For the past week Brazil has shocked the world and itself with massive protests. As hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets, some observers saw the protests as an example of the spontaneous riots that marked the Arab Spring. Those events in the Middle East, which began in December 2010, managed to topple several long-standing governments, including Egypt’s and Tunisia’s. Similar protests broke out last week in Turkey. Like Brazil, Turkey has not been the scene of formal political protests in many years.

The first protesters in Brazil, who began demonstrating about a week ago, appeared to be mostly university students but also included activists from political parties. Some were tied to an organization called the Free Fare Movement, which advocates decreases in public transportation fares or doing away with the fares entirely and financing public transit through tax increases.

What began on Avenida Paulista in São Paulo spread on Monday, June 17, throughout the country to include Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Recife, Fortaleza, Belo Horizonte, and other cities. Last week, rock-throwing protesters in Rio damaged churches and historic buildings. And on Thursday, more than 1,000 demonstrators halted traffic at rush hour on a heavily congested avenue.

While it appears that the uprisings in Turkey and Brazil began spontaneously, aided by social networking websites, the Brazilian government continues to maintain that opposition political parties have been organizing the demonstrations. After Saturday’s opening of the Confederations Cup in Brasília, where President Dilma Rousseff was unable to make her prepared speech because of loud “booing”, the government also added its condemnation to the media, calling the outburst an example of “informative terrorism.”

The social protests began over the government’s proposed 8 percent increase in bus fares. However, the angry demonstrations have grown in the past days to include soccer fans. It would seem that even under the gleaming canopy of the just-completed Mané Garrincha Stadium, 70,000 fans were disappointed enough in their country’s rising inflation figures and meager economic growth to force FIFA president Joseph Blatter to request order. While officially inaugurating the Confederations Cup tournament on Saturday at the Brazil-Japan contest, Blatter admonished the crowd for booing Dilma: “Brazilian football fans, where is the respect and fair play, please more respect.”

Dilma Rousseff’s approval rating has fallen for the first time since her term began in January 2011. Her rating now stands at 57 percent, far below the numbers maintained by her predecessor, Lula.

In cities all across Brazil, spontaneous protests continued against the increase in bus fares, some of which turned violent with bus-torching, vandalism against public and private property, and clashes with riot police, who reacted with tear gas and rubber bullets. The response thus far of the government and many private citizens is one of disapproval and fear. “They have no respect for the police,” one Curitibana remarked. As the protests have yet to rally behind a single cause or leader, some observers believe the demonstrations are merely an opportunity for violence and property destruction.

While some scenes of demonstrators on the TV news have depicted protesters holding signs calling for peace and an end to the violence, many Brazilians sympathize with the grievances. Those participating in the street revolts and those observing on TV have equally voiced their complaints about political corruption in Brazil and the huge amounts of money being spent on the World Cup stadiums, which could have been invested in improvements in Brazil’s education system.

The start of the Confederations Cup has been marked by protests over the cost to host the World Cup, which is expected to reach 50 billion reais. Police deployed tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse around 3,000 protesters from outside Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã stadium ahead of the Confederations Cup match between Italy and Mexico on Sunday. Following Brazil’s victory over Japan in Brasília on Saturday, Jornal de Brasília headlined its coverage of the game with “Party Inside, War Outside”.

More than 200,000 Brazilians filled the streets of cities across the country on Monday in protests against the high cost of living and lavish spending on soccer stadiums. The protests intensified as images of police brutality against peaceful protesters spread on social networks. One striking account of the violence used on protesters last week in São Paulo appeared in a video viewed more than a million times on YouTube. It was narrated by Giuliana Vallone, a reporter for the website of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, who was shot in the eye at point-blank range by one of the police “shock troops” deployed against the protesters. On Monday, as protests spread across Brazil, video clips shot for the website of O Estadão de São Paulo showed protesters in Brasília dancing and singing on the famous curved roof of the Congress building designed by Oscar Niemeyer.

The protests have crystallized around campaigns of dissent over public transportation dating to the Vintém Revolt of 1879, when protesters in Rio challenged Brazil’s monarchy over fares for trolley cars. “The hike in bus fares was the spark for this,” said Maurício Santoro, an adviser to Amnesty International. “Public transportation in Brazil is expensive, unsafe, and poorly managed, which especially impacts poor commuters who have no choice but to rely on public transportation.”

São Paulo’s mayor and governor were both in Paris last week to lobby for the city to be chosen as the site for an international fair, the World Expo 2020. Governor Geraldo Alckmin called the protesters “thugs” and “vandals,” insisting that the fare increase would not be revoked.

Returning to São Paulo, Mayor Fernando Haddad, met today (Tuesday morning) with representatives of the protest movement but warned that it would not be possible to revoke the increase in bus fares, citing budget restraints.

“These voices, which go beyond traditional mechanisms, political parties and the media itself, need to be heard,” President Dilma Rousseff said in a speech on Tuesday morning. Ms. Rousseff, who is no stranger to government protests from her youth, said that Brazil “awoke stronger” after the protests on Monday night: “The greatness of yesterday’s demonstrations were proof of the energy of our democracy.”  The protests rank among the largest and most resonant since the nation’s military dictatorship ended in 1985.

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

Interbusiness Curitiba will begin on Thursday, July 4, 2013. The event is associated with the United Nations Sister Cities program. It is made possible through a partnership between FESP (Paraná University of Higher Education) and FCU (Florida Christian University).

Interbusiness is one of the largest international events held in Curitiba and regularly hosts internationally renowned speakers. This year Mayor Gustavo Fruet will deliver the opening address and welcome participants. The opening ceremony will take place in the FESP auditorium at 7:00 pm and registration starts at 6:00 pm.

Conference Speakers:

Prof. Anthony B. Portigliatti, Ph.D.

President and Chancellor of Florida Christian University and President of Soar Global Institute, an international coaching and mentoring association and the Soar Company. International speaker in the fields of behavior and human development, communication, marketing and diversity.

Professor Cristina Samuels

International speaker and coach. Founder and President of the Institute of International Training. Master of Education and graduate in international relations from Kansas University. She has conducted training programs with focus on diversity in more than 40 countries in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States. She has trained officers and employees of Marriott hotels, Darden restaurants, Office Depot, Lucent Technologies, AT&T, and Texaco, among others.

Dr. Benny Rodriguez

Clinical psychologist, coach and trainer. Doctor of clinical psychology from the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Master of coaching at FCU. Specialist in negotiation and persuasion strategies and neurolinguistics. He has spoken at conferences on “quality of life” and the “art of living, applied to coaching and leadership.”

Jackie Colon

President and CEO of JC Consulting LLC. She was the first Latin American to serve as president of the board of commissioners of the county. She was councilwoman of Palm Bay and acted as lawmaker to the Children’s Defense Council.

Dr. Ricardo Monteiro

President of Unifuturo. Doctor of Education, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany. Bachelor of Theology, Humboldt University, Germany. Master of Arts in German literature.

Dr. Augusto Cury

Psychiatrist, author, researcher and international lecturer. He developed one of the few theories in the world about the functioning of the mind and thought construction called “multifocal intelligence”. He is the author of over 30 renowned literary titles such as “Never Give Up on Your Dreams” with over 30 million copies sold worldwide.

Karel Hilversum, MA, Ph.D.

Educator, coach and international speaker. Founder and president of the Outside Group. He has lectured in several countries, conducted research in development teams, and is a specialist in neurolinguistics. He has trained employees in over 250 companies including Walmart, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson.

CONFERENCE AGENDA:

Thursday, July 4

6 pm to 7 pm: Welcome Breakfast and Registration

7 pm: Opening Session: Mayor of Curitiba, Gustavo Fruet.   FESP President, Dr. Carlos Eduardo Guimarães Athayde.     FCU President, Dr. Anthony Portigliatti

Friday, July 5

7 pm: Mini Lecture: Real Estate Market, Process Agility in USA

Speaker: Sam J. Sebaali

7:30 pm: Plenary Lecture: Shortening Paths for International Institutions

Speaker: Jackie Colon

8:30 pm: Coffee Break

8:45 pm: Mini Lecture: Education for New Skills in the Labor Market

Speaker: Hamilton Silva

9:15 pm – Main Lecture: Forming a New Generation of Thinkers

Speaker: Dr. Ricardo Monteiro

Saturday, July 6

9 am: Mini Lecture: Organizational Acupuncture

Speaker: Dr. Fernando Leocádio Pianaro

9:30 am: Plenary Lecture: Training and Team Integration

Speaker: Karel Hilversum

10:45 am: Coffee break

11am: Mini Lecture: Financial Coaching

Speaker: Dr. Carlos Eduardo Guimarães Athayde

11:30 am: Plenary Lecture: Understanding the WIFI Model in Relational Leadership

Speaker: Dr. Benny Rodriguez

12:30 pm: Lunch

2 pm: Plenary Lecture: Multifocal Intelligence

Speaker: Dr. Augusto Cury

4:30 pm: Closing Remarks: Dr. Anthony Portigliatti

Inspired by a Popular Guide to Understanding the British, I’ve put together a few entries in a Foreigners’ Guide to Understanding Brazilians. Portuguese speakers and Brazilians are invited to add more in the Comments. Hat tip to Brazil-based journalists Andrew Downie and Dom Phillips, who contributed items, and Olivier Teboul, a Frenchman living in Belo Horizonte whose list of “Brazilian curiosities” (in Portuguese) has generated a huge response from amused, and sometimes bemused, locals.

What Brazilians say: Yes (Sim)
What foreigners hear: Yes
What Brazilians mean: Anything from yes through perhaps to no

What Brazilians say: Perhaps (Talvez)
What foreigners hear: Perhaps
What Brazilians mean: No

What Brazilians say: No (Não)
What foreigners hear (on the very rare occasion a Brazilian says it): No
What Brazilians mean: Absolutely never, not in a million years, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever been asked

What Brazilians say: I’m nearly there (Tô chegando)
What foreigners hear: He’s nearly here
What Brazilians mean: I’ve set out

What Brazilians say: I’ll be there in ten minutes (Vou chegar em dez minutinhos)
What foreigners hear: He’ll be here soon
What Brazilians mean: Some time in the next half-hour I’ll get up off the sofa and start looking for my car keys

What Brazilians say: I’ll show up later (Vou aparecer mais tarde)
What foreigners hear: He’ll be here later
What Brazilians mean: I won’t be coming

What Brazilians say: Let’s stay in touch, ok? (A gente se vê, vamos combinar, ta?)
What foreigners hear: He’d like to stay in touch (though, puzzlingly, we don’t seem to have swapped contact details)
What Brazilians mean: No more than a Briton means by: “Nice weather, isn’t it?”

What Brazilians say: I’m going to tell you something/ Let me tell you something/ It’s the following/ Just look and you’ll see (Vou te falar uma coisa/ Deixa te falar uma coisa/ É o seguinte/ Olha só pra você ver)
What foreigners hear (especially after many repetitions): He thinks I’m totally inattentive or perhaps mentally deficient
What Brazilians mean: Ahem (it’s just a verbal throat-clear)

What Brazilians say:  A hug! A kiss!  (Um abraço! Um beijo!)
What foreigners hear: I’ve clearly made quite an impression—we’ve just met but he/she really likes me!
Waht Brazilians mean: Take care, cheers, bye

What Brazilians say: You speak Portuguese really, really well! (Você fala português super-bem!)
What foreigners hear: How great! My grammar and accent must be coming on a lot better than I thought
What Brazilians mean: How great! A foreigner is trying to learn Portuguese! Admittedly, the grammar and accent are so awful I can barely understand a word… but anyway — a foreigner is trying to learn Portuguese!

[This essay originally appeared on www.economist.com on May 24, 2013, and was written by H.J.]

There is a sad expression about Brazil that roughly translates: “Brazil is the land of the future, but we’re still waiting for the future to arrive.”

Brazil’s future is often debated among politicians and journalists and everyday Curitibanos, who are ready to embark on the future now. What does Brazil need to begin its destiny today?

Some people believe the coming World Cup and Olympics are going to “jump-start” Brazil’s future. Certainly, Brazil is building some beautiful new football stadiums, and there are infrastructure improvements “in progress” to the roads, tunnels, trains, ocean ports, and airports. For short-term challenges of logistics, these upgrades will be a valuable improvement. Brazil needs greater airport, shipping, and port capacity. Many cargo ships arriving in Brazil face huge delays waiting to unload their goods, particularly at smaller ports like Paranaguá in Paraná.

However, it remains to be seen whether these infrastructure improvements will have a lasting effect on the country’s long-term problems like crime and education. These complicated issues will not be solved simply by the influx of additional money; money isn’t enough.

One theory on how to approach Brazil’s long-term problems is to recognize the central role of Brazil’s political crisis. Brazil must find a way to abolish political corruption – this is the key to Brazil’s future.

There have been some public protests against corruption recently, mostly by students. On Independence Day 2011, 25,000 people assembled in Brasília in the “March Against Corruption.” The student protesters stood alongside the Independence Day Parade after organizing on Facebook and Orkut. A month later in October, for the holiday Nossa Senhora Aparecida, 20,000 again marched in Brasília and 2,000 in Rio on the same theme, waving green and yellow brooms. In Curitiba, there was a small protest against political corruption with some marchers wearing white Guy Fawkes masks, a 17th century British protest symbol updated in the science-fiction film, V for Vengeance.

Guy Fawkes masks

Unfortunately, student power is limited. It’s only through the efforts of people within the government who have the courage and power to stand up against corruption that the endemic atmosphere of political corruption in Brasília and throughout the country can be changed. One such man is Joaquim Barbosa, head of the Supreme Court.

Another bright prospect for Brazil’s future and the fight against corruption is the growing power of the media. Veja magazine played a prominent role in exposing the Mensalão scandal, headed by Barbosa. Meanwhile, this year the Brazilian version of The New York Times will launch. This powerful American newspaper, respected worldwide, already had offices in Brazil with a small staff reporting on events relevant to the rest of the world. However, this year for the first time there will be an online version of The New York Times in Portuguese. Even more important, the Portuguese version of the newspaper will be specifically geared for Brazilian readers with half of the articles being written by Brazilian journalists.

The presence of The New York Times in Brazil will be the newest force towards ethical accountability among politicians. The power of the media — whether it’s traditional media like newspapers and magazines or social media like Facebook — to mobilize public opinion and stimulate protest is greater than all other forces.

Every issue of social responsibility from prison overcrowding to the ranchers’ destruction of the Amazon forests benefits from media attention. The more people who know about injustice, the more likely there will be a solution. That’s why journalists sometimes are harassed and even killed when they make information public that is detrimental to the wealthy and powerful. According to the journalism organization, Reporters Without Borders, five Brazilian journalists and bloggers were murdered in 2012, making Brazil the world’s fifth deadliest country for media personnel.

The media has the power to motivate and mobilize social protests, but nothing will change without the support of the general population. Corrupt politicians cannot be defeated if their supporters continue to vote for them. This has long been a problem in Brazil, where some brave journalists are willing to expose corrupt politicians only to have the politicians re-elected when their terms expire.

Some researchers note this error in public judgment is common in countries like Brazil that have a mandatory voting law. With everyone voting, political issues often take a “backseat” to public notoriety. People with name recognition are sometimes elected without any background in politics. Often the name recognition comes from a family member, not the candidate himself, and the family member is not a politician either. Many believe that compulsory voting, as opposed to voluntary voting like in the US, creates opportunities for the approval of inexperienced or corrupt candidates.

Besides exposing corruption and keeping these men from getting elected or re-elected, the other critical tool to solving political corruption is to send convicted politicians to jail. As of today, even with a 40-year sentence being handed out by Barbosa at the Mensalão trial, not one convicted politician in that scandal has gone to jail.

With strong public opinion supported by an independent media pressuring for clean politics, perhaps the cult of corruption can be changed. It is a long fight and a problem that won’t be solved easily. Many politicians are honest and hardworking, particularly when they are first elected. But the atmosphere of corruption and temptations of power and money are so pervasive in Brazil that it’s difficult even for the best politicians to resist.

To alter Brazil’s future, the legal justice system in Brazil needs to be re-structured. It’s not so much a problem of judicial corruption these days, but an antiquated legal system with too many loopholes and appeals and too much bureaucracy. It needs to be streamlined. There are numerous laws to protect workers and consumers, but the laws aren’t being enforced. If you want to stop people from drinking and driving, or parking their cars illegally, there must be greater enforcement and higher penalties. Brazil needs more police, more detectives, more forensic technology.

Joaquim Barbosa

Brasil also needs more government lawyers – there are people languishing in prisons for years waiting for their first court appearance who have never met with a lawyer, even though it is their legal right because they don’t have the money to hire a private lawyer. Most critical, Brazil needs to invest in more courts and judges. This is a place where a direct infusion of money could launch Brazil into the future. There are plenty of qualified candidates to serve as competent and honest judges.

Not all problems are solvable with money, but some are, like hiring more judges and government lawyers. Another example, the problem of police corruption has been greatly reduced in the last few decades by raising the salaries of the police, particularly the Federal Police. When employees of the Federal Police are making monthly salaries of R$10,000 or more, there is much less chance they will risk being caught in a propina scandal. If they already have a very comfortable lifestyle, why risk losing their jobs.

In the same way, a massive influx of government money could greatly improve public education in Brazil, by doubling the number of schools and teachers and sending children to school all day, as they do in the industrialized countries.

However, Brazil’s future has promise. With the arrival of a powerful media organization like The New York Times, perhaps Brazilians will finally prove they are sick of political corruption. If people believed their tax money was being spent on worthwhile problems instead of new mansions for politicians, there would be more funds available for improving the education and legal systems. Honest politicians could begin Brazil’s future now and set an example for the rest of Brazilians.

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

On Friday, May 17, in the Diário Oficial da União, Brazil’s official government communication, the Ministry of Labor announced two measures to facilitate the entry of foreign workers into the country. The most important measure allows for processing and obtaining a work visa before the applicant provides the documents proving experience and education, which must be translated by a sworn translator in Brazil, and also implements the electronic registry of companies that are hiring foreigners to work in Brazil.

In the past, the professional was required to present translated documentation in order to obtain a work visa that is converted into a temporary visa, and companies had to resubmit paperwork every time they requested a visa for a new employee.

The second measure enables the Brazilian government to grant work authorization to obtain a temporary visa to travel to Brazil for those enrolled in postgraduate education and plan to come to Brazil to work in a company based in the country. The visa will be valid for up to 90 days without extensions and cannot be transferred to a permanent visa.

Under normative resolution No. 104, a foreign applicant may receive a work permit without providing diploma and documents demonstrating experience sanctioned by a Brazilian diplomatic representative abroad and translated by a sworn translator in Brazil. From now on the employee will have 60 days after obtaining authorization to submit the translated documentation. Previously the application process was halted until all documents were received.

The resolution also implements the electronic registration of companies, which will allow scanning of the required documents from the company and eliminating the need to send the paperwork again in a subsequent request. Before the documentation was mailed and was required each time the work permit was requested.

For a visa to be granted, prior authorization is required from the Ministry of Labor, which must be requested by the employer in Brazil along with proof of enrollment in the foreign master’s or doctorate degree or graduate program of at least 360 hours. Additionally, there must be the employment contract with the specified term of part-time or full-time, and signed by the requesting company and the foreign employee candidate.

According to the resolution, the work is not linked to internships or professional exchange programs.

[This article originally appeared in Globo news and was translated and edited by CIE]

It is widely believed that the countries which best manage their energy needs today will have the most productive economic futures. Until now, Brazil has been among an elite group of countries facing an optimistic energy future. For most of the past decade, Brazil has been “energy independent”, limiting its total consumption of energy to what it could produce. (In fact, Brazil has imported some oil and gas, but at approximately the same levels it was exporting.)

However, recently the news regarding Brazil’s energy future is not so healthy. Oil production is falling at Petrobrás. In 2012, its production fell 2 percent, the first such decline in years. Compounding a fall in oil production, Petrobrás has also been forced to import gasoline, exposing Brazil to the fluctuations in the global energy markets. Even the nation’s ethanol industry, once envied as a model of renewable energy, has had to import ethanol from the United States.

Brazil’s demand for gasoline surged about 20 percent in 2012, reflecting a car-manufacturing industry that has boomed, partly as a result of a government stimulus through lowered taxation. José Carlos Cosenza, a Petrobrás executive, has warned that Brazil may need to import large amounts of gas for almost another decade. Gasoline demand is expected to climb even higher as Brazilians buy more cars.

Petrobrás still lacks enough refineries able to process crude oil, forcing it to buy increasing amounts of gasoline from abroad. And it is still losing money on gasoline imports as the government limits increases in gas prices to keep inflation from accelerating in a slow-growing economy.

Five years ago, Brazilians were celebrating the discovery of huge amounts of oil in deep-sea deposits about 250 kilometers off the coast of Rio. The discovery, originally named Tupi, but now called the Lula oil field, was the largest oil discovery in the Western Hemisphere in the last 30 years. Many energy experts predicted the discovery would launch Brazil into the top ranks of global oil producers.

Nevertheless, today Petrobrás is struggling. Energy experts cite several reasons why the giant energy company is not performing up to expectation. First, there’s Brazil’s economy. In 2010, growth was at 7.5 percent, while in 2012 it slowed to just 1 percent. Even in Latin America, countries like Peru and Mexico are outperforming Brazil. With a sluggish economy comes lower tax revenue, which means less investments from the government in the state-owned energy company.

Second, thanks in strong part to the Lula oil field, huge additional investments in Petrobrás are needed at this time. The rich new oil deposits are located in deep-water locations, requiring special drilling equipment that Petrobrás doesn’t have. Also, greater safety measures, which require additional investment, are necessary to excavate these deep-water deposits in order to avoid the kind of disaster that BP faced in the Gulf of Mexico with its Deepwater Horizon oil spill. That explosion and subsequent spill cost BP the lives of 11 oilrig workers and was the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the industry. Besides the loss of life, BP has already paid billions of dollars in fines to the US government and still faces the possibility of billions more resulting from civil law suits from fishermen and home owners affected by the giant spill in the Gulf.

BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster

The third element that is crippling Petrobrás is the current government in Brazil, which has demanded that Petrobrás acquire all the necessary new equipment for excavating the oil from the Lula oil field with Brazilian technology. While this equipment is readily available from other countries, the government believes it’s better to produce the equipment inside the country, even if it takes longer and costs more. Thus Petrobrás is now being forced to buy ships, oil platforms, and other equipment from Brazilian companies. But these ventures have struggled with large cost overruns, sometimes delivering vessels late or not at all, cutting into Petrobrás’s hopes of meeting ambitious production targets.

As a result, Petrobrás has been placed in an impossible position. Not only have the Lula oil field operations yet to go into production, but other major projects are being delayed while the company focuses its financial and technical resources on the Lula field.

“Petrobrás was once thought indestructible, but that is no longer the case,” said Adriano Pires, a prominent Brazilian energy consultant. “Petrobrás is now a tool of short-term economic policy, used to protect domestic industry from competition and fight inflation. This disastrous process will intensify if it is not reversed.”

Spread of BP oil disaster

Dilma Rousseff, like her predecessor and political mentor, Lula, has relied heavily on state companies like Petrobrás to create jobs and spur the economy. As a result, the president and her top advisers argue, unemployment remains near historic lows in Brazil, an approach in economic management that contrasts sharply with Europe and the United States, where high unemployment is crippling economic growth. Dilma notes that Petrobrás is building new refineries, pursuing offshore oil, and buying most of its equipment from Brazilian companies, all of which have created tens of thousands of jobs and delivered some tangible political benefits.

The government’s relationship with Petrobrás has not always been so close. In the 1990s, the government ended Petrobrás’s monopoly. The company remained under state control but it became a hybrid organization, both state-owned and private, like a few other companies in Brazil, such as Caixa Economica, one of Brazil’s largest banks. As a result, in the last decade, Petrobrás had been forced to compete with foreign oil companies. However, after Brazil made its deep-sea oil discoveries at Tupi in 2007, the government pushed Petrobrás firmly in control of the new areas, signaling a return to an earlier philosophy of monopolistic energy policy.

An additional problem Petrobrás faces is that the international energy industry is changing, especially in the United States, shifting towards extracting oil and natural gas from onshore shale formations rather than ocean drilling. Many oil companies now prefer ground extraction to ocean oil wells after the BP disaster. Brazil is thought to have large shale reserves itself, but the government remains focused on its costly deep-sea mega-projects, and thus Petrobrás is falling behind in this newest technology in oil exploration.

Types of ocean oilrigs

“The United States is redrawing the global petroleum map, while in Brazil euphoria [after the Tupi discovery] has given way to inertia,” Folha de São Paulo said in a recent editorial.

Describing the accumulation of problems at Petrobrás, Exame, Brazil’s top business magazine, bluntly accused the government of “destroying Brazil’s largest company,” accompanying the claim with an illustration of a fuel dispenser from a gas station in the shape of a noose.

Maria das Graças Foster, the chief executive of Petrobrás, has been exceptionally frank about the company’s problems. In recent conference calls with analysts, she said that oil production should remain steady this year or perhaps even decline slightly again. By 2020, the company expects to double overall production to 4.2 million barrels a day.

The oral tradition, persistent throughout Latin America, is healthy and vibrant in Brazil. In the 21^st century, Brazilians continue to learn about the world from other people – family, friends, TV. All information is gathered and passed on via talk.

American culture isn’t based on an oral tradition. For example, in Portuguese, the word história can mean history, or a story, a fable, a tale, an anecdote, a rumor, or even good old-fashioned gossip. Americans are more selective about their information. Family gossip about the neighbors might be interesting, but it’s not given the same attention as an article in The New York Times.

For Brazilians, a story heard from a friend is no different than a story read in the newspaper because all stories are comprised of personal opinions and possibly incorrect information. Your aunt in Londrina could make a mistake with some details of a story because she’s getting old. Similarly, a newspaper can make a mistake because journalists aren’t perfect. A journalist could misunderstand one of his sources, or he might be persuaded to alter the story slightly because his editor has political friends in Londrina.

In the same way that newspapers can make mistakes, intentional or accidental, history books can as well. History books are researched in the same way as newspaper articles. When a historian writes a history of World War II, for example, an event that happened before he was born, he has no personal information or first-hand observations. Instead he collects his information from newspapers, books, or interviews with individuals who participated in the War. Thus all accounts of history, no matter how factual they claim to be, are based on the stories of individuals. Some of those people are going to make mistakes or have gaps in their memories. History is nothing more than the collected stories of the past.

Thus, history is open to interpretation. There is even field of academic study known as “revisionist history.” The merging of fact and opinion, truth and rumor, is common because it occurs every day in our lives. For example, everyone in your family agrees that last week the new neighbors could be heard having a loud argument. However, no one agrees on what the argument was about because the voices were too muffled to clearly hear the words, even after your mother left the apartment and stood in the hallway to listen more closely. Your mother is convinced the neighbors are getting a divorce, while your sister is sure they were fighting over how to take care of their son, who is rumored to have had some problems with the police.

In this way truth and opinion, science and superstition, reality and rumor, history and gossip, the everyday world and the dream world, are all mixed together in oral cultures. Brazilians have no trouble accepting this mixture of fantasy and reality. If the world is harsh and difficult, isn’t it easier to tolerate with the addition of fairies and angels? Like the steam that rises from a tea kettle on a cold day and clouds up the windows, Brazilians don’t always wish to have a clear view of reality if that world is unpleasant. Avoiding undesirable realities in any way possible is a common psychological coping mechanism.

As there is no clear demarcation between reality and rumor in Brazil, it’s no surprise that the rules of grammar reflect this mixture. For example, anything that happened yesterday is described in Portuguese using past tense verbs. And if the story continues with an earlier event that occurred last year, it’s still the past tense. In English, there are two separate verb tenses for this, so it’s clear which event occurred first. Anything that happens before the past requires the past perfect tense in English, used to describe the past before the past. The past perfect verb tense (he had already eaten) is occasionally used in Portuguese (ele já tinha comido), but it’s not common, especially in conversation. Thus, all events in the past are combined into one tense in Portuguese, creating a vague blending of time periods.

In Turkish there is a special verb tense that allows writers to distinguish rumor and gossip from what they’ve seen with their own eyes. When you are relating dreams, fairy tales, or past events that you could not have actually witnessed yourself, this verb tense is used.

The merging of reality and dreams, science and mysticism, in oral cultures creates an intoxicating brew of mystery. To an outsider, Brazilian culture is covered in a fog of ambiguity where nothing is certain. For a Brazilian, this foggy vagueness is perfectly suited to reality because life isn’t clear and ordered like a science experiment or a math equation. Life is comprised of people’s lives, which are messy and full of chaos.

In February,  New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote about two other countries with a strong oral tradition, Italy and Iran. Of Italy he wrote: “The line between truth and untruth runs blurry in Italy, stripped of Anglo-Saxon exactitude. Truth is readily sacrificed on the altars of beauty and fantasy. Difficult realities are circumvented.”

Cohen believes truth and facts are not the most important aspects of a story in Italy. In this way, it is easier to avoid the painful experiences of life. About Iran he commented on how the language of Arabic is used the same way as Portuguese is used in Brazil. In oral cultures, conversations take longer than in English because the oral tradition allows for the mixture of truth and gossip. People talk around and around a subject. Approaching a subject directly is considered rude because it says the listener is not worth the time of a real conversation. Cohen wrote about conversations in Iran: “Ambiguity is infinitely preferable to clarity because it more accurately reflects life. Direct speech is abhorred.”

Pablo Neruda

Latin American authors have been using ambiguity in their books for decades, and their work has been translated and revered all over the world. In the writings of Brazilian Clarice Lispector and the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, we read of the merging of reality and dreams, the known and unknown. There’s also the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, who received the Nobel Prize in literature, the highest award given to writers. Márquez called Chilean poet Pablo Neruda “the most important poet of the 20th century — in any language.” Neruda also won a Nobel Prize and was so popular in Chile he became an ambassador, a senator, and even ran for president.

The literature created by these Latin American writers has a specific name, “magic realism.” From a Western viewpoint, these writers are masters of the imagination, but from a Latin American perspective, their work is an accurate portrayal of everyday life, a world very foreign to the American mind. Uncertainty is an impediment to Americans; it clouds the vision, placing a barrier between us and reality. But in the world of “magic realism”,  uncertainty is a vital element of the landscape. The unknown is not a barrier — it’s a microscope through which we can better view our existence.

Walking through a fog of mystery is to be expected for anyone visiting Latin America.

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

By B. Michael Rubin

Human beings are social animals. We live in groups – families, tribes, cities. For the very first humans, a million years ago, like for all animals that live in the wild, life revolved around finding food and water and protection from the elements of nature: cold, rain, and other carnivorous animals. Humans survived by learning skills to protect themselves and their families.

As children growing up in a family, we are taught by our parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters the rules of social behavior. We learn that stealing from others or hurting people is wrong. And if we continue such improper behavior when we become adults, we pay a penalty. Adults who break the rules of society are punished and sent away to prison. In this way, a society separates itself from people who don’t follow the accepted rules of behavior.

Researchers who study social behavior cite five key elements that hold a society together. These five elements are similar to laws in that if they are violated, there is a serious penalty, such as being isolated from the family. However, these elements are different from laws in that they are not written, like laws in the Constitution. Nevertheless, these five elements provide a strict code for social behavior. They are as important as laws, and we all follow them even if we don’t realize it.

The five elements (or unwritten laws) of social behavior:

1. We must contribute to our family, thus whatever work is necessary to maintain the family should be shared.

2. Within any family there is a “pecking order” or power structure. A boy must do what his father says because the father has greater power within the family than the boy.

3. We rely on other family members to help us. We need help with small jobs; other times, when we’re sick, we need others to care for us. Therefore, we are dependent on the other members of the family.

4. Since we are dependent on others, such as our mothers to feed us when we are infants, we must learn how not to offend family members.

5. If we do not follow the rules, the family can isolate us or impose another penalty. If we offend others or refuse to help with work, why should the family take care of us?

When everyone in a family or tribe or city follows these five rules, life continues peacefully. As a result, it’s possible for a tribe of Indians living in the Amazon jungle to continue their existence along the same patterns of behavior and social order without changing. These tribes have been hunting animals and gathering berries and nuts for food in the same way for thousands of years. A boy learns the best way to kill an animal from his father, who learned from his father. Learning these skills are what enable the tribe to eat and survive.

What is not present in these Amazon tribes is the desire or need or ability to change. The group reaches a position of equilibrium with its environment, where there is enough food and water to survive, and they remain stable and stationary. Animal species behave in the same way. The basic instinct for unchanged stability is known as “biological stasis.”

If animal species and primitive humans seek stasis, then how and why did modern civilization occur? How do humans change? This is a fundamental and as yet unanswered question that scholars have pondered for centuries. Clearly some groups, like native Indians, have not changed, but they are the exception. Cultures change and evolve, which is why life today in Curitiba is different from life in the Amazon jungle.

One theory about human change is that there is a basic difference between humans and other animals — that difference being our curiosity and desire. In another theory, change is seen as a form of adaptation. People change because they have no choice, their survival requires it. This was the great contribution made by Darwin and other early experts in human evolution in the 19^th century. Darwin was the first to recognize that the animal species that survived throughout history were the ones that adapted best to change.

Change and progress also occur because humans are creative. We can use our imaginations to solve problems, then adapt our solutions to solve other problems, or solve the same problems in a better way. People have learned to explore, invent, and experiment. We have developed artistic expression and romance. These human desires have allowed cultures to change and evolve.

One thing we know for certain is that change is not easy. It comes gradually, and some changes are good while others are not. Yet, the advancement of civilization is based on the principle of progress and change. Without invention and creativity and change, there would be no wheel, no telephone, no computer.

It is still unclear exactly what inspires humans to change, what leads individuals or groups to invent new things and experiment. We do know that change is outside the norm; it is easier and safer to follow the guidelines set by our parents. It is safer to follow the rules than to break the rules. The question then is: What would stimulate people to act in ways that are not normal? What creates a different pattern of behavior?

Beer spa in Europe

Recently, some researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada have developed a new theory on human change. Their findings are not what anyone expected – beer!

Professor Brian Hayden and his colleagues in Canada believe they have proof that beer was being consumed by ancient cultures as long as 10,000 years ago. They believe that even before grain was being used to make bread, it was being stored to make beer. Hayden has published his theory in the Journal of Archeological Method and Theory.

His theory suggests that beer parties were essential in the development of early human societies because alcohol frees people. Drinking suppresses the rigid social codes that all families follow. People need an excuse that allows them to escape their inhibitions, to act in ways that are not normal. With the use of beer or wine, people who are usually shy or afraid to express their ideas are now free. Beer allows people to break the rules temporarily, to act differently, to celebrate even in times of hardship. Beer breaks down traditional communication barriers within the internal power structure of a tribe. Additionally, when people drink, they are more caring and affectionate towards others.

Beer advertisement

Some evidence suggests that these early beers (or wines) were also considered aids in deliberation. In long ago Germany and Persia, collective decisions of state were made after a few warm beers, then double-checked when everyone was sober. Elsewhere, they did it the other way around. Beer was thought to be so important in many ancient civilizations that the Code of Urukagina, often cited as the first legal code, prescribed beer as a central unit of payment and penance.

It should be noted the reason beer and wine were popular long ago is specifically because of their low alcohol content. As far as the research has shown, distillation of alcohol to higher concentrations began only about 2,000 years ago. It must also be recognized that while drinking may have provided a valuable element to the development and progress of a civilization, no society can function if everyone is drinking all the time. The morning after a party, the group must return to its routines of hunting and gathering food and caring for itself. Beer is not food. Without sober family members and hard work, society falls apart.

We have all witnessed the tragedy of people who drink so much they cannot live without it and become alcoholics. They lose their families when they are no longer able to follow the codes of social behavior, such as helping others or not offending people. And we certainly don’t need anyone to warn us about the dangers of drinking and driving a car.

Therefore, while it’s not suggested that everyone drink beer all day, every day, it does appear that limited and responsible use of beer and wine may have played an important role in the development of civilization. Or as the American statesman Ben Franklin supposedly said, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

Market research shows that products sold in Brazil with some form of English in the name or description sell better than other products. It doesn’t matter that consumers may not understand what the English words mean or that the words may be useless propaganda, such as “Better Quality”. The marketing or “chic” value of English in Brazil today includes not only products but the names of companies as well. Here again, it doesn’t matter if a Brazilian understands what the word means as long as it’s recognizably English.

There is a respect for English in Brazil, as there is in most countries because English is the worldwide language of business. However, the Brazilian fascination with English goes deeper – it reaches all the way to the level of envy. Brazilians envy people who can speak English, and they envy the US — a land of big houses and moon landings.

Gisele Bundchen's house in Los Angeles

Where does Brazilian envy come from? One theory is Brazilians believe American products are better than Brazilian products. While Brazil does boast some excellent quality, such as football players and the girls Olympic volleyball team, Brazilians want to buy US products. For example, the US produces more films every year than any other country. And the Apple computer company is doing well even though its tablets, laptops, desktops, and smartphones cost more than their competitors. Even in the US, Apple’s American competitors like HP and Dell are cheaper. Consumers in Brazil and all over the world recognize the Apple brand as a leader in quality.

If we travel back one or two decades, it’s easy to see where this envy for American products originated. In the 1970s, telephones were just arriving in Brazil. It was so expensive to obtain a phone line that there were people trading their cars for phones. Only rich Brazilians had ever flown on an airplane. Toilet paper was so thin it was possible to see tiny bits of wood in it. Brazilians lucky enough to travel to the US came back with stories of thick, soft toilet paper. They described a country where everyone had a phone and even poor people owned cars.

Thus, for decades Brazilians have been living with the idea that there was a better, richer world in the US. Feeling that the country one lives in is inferior to other countries is a heavy psychological burden to carry, particularly when it’s reinforced by movies and TV and everyone else you know. If the entire world refers to Brazil as an undeveloped or third world country, then it must be true.

Sophia Loren eyes Jayne Mansfield

In a certain way, there is justification for envy. For instance, many Brazilians have never heard of the Nobel Prize, the most prestigious award in the world. Why? Because no Brazilian has ever received one.

In psychology, there is a phenomenon known as the “Stockholm Syndrome”. It refers to an alteration in the personality of a kidnapping victim who is forced to spend many weeks or months with her captors and eventually comes to sympathize with them. An example of this was Patricia Hearst, the American publishing heiress, who after months of being a hostage, agreed to help her kidnappers rob a bank. The Stockholm Syndrome is an unexpected brainwashing of a victim that occurs over a long period of confinement. Brazilians may be the victims of the Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to their inferiority. When enough people believe something for a long period of time, it becomes true.

What has happened over the past few decades to Brazilian consciousness is envy has become a habit. If the US or Sweden is a better country because it’s richer and safer, then it’s easy to believe that Americans or Swedes are luckier than Brazilians. Decades spent feeling you are unlucky to have been born in Brazil creates a large problem with confidence levels. Brazilians suffer from a national lack of self-confidence. Don’t misunderstand, Brazilians are still a very proud culture, but they are speechless with inferiority when they compare themselves to the US.

The problem is when envy becomes a habit, it gets dangerous. Feeling inferior makes it possible for Brazilians to envy other Brazilians. Envy is comprised of negative emotions, and it can create a situation where it becomes impossible to be happy for what others’ possess. In this way, envy creates competition among equals, and it creates enemies among friends. When your neighbor returns from a trip to Turkey, suddenly you find yourself on the Internet looking longingly at pictures of Turkey. Instead of being happy for your neighbor, you are so envious you begin planning your own trip. Even worse, you are angry with your neighbor for telling you she went to Turkey. You believe she told you only to make you envious, to show she has more money than you.

Envy has become so hurtful in Brazil that Brazilians sometimes hide their good fortune. It’s considered impolite to tell anyone you’ve bought an expensive car; it’s “bragging”, an unnecessary display of personal wealth. Instead of your friends being happy for your success, they are envious, and it makes them sad and bitter.

Is it necessary that envy be equated with bitterness? Certainly, it’s not polite to display wealth. This is avoided in Brazil because people fear being robbed of their expensive jewelry if they flash it around. That’s why you don’t see people reading iPads on the bus.

Envy has become so commonplace in Brazil that it’s dangerous to mention any new possessions. Mentioning assets of any kind is considered rude because it encourages envy. A superstition has arisen in Brazil surrounding envy that if you insist that your friends admire your new car, the collective envy this creates can be so powerful it can cause you to have an accident in your new car. 

Envy is so strong in Brazil that not only has it entered into the consciousness of superstition, but it’s spawned a bizarre idea that says envy can cause illness in the person who is envied if the person envied feels sorry for those less fortunate.

Is envy the reason Brazilian women spend so much time at the hair/nail salon? In public, Brazilian women spend more time gazing at other women than their husbands do. Of course, all women want to appear attractive and will go to great trouble to achieve it, which explains why Brazil is the plastic surgery capital of the world. Being proud of one’s appearance certainly aids in self-confidence, but should it be inspired by envy? (By contrast, in a recent study, only 4 percent of US women consider themselves beautiful.)

I once invited some Brazilian friends to watch the World Cup game at my apartment, and I mentioned I owned a Sony HDTV. In the US, this is a polite form of self-advertisement to let my friends know watching the game will be enjoyable. However, my wife told me in Brazil this was rude. Owning something new isn’t polite because it creates envy. Instead of envy inspiring people to work harder and save their money to buy a new TV or travel, envy has become a nasty negative emotion.

A country full of the envious can’t be productive. It Brazil intends to continue its trajectory into the world of the developed countries, it needs to reconsider this bad habit. If Brazil can successfully utilize its new wealth to upgrade the education and justice systems, there would be no cause for envy. If everyone has clean water and access to good schools, what is there to envy?

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

By Roberto Muggiati

Like the unsung heroes he worships, Fernando Lichti Barros works stealthily — and consistently. In 2010 he published the biography Casé/Como toca esse rapaz! which was awarded the Funarte Critical Production in Music Prize. Now he is out with a new book, Do calypso ao cha-cha-chá/Músicos em São Paulo na década de 60. (The title, you must remember this, comes from the lyrics of a well-known Tom Jobim song, Só danço samba.) When bop saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker died in 1955, New York walls were covered with graffiti BIRD LIVES! When saxophonist Casé died in 1978, Fernando, then 25 years old, felt the urge paint CASÉ VIVE! all over the walls of São Paulo. But Ipiranga-São João is not a corner of Manhattan, and Fernando had to wait thirty years to pay his homage to his idol, making his biography available at first in the web and, two years later, publishing it in book form.

José Ferreira Godinho Filho, better known as Casé, was born in Guaxupé, Minas Gerais, in 1932 in a musical family: father and mother musicians, one trumpeter brother, three saxophonist brothers. From circus tents and church meetings to ballrooms, radio and TV studios and night clubs, he also travelled extensively through Europe and the Middle East. “Cool and introvert, he used to utter one sentence per year,” said one of his colleagues. Casé was the alto sax in the famous Dick Farney Quartet in the fifties, a Brazilian version of Dave Brubeck’s Quartet. He studied harmony and the classics, and rejected several proposals to play in the United States and in Europe (“I have to take care of my mother”). He met a tragic death, alone in a hotel room in Boca do Lixo, São Paulo’s Skid Row. Apparently he got involved with a gangster’s moll and the boss sent some of his henchmen to “fix him good…” But these crummy surroundings have not wiped out Casé’s musical achievements, still vivid after all those years. For him, modern jazz, more than a cultural adventure, was almost a religious experience.

Casé is also present in the mass of musicians playing all over São Paulo’s sixties, as Fernando Lichti Barros tells us wonderfully in Do calypso ao cha-cha-chá: Músicos em São Paulo na década de 60 — in the night clubs called “inferninhos” (pocket hells), recording studios, radio and TV auditoriums, and also at Saturday balls and marriage celebrations. Obscure sidemen rarely credited on album covers or notes, but splendid players who used to put their love for music above everything else. Writes Fernando: “A cauldron of styles and rhythms, from samba to jazz, from twist to “jequibau,” from bossa nova to rock’n’roll, from calypso to cha-cha-cha. The soundtrack of the sixties is highlighted by the presence of instrumentalists — a sax blowing in the night, a tinkling piano at the back of the bar, an orchestra rocking softly the dancing couples.”

Each chapter of the book unfolds one year of this decade of turmoil and crisis. The author shows almost graphically how political facts become intertwined with cultural ones and, particularly, with the music. As soon as the military seize power, in 1964, there is an intervention in the musician’s union — all unions are supposed to be communists’ nests. And the rock band Oliveira e seus Black Boys almost went to jail when its guitar improvisation on Glenn Miller’s American Patrol was taken as a disrespectful distortion of Brazil’s National Anthem.

Casé

Apart from such comical episodes, it was the best of times for musicians. São Paulo was the focal point of Brazil’s economic boom in the sixties and jobs were plentiful. (Just as reference, the city started the decade with a population of 3,7 million and ended it over the 7 million mark.) Nightclubs mushroomed at an incredible pace, with colorful and exotic names like Dakar, La Ronde, Clube de Paris, Chicote, Baiuca, Juão Sebastião Bar, La Vie en Rose, Galo Vermelho, Black & White, Lancaster. Most of the big hotels also had musical bars and engaged some of the best musicians in town.

Some of these players were known by curious nicknames, such as Foguinho, Fogueira, Chu, Buda, Bira, Lambari, Maguinho. Masterful pianist Dick Farney’s real name was actually Farnésio Dutra e Silva (his actor brother, Cilênio, became Cyll Farney.) Musicians came from all over the country to try their luck in São Paulo: Hermeto Pascoal, from Alagoas; Ayrto Moreira, from Santa Catarina — both would record in the late sixties with jazz giant Miles Davis. They also came from abroad, from Europe, from Argentina — saxophone virtuoso Hector Costita lives until today in São Paulo.

Dick Farney

If you lost your job or were after a gig, you just went to the Musician’s Point, a bar in the corner of Ipiranga and São João and all your problems were solved. Those happy and hectic days would soon be drowned in the noisy pile-driver of disco. But it was wonderful while it lasted and Fernando Lichti Barros set the record straight. He interviewed some sixty of those brave warriors of the night and they are still alive and playing — playing well, many of them already in their mid-eighties.

The story does not end here. If you wish to listen to those fabulous sounds of Casé and of the musicians of the sixties in São Paulo, just tune in: Fernando provides us plenty of music on his Radio Casé and Radio Do calyso ao cha-cha-chá. Just click the links below:

http://www.blogamp.com/skins/run_bamp.php?cID=0ba26316864a5fa98817303f546c7027&title=RADIO%20CASE

http://www.blogamp.com/skins/run_bamp.php?cID=92eca6fd4bb51d104dd041ac0b5a8db7&title=RADIO%20CALYPSO

Roberto Muggiati is a regular contributor to CIE. He is a musician who writes about music for numerous newspapers and magazines in Brazil.