Fears for 2014

A very happy start to the week to you and thanks for being so kind as to drop in on the Blog on a Monday.  I trust you passed a fun weekend.

In a report that raises concern for 2014, we hear that a member of the so called anarchist group Black Bloc has claimed that the group will set out to disrupt the 2014 soccer World Cup in Brazil.

The Black Bloc, which appears to have its origins in the self proclaimed anarchist groups in Europe, has come to prominence since the mass protests around Brazil in June of this year.  The events of June would have been astonishing anywhere but, in Brazil, they were almost beyond belief.  In the six and a half years I have been living here, many family members and friends have talked with me about their anger at the state of governance of the country, the failing social services, high prices, high taxes, endemic corruption, the cost of soccer World Cup and Olympics preparation, police excesses and abuses and, most frustrating of all, the apparent disinterest of a corrupt, supercilious, elitist political class that saw itself as above the law, divorced from the people and free from any sense of accountability.  People were only too well aware of such aberrations....but, in that very Brazilian way, did not see it as their responsibility to do anything about it and were sure nothing would result even if they did.  Then June happened.

Erupting out of protests that initially targeted increases in bus fares, the sleeping giant was awakened.  The Brazilian people took to the streets in their hundreds of thousands to protest all the issues above, and more.  The awakening was not initially driven by right or left, not led by trades unions and had no organising committees at its start, it was genuinely spontaneous, bottom up and broad based; with different issues taking prominence in different areas but generally protesting what was seen as poor governance, corruption and failings in the policing and judicial systems.  For me, it was the very lack of coherence, structure and organised driving force that afforded the demonstrations their greatest power....this was 'the people' standing up and demanding change, long overdue change in their quality of life; albeit their exuberance and newly mobilised sense of political engagement and responsibility fell away quite swiftly.

Everyone was caught off guard by the first such national unrest for decades....not least, the more radical and potentially disruptive elements that might have sought to capitalise on and exploit the events.  I fear that that is no longer the case, however, and groups like the Black Bloc appear to be poised to piggy back on any resurgence of public disquiet and spring board off it in pursuit of their own agendas; in addition to posing the threat of independent action targeted against the World Cup.  Those agendas, in as far as they are articulated, do mirror the concerns of the wider population in many ways but the methodology for advancing them is more violent, confrontational and potentially disruptive.  While the vast majority of the Brazilian people do not support groups such as Black Bloc, the depth of dissatisfaction and despair in the face of government failures is found in the fact that they are, nevertheless, prepared to explain or 'excuse' their actions.  If the legitimate grievances of the population are not answered before the World Cup and the national elections next year, there is real potential for a return to widespread protest and potential civil unrest, with the danger of escalation at the hands of the more militant elements.

In the wake of June's events, a chastened President Dilma Rousseff appeared genuinely motivated to meet with and respond to the protesters and there were, indeed, some surprising and even impressive results delivered with astonishing dispatch:  bus fare increases were dropped; the PEC 37 legislation that would have restricted the freedoms of Federal Prosecutors to investigate political corruption was thrown out; corruption was formally declared an heinous crime, requiring stiffer punishment; the move, by Christian legislators, to legalise the 'treatment' of homosexuality as a pathology was dropped; oil profits were to be tied to the funding of health care and education and thousands of doctors were to be engaged, from outside Brazil, to fill gaps in medical provision in the poorest areas and there was to be a plebiscite on political reform.  All looked impressive, with some measures that had been blocked in Congress for years having new life breathed into them and passed into law in the blink of an eye.  But then it began to appear that the self serving political elite had sought to flatter to deceive.

The prevarication, back sliding and u-turns began once cynical politicians realised that the steam had apparently gone out of the protest movement:  some bus fares increase were reintroduced; Congress voted to allow the first sitting member to be jailed since 1985, Natan Donadson, to keep his seat despite having been convicted and jailed for serious corruption - a vote later annulled by the Supreme Federal Tribunal; by a 6:5 vote, many of the senior politicians convicted of serious corruption in 2012, convictions upheld by the highest appeal courts in the land, were allowed to mount new appeals; various moves promised in the wake of June were slowed and then stymied in Congress and Congress refused the President's call for the plebiscite on political reform.  The latter was to have been key in any serious attempt to right wrongs and promise hope of real change for the future.  President Dilma wanted the plebiscite in October this year, with the resulting recommendations enacted before the general election in October 2014....but Congress decided there could be no vote until well into next year, a vote restricted to questions that it will frame, and with no resulting recommendations actioned until 2016 at the very earliest.

If the potential for a resurgence of widespread civil disquiet and potential disorder is to be avoided, with the attendant risk of exploitation and escalation at the hands of militant elements, the Government has got to deliver on the post June promises....and major reform of policing and the judicial system must be undertaken, about which we shall talk in a later post.

The eyes of the world will be on Brazil next year during the World Cup and the event will offer groups like Black Bloc the opportunity to make their voices heard on the international stage....but the impact will all the more damaging if any disruption of the Cup is seen as resulting not from 'anarchist militants' but from the genuine protests of the people of Brazil for nothing more than decent, sound, liberal democratic governance.

Well, that's it for today.  I shall intend to put out another commentary on items of news tomorrow morning and then, all being well, something addressing lighter, cultural and life experience issues in the afternoon.

Thanks very much, indeed, for joining me and I hope you will be dropping in regularly in the days ahead.

Stay safe.

Dave