Where´s Bob Dylan These Days?

Something is happening here but you don't know what it is do you, Mr. Jones?

I'm feeling a lot like Mr. Jones in Brazil nowadays.

The protests in various cities here have been going on for more than a week now. They started as a reaction to an increase in city bus fares. (I'm not sure how it is that São Paulo, Rio, Recife and other cities all happened to announce fare increases at the same time.) The actual fare increases are minimal in a U.S. context, less than ten cents. But this increase is just the latest in a long series. Bus and subway fares have increased over 30% in the time I have lived here. The fares were already considered oppressive by many poor people when I moved here and, of course, they  are the part of the population most dependent on public transportation.  When Heitor and I were living downtown and arranging with a woman to clean our apartment, she asked for a certain price...plus transportation costs.

The protests have morphed into something else, as people are venting their outrage about a number of social issues (e.g. wanton destruction of favelas and the construction of huge expensive stadiums for the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in Rio in 2016 while public education and healthcare are a disgrace. Yes healthcare. Annual inflation of 5-6 % driving up the cost of living faster than wages and salaries.) And the right / center-right political parties have tried to co-opt the demonstrations and turn them into an anti-federal government, anti-corruption campaign. As if the center-left invented corruption and inefficiency, and as if the government of São Paulo city and state were not in the hands of the center-right.

I knew about the protests, but only became acutely and personally aware of them when Heitor´s best friend from the university, Pedrão, a journalist covering the protests last Tuesday, was beaten by the police and arrested. Two nights later I learned that there was live coverage on TV and I began to watch. What I saw was a police riot, with cops beating people with nightsticks, and firing tear gas and rubber bullets indiscriminately. Apparently other people saw the same thing. The TV reporters as well as the local newspapers started out by supporting the police and pretending the protests were violent. As reporters were beaten, gassed, arrested and even in one case shot in the eye with a rubber bullet, the media turned against the police, and the police then dropped their unnecessary swat team tactics. Heitor told me about one TV studio announcer who did a 180 in the middle of his show. When the public response to a call-in question showed that viewers were opposed to the police over-reaction, the announcer switched his position then and there. He announced he was on the side of the people. (Someone who knows which side of the street his bread is buttered on.)

Last night I believe a new element of anarchy was introduced with destruction of some public and private property and the swat teams have been brought out again. Whether they will act with a bit more restraint I don´t know, or haven´t heard. I admit that I am not trying to keep up with this daily, as it is too complicated, and the actual protests are occuring in the center of the city, which is nowhere close to where we now live so I have no first-hand knowledge. If we still lived in our old apartment, we would be right in the heart of the action.

As to where this is going, and what will come of it, I´m surely not the only Mr. Jones.

Pedrão, by the way, was released around mid-day on Friday. Until his case goes before a judge (almost certainly to be dismissed for lack of evidence) he is confined to his house at night.

In the meanwhile, Heitor and another friend, skipped an international soccer match in Rio that they had been anticipating for six months or more, ever since they had won tickets to it. The game was last weekend, and they cancelled to remain in São Paulo in support of Pedrão. Friends!