Social Awakening in Brazil

The New York Times Editorial Board, 06/20/13

The huge street protests sweeping across Brazil this week caught almost everyone by surprise. But maybe they shouldn’t have.

For all of Brazil’s achievements over the past few decades — a stronger economy, democratic elections, more money and attention directed toward the needs of the poor — there is still a huge gap between the promises of Brazil’s ruling leftist politicians and the harsh realities of day-to-day life outside the political and business elite.

The World Bank lists Brazil as the world’s seventh-largest economy, but puts it in the bottom 10 percent on income equality. Its 15-year-olds rank near the bottom in global rankings of reading and math skills. A succession of its top politicians have been implicated in flagrant payoff schemes and other misuse of public funds.

No wonder that public-transit fare increases provoked outrage from the poor and middle class, who are burdened by a regressive tax system. No wonder that lavish spending on World Cup soccer stadiums while public education remains grievously underfinanced became a rallying cry. To her credit, President Dilma Rousseff has tried to be responsive to the demonstrators. She declared that she welcomes the desire for change, and will respond to it. Local authorities have rolled back the transit fare increases that triggered the protests.

But this week’s marches and demonstrations have revealed public anger at skewed spending priorities and failures in education and other social services as well as a broad constituency for change. In the northeastern city of Fortaleza Wednesday, soccer fans in the newly built stadium and star players on the field signaled their support for the protesters outside.

Brazil’s long silent majority seems to be finding its political voice. Ms. Rousseff, who is up for re-election next year, will have to address new demands with substance as well as sympathy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/opinion/social-awakening-in-brazil.html?_r=0

Rage in Brazil

Mayhem mounts as unprecedented protests against the government spread across the country.

Mac Margolis, 06/18/13

Brazilians held their breath on Monday night as tens of thousands of demonstrators, placards and roses in hand, once again poured into the streets of the country's largest cities while phalanxes of black-clad riot police stood at the ready.

Though social media and the local press reported scattered clashes, there was little of the mayhem and violence of recent days when similar protests turned two of Latin America's megacities into battlefields.

The days of rage have caught observers of this emerging Latin American powerhouse by surprise and rattled a government already suffering from decaying popularity.

Bringing to mind the ongoing protests in Turkey, what began last week as an improvised demonstration against a small hike in bus and subway fares flared into an outright revolt, sweeping a dozen Brazilian cities and throwing a harsh light on the shortcomings of a nation anxious to claim the stage in world affairs.

Triggering the revolt was an innocuous-seeming fare increase of about nine cents for public transportation in São Paulo. But the outrage touched a nerve in this sprawling metropolis of 18 million, where 7 million people depend on a precarious network of buses and subways, and where commuting to and from work can be a four-hour ordeal. "The cars of 20 percent of the population occupy 80 percent of the streets," read one protest banner yesterday.

Demanding "no cost" public transit for all, the youth-driven Free Ticket Movement struck a national chord and quickly escalated into a national revolt with a laundry list of grievances, including badly managed government health care, political corruption, failing public schools, and cost overruns on showy public works for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics that Brazil will host.

Noted media commentator Arnaldo Jabor initially described the demonstrations as "useless anarchism" but then, on Monday, publicly retracted his criticism, praising the protestors as the vanguard of "political creativity."

Though the protests were launched peacefully last week, small bands of provocateurs resorted to vandalism, trashing storefronts and throwing stones and bricks at police.

Authorities pushed back by sending waves of shock troops behind riot shields into the streets. Protesters scattered to the explosion of stun grenades, as police fired rubber bullets into the crowds. One photographer lost his eyesight when he was hit with a rubber bullet. Tear gas mixed with pepper spray wafted into the air mixing with the smoke from barricades the demonstrators hastily threw down and set ablaze.

By the weekend, the revolt had spread to Rio de Janeiro, where marchers played cat and mouse with police near Maracanã stadium—the lavishly refurbished football stadium that is the crown jewel of the Confederations Cup, now under way, and the centerpiece for next year's soccer World Cup. Like a spark during a drought, the rebellion spread up the coast and into the streets of Brasília, the national capital.

On Monday, a small band of rock-throwing demonstrators corralled a group of police inside the Legislative Assembly building in downtown Rio, while vandals in Porto Alegre, a regional capital in the south, torched a city bus and overturned a police car.

High-level officials in the ruling Workers Party sought to shrug off any potential damage to President Dilma Rousseff, deftly shifting the blame to local officials in charge of the dysfunctional transit system. But by then, the protest had soared into a broader complaint about governance in Brazil that leapfrogged ideological and partisan political fault lines.

Like a spark during a drought, the rebellion spread up the coast and into the streets of Brasília, the national capital.

And lost on no one was the recent survey by Datafolha, a major polling firm, that showed for the first time a sharp drop in Rousseff's hitherto stellar approval ratings, from 65 percent to 57 percent. Rousseff was roundly booed at the Confederations Cup opening match on June 15 in Brasília.

"What I thought at first was a group of Trotskyites on Avendia Paulista has become a multifaceted movement," said São Paulo political analyst Bolivar Lamounier, with Augurium, a political consultancy. "What they have in common is a deep dissatisfaction with Brazil."

Driving the revolt is the sentiment that Brazil has not quite lived up to its hype, as an emerging market sensation that has lifted tens of millions of out of poverty to a new middle class. 

And while São Paulo is not Istanbul, the transportation rebellion has clearly become a catalyst for wider discontent in yet another emerging-market country roiled by demographic upheaval and skewed prosperity as well as by the collision of inept governance and rising expectations of politicians to deliver.

Whether the protesters can convert their array of grievances into a forceful political agenda, however, remains an open question. "It's not clear who is best placed to take advantage of the political momentum," says Lamounier. "If the movement fails to translate into real challenge, the frustration will be tremendous."

With Rousseff angling for reelection next year, and another round of protests scheduled for later this week, the political handlers in Brasília will be watching closely.

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A longtime correspondent for Newsweek, Mac Margolis has traveled extensively in Brazil and Latin America. He has contributed to The Economist, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor, and is the author of The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/18/rage-in-brazil.html

Police seal off Istanbul square to protesters

Associated Press, 06/16/13

ISTANBUL (AP) — Bulldozers cleared all that was left of a two-week sit-in in an Istanbul park and police sealed off the area early Sunday, keeping angry demonstrators from returning to a spot that has become the focus of the strongest challenge to the prime minister in his 10 years in office.

Protesters set up barricades and plumes of tear gas rose in Istanbul's streets into the early hours after Turkish riot police rousted a group who had vowed to stay in Gezi Park despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's warnings to leave.

As dusk fell Saturday, hundreds of white-helmeted riot police swept through the park and adjacent Taksim Square, firing canisters of the acrid, stinging gas. Thousands of peaceful protesters, choking on the fumes and stumbling among the tents, put up little physical resistance.

The protests began as an environmental sit-in to prevent a development project at Gezi Park, but have quickly spread to dozens of cities and spiraled into a broader expression of discontent about what many say is Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian decision-making. He vehemently denies the charge, pointing to the strong support base that helped him win third consecutive term with 50 percent of the vote in 2011.

As police cleared the square, many ran into nearby hotels for shelter. A stand-off developed at a luxury hotel on the edge of the park, where police opened up with water cannons against protesters and journalists outside before throwing tear gas at the entrance, filling the lobby with white smoke. At other hotels, plain-clothes policemen turned up outside, demanding the protesters come out.

Some protesters ran off into nearby streets, setting up makeshift barricades and running from water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets.

As news of the raid broke, thousands of people from other parts of Istanbul gathered and were attempting to reach Taksim. Television showed footage of riot police firing tear gas on a highway and bridge across the Bosphorus to prevent protesters from heading to the area.

As the tear gas settled, bulldozers moved into the park, scooping up debris and loading it into trucks. Crews of workmen in fluorescent yellow vests and plain-clothes police went through the abandoned belongings, opening bags and searching their contents before tearing down the tents, food centers and library the protesters had set up in what had become a bustling tent city.

Demonstrations also erupted in other cities. In Ankara, at least 3,000 people swarmed into John F. Kennedy street, where opposition party legislators sat down at the front of the crowd facing the riot police — not far from Parliament. In Izmir, thousands converged at a seafront square.

Near Gezi, ambulances ferried the injured to hospitals as police set up cordons and roadblocks around the park, preventing anyone from getting close.

Tayfun Kahraman, a member of Taksim Solidarity, an umbrella group of protest movements, said an untold number of people in the park had been injured — some from rubber bullets.

"Let them keep the park, we don't care anymore. Let it all be theirs. This crackdown has to stop. The people are in a terrible state," he told The Associated Press by phone.

Taksim Solidarity, on its Web site, called the incursion "atrocious" and counted hundreds of injured — which it called a provisional estimate — as well as an undetermined number of arrests. Istanbul governor's office said at least 44 people were taken to hospitals for treatment. None of them were in serious condition, it said in a statement.

Huseyin Celik, the spokesman for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, told NTV that the sit-in had to end.

"They had made their voice heard ... Our government could not have allowed such an occupation to go on until the end," he said.

It was a violent police raid on May 31 against a small sit-in in Gezi Park that sparked the initial outrage and spiraled into a much broader protest. While those in the park have now fled, it was unclear whether they would take their movement to other places, or try to return to the park at a later time.

The protests, which left at least four people dead and more than 5,000 injured, have dented Erdogan's international reputation and infuriated him with a previously unseen defiance to his rule.

Saturday's raid came less than two hours after Erdogan threatened protesters in a boisterous speech in Sincan, an Ankara suburb that is a stronghold of his party.

"I say this very clearly: either Taksim Square is cleared, or if it isn't cleared then the security forces of this country will know how to clear it," he told tens of thousands of supporters at a political rally.

A second pro-government rally is planned in Istanbul on Sunday.

According to the government's redevelopment plan for Taksim Square that caused the sit-in, the park would be replaced with a replica Ottoman-era barracks. Under initial plans, the construction would have housed a shopping mall, though that has since been amended to the possibility of an opera house, a theater and a museum with cafes.

On Friday, Erdogan offered to defer to a court ruling on the legality of the government's contested park redevelopment plan, and floated the possibility of a referendum on it.

Fraser reported from Ankara. Jamey Keaten in Ankara contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/police-seal-off-istanbul-square-protesters-091826259.html