On Bilingualism and the American and Brazilian Ways of Life, Respectively.

Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks three languages?
A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks four or more languages?
A: A polyglot.
Q: What do you call a person who speaks only one language?
A: An American

The joke cited above, told throughout the world in countless languages – with the notable exception of in English in the United States, illustrates a free ranging conversation I recently had with my niece Deborah. Among other things, we touched on the subject of people speaking other languages in public. She mentioned angry reactions that she got from people because of her effort to learn enough Spanish to communicate with customers at the convenience store where she worked. As she lives in Idaho, those customers were among the many migrant workers who flock there to work in the potato harvest. Most,  presumably, are Mexican. Deborah felt that she was doing a good thing by attempting to help others out and delighted in telling about the positive reinforcement that she received from those Spanish-speaking customers, who helped her learn vocabulary and corrected her pronunciation. Those customers were extremely appreciative that someone –  anyone – cared enough to try to help out. Some of her other customers and coworkers where less thrilled. They criticized her with that overly-trite and repugnantly dismissive attitude that “They’re here. They should learn English.”

No one – including those migrants – disputes that learning their new country’s  language is not only desirable, but also necessary. Anyone who has studied the question likewise knows that many of those being raked over the coals for not doing so are adults whose children go to school.  They know that their children will learn the language and, more often than not, act as interpreters for them. Language acquisition as an adult is more difficult than it is for a child, especially if those adult have lower levels of education and / or are working long hours at low pay in order to support their families. This, however, is not the point I wish to address.

Deborah’s comments confirmed my own personal observations back home in Oklahoma, both as a bilingual and as a casual observer. I am, as most readers already know, a native born and bred Oklahoman, and spent over 40 years of my life in that state. My wife, however, is not. She is Brazilian but lived in Oklahoma from 2005-2011. Because her English is rather limited, we always spoke Portuguese both at home and in public. Consequently, I was able to observe other people’s reactions to what they perceived to be non-English speakers – and what I observed was often not very pretty. We were subjected to hostile stares and occasional snide remarks. (Those making remarks never realized that I am a native speaker of English. They simply assumed that I didn’t speak English because I was speaking another language.) Rudeness was the norm. Solidarity was rarely expressed. We were shown that we were not wanted... “You’re in America. Speak English!” was what we saw in their eyes and felt in their attitudes.  “Go home!” was the unspoken message.  Most, upon learning that I was already “home”, assumed that I was the child of immigrants. (I’m not. I’m sixth generation Okie.) They simply could not conceive of why anyone would ever bother to learn another language. After all, you only need to know English because this is ‘Murica, right?

In contrast, Brazil is totally different. I have always spoken only English to my children. It is my language and it is how I choose to communicate with them. This is as true for Georgia, now 23, born in Brazil and raised in the US as it is for Jack and Melissa, ages seven and five respectively, born in Oklahoma and growing up in Brazil. We have never been subjected to scornful looks, dismissive attitudes or anything else negative because we speak English in public. Period. (Okay, there is one exception to that which I will mention later, but those involved were not Brazilians, even though it happened here.) We are greeted with curiosity – supportive curiosity. Brazilians, unlike the folks back in the States, realize that bilingualism is not only a good thing, it is an amazing gift when you are able to give it to your children. People ask us where we are from. They ask if we are visiting or if we live here and are ALWAYS pleased when they find out we not only live here in Brazil, but are locals, living in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. They comment on how cute it is to see our small children speaking English and then be able to turn around and speak Portuguese. Jack and Melissa are fluent for their ages in both languages and separate them with ease. English is for Daddy and Portuguese is for Mamãe. They also speak without “foreign accents” in both languages. My small fries own both languages, which is how it should be.

Okay, so what was that exception? Georgia’s grandparents were immigrants from Portugal who arrived in Brazil in the late 1940s and 1950s. They lived in a neighborhood in São Paulo with many other Portuguese immigrants, including close relatives – brothers, cousins, nephews and nieces, also all Portuguese. Being more insular than Brazilians, they were none too happy that a foreign (i.e., non-Portuguese) interloper had somehow managed to penetrate the sanctity of their family and, consequently, would complain that they couldn’t understand what I was saying when I spoke to Georgia. They wanted me to speak only Portuguese with her in their presence. My response was, well, not very acceptable, at least to them. I would simply inform them that I would speak to my child in my own language.

That somewhat less than civil answer is also what I expect anyone else to give, no matter who they are and no matter where they are. A person’s language is part of that person’s identity. To be expected to not speak your language is to be expected to deny a very important part of who you are. My ex-wife’s family never understood that, just as many people back in the good old USA also do not understand that. Their attitude was very similar to the attitudes of the xenophobes back home who feel insecure when faced with another language, or with anything else with which they are unfamiliar. In short, they are uncomfortable with the “other”.  It is not an attitude that I frequently encounter in Brazil.

As a middle- and high Spanish teacher in Oklahoma, I often had students who complained about people speaking Spanish in the grocery store. “They’re talking about us, making fun of us!” was a refrain that I heard more than once – far more than once. “No,” I would tell those students. “I’ve listened to them. They’re complaining about the prices, wondering if the bread is fresh, talking about what happened at work. In short, they’re talking about the same boring things you and I talk about at the grocery store.” And I would then shake my head because, no matter how much or how often I reassured them, those students weren’t willing to accept what I said. After all, their attitudes had come from a lifetime of reinforcement in their homes from their parents, grandparents, siblings and from society in general. “The other” is, by definition, suspect.

To finalize, one of the greatest disservices that we, as a nation, commit to both ourselves and to everyone else is our unhealthy attitude in regard to the rest of the world, as exemplified by our refusal as a society to learn other languages. That refusal reflects the arrogance for which we are known throughout the world, be it as obnoxious tourists or as Marines attempting to inject the world with a little democracy.  By that refusal, we are telling the world that we are better than everyone else and, therefore, the rest of the world needs to accommodate us wherever we are and whatever we are doing. We, obviously, have no need to accommodate them. That is what “American exceptionalism” means to the rest of the world.

POSTSCRIPT: Check out this link. It beautifully illustrates the above. You can’t make this stuff up.

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/watch-tea-partier-warns-learning-other-languages-is-jihadist-socialism/

Otra Voz Canta / Desaparecidos

The following video, also posted at the end of my blog entry "On Torture: No me pongas la capucha", really sums up everything I have written and expresses it far better than I ever could. In it, Daniel Viglietti sings "Otra voz canta" and Mario Benedetti recites his poem "Desaparecidos". Even if you don't speak Spanish, listen to the words and watch the images. You will understand.

On Torture

On Torture: No me pongas la capucha.

Photo taken by William Shelton in Guatemala City, July 1988

No te suplico. Te advierto: no me pongas la capucha.

     – Mario Benedetti

Knowing where to start is somewhat difficult. Do I begin with the recent release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on CIA Torture? Or do I go back further and, if so, how much further? How do I tie everything that is floating around in my head and consciousness together into one coherent thread. I’m not sure. Maybe I should simply state what is on my mind.

When the United States invaded Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, photographs of prisoners taken by or turned over to American forces began to circulate almost immediately. Invariably, those prisoners were hooded and bound. The photos were  uncomfortably familiar to me. I had seen them before – often. Since then, the similarities between what I was already well aware of and what was now happening, endorsed and carried out by the US government, have become all too apparent.

We have been shocked – or not – by the release of the report on the use of torture by the US military and the CIA in the so-called war on terror. The report details many, many instances of “enhanced interrogation techniques” or “alternative methods”.  The current presidents of Chile, Brazil and Uruguay – Michele Bachelet, Dilma Rousseff and José Mujica, respectively – can all give personal and intimate testimony about this. They experienced it first hand: Bachelet for one year, Rousseff for three years and Mujica for 13, often at the hands of agents trained by the United States. They call those “techniques” by their correct name: torture. If you want to know what was done to them, just read the Senate Report. It’s all there.

There is a constant immediately apparent in the Senate report, information reported in the US press about Afghanistan, Iraq and the “War on Terror” and the experiences of prisoners throughout the Americas and elsewhere: hoods. Invariably, prisoners have been hooded and bound when taken and transported so they could neither see nor move. They are completely defenseless, totally at the mercy of their captors, be they South American agents of repression in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s or representatives of the US and their proxies today. The remaining “techniques” are also the same.

As a young woman – kidnaped by Chile’s military, tortured and then expelled from the country alone at age 16 – stated in testimony reported by the Centro de Estudios Miguel Enriquez in 2013:

“They always taped our eyes shut, blindfolded us and then covered our heads with a hood. They would laugh at us, offer us food and then give us orange peels. They kept us awake at night so we would lose all notion of time.”

I have left out the more graphic details of the abuse she was subjected to, largely out of respect for her and all of the other victims who suffered similar fates in myriad other prisons scattered about this hemisphere and elsewhere, including at the CIA’s so-called black sites and US military facilities.

Many of these Latin American torturers and their superiors were trained by the US military and / or CIA agents masquerading as US AID officials. One of the better known examples of the latter was Dan Mitrione, captured and executed by Uruguay’s Tupamaros guerrillas in 1970.  Mitrione advocated using "the precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect,” according to William Blum in his work cited below. A large number of known torturers and advocates attended the US Army’s School of the Americas either in Panama or at Fort Benning, Georgia after that school was moved there in 1984. Among its more notorious graduates are Argentina’s Generals Viola, Videla and Galtieri, Bolivia’s General Banzer, numerous underlings of Chile’s General Pinochet, El Salvador’s Roberto D'Aubuisson who planned and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980. There are countless others from too many countries to name here, but least one graduate, Argentina’s Colonel Mario Davico, went on to advise El Salvador’s military during the 1980s about what was cynically called the "Argentine Method". That “method”, used during Argentina’s “dirty war” from about 1974 to 1983 included arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial executions and ways to dispose of victims’ bodies.  Hoods were omnipresent. There are still over 30,000 Argentines missing from that “war”, which was nothing more than state terrorism.

To give you an idea of how extensive the US’s involvement in the promulgation of torture has been, you will find a table reproduced below. It documents the training of both the military and police by the US in countries which have been identified as  practicing torture by Amnesty International.  Please note that this table includes neither El Salvador during Ronald Reagan’s administration nor Cuba prior to 1959. It also only covers a period of 29 years, ending 35 years ago. In short, it is extremely out of date – and yet it is also extremely telling...

Countries with US Training using Torture  – 1946 to 1975, Identified by Amnesty International

Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Chomsky N, Herman ES, Spokesman (1979), ISBN 0-89608-090-0, pg 361.

So why am I delving into this “old news” in response to the Senate Report? If you have been paying attention the last several decades, you already know this is just a repeat of the past. Our use and sponsorship of torture abroad is long and ignoble. We have done this before and, unless we react and make ourselves heard, we will do it again and again and again. As Americans, we have short memories. We forget because, well, it’s just a whole lot easier to do so if we want to keep on selling ourselves as the New Jerusalem, the shining city on the hill, a country that always takes the high road. Unfortunately for us, we are the only ones buying this deception. The rest of this world knows. Today it is the Middle East. Yesterday, it was Latin America and Southeast Asia, and over one hundred years ago, it was the Philippines during the Moro Rebellion after a glorious little war with Spain fought only to expand our empire. And tomorrow, who knows. At some point, if we continue being momentarily shocked at this country’s transgression du jour, only to forget as soon as it is convenient for us to do so, the chickens will come home to roost.

As Mario Benedetti says in his poem "No me pongas la capucha", cited above, “I am not begging you; I am warning you: Do not cover my head with a hood.”

Suggested Bibliography:

Blum, William. Killing Hope. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2008. Updated edition.

Langguth, A.J. Hidden Terrors. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.

Brown, Cynthia, ed. With Friends Like These: The Americas Watch Report on Human Rights and U.S. Policy in Latin America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.

CONADEP (Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared). Nunca Más: A Report by Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappeared. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986.

Feitlowitz, Marguerite. A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture, Revised and Updated. London: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Brazil Archdiocese of São Paulo, author, Joan Dassin, ed. and contributor. Torture in Brazil: A Shocking Report on the Pervasive Use of Torture by Brazilian Military Governments. Austin: Univerity of Texas Press. 1998.

Human Rights Watch. Guatemala: Getting Away with Murder. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990

Further information about the School of the Americas, recently rebaptized as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is available at the following website:

School of the Americas Watch: Click here.

The following link from School of the Americas Watch website makes available training manuals advocating the use of torture, extortion, blackmail and the targeting of civilian populations that were used at and by the School of the Americas. :  Click here.

The following video, in which Daniel Viglietti sings "Otra voz canta" and Mario Benedetti recites his poem "Desaparecidos" expresses far better than I can everything written above. Even if you don't speak the language, listen to the words and watch the images. You will understand.

Thanksgiving 2014 - Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil

I’ve been ambivalent about Thanksgiving for several decades, given its origins and my own personal history. After all, we know that the myth it is built upon - arising from that supposed first celebration shared by Pilgrims and Natives way back when - consciously denies what came afterwards: wars of genocide, centuries of lies and abuse, an eternity of broken promises and treaties, and a deep, blood-red stain on our country’s soul. This year, however, I’ve had to rethink my posture. No, I haven’t been wrong all of these years. That’s not the issue. It is my son, Jack, aged seven.

Jack, my little man, is my mirror. He is, in so many ways, who I was so very many years ago. He makes me look back at when I, too, was more innocent and did not understand the “subtleties” that history throws at us. He, like me, loves his country and he, like me, lives far, far away from our homeland. Unlike me, it was not his choice but, in spite of his tender age, he remembers where he is from and identifies with the United States. Yes, my son is thoroughly American.

A few days ago, he called me up at work to wish me a “Happy Thanksgiving”. It was his initiative. I don’t about talk this holiday at home. He’d been reading about it on the internet and knew it was on a Thursday in November. He just missed it by a week, which is pretty good, considering that no one is pushing this holiday here. Many Brazilians know it exists, and that’s about as far as it goes, especially considering that it is not a holiday here and has nothing to do with this country. When he called me, I thanked him, explaining that Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of November. He quickly found a calendar, counted the weeks off and excitedly shouted, “It’s on the 27th! Next week!”

So, here I am. How do I proceed? Do I give the lowdown about how the holiday is wrong, how it should be a national day of atonement, or do I give in to the myth? Identity is a tricky thing and, as much as I love Brazil, I am, first and foremost, an American. It’s in my DNA – almost fifteen generations, not counting my Cherokee ancestors who met the rest of my family at the beach, so to speak. The last five generations have been in Oklahoma. I was raised on the myth. I believed in it when I was his age and now Jack wants to know about and celebrate this holiday – which inevitably leads to the next question: how do I teach my son the history of the land where he was born? How do I teach him about who he is and where he is from? How do I guarantee that he will be able to transit comfortably and knowledgeably between the culture of his homeland and that of his mother’s country, where he is being raised? How can I make sure that he will be comfortable in his skin as both an American and a Brazilian?

The question of his Brazilian identity will take care of itself. He lives here, goes to school here, celebrates its holidays, studies its history at school, speaks its language, which he does everywhere, including at home with his mother. Jack –  for better or worse (and I think it is for better), like it or not (and I do like it) – is also Brazilian. It is the American side of the question that is more difficult. I am the only American he sees, other than his sister Melissa, who is almost five. Everything I say about Jack’s identity also applies to her.

My relationship with my country has been difficult, mostly probably because I was raised on the myth, the promise of equality inherent in its founding documents. I drank deeply from the well as a child and believed what I was taught. The Constitution was, for me, the most sacred of documents. (In fact, it still is, but more on that later.) Its founding fathers were the prophets of a new age where people were free and where those free people would protect and extend that freedom to others. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Patrick Henry, and all of the others were my heroes, my role models. My ancestors  served on the Continental Line and, during the Second World War, my fathers’ generation defended what those earlier heroes had established. They had all fought for freedom and won. Soon, however, I got old enough to see the cracks in our foundations. My hometown’s schools were segregated. I saw the Freedom Riders being attacked, their buses burned on the evening news. I learned about slavery in school but later found out that version had been sanitized. The Indian Wars, well, they just weren’t even really taught, but Dee Brown would change that when he wrote Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. John Kennedy was assassinated, and then his brother Robert and Martin Luther King. There were riots. Vietnam kept rolling on and on and on, seemingly for no good reason. My Lai was uncovered and the Pentagon Papers were published. The lies began mounting and, yet, somehow, I was still naive enough to dress up in Air Force blue, but that lasted for only 361 days, two hours and 27 minutes. The dream had seemingly died and I began fighting back – against the war, against racism, against those violations of the American dream that I had been weaned on. The years passed. We fought more wars, all of which felt like reruns of Vietnam. (They just changed the jungle for the desert.) I left the country, returned, left again, returned again and then left again, this time more or less permanently, but knowing that the United States has a hold on me that I cannot shake.

And now, my son wants to celebrate Thanksgiving... What do I tell him? The truth? Whose truth? Which truth?

If I look deeply into my own heart, I know I must teach him how to decide whose truth to believe. I must teach him to find his own truth – not mine, not the official truth but his own truth. How do I do that? Well, maybe I have to start with what I know: I still deeply love our country. It is home. Its original promise, though unfulfilled, still rings true in my heart. Those early beliefs of mine – enshrined in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the writings of our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) – are what inspired me and made me fight back. Those principles guided me then – and they still do. Our country was founded to establish freedom with justice. We have strayed, failed, fallen down, but somehow keep getting back up and moving forward. Often it seems that we take one step backward for every two steps forward, but we still are moving ever so slowly in the right direction. With all of its problems, we have progressed in the 238 years since declaring our independence and the 391 years since that supposed mythical first Thanksgiving in Plymouth. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely. Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere show us that, but we have also come a long way.

And so that is where I must start with Jack: with the myth, because there is, in fact, a kernel of truth in it. He is only seven, so I will start with that kernel, with that same promise I believed in as a child. It is my obligation to teach him the truth as I understand it but it is also my obligation to give him the tools and the information he needs so he can discern his own truth in the future. I must, however, give him these things in a way that will not overwhelm him. He is young. We have time to get where we need, but to get there, we must take that first step.

Tomorrow, for the first time in my adult life, there will be a real Thanksgiving in my house. When we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, one of the things I will be most thankful for is my son Jack, who made me realize that it is time for this celebration to finally take place.

Dilma and the Doctors

Last night, we scored another victory. The Federal Chamber of Deputies voted 430 to 9 against proposed constitutional amendment PEC 37 that would have gutted the Public Ministry’s ability to independently investigate crimes and wrongdoing by public officials. While I do not believe for a second that all of those “no” votes were sincere, I do give credit to the people in the streets for this. Having won another round, let us turn to the subject at hand: health care.

During her speech to the nation last Friday evening, Pres. Dilma Rousseff offered a series of platitudes, made some vague promises and mentioned a few ideas for action that she would undertake in response to those protesting throughout the country. One, a plebiscite to elect a constitutional convention to deal with political reform has already been largely set aside. Another,  her proposal to import physicians to help counter inadequacies in the public health sector, is being greeted with a large degree of skepticism. (Plans previously announced in Congress talk about bringing in up to 6,000 doctors from Cuba and other countries.)

The public’s response to this is perhaps best summed up by an internet meme that goes something like this, “Where are all of these new doctors going to treat their patients? In stadiums?” Another photo making the rounds shows Dr. Alex Araujo’s office in rural Minas Gerais (see accompanying photo). It is in a space which also serves as the local school’s library and kitchen. You can readily see cracks in the walls, a two-burner cook stove with a small gas tank next to it, numerous plastic pails, buckets and other types of containers, a storage shelf in the corner that seems to double as a book case, an extremely small wooden table behind which Dr. Araujo is sitting, and a chair in which we see a patient. There is also an open window that appears to have no glass in it.

A large part of the skepticism greeting Pres. Rousseff’s initiative to improve the country’s public health system (SUS – Unified Health System) arises from its crumbling infrastructure and the corruption within it which (like with many other public services) further diminishes its already inadequate resources. In other words, we need to improve what we already have on the ground before we bring more doctors into the system. If we don’t, where are they going to work?

Don’t get me wrong. I really like SUS. We don’t have anything like it in the United States. With all of its failings and all of its problems, even the poorest in this country are treated free of charge. They will be attended to – if there is a clinic within a reasonable distance and if it is staffed, of course. (We won’t even ask that it be adequately staffed at this point. That’s an altogether different question.) Here, for instance, you won’t be driven into bankruptcy if you develop cancer. We cannot say the same thing back home.  One of the reasons my family and I came back to Brazil was the availability of good medical care at an affordable price. I’ve already stated elsewhere that my wife and children benefit from private health insurance and, for a variety of reasons, I rely on SUS. I have had no complaints, but my situation is not the norm. I want to see SUS benefitting everyone in this country because most of the population does not have the means to pay for private health care.

Let’s take a look at a few numbers. According to its own statistics, 80% of Brazil’s population depends on SUS. That means SUS is the only option available for almost 160 million of Brazil’s 196 million people.  (Remember that over 72% of Brazilians make US$605 / month or less – mostly much less. It is their only option because private health insurance is out of their reach. Without SUS, they would have no access to health care at all.) Roughly 130 million people have access to SAMU (Mobile Emergency Service), which means they can take advantage of services analogous to EMS (Emergency Medical Services) in the United States. That population is essentially concentrated in urban areas, which also means that people in rural areas are not as well served, if they are served at all. In a similar fashion, the bulk of SUS’s six thousand hospitals are located in urban areas, as well as their 45,000 clinics. There are, however, a couple of problems. First, the rural population is largely left out of the loop and, secondly, what infrastructure there is, as stated earlier, is poorly maintained and understaffed. SUS has an extremely difficult time attracting doctors, particularly young doctors at the beginning of their careers, to rural areas. When you also consider the facilities, or rather, the lack of facilities awaiting them, coupled with extremely low pay, it is a small wonder there are any doctors willing to work in SUS in the first place.

For an example of a rural facility, all you have to do is reread my description of Dr. Araujo’s clinic above or just look at the accompanying photograph. Facilities in urban areas are hardly any better. The news media has been having a field day of late showing legions of broken down ambulances that have been scrapped due to little or no maintenance, warehouses filled with defunct hospital furniture and equipment. They are also reporting on under staffing. News stories abound, telling drastic tales of massive waits in grossly understaffed emergency rooms, about sick and injured patients who have to wait for hours on end to be tended to, insufficient beds, people being given IVs that are suspended from nails pounded into walls while they sit on wooden benches or, if they are lucky, metal folding chairs, patients stuck in rickety wheel chairs because the stretcher they should be lying on simply doesn’t exist – and, from time to time, patients dying while they wait. All of this makes for sensational journalism – and that sells, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the nations’ journalists don’t have to look far to find something to report on.

And the doctors? What of the doctors? How do you attract good doctors when the average pay in SUS is US$884 per month.  (Average salaries per state range from $329 to $1,883. Those on the lower end of the scale are often in rural areas.)  How do you attract doctors to horribly under served rural areas when, in addition to the paltry salaries we have already mentioned, the working conditions are on par with – or even worse – than those Dr. Araujo faces day in and day out? Nevertheless, all of the doctors I have met in Brazil are qualified, highly trained professionals. Let me repeat that: they are qualified, highly trained professionals who, at least in the public sphere, are also used to working under adverse conditions. When the fancy equipment breaks down in US hospitals, our doctors often don’t know what to do until a replacement unit is found. SUS’s doctors don’t have that luxury. They often don’t even have the equipment. They have to practice medicine based on their knowledge, training and experience. And, yet, they are still there, practicing medicine. Brazil has been blessed with many dedicated doctors for whom their profession is a calling. Those are the doctors who have attended me. Dr. Araujo, whom I do not know, is a shining representative his profession in this country.

How are doctors reacting to President Rousseff’s proposal? Not well would be an understatement. Here in Juiz de Fora, SUS’s doctors will be joining their colleagues on July 3 in a twenty-four hour strike across the country to protest what many see as a slap in their face. (Emergencies will be treated. Optional procedures will not be performed.)  Dilma spoke of bringing in “médicos de qualidade”, which can be translated as either “quality doctors” or "qualified doctors”. Either way, those here are both – and SUS’s doctors are outraged. They are asking the same thing the rest of us are: where are these imported doctors going to work if our infrastructure is inadequate? What they want are investments to improve the hospitals and clinics, to provide adequate equipment and to maintain that equipment once they get it, money for medications that patients need, etcetera, ad infinitum. For them, importing doctors can wait. Without structural improvements, bringing more in will not make much of a difference.

In the meantime, construction on pharaonic and overpriced facilities for both the upcoming World Cup and Olympics is continuing – and we are still in the streets.

Dr. Alex Araujo's clinic in rural Minas Gerais.

Jô Soares’s Twenty Cents

The day after the current wave of protests began, an official in President Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet, Minister Gilberto Carvalho gave an interview in which he exclaimed that he didn’t understand why these protests were taking place. Jô Soares, a noted comedian, author and talk show host, as well as a renowned intellectual, made a point of explaining cent by cent why people are outraged.

Jô offered this explanation, as he stated, “For those who haven’t understood yet: the twenty cents, one by one.

 1¢ – Corruption.
 2¢ – Impunity.
 3¢ – Urban violence.
 4¢ – The threat of inflation returning.
 5¢ – The amount of taxes we pay, seeing nothing in return.
 6¢ – The low salary of public school teachers and public service doctors.
 7¢ – Politicians’ high salaries.
 8¢ – Lack of opposition to the government.
 9¢ – The absolute shamelessness of those governing us.
10¢ – Our schools and the poor quality of education.
11¢ – Our hospitals and the lack of a dignified health system.
12¢ – Our highways and inefficient public transportation.
13¢ – The practice of trading votes for public positions in the centers of power, causing distortions in the way things work.
14¢ – Those with little education trading their votes for small improvements in public services (paid for with public monies) that always put the same people in power.
15¢ – Politicians who have been convicted of crimes and are still in office.
16¢ – Those involved in the Mensalão corruption scandal, who, having been tried and convicted, are still free..
17¢ – Political parties that look like organized crime.
18¢ – The price of stadiums for the World Cup, overpricing and poor quality of public works.
19¢ – A tendentious and sold out media.
20¢ – The perception that we are not represented by those in government.

And, if you need it, I have another twenty cents here. All you have to do is ask.”

For those non-Brazilians who might not quite understand what Jô was talking about or be able to put this in context, let me add to these, penny by penny:

 1¢ – Corruption syphons off at least US$25 billion dollars in public monies every year.
 2¢ – The wealthy and powerful rarely, if ever, go to jail for crimes they commit. Only 10% percent of murders are prosecuted, for openers.
 3¢ – High crime rates, in part resulting from extreme disparities in wealth and, in part, from a failed judicial system.
 4¢ – Brazil suffered from hyperinflation from 1980 until 1994. During the time I lived in São Paulo (1989-1994), inflation averaged 40% a month and the national currency was changed five or six times.
 5¢ – See 1¢ - corruption, 6¢ - teachers and doctors salaries, 10¢ – Hell, everything on this list qualifies for this one.
 6¢ – The base salary for teachers in Minas Gerais, where I live, is about US$530 a month and the average salary for doctors in the public sector is about US$870.
 7¢ – The salary of a federal congressman is about US$12,000 / month, not counting fringe benefits – and they are not the highest paid politicians. The legal minimum salary in is US$303 / month. 72% of the population earns US$606 or less per month (two minimum salaries or less.) Need I say any more?
 8¢ – There is no real opposition to the status quo in the government. Politicians are universally seen as corrupt and unwilling to cut their own privileges.
 9¢ – All you have to do to see this is look at how much politicians pay themselves and how much they steal – and that is just for starters. You can add nepotism and a few other things to the list as well.
10¢ – See 6¢ for salaries. Students in public schools receive such poor instruction that very few gain entry into state and federal universities, which are the most prestigious in the country and are free of charge. Most of the slots in those universities are filled by students whose parents could afford to send them to excellent – and expensive – private schools. Shouldn’t graduates of public schools naturally be those eligible for admission to free public universities?
11¢ – At least 72% of the countries population cannot afford health insurance and, therefore, rely on the national public health system. Hospitals are poorly equipped, understaffed and falling apart to the point that the ill have been known to die while waiting to be attended through no fault of the medical staff on duty. There are just too many patients for them to attend to. Rural areas are also  grossly undeserved.
12¢ – Highways are poorly constructed and maintained, and public transportation is inadequate to serve the needs of the population relies on it – the vast majority of Brazilians. Prices, for those receiving the lowest pay – again, the majority of the population – are already too high for them. Remember, the catalyst for the current wave of protests sweeping this country was a 20¢ increase in the bus fare in São Paulo.
13¢ – This speaks for itself.
14¢ – This also speaks for itself.
15¢ – See 2¢.
16¢ – See 2¢.
17¢ – See 1¢ and 9¢.
18¢ – The current estimated price for the 2014 World Cup is equal to the total price of the last three World Cups combined – and we are seeing that a lot of the work being done is shoddy. Can anyone say “corruption”?
19¢ – All you have to do to see this is follow, among others, Rede Gobo’s poor coverage of current events. The vast majority of the ongoing protests have been peaceful, but that is not what is being reported both here and abroad. (In this aspect, social media is being extremely useful in getting accurate information out.)
20¢ – This is not a perception. It is reality.

And that, my friends, hopefully will help you understand why we are in the streets.

Jô Soares

PEC 37 - Another Reason We Are in the Streets

Yesterday, Brazil witnessed another round of protests. Although neither as large nor as widespread as those on Thursday, they are continuing. News coverage, however, was spotty and, as always, tended to focus on unrepresentative acts of vandalism and violence.

One of the major focuses of these demonstrations was PEC 37 (Proposta de Emenda Constitucional 37/2011), a proposed constitutional amendment that would eliminate the Public Ministry’s investigative powers. This proposed amendment is enough of a threat to the Public Ministry (PM) that it ran a full page ad in the news magazine Veja this week. (See accompanying photo.) In order for non-Brazilians to understand this, we need to focus on three things: what the Public Ministry is, why the PM has been targeted and what this implies for Brazil. We also need to look at the process by which Brazil’s Constitution is amended.

First, the Public Ministry (O Ministério Público in Portuguese), is body of independent prosecutors at the federal and state levels. As such, it is independent of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The very reason for this independence is to inhibit coercion by any branch of government that could, in turn, impede investigations into crimes potentially committed by its members. The PM’s purpose is to uphold justice, whether this means bringing charges and trying cases or requesting acquittal if prosecutors later become convinced of a defendant’s innocence. Although Public Ministry prosecutors are allowed to investigate criminal activities, they normally do so only when those under suspicion are police officers or public officials. When involving members of the national congress, presidential cabinet or the President, the Procurador Geral da República (Attorney General of the Republic) files those charges and tries those cases before the Federal Supreme Court, which brings us to why this particular amendment is being pursued in Congress.

There has been a corruption scandal rolling around this country for a number of years. Know as the Mensalão, or the Monthly Allowance scandal, it includes many present and former members of Congress and the Executive Branch. This scandal initially broke in late 2004 and resulted in investigations by the Public Ministry which then issued indictments in 2007. The case has revolved around alleged monthly payments involving many millions of dollars by members of the governing Workers Party (PT) to political allies in exchange for votes in Congress. Those investigated include a wide-ranging list of members of the PT and other political parties, large business enterprises, prominent businessmen and underworld figures. After many delays and frequent attempts to prevent the trial, the case was finally heard last year, 2012, before the Supreme Court. A number of those accused were convicted, some of whom are still serving in Congress and who will be voting on PEC 37. So far, none of those convicted have gone to jail. Sadly, when this scandal broke, it really surprised no one in Brazil. Corruption is part and parcel of how the government operates. It, by no stretch of the imagination, began with the PT and, if changes are not forthcoming, it will not end when the PT eventually relinquishes power. The PT did, however, bring corruption to new and absurd heights.

And now we come to the amendment itself. The Brazilian Constitution can be amended after four rounds of votes, twice in the Senate and twice in the Chamber of Deputies, in which the proposed amendment must receive at least 60 percent of the votes cast. (I will not dwell here on how amendments are proposed.) Although this might seem to be a daunting task, the Constitution has been amended 72 times since its adoption in 1988. To put this in perspective, remember that the US Constitution has been amended only 27 times since its ratification in 1791 and that ten of those amendments were included in the Constitution’s initial ratification.

And what is PEC 37? Quite simply, it would strip the Public Ministry of its power to investigate. Public prosecutors have called this the Impunity Amendment, as it would limit the power of investigation to the federal and civil police, although Congress would still be allowed to investigate matters due to other provisions in the Constitution. Many here see PEC 37 as revenge for the Public Ministry’s role in investigating official corruption. It is a clear and direct response by Congress to the Mensalão scandal.

There is a saying in Brazil that “everything will end up in pizza,” in other words, nothing changes. If this amendment passes, that is exactly what will happen in terms of corruption – nothing. There will be no impartial investigative body to keep an eye on, among others, Congress. The fox will be left guarding the hen house and only he will be able to investigate who killed and ate the chickens. The farmer would only be able to stand by and watch.

In addition to PEC 37, there is another proposed amendment, PEC 33, that would subject decisions by the Supreme Court to Congressional approval. We will discuss this amendment at a later date.

The next vote in Congress on PEC 37, originally scheduled for Wednesday, July 26, has been postponed until the first week in July due to the ongoing protests.

See you in the streets.