Beautiful Horizons

Racism and MercoSur

Andrés Oppenheimer's column of Thursday in the Miami Herald dealt with the arrest of Leandro Desabato, an Argentinean player arrested in Brazil after a game for making a racial slur against a Brazilian player. Oppenheimer applauds the effort to fight racism, especially in football and I certainly agree. The problem as Oppenheimer also notes is widespread in Europe and this article speaks to the experiences of Brazilian players playing in the major European leagues.

What I also wish would happen would be for Brazilians to do a little self-examination on this issue. As I wrote two and a half years ago, Brazil " is a bundle of contradictions on the race issue." The terms used to describe the various ethnic groups and mixes are numerous (please note that some terms are based on the level of ethnic mix hence the same description for different terms): Caboclo (Indian and Caucasian), Cabra (African and Caucasian), Cafuzo (Indian and African), Monjolo (African), Mulato (African and Caucasian), Pardo (African and Caucasian), Mameluco (Indian and Caucasian) and I'm sure that there are some terms of which I'm not even aware. I've often been told that this is indicative of Brazil's ethnic harmony, but I'm not entirely convinced.

I'm also not convinced when people teasingly call me Baiano when I'm vacationing in Brazil. The implication being that Baianos (people from Bahia) are lazy. Bahia, of course has the largest Afro-Brazilian population in the country. I've started countering the implied slur by commenting that Bahia is the home of some of Brazil's greatest artists and I appreciate the compliment. I'm also not convinced when I hear someone mutter under their breath "macaco de Angola" (monkey from Angola) under their breath at a black person or when I realize that figures like Xuxa, Eliana and Angélica - all three blonde and relatively fair-skinned - are (or were) among the leading children's show hosts for Globo, Brazil's largest television network.

I'm glad to see something being done about racism in football. I'm glad to see ads like this one, but one cannot lose sight of the fact that racism exists in every society. I'm all for cracking down on insults on the football pitch. I'd also like to see a change in perception in every area of society.

A Diversion

Last night my friend Maruan (to whom I will have an eternal debt of gratitude for having introduced me to my wife) and I went to see Jason Moran and Marcus Roberts performing with their respective groups at the Rose Theater at the (relatively) new Jazz at Lincoln Center facility in the Time Warner Center.

What a lovely concert hall. Not a bad seat in the house (some are, of course, better than others), fine acoustics and a the sort of intimacy you don't usually find in a mid-size concert hall.

Not Exactly a Done Deal

Lúcio Gutierrez's departure fromEcuador to asylum in Brazil is not yet a done deal as the government of Ecuador (which despite my distaste for Gutierrez, certainly has its own legitimacy problems) is not going to grant him safe passage just yet:

"Brazil, which considers him an asylum candidate, has granted asylum, but we cannot grant safe passage for now," Antonio Parra Gil, the foreign minister, said in comments carried by Ecuadorean news media. "We, before making whatever decision, are going to analyze the situation."

As for Abdalá Bucaram, the former president who proudly refers to himself as crazy and who was behind some of the machinations that led to the current crisis, can you say "rat deserting a sinking ship?"

Mr. Bucaram, 53, a flamboyant leader who as president recorded a CD called "Madman in Love," earlier this week sounded supremely confident that his legal troubles were over thanks to Mr. Gutiérrez and the interim court.

"I'm a happy man," he said in an interview in his home, calling the court the best Ecuador had had in 40 years.

But with Mr. Gutiérrez's government gone, Mr. Bucaram quickly abandoned his home and is believed to have fled the country.

Well, Ecuador is certainly better for that. Not so the country whose citizens may be subjected to this:

Last year, Bucaram took to the stage to promote his CD, dancing with scantily-clad women as he belted out ''Jailhouse Rock'' in Spanish.

The horror, the horror!

Ecuador Update

While Lúcio Gutierrez awaits asylum in the Brazilian Embassy in Quito, the OAS is rightfully concerned what this means for the hemisphere and democracy in the Americas and the Miami Herald expresses their concern as well. I'm certainly not a fan of golpes de las calles, golpes das ruas or coups des rues, but they are becoming an alarming trend in the Americas. While I'm glad to see that they are expressing concern, I can only contrast this to their silence when a much more violent and deadly threat to democracy occured last year in Haiti.

Nevertheless, the optimist in me wants to find these comments inspired by their fecklessness in Haiti:

''The OAS cannot look the other way,'' said Peruvian Ambassador Alberto Borea, noting that supporting Ecuador's way of changing government would send a signal that it's normal to dismiss presidents this way.

Borea and Panamanian Ambassador Aristides Royo voiced doubts over the legality of Gutiérrez's ouster, with Borea noting that 62 members of Congress had met to consider Gutiérrez's ouster out of 100 members.

"The question is, those 38 that did not participate in the meeting, were they duly convened?''

The Herald editorial also skewers the Bush administration on their alleged commitment to democracy:

Now, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for a restoration of order. Fine, but where was U.S. diplomacy when the Gutiérrez government began making a mockery of democracy months ago? It's hard to see how the chaos in Ecuador promotes the Bush administration's goal of furthering democracy around the globe.

That is something I have been asking repeatedly over the past few months.

One stray thought: I love Brazil, but whether it's Alfredo Stroessner or Lúcio Gutierrez (an inapt comparison to be sure) can they please stop giving these guys asylum?

Back to the Brutal Reality

This article in yesterday's New York Times about a documentary about life in an impoverished community near Medellin, Colombia has two paragraphs that underscore why I find the idea of a pass given to the AUC leaders for their crimes so horribly offensive:

In Colombia, of course, the right-wing paramilitary leaders for whom these young people fight are considered cocaine kingpins responsible for thousands of deaths. Top commanders live free from interference on sprawling ranches; since late last year, they too have been disarming - in a deal with the government that human rights groups say will grant them virtual impunity.

The foot soldiers, in contrast, lead lives surrounded by poverty and come across more like Los Angeles street hoods, fighting for no ideological reason but simply because it is what young men in their barrio do. [my emphasis]

If anything goes to the absolute madness of this conflict it is this: "A shopkeeper sums up the fighting, 'The guys from there kill the guys from here because they're from here, and the guys from here kill the guys from there because they're from there.""

God help Colombia as well.

Gutierrez is Out

Lúcio Gutierrez has been removed from the presidency of Ecuador by the country's congress, which I suppose is better than a coup and this article indicates, "avoided a drawn-out impeachment process."

The article also notes that this is similar to what happened to Abdala Bucaram (aka, in an inspired moment of truth in advertising,  "El Loco"). As for El Loco, here's a taste of what he's like:

Bucaram, who has fled Ecuador on three occasions because of criminal proceedings against him, compared his trials to those of Jesus and Socrates, and said he was not afraid that a new Supreme Court might take up his case again.

''They've accused me of being a guerrilla, a [drug] trafficker, a thief,'' he said. ``The only thing they haven't accused me of is being a [homosexual] because they know of my natural predilection for women's legs.''

While he was in office, Bucaram was known as a partyer who invited Lorena Bobbitt, the Ecuadorean-born woman famous for cutting off her husband's penis, to lunch at the presidential palace. But he was as apt to express his admiration for Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, as he was his admiration for women. He even had a Hitler-like mustache he said his wife thought made him sexy.

He put his friends and family in prominent posts and regularly insulted his political enemies, calling one a donkey, then apologizing to donkeys for insulting them.

God help Ecuador.

Read It and Weep

Yes that Bush administration is absolutely resolute on the subject of Darfur . . . or are they?

A Pleasant Story From Colombia

I'm a bit busy today and tomorrow, but I really wanted to call your attention to this article by Juan Forero in Saurday's New York Times. It's encouraging to read articles about Colombia that are upbeat, that celebrate decent people trying to live honest lives and don't even have the words narco or terrorist in them.

Moral Reprobates

That's about as kind as I can be after reading this:

Policemen charged with killing 29 people in Rio de Janeiro two weeks ago were seen drinking beer and singing karaoke tunes before their rampage, Rio's chief investigator told Reuters on Friday.

The investigator, Álvaro Lins, also said the inquiry was focusing on two possible motives for the random killings by a death squad believed to be made up of police officers. He said one theory was that the crimes were meant as a show of force to a rival group.

[...]

The other possible motive was that the killings were a response to a crackdown on corrupt police officers, with the aim of causing a change in police command in the area.

These motives make this even more disturbing: killing innocents to assert your authority or protest a crackdown on your corruption. As I said before, society bears a portion of the responsibility in this matter:

"They mostly start as vigilantes, killing bandits in violent areas, but then they all start losing control and kill everyone who stands in their way," Mr. Lins said. Rio is plagued by violent crime, with rival drug gangs controlling many slum areas and defying authorities.

Death squads charge a protection fee from local businesses and sometimes households. Mr. Lins said an argument over such fees with a rival group could have caused the massacre. "We suspect they were trying to show to the other group who calls the shots in the districts," he said.

What is the difference between them and common criminals?

Gutierrez Backpedals

Ecuadorian President, Lúcio Gutierrez has backed down and has withdrawn the state of emergency decree that he instituted on Friday. Public pressure is what appeared to have caused this shift and while I don't much care for Gutierrez, I worry about the image that this sends to nations like Ecuador: if you don't like the leader, get enough people out on the street to rally the public against him. I think that the long-term solution to situations like this is to establish strong institutions that can ensure a system of checks and balances against the likes of Gutierrez.

On the other hand, there is some lovely poetic justice in Gutierrez being ousted by popular opinion.  Publius Pundit has a comprehensive roundup of the latest here.