Beat Diaspora: Beats, Buses, Bricks

Last week was my first time back to Rio in a year and a half, and the first time since the election of new mayor Eduardo Paes.  Immediately I perceived some serious efforts at bringing more “order” (whether hard or soft) to this notoriously chaotic and disordered city.  That, in fact, is what the campaign is called, a “choque de ordem,” an “order blitz” to shock the city into cleaning up its act.  In the first five days of the campaign, which began in January, 230 tons of trash were removed from the streets, 1,300 cars were ticketed, and 280 towed, from all parts of the (formal) city, generally targeting the more affluent Zona Sul and Barra da Tijuca as well as the working class Zona Norte.  Not much to argue with there.  An illegal building in nouveau riche Recreio was torn down, although the circumstances were unclear in the news article.  Illegal billboards and posters have been targeted as well, which could equally be affecting large commercial ventures as, say, the mural-style ads for music events that proliferate throughout the city.  On the darker front, 257 homeless people have been removed from downtown and Copacabana — to where and with what resources is also left unclear.

Eduardo Paes is something like Giuliani come to Rio, only the “quality of life” situation can easily take that darker turn here.  The choque de ordem entailed a complete police takeover of the Favela Dona Marta in Botafogo.  All of the traficantes were kicked out and the entire hill is under police control.  The extremely steep hill is reportedly going to play host to a cycling downhill in a few months.  The eventual goal is to retake all of the favelas in the Zona Sul, to finally put to rest the disturbances that upset all the upper-class condo dwellers.  Last month Maga Bo posted on the Rocinha invasion of Ladeira dos Tabajaras, a favela on the hill behind Copacabana.  He copped a proibidão montage that intros with a reporters’ voice about the attack, then mixes gun shots, big ups to the “bonde da Tabajaras,” and yells about those “filhos de puta” (sons of bitches) who came up the hill.   The titles translates as “Rocinha fucked itself.”

Just last Friday, the police invaded Pavão/Pavãozinho, neighbor to Cantagalo (famous for its Friday night baile that I have been frequenting since I first came to Rio).  Maga Bo was at home and told me about the helicopter that circled above the hill for hours and hours, while Wulfie, who lives up further on the hill, finally fled his house for some peace and quiet elsewhere.  The link I provided from RJTV has some video that gives a sense, as Bo pointed out in his Tabajaras post, of how such intense shooting can occur in a dense urban area.

The next morning I picked up a copy of O Globo, which in its usual prejudicial fashion emphasized that residents of Copacabana and Ipanema were disrupted by the shootout, only mentioning the obvious effect on the residents of the favela itself much deeper in the story.  The RJTV article is again more charitable, focusing on the schools that were forced to close and the park full of children that cleared out immediately.  In such a dense urban area, it is precisely this matter of proximity that matters, and while I respect the discomfort and potential danger (stray bullets have been known to lodge themselves outside the hill) that such violent activity has on the residents of Copacabana and Ipanema, it unquestionably has a worse effect on residents of Cantagalo and Pavão/Pavãozinho.  However, the implicitly classist (and by extension racist) interpretation of mainstream Brazilian media, especially the Globo empire, will always focus on the affected by virtue of wealth before taking a more objective perspective.

Ultimately it’s a matter of property values, with citizens who own more expensive real estate believing they have the right to better city services (which in the case of Rio, include a heavier police presence in the neighborhood favela).  I read another article that same day about an apartment building near the entrance to the tunnel that leads to Rocinha, which has become an informal gathering spot for the unlicensed vans that supplement the bus system.  Between the motors and the cobradors calling out stops, the noise has apparently led some to sell their places and subsequently devalued the property.  Real estate, again, is the supposed justification to make the city step in.  But favelas are what one economist calls “unreal estate,” although they have a way of exerting their own pressure to get something done about their lack of services, mostly when the pressure of their communities spills over the hillside.  Sadly, the police invasion once again interrupted the ongoing work of the PAC (Accelerated Growth Program), a nationwide initiation that Lula was touting in the favela of Manguinhos today.

The baile was canceled as a result, echoes of 2006 when one Friday I climbed the Cantagalo stairs only to be told “não tem baile a causa da guerra” (no baile on account of the war).  I went to Rocinha the next night instead for a blow out with “todos os novos ritmos” (all the new rhythms).  Wulfie says the baile funk (in the sense of the funk played at the baile) is moving to more “trippy” instrumentals and aquecimentos (warm ups) and less aggressive tamborzão with MCs.  Sandrinho told me something similar, that the music is becoming more dancefloor friendly, better for “a mulherada” (the women), who now make up a majority at the baile.  In the thousands thronging the Curve do S bus garage I had trouble telling, but there was plenty of everybody — age and gender.  The DJing that night more or less bore out those claims, although I still don’t know what to make of the ten minute psy-trance breakdown.

Leaving Rocinha with ears ringing at 5 am it’s hard to think the city is really becoming that much more “ordered,” that the tropical entropy of Rio will surely outlast Eduardo Paes.  How sustainable from a financial perspective is it to completely occupy a favela 24/7 with police?  Can they do it to all of the Zona Sul, even Rocinha?  How many people will have to die in the process?  What will the spillover be?  MC Gringo says a bunch of Dona Marta refugees came over his way to Pereira da Silva, where they were big-upped on the mic at a baile right as the BOPE (SWAT team) arrived — uh-oh.  A few thousand rounds later, the quadra needed a new roof.

It’s hard to escape the Rio 2016 candidate posters across the city, especially since the IOC made its official visit only a month ago.  Can you imagine Eduardo Paes’ embarrassment as they drive past favela after favela?  “You will have the situation ‘under control’ by 2016, yes?” askes Jacques Rogge.  As they toured the Engenho Novo Stadium built for the Pan-American Games in 2007, did they notice the entrance where iron gates were built to cut off the neighboring favela?  I can see it on NBC now: Panoramic shots of favela hillsides on TVs worldwide, mirroring the opening sequence of Ônibus 174.  Surely the IOC wants to give the global south its due and award South America its first Olympics.  I have a feeling I feel be returning in 2016 to report on the Olympic torch’s ability to burn what it doesn’t illuminate.