John Fitzpatrick

 

Those Damned Americans 1 - Saddam's Arrest Spoils Sunday Lunch

Sunday was a bad day for Brazil's American haters. The capture of Iraqi despot, Saddam Hussein, spoiled many a breakfast and lunch, and was followed a few hours later by the Workers' Party expelling some of its radical members, thereby spoiling dinner as well. Democratic countries around the world welcomed the news. The leaders of France and Germany, which had opposed the invasion of Iraq, issued supportive statements.

No such enthusiasm was shown here. A short bland statement was issued saying the arrest should mark the start of a transition towards democracy in Iraq. Two days later, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had a 15-minute phone call with George Bush. According to Brazilian officials, the call was made at Bush's initiative to congratulate Lula on his first year of government.

It was not revealed whether Lula repeated the call he made during his recent trip to some Arab countries for US troops to be removed from Iraq. We also do not know if Lula passed on any message from his self-declared friend, Libya's murderous Muammar Gaddafi.

Overall, the general response to the arrest of Saddam has been muted. Some people have been pleased, most are probably indifferent and the "gringo go home"-types had the satisfaction of complaining about the "humiliation" poor Saddam suffered by having an American doctor poke a spatula into his hairy mouth. Since the disheveled Saddam looks like half the beggars littering the centre of São Paulo, some of these Brazilians probably felt an empathy with him.

Those Damned Americans 2 - The Wright Brothers Were Wrong

The Americans have just celebrated the centenary of the flight made by the Wright brothers in North Carolina. However, this commemoration was dismissed by patriotic Brazilians who insist that the inventor of a flying machine was Alberto Santos Dumont from Minas Gerais state.

According to this view, the first real man-made flight was carried out by Santos Dumont in November 1906 in Paris. Brazilian schoolchildren are taught this with the same certainty as children in Argentina are taught that the Falkland Islands are Argentinean or as Iraqi children were taught that Saddam Hussein was as brave a warrior as Saladin and would never be taken alive by the Americans.

The Brazilians cannot deny the Wright brothers' feat, since it was witnessed and filmed. However, they make a number of objections, such as claiming that the brothers' craft was catapulted into the air or helped by strong winds. These points are, in turn, dismissed as sour grapes by Americans.

In global terms, the Brazilians have lost the credibility battle and the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk contraption rather than Santos Dumont's 14 Bis biplane is regarded as the first real aeroplane. At least the Americans have never won the football World Cup.

Football Fans Get Kicked in the Face

Football fans have always been treated like dirt by the clubs they support. I remember watching my team Glasgow Celtic when I was a boy. My father would lift me over the turnstile and I saw the game for free. Not only was this a club tradition but it ensured that support would be passed on from one generation to the other.

However, one day the turnstile door was slammed in my face as I was in mid-air and my father was told that from then on boys had to pay. Curiously, Catholic priests, who had also traditionally gained free admittance to Celtic games were, and still are, allowed in free. So we then had to pay for the privilege of standing on the terraces (bleachers to you American readers), surrounded by foul-mouthed drunks who were as abusive to fellow Celtic fan as they were to the opposing fans.

These yahoos used to urinate into beer bottles or where they stood, sending stinking clouds of vapour into the generally cold atmosphere. As the match progressed, streams of 60° proof urine would flow from the higher part of the terracing, covering our shoes and soaking into our trousers. (Ever wondered why Scotsmen wear kilts?)

Violence was endemic on and off the pitch and safety conditions were atrocious. In 1971, over 10 years before the disasters at the Heysel stadium in Brussels and Bradford in England, around 80 people were trampled to death at a game between Celtic and their rivals, Rangers, when crash barriers collapsed. The fans were just a kind of cattle fodder to be exploited by the club owners and, to an extent, by the players.

Brazilian football fans were treated with contempt this week when the Brazilian Football Confederation decided to raise the minimum entrance fee by 50 percent from R$ 10 to R$ 15 (about US$ 5). That might not seem much to an American or European, but it is a lot of money here. Clubs will not be allowed to offer discounts or promotions except for half-price of boys and pensioners. If they do, they will be fined. While some club representatives felt the entry price should be frozen, the president of Atlético from Paraná suggested increasing it to R$ 25 (about US$ 8).

This particular person must have lost his grip on reality and imagined that Paraná is in southern California and not southern Brazil. There is no justifiable reason for an increase of this size since inflation is nowhere near 50 percent. One of the reasons for such an outrageous increase is the outrageous salaries which some players get. Santos, for example, which finished second in the national championship has a maximum limit of R$ 80,000 (US$ 27,500) a month.

Despite this, it knows that it will lose several of its stars, such as Robinho, Diego and Alex, to European teams, which will pay many times more. Having said that, a salary of this level in a country with a minimum wage of R$ 240 (US$ 80) is obscene. No-one blames the players for going abroad but you can be sure that the millions which Santos gains from selling these stars will not be spent on improving conditions for the fans who make the team what it is.

The Wealth Gap

Talking of obscene salaries, a survey published by the Towers Perrin management consultancy shows that the average Brazilian CEO gains 61 times as much as the shop-floor worker. The boss's annual pay comes to around US$ 545,000 compared with US$ 8,000. Mexico is the only other country where the disparity is greater, with the average Mexican boss picking up 63 times what the ordinary worker earns.

For the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland and Japan the ratios are 44, 28, 21, 20 and 9 respectively. These figures will come as no surprise to anyone who knows how companies operate here. Brazilian directors consistently overvalue their own efforts and undervalue the efforts of others. In fact, the word "director" should be changed to "dictator" since that is how so many of them behave.

TV for the Brainwashed

Unless you have a brain the size of a pea, cruising late-night Brazilian television is a pastime for masochists. Once the episode of the latest moronic novella soap opera is over there are a host of chat shows. Since Brazilians are a social people with the sheep instinct, a chat show is not a civilized conversation between two individuals. That would be too boring and quiet.

There is only one chat show like that and almost no-one watches it. Noise and movement are essential so the chat show will generally involve hordes of participants and an audience, which has obviously been brainwashed or bribed into applauding the nonsense which is staged.

Let me give a couple of examples of what I encountered over recent nights. A pregnant "actress" had a scan performed live so we could all watch her reaction as she saw the shape of the little fetus appear on the screen. While this was dragging on, the beaming host was asking the audience questions like: "Who would like to be a mom?" or "How many of you are mothers?" Needless to say the tears and laughter were flowing in equal magnitude.

Mick Jagger's ex-girlfriend, Luciana Gimenez, and Ayrton Senna's ex-girlfriend, Adriane Galisteu, host rival shows. Luciana recently interviewed ex-president Fernando Collor. Since models and transvestites are her usual fare this was a surprisingly serious choice. At the same time, since Luciana's knowledge of politics could be written on the back of a stamp, she was accompanied by a journalist.

While the journalist wanted to interview Collor, who resigned as he was about to be impeached on corruption allegations, and had the chance of getting a real story, Luciana was more interested in complimenting Collor on how good-looking his children were and how beautiful his wife was. She also admitted that she had not been in Brazil when Collor froze everyone's bank accounts so did not know anything about it. She then asked him to tell her what had happened.

However, these shows are positively intellectual in comparison with SBT's Ratinho program. Ratinho is the ring master of a televised freaks' circus. When it comes to bad taste, Ratinho is the master. According to Veja magazine, though, he is planning to raise the level next year. Among the new features we can look forward to are blind dates involving dwarves and fat people. Come back "The Osmonds", all is forgiven.

 

John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish journalist who first visited Brazil in 1987 and has lived in São Paulo since 1995. He writes on politics and finance and runs his own company, Celtic Comunicações - www.celt.com.br,   which specializes in editorial and translation services for Brazilian and foreign clients. You can reach him at jf@celt.com.br

© John Fitzpatrick 2003