2,057/91);

3. The end of discrimination, removal by force of indigenous people from their lands, massacres, threats against indigenous leaders, violence and impunity in any form. Immediate investigation of all crimes committed against indigenous people in the last 20 years and punishment of the guilty ones. We demand respect for our culture, traditions, languages, and for the religions of the different indigenous peoples of Brazil;

4. Punishment of the persons responsible for the criminal sterilization of indigenous women at the discretion of the community;

5. Recognition of the true history of this country and its inclusion in the curriculum of schools, taking into account the thousands of years during which indigenous populations have lived in this land;

6. Restructuring and empowerment of the official indigenous agency and measures to link it to the Office of the President of the Republic through a Secretariat for Indigenous Affairs, whose secretaries would only be appointed after the organizations concerned are heard;

7. Election of the president of Funai by indigenous peoples from among names suggested by the different regions of Brazil;

8. Education has to be placed at the service of the indigenous struggle and should be aimed at strengthening our culture;

9. Assured access of indigenous students to federal universities without any competitive university entrance examination;

10. Reform, expansion and construction of indigenous schools and provision of education at all levels to indigenous communities, with measures to ensure the training of indigenous teachers and the provision of a professionalizing secondary education;

11. Inspection of the application of funds ear-marked for indigenous schools by an Indigenous Council to be set up;

12. Indigenous education and health care should be placed under the responsibility of the federal administration. We reject all attempts to promote state-level administration of the school system or its municipalization;

13. Enforcement of the Arouca Law, which provides for the establishment of a health care subsystem for indigenous people;

14. Empowerment and expansion of the participation of indigenous communities and leaders in decision-making processes related to the definition of public policies for indigenous people. In particular, the Special Indigenous Sanitary Districts should have full autonomy in their deliberations;

15. The health care system should take into account and respect the culture of indigenous people. Traditional approaches to health care should be prized and strengthened;

16. Specific quality training for teachers, health agents and other indigenous professionals working in indigenous communities;

17. Formulation of a specific policy for each region of Brazil with broad participation of indigenous people and of all segments of society, based on the existing knowledge and projects;

18. Better means to prevent the military and civil police from entering indigenous areas without the permission of indigenous leaders;

19. Annulment of judicial actions against the demarcation of lands traditionally occupied by indigenous people;

We, indigenous people of Brazil, have gone a long way to rebuild our territories and communities. By firmly taking this history into our own collective hands, we are sure that we will break away from a sad past and will confidently move ahead toward a brighter future.

Despite the weight of the old history written by the dominant classes of this country though their culture, political and economic practices and State institutions, we have launched our war cry and set the cornerstone for the beginning of a new history, the great history of the "Other 500 years".

Our indigenous struggle is a tribute to the many heroes who have died in war during these five centuries. Our struggle is for our children and grandchildren, so that they can be free people in a free land.

Coroa Vermelha, Bahia, 21 April 2000.

Brazil 500

Cheers to the Killed

BRAZIL 500th ANNIVERSARY

CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU!

This work is in honor of 500 Brazilians who were assassinated or disappeared in the course of 500 years of Brazilian political history. The list of names was created entirely based on sources from human rights movements and organizations. All of those selected were activists, who, in one way or another, were leaders in the struggle for a more just, humane, and equal Brazil. I did not judge these individuals by their political beliefs, but rather by the causes that led to their assassination or disappearance.

By means of this project I do not mean to judge or simply revisit the history of Brazil, but to shed light on the memory of those who were killed for their beliefs. As a human rights activist and a sociologist, I have always based my convictions on concrete facts and alternative approaches for my own life. I was never one to spend time philosophizing upon the capitalist spirit, but rather on those living spirits who are crushed daily in urban jungles like Rio de Janeiro. And furthermore, as a critical analyst, I do not think that it makes sense to celebrate 500 years of Brazilian history, but instead we should account for those who paid, with their own lives, to build the Brazilian nation.

A still vivid example was the death of Galdino, an Indian, who was burned alive in Brasília in 1997. His death confirms my belief that the Brazilian elite destroyed, in this act, our last opportunity to create a nation for all. Just as he died, over 4 million Indians also perished. Afro-Brazilians, who were once slaves, are still slaves today. Even if they do represent half of the Brazilian population, they have never been able to fully participate in the nation we call Brazil.

If it were not for my conviction that the Brazilian elite is one of the most perverse and cynical in the contemporary world, it would give me tremendous pleasure to congratulate Brazil. But, as a political exile who cannot return freely to my own country, I ask myself, what are we really celebrating?

The only thing I want to do at this moment is to pay respect to all of those who longed for a Brazil that belongs to the majority, that is, the excluded. These Brazilian citizens should be remembered as the fortress of this country, which is still so entirely void of ethics. I am certain that if they were living today, they would be fighting against corruption, death squads, social and political apartheid, and massacres like the one carried out by the Brazilian State Police in 1993 in my own community, Vigário Geral.

And to finish, let me ask: who would allow me to return freely to my country? The President? As I am not crazy and I have two precious daughters to care for, I would rather be in the US alive than be dead in Brazil.

Brazil, in spite of your stupid elite, I LOVE YOU!!!

Caio Ferraz
Brazilian Sociologist
Human Rights Activist
Founder of the NGO House of Peace, Vigário Geral, Rio de Janeiro
acferraz@aol.com 

Life

Living Less

Due to an increase in violent death victimizing youngsters and children, men in Brazil, according to the latest data from the IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística—Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) have lost three years in their life expectancy. This information is revealed in the 1999 Social Indicators Synthesis. While life expectancy is 68.1 years for the population in general, women should expect to live 72.1 years compared to the 64.3 years for men.

The good news is that life expectancy has increased for six years since 1980 when Brazilians were expected to live 62 years. But such results have also to do with where Brazilians live. While southern Brazilians can expect to live up to 70.6 percent, those born in the Northeast shouldn't expect more than 65.1. Even here there is some good news when we know that the gap between North and South used to be larger in the past.

The IBGE study reveals that in 1998 around 70 percent of the deaths of youngsters aged 15 to 19 were not natural. In the Midwest, 49.3 percent of the kids who died between the ages of 5 and 9 had violent death. In the state of Roraima the percentage of kids who suffered violent death was 54.5 percent, the highest rate in the country for children 5 to 9 years old.

The rate of demographic increase has stabilized around 1.3 percent, the same it was in 1997, with projections that this rate will continually fall to 1.1 percent in 2010 and then 0.8 percent in 2020. The fecundity rate (there are now 2.4 children per woman nationwide) has declined dramatically from the 60s and 70s when every Brazilian woman had an average of six kids. The numbers also show that the more educated the woman the less children she has. The lowest fecundity rate was registered in Rio; where there is in average 1.9 kids for every mother.

After decades dealing with the challenges of educating and offering jobs to its youth, Brazil will more and more will face the problem of the growing number of elderly. While there are 13.2 million people over the age of 60 today (7.8 percent of the population), this contingent should grow to 30 million by 2025, according to IBGE's projections.

Finding jobs will continue to be a challenge in 2025, instead of 104.5 million people looking for jobs, Brazil will have 138 million searching. Just getting a job would not be enough for those who are trying to find a place to work today. That is because 30 million who have a job are making less than the monthly minimum wage, which is $84 today. The average income for the upper 10 percent of workers today (7.6 million Brazilians) is $1378. 40 percent workers on the bottom level make an average of $70 a month.

The color factor is also more than evident in income distribution. Twelve percent of families whose head of household is white survive with half of the monthly minimum wage per capita. In families headed by blacks there are 30.4 percent of them that have to live on the same amount. The IBGE data also reveal that the illiteracy rate for whites (8.8 percent) in Brazil is almost three times larger for blacks (21.5 percent).

According to Sérgio Besserman Vianna, IBGE's president, " The inequality is apparent in any aspect that we observe: income, region, sex, race. Several social indicators improve but the inequality does not decrease. This is a constant trait of the Brazilian society, which is not the result of the present circumstances but of 500 years of an unjust history."

Among the positive data revealed by the new IBGE report is the fact that 94.7 percent of children between the ages of 7 and 14 are in schools today. This does not hide the fact that 30.5 percent of Brazilians who are 15 or older are functionally illiterate, incapable of understanding simple forms or medicine information, as an example.

Life in Brazil

Uneasy Rider

Thanks in great part to globalization and the entrance of Brazil into the freetraders club, tens of thousands of foreigners, most of them executives, have descended into the country to work for companies back home. These are people who know the stay in Brazil will only be a passage, a brief interlude before getting a promotion or flying to the next country. Right now there are 30,000 Americans in this situation, besides 35,000 Germans, 12,000 French, 3000 Canadians, 150,000 Spaniards plus thousands more from all over the world. It's believed that in the last two years at least 28,000 new foreigners arrived to work for multinationals. The Labor Ministry informs that these workers stay from one to three years in the country.

Weekly newsmagazine Veja (circulation 1,500,000) has published a short piece on the subject recently interviewing some of these executives and their wives, who seem to be ones who get more involved with peculiarities of Brazilian life while their husbands mostly spend their time at the protected environment of their jobs. Most of these people will never learn much about their host country. Only 10 percent of them are able to communicate in the country's language, the Portuguese.

Among the most visible new "colonies" is the American one in the northern state of Bahia where Ford is building a new assembly plant. The large influx of Spaniards to São Paulo has to do with the presence in the country of Telefonica, a Spanish company with massive interests in telecommunications in Brazil. The Renault factory on the other hand brought scores of Frenchmen and women to the southern state of Paraná.

Veja talks about the phases these executives go through. At the start they get excited about the weather and the distance a little dollar can go in the country. For many women it is the first time they can afford what would be a luxury in their home country: a maid.

In a second phase, starting in the second month, uneasiness or even despair begins to creep in. They feel they would never be able to live and cannot understand how people survive and thrive in what they see as unmistakable chaos amid rampant corruption, ever present misery and violence, and unmanageable traffic.

To make life a little easier, these executives and their spouses join one of the several clubs and associations that cater to them. Places like the Clube Internacional das Mulheres de Executivos (International Club for Women of Executives) in Curitiba, capital of Paraná state. For most foreigners it's very hard to make Brazilian friends and many first contacts go nowhere fast. As Celina Sampaio, the Brazilian who leads the American Society, a club for American executives: "In the beginning Brazilians invite foreigners to visit them, go out with them, but by and large this does not last long."

Behavior

Cooled Down

Taken two youngsters in love who would you think would be the more impulsive, ready to jump head first in a love relationship oblivious of the consequences? The Brazilian or the Swiss? If you answered Brazilian, as most people with some familiarity of both countries would probably do, you are dead wrong. That is, if the conclusions of a new study are right. Brazilian and Swiss professors and psychologists conducted the survey. The study was done among middle and upper-middle class college students in Switzerland and Brazil. The researchers — University of Lausanne's Jean-Claude Deschamps, Universidade Federal da Paraíba's Leôncio Camino and Universidade Estadual Paulista's Celso Zonta — say the results were a big surprise for them.

Almost 400 students were surveyed. This included one hundred and forty two in Switzerland, and 240 in Brazil. While Brazilians are more interested in a relationship as a step to marriage and social climbing, Swiss students are searching for intense relationships that have little or nothing to do with professional success. Why the pragmatism of the Brazilian upscale youth?

The researchers believe that this caution adopted in Brazil and the desire to start a family early in life has to do with the economic instability Brazilians have been enduring for generations. The search for lasting and solid relationships serves as a counterbalance to the economic insecurity.

In an interview with Rio's daily O Globo, Celso Zonta raised the hypothesis that the Brazilian behavior can be explained by the role families play in intimate relationships in Brazil: "Here, the social relationships are valued above individual feelings."

For psychologist Suzanna Schreiber from Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro who was also heard by O Globo, "In Switzerland the youngsters have a more isolated life and this can contribute to the immediacy in the relationship and possessive love. In Brazil we have the opposite. Social conditions favor the encounter of generations and contacts are easier to make, There are more opportunities for choice."

The Catholic Church and its omnipresent influence might be another important factor in this mix. In Switzerland, Protestantism is the main religious force. And as some experts point out, Brazilians for the most part like to stress the notion of romantic love, which ideally is also eternal.

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