On Rio Branco, cheering as office workers blink the lights

The demonstrations, across Brazil and even carried out by Brazilians abroad, are really about inequality and injustice — the foundations of corruption and impunity.

The parrot José –a puppet sidekick– said almost nothing for the first hour of Ana Maria Braga’s TV Globo morning show, Mais Você, today. Braga, who usually treats her viewers  to recipes, health, beauty and personal growth, declared that yesterday’s protests would go down in Brazilian history. “It’s legitimate to want a more just society,” she concluded.

For decades, the lower classes have suffered inhuman commutes to their jobs. The twenty-cent bus fare hike in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (which sparked initial protests) is part of a larger, oppressive public transportation issue, which in turn represents a larger oppressive political and social structure. Lack of public- and private-sector transparency, accountability and dialogue are key parts of the story. For example, the Rio bus companies haven’t made public their real costs, so citizens can’t judge for themselves whether the fare hike is just. A recent Globo newspaper story noted that they haven’t complied with concession requirements.

Names of the bus company owners

Brazilians blame their elected officials. Whoever carried out the violent attack last night on the Rio State Legislature building — a small group, compared to the 100,000 who peacefully filled Avenida Rio Branco — notably did not choose the Municipal Theater, the National Library, or the National Fine Arts Museum, all nearby. Sadly, their vandalism did spill over onto the colonial-era Paço Imperial and some nearby shops and cars; some also battled with police, who used firearms. In São Paulo, a small group also tried to attack the governor’s Bandeirantes Palace.

Possibly the  Rio demonstration’s most dramatic moment: the crowd realizes that protesters in Brasília have invaded the roof of Congress

What they were watching

TV Globo, which last week gave initial protests short shrift and is so reviled by protesters that its reporters last night used unmarked microphones, has gotten on the bandwagon. Even the women’s program that follows Braga’s focused on the demonstrations, providing analysis. And when Globo gets on the bandwagon, it goes places — even if no one has a clear idea of the wagon’s itinerary.

Before the protests, which mobilized an estimated 230,000 in twelve state capitals, FIFA General Secretary Jerôme Valcke this past April voiced his irritation with Brazil’s democracy, born only 28 years ago. “When you have a very strong head of state who can decide, as maybe Putin can do in 2018…that is easier for us organizers than a country such as Germany….where you have to negotiate at different levels [of government].”

Many wore white and carried flowers –plus vinegar, an antidote for tear gas

The protests in Brazil are occurring –more are planned later this week, with calls for a general strike July 1 — as the Confederations Cup (a FIFA soccer championship that precedes the 2014 World Cup, which also takes place in Brazil) gets under way, in six cities. Brazilians cheered across the nation when Rio de Janeiro won the chance to hold the 2016 Olympics. But now, as their tax money pours into overpriced mega-event infrastructure (and, many say, the pockets of politicians and other middlemen), they’re waking up to what those same funds could do in the long-neglected areas of education, health, public safety and transportation.

The internet has helped spread information and create networks. Brazilian twenty-somethings seem akin to American baby boomers. Many, unlike their jaded forebears, are idealists, and believe in their capacity to change the country. Leaders of the Movimento Passe Livre, on last night’s Roda Viva TV program, were impressively articulate and convincing about their reasons for demanding free bus fare and for organizing what has become a national movement.

The Municipal Theatre’s 2010 renovations are part of the city’s turnaround, which helped spur new demands

The mega-events crown a decade or so of social and economic change, with millions leaving poverty and joining the formal economy. Rio’s favelas, for example, have seen a significant real increase in income. Universities, both public and private, have accepted a growing number of low-income students. Unemployment is at record lows.

Brazil’s poor have long pressured for social and economic inclusion. The 1964 coup, carried out in the context of the Cuban Revolution, was meant to keep the lid on such pressure. Technocrats, during the 1964-85 military government, said that economic gains would trickle down, and some did. But huge gaps persisted.

This was the general feeling

Once hyperinflation (created by the dictatorship) was tamed in 1994, the minimum wage saw real increases and income transfer programs could be expanded. Under President Lula, the lid at last came off — and cannot be put back on. For a country whose political and social structures were basically built on a two-tier system of  justice, education, transportation and health care, the challenges are now enormous.

Some signs are heartening. Yesterday, when movement leaders met with São Paulo police to discuss their protest route, the state Military Police chief had a suggestion: “I’d like you to hold other demonstrations, for example, against impunity and for the imprisonment of the mensaleiros” (congressmen convicted for accepting monthly payments for their votes, but still at large).

Click here to watch a fun video parody (with English subtitles) about the São Paulo protest last week.