The moment the helicopter exploded. Photo by Taiane Oliveira On Twitpic.

The Censurado [pt] blog criticizes the governors' attitude toward this crisis, after hearing news suggesting that the police didn't know anything about the invasion:

Vocês viram as cenas na televisão este fim de semana? Helicóptero caindo, policial morrendo queimado, inocente metralhado nas ruas e traficante invadindo a favela do outro em plena luz do dia, uma verdadeira cena de filme de guerra. Dizem no Rio que até o serviço secreto israelense sabia que um morro atacaria o outro, mas mesmo assim o governador Sérgio Cabral diz que a policia carioca não sabia de nada? Acho que ele anda passando muito tempo com o Lula. Só isso explica essa ‘ignorância' sobre o tema.

Blogger Ana Maria [pt] points out that shooting a helicopter down is not an easy task highlighting that this might be just the beginning. She says [pt]:

Mas os senhores do tráfico, donos dos morros cariocas possuem não apenas as armas capazes disso, possuem indivíduos capazes de manuseá-las e causar um desastre como o do sábado.
Isso vai ficar marcado para sempre na memória da PM e do cidadão de bem, morador do estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Se eles podem fazer isso com um helicóptero da polícia tripulado por homens treinados, que dão a vida pela segurança pública, o que podem fazer com o cidadão comum?
Não vou “tapar o sol com peneira”.
As coisas podem piorar.

Dwellers' accounts of the drug war

A woman carrying a child walks unconcerned past police officers patrolling Morro dos Macacos.

The citizen media project Viva Favela [pt] gives some dwellers' eyewitness accounts of this conflict. Their citizen journalists – all of whom live at the frontier of the cross fire – have gathered comments from residents of the slums and photos of the day on which the drug war began in Rio de Janeiro.

The first person heard by Viva Favela was Hugo Mattos, who lives on the street that gives access to the slum in which all the events took place (Morro dos Macacos). He said that the dealers used high-caliber weapons and added that there is a kind of collective fear that if the police retake territory occupied by the traffickers, there will be a violent reaction from the faction that controls Morro dos Macacos:

O tiroteio começou por volta das duas da manhã e só terminou às oito horas, quando a policia chegou. Muita gente teve que dormir fora de casa nesse dia.

As pessoas dizem que ninguém deve sair de casa depois das 10 horas, porque algo pode acontecer.

According to Viva Favela, information like this comes all the time from the neighborhood dwellers, unable to react. On the evening of Tuesday October 20th, residents of Morro São João took to the streets afraid of a possible retaliation invasion, a fear which was classified as unfounded by the General-Chief of the police corporation, Colonel Mário Sérgio Duarte. Nevertheless, fear had already struck the population. Another resident of Morro dos Macacos, Karen Carolina Nascimento says that the shooting between dealers and the police has actually been happening for two months. She fears a new conflict:

Já era praticamente uma rotina, mas no último sábado foi diferente. O confronto aconteceu por causa de uma tentativa de invasão e não foi a primeira vez que os traficantes do Morro São João tentam. O comentário que se escuta no morro é que a facção rival deu uma ordem para tomar o Morro dos Macacos até dezembro e que esses bandidos tiveram ajuda de policiais para tentar invadir.

O policiamento não está reforçado e os moradores estão muito apreensivos com medo de uma outra invasão. Eu trabalho no pé do Morro São João e vou para a minha casa andando. Ontem só havia um único carro com dois policiais dentro parado em uma esquina. Em cima do morro não existe policiamento nenhum. Uma vez ou outra um carro blindado sobe e faz uma ronda. Estamos com muito medo porque com certeza a facção rival vai tentar tomar novamente.

Viva Favela [pt] also offers the opinion of Wagner da Silva de Barros, a 29-year-old resident of Vila Pinheiro from Complexo da Maré, saying that the repercussions of the conflict in Morro dos Macacos have only reached this far because of the downed helicopter and adds that this war will spread to many other communities:

A queda do helicóptero e a morte dos três policiais chocou parte da população, mas na Maré, durante cinco meses, nós vivemos um confronto entre facções que matou muita gente, inclusive moradores que nada tinham a ver com o tráfico, e não teve nem metade da divulgação que esse tiroteio dos Macacos está tendo.

Esses tiroteios reforçam de que na favela só existe bandido e violência, mas o que muitas pessoas ignoram é que trabalhadores morrem durante os conflitos e são logo identificados como traficantes pela polícia.

According to Viva Favela [pt] , in the case of Morro dos Macacos, three innocent shot down young men were included on the list of deceased bandits. The secretary of Security José Mariano Beltrame stepped back and apologized to the families of Marcelo Costa Gomes, 26, Leonardo Fernandes Paulino, 27, and Francisco Haílton Vieira Silva, 24. The men were going back home from a party at the time of the invasion. A fourth man, waiter Francisco Alaílton Vieira da Silva, 22, was saved by residents but is now hospitalized in intensive care. His girlfriend is 3-months pregnant.

Walter Mesquista from Viva Favela also provides photos of the conflict taken by the photographer Guillermo Planel during the day to which people are referring as “Drugs War”.

There are around 6,000 homicides a year in the whole state of Rio, which has a population of 14 million. A police ‘pacification’ operation with permanent patrols has been underway for a year in five slums. With their increased presence in the slums, the police force gangs to fight over other areas.

Viva Favela is a citizen media project that works with special bloggers and photographers who live in the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro. The project is under the guidance of Content Editor Rodrigo Nogueira. You may find more information on their official Twitter account [pt] and in their Orkut community [pt].

In a previous post we announced the UN Citizen Ambassador contest where video bloggers had to record what they would say to World Leaders if they had the chance, to effectively win the opportunity to speak directly with Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon at the UN Day on October 23rd. The winners were chosen and notified through YouTube as well, and here is the video announcement by the United Nations Channel:

Emily Troutman from the USA, who we recently wrote about in relation to her Congo Matters video, was one of the winners. In her UN video response, she spoke about how World Leaders should remember that they are responsible for more than 6 billion of other human beings, one person at a time:

Jeremy Walker of Canada was another winner, who asked the UN to prove that it still can help solve worldwide problems, to return hope to those who still want to believe that there can be change:

Breno Coelho from Brazil uploaded a video answering what is needed to be done to make this world a better and safer place, where it is answered by many different people, all offering their solutions: more love, less greed, less hate:

Maricarmen Ortega of Mexico also included the voices of many in her video, this time in several different languages:

Kirsty Matthews of Canada had a short message, straight to the point: what is needed is equality, sustainability and justice for all:

United Nations TV uploaded a video showing the 5 Citizen Embassadors in NYC at the UN Day:

Congratulations to all!

Várias vezes me interroguei se vale a pena participar neste processo e se o meu voto não me torna conivente com uma farsa. Mas, apesar de tudo, acredito que neste caso a abstenção só vai beneficiar o Partido no poder e junto a minha voz aos que apelam ao voto.
Se não houver contrariedade de última hora, amanhã, mesmo não sendo feriado para mim, farei uma longa viagem para depositar o meu voto.

After a 45-days-long electoral campaign, characterized by gestures of violence, in most cases by militants of FRELIMO, few hours from the vote, the voices of the civil society multiply, calling for an organized election, without violence. Good judgment is called for from the candidates so that they can accept the results from ballot box as a demonstration of the people's will. The call of the civil society extends to the press, especially the publicly-owned media, asking for impartiality in their coverage of the event.

The director of the Technical Secretary of Electoral Administration-TSEA, Felisberto Naife, came public to vouch for the conditions of the voting process in Mozambique as well as in 7 other countries, 5 of them in Africa and 2 in Europe: Portugal and Germany. But not all the countries will allow expatriates the right to vote. The blog Comunidade Moçambicana highlights the case of Malawi [pt]:

O governo do Malawi não autorizou os moçambicanos a votarem excepto nos consulados e embaixadas, de acordo com Felizberto Naife numa conferência de imprensa do STAE, esta manhã. A CNE pretendia que os moçambicanos no Malawi pudessem votar em cinco diferentes locais, mas o Malawi não o permitiu. É o único país que proibe votação fora de embaixadas e consulados.
Entretanto, Naife disse também que o STAE não conseguiu utilizar um helicóptero na província do Niassa devido a falta de combustível. Isto pode causar alguns problemas para fazer chegar materiais de votação às assembleias de voto mais remotas.

Nevertheless, despite the reassuring speech of the TSEA director, close to the voting day, the mass media reported that there are regions with no fuel to supply the helicopters in charge of distributing materials to the voting areas where access by road is difficult. This is the case of the province of Niassa, in which a helicopter had to be diverted to the province of Nampula, due to lack of fuel.

The director of TSEA, without explaining the reason of lack of fuel in those places, minimizes the impact of the aerial operations, stating that helicopters were placed in areas in which the electoral process had already been scheduled in accordance with the means currently available. Without further explanations, the director guaranteed the materials' arrival in all voting places.

Image from the blog Debates e Devaneios.

In Nampula, province with one of the biggest electorates of the country, a journalist from STV, a private TV News channel of Mozambique, as what he described as a “strange phenomena”, reporting yesterday afternoon that around one thousand people were accredited as electoral observers, by an organization with no competence to do so, the Mozambican Forum of Electoral Observation, and most of them were affiliated to FRELIMO.

According to the reporter, such observers were taken by state cars to different corners of the province; when the reporter asked the electoral bodies, namely the TSEA and the National Commission of Elections, they claimed not to know anything about the accreditation process, having heard of it only because of the reporter and that they would start an inquiry of this case.

This issue not only raises suspicions about potential fraud, that often “flavor” the Mozambican electoral processes and are rejected by the ruling party, but it also highlights the abusive use of the state's resources by FRELIMO, in a very documented and amplified way, as remarked by Álvaro Teixeira:

Amanhã, dia 28/10, é um dia muito especial para um belo país chamado Moçambique e para essa terra da boa gente que é o Povo Moçambicano. É dia de Eleições, um dia que deveria ser natural numa democracia consolidada e amadurecida, mas sobre o qual recaem as maiores suspeitas de ilegalidades cometidas pelo partido no poder, a FRELIMO, que controla todos os organismos que deveriam ser independentes, como a CNE e o CC, a seu bel-prazer, conseguindo perverter o conceito de democracia que é a inclusão, transformando-o em exclusão.

This way, despite the reassuring speeches of electoral organizations and despite all the conditions for the vote, there are important aspects that concern many Mozambicans, such as the existence of areas where elections will not be held because of lack of material; what happens will legitimate the voices of some opposition parties that have been accusing the ruling party of conspiracy with the TSEA to prepare a fraud. There are, at the moment, a total of 2073 observers, 1543 of which are Mozambicans and 530 from other countries. 922 journalists were registered, 42 of them foreigners.

In addition to the national and international oversight and the support of media to bring impartiality to the electoral process, the citizens of Mozambique have the project Verdade-Eleições2009 [pt] which uses the Ushahidi platform to monitor reports, events and discussions on the electoral process throughout the nation. The website, which works as an aggregator of citizen media, allowed the political engagement of Mozambicans by the use of blogs, Twitter, news feeds, reports and headlines, all of which also by the use of SMS.

These examples are fortifying themselves through city- and state-level meetings with civil society organisations and academics in preparation for Brazil’s first National Conference of Communication in December. Entitled ‘Communications: a Means for Building Rights and Citizenship in the Digital Era’, it signals a very first step in democratising Brazil’s communications system.

But in spite of alternative sectors showing democratic trends, Brazilian media are famously epitomised by high concentration within the hands of under ten families. Unsurprisingly, then, the players in the fight for media democratisation have numerous proposals, including strengthening Brazil’s public service broadcasting, fine-tuning the elusive regulatory framework, expanding former Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil’s programme of digital inclusion and investing more in alternative and community sectors.

The blogosphere remains divided into which proposal is the most important. Several feminist blogs, for instance, remind us that regulation, monitoring and reviewing the press law are all fundamental. These may also fall under the umbrella of social control, which, for blogger Alessandra Terribili,

É garantir que eles não podem dizer o que querem, reforçar esteriótipos, legitimar preconceitos, seduzir pelo consumo, informar pela metade, esconder uma parte… não podem fazer isso impunemente.

But for cyber-activist site Trezentos [pt], digital inclusion remains paramount. Their proposals go beyond expanding broadband and connectivity infrastructure across Brazil to also stressing the digital rights of citizens:

“Todos os brasileiros têm o direito ao acesso à Internet sem distinção de renda, classe, credo, raça, cor, opção sexual, sem discriminação física ou cultural […] Todo cidadão tem direito de acessar informações públicas em sites da Internet sem discriminação de sistema operacional, navegador ou plataforma computacional utilizada. Toda pessoa tem o direito a escrever em blogs e participar de redes sociais com seu nome, com codinome ou anonimamente.”

How far these proposals will come into effect, given 2010’s presidential election, is debatable. Further, communication is not widely recognised a human right, and alternative vehicles are seldom collectively mobilised. Brazil’s gradual digital inclusion of 34% of the country having Internet access, with only 5% benefiting from broadband, also stands in stark contrast to the 98% of the population watching television. However counter-hegemonic the fight to democratise communication is, it is ultimately overshadowed by the monopolistic mainstream.

Whilst the conference may see more public involvement in policy-making and a more joint, active role played by alternative media players and civil society actors, both Brazilian media and democracy are fragile and ongoing. But it is of the essence that they strengthen together: for blogger Pablo Pedroso [pt]

“Parte do esforço para a profunda transformação socioeconômica do Brasil, passa pela democratização dos meios de comunicação.”

Therefore, the Conference is just the first step in the long ‘ant-work' Brazil faces in its democratic development. We will simply have to wait and see how much converging technologies result in converging interests.

On the other hand, there are arguments against the event being hosted in Rio, side by side with the very old discussion about whether sport events are good or not for society. Many bloggers have pointed out Brazilian social problems, such as violence, social inequality and corruption, as obstacles to the success of the games. Regardless of the dimension of the task, the Brazilian reaction is very peculiar, always with a wry touch of humor.

See, it hasn't even started yet and I got three golds in triple assault. Frank/Published with permission

The Pombo sem Asa [pt] blog shows this particular atmosphere, making a list of some cartoons vividly depicting how Brazilians reacted to the victory:

A poeira da festa carioca em Copenhague ainda nem tinha baixado quando a internet foi invadida: aros olímpicos em forma de algemas, Cristo Redentor de mãos ao alto, Mussum tripudiando em cima de Obama, na esteira da vitória do Rio, que vai sediar os Jogos de 2016, euforia e ironia crescem na mesma velocidade.

Na maioria dos casos, as piadas usam do bom humor para criticar as mazelas sociais da capital carioca. Mas sobrou espaço também para tirar onda com o maior rival da campanha, a Chicago de Barack Obama.

Na hora de escolher o mascote para os Jogos de 2016, a criatividade atirou para todos os lados. Blanka, personagem brasileiro do jogo Street Fighter, virou figurinha fácil na internet acompanhando o logo da candidatura. Mas o humor ácido também apareceu: uma sorridente bala de revólver com os dizeres “perdida por você” logo apareceu como candidata a mascote.

Captured from blog Pombo sem Asa

On the top, the stray bullet cartoon with the phrase "missing you". On the left hand side, the late and beloved Brazilian comedian Mussum mocks Obama's slogan, and on the right hand side the International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge with the same phrase "Yes, we créu!" that has been doing the rounds on the Internet and has even gained an entry on Wikipedia. Below, the character Blanka also as as mascot. Captured from blog Pombo sem Asa

Art by @eviljovemnerd

Check the meaning of “Yes We Créu” in a previous Global Voices post.

Despite being worried about all of that, Josselene Marques [pt] hopes that the country and the city manage to organize a great games in 2016 and that Rio overcomes most of its problem in the forthcoming years.

Particularmente, vejo como principais pontos positivos, desta conquista, a geração de novos postos de trabalho, melhorias na parte urbana da Cidade Maravilhosa, aumento do interesse pelo esporte e mais investimentos na segurança. Será muito bom também para os nossos países-irmãos, pois a atenção do mundo estará voltada para a América do Sul.

No entanto, surge uma preocupação: grande parte dos meus compatriotas, indubitavelmente, se distrairá com o megaevento. Sem querer estereotipar e já estereotipando, o brasileiro se envolve de maneira apaixonada em tudo quanto faz. Uma vez entretidos, por todo esse período, muitos se esquecerão de refletir, questionar e continuar reivindicando melhores condições de vida. Cientes disto, precisamos ficar atentos a fim de evitarmos que o emprego de recursos financeiros em setores essenciais seja relegado em virtude das reformas que deverão ser feitas na cidade.
Pergunto: como estará o nosso país daqui a sete anos? Infelizmente, não posso responder a esta indagação. Espero e desejo que esteja bem melhor que hoje. (…)
Uma coisa é certa: no que depender dos brasileiros, atletas, oficiais, jornalistas e espectadores serão recebidos de braços abertos não só pelo nosso povo hospitaleiro, mas também pelo próprio Cristo.
Sejam todos bem-vindos ao Brasil!

Lessons from Rio 2007

To curb corruption and public administration mismanagement in the run up to Rio 2016, sectors from the government and civil society have already created online forums for the population to follow closely the public spending on the games. Among them, there is the Twitter account @FiscalizaRJ2016 (Rio de Janeiro 2016 Supervision, in English), which has been updating about the games project. There is also the website Transparência Olímpica [pt] (Olympic Transparency, in English) created by the Olympic Committee in charge of organizing the 2016 Olympics.

Nevertheless, the main worries making some specialists pay double the attention to the way that Rio 2016 is going to be organized are the memories of the Pan-American Games which took place in Rio in 2007. To begin with, the initial budget for Rio 2007 of almost R$ 600 million (approximately $ 350 million) ended up as bill of R$ 4 billion (approximately $ 2.4 billion) in the pockets of taxpayers. José Roberto Paraíso [pt] explains to Hugo, a reader of his blog, that despite the risks of mismanagement, the Games is worthwhile and that the problem is not the sporting event itself, but the way that the government and citizens behave:

O número representa, mais ou menos, 800 % a mais do previsto. Quer dizer, houve um erro muito grosseiro no calculo, o que deixa – e com muita razão – brasileiros, como o Hugo, desconfiados, desanimados e indignados.

Desconfiados por achar que os bilhões a mais não foram para a realização do evento e sim para o bolso de alguns ratos. Desanimado ao imaginar que a roubalheira pode acontecer em dose pior nas Olimpíadas de 2016. E indignados por não ver ninguém atrás das grades.

Como se pode ver, meu caro Hugo, o Pan 2007 não é exemplo para ser seguido nas Olimpíadas no que diz respeito a transparência, e no gasto, do dinheiro público.

Agora, o superfaturamento do Pan, contudo, não pode ser motivo para ser contra as Olimpíadas. Se a ganância de alguns não atrapalhar, a competição pode trazer muitos benefícios para o país, como empregos, turistas e respeito internacional.

Os brasileiros, portanto, devem ser contra a corrupção. Cobrar punição dos ladrões do colarinho branco e, em 2010, não eleger os sugadores do dinheiro público.

Benhur-Rava [pt] agrees with this point of view, adding that the best way to avoid corruption is applying precaution and supervision:

Por isso a lembrança da precaução, já que estarão em jogo – juro que não é ironia – quantias consideráveis de recursos públicos e a incerteza sobre a sua correta aplicação pelos órgãos públicos. Corre-se o risco da malversação e desvio se não houver controles rígidos para evitar o desperdício, a fraude e a corrupção. Invariavelmente, o valor orçado de obras e compras termina custando o dobro ou o triplo. Quem conhece a Administração Pública sabe que isso não é fato isolado; é triste regra que afronta os princípios constitucionais da legalidade, da moralidade, da publicidade, da impessoalidade e da eficiência.

Uma força-tarefa com Ministério Público, Tribunais de Contas e Poder Legislativo pode detectar eventuais problemas, acompanhando e controlando investimentos e gastos. Precaução e fiscalização. O antes e o depois. Sete anos é tempo razoável para antecipar e precaver problemas. A lição de gastos superfaturados no Pan 2007 e o planejamento da Copa das Confederações, em 2013 e a Copa da Fifa, em 2014, ajudarão.
Agradece o esporte, fortalece-se a cidadania.

The other worry it is about the destiny of the sporting facilities that, to start with, the public should have free access to, once the games have finished. The Pediatrist Daniel Becker, in an interview to Terra Magazine [pt], explained this. He said that most of the facilities built and refurbished for the Pan 2007 have been sold to the private sectors or shut. One of the arenas was acquired by HSBC bank and turned out to be now a stage for concerts and the Maria Lenke Aquatic Park, where the  swimming, diving and other competitions took place during the Games in 2007, has been shut down. For him, the Olympic Games hosted in Barcelona in 1992 should be an example followed by Rio 2016.

As the History teacher Guilherme Scalzilli concludes on his blog, exaggerated patriotism on one side and political pessimism on the other are not the best ways to behave before the Brazilian Olympic reality:

Os debates sobre a escolha do Rio de Janeiro para sediar as Olimpíadas de 2016 começaram empobrecidos por radicalismos apaixonados. Entre a cegueira patriótica e o rancor político-partidário, há pouco espaço ao meio-termo responsável.
Podemos dividir as objeções equivocadas em três enunciados simplificadores, que assumem formatos variáveis segundo as circunstâncias, inclusive nas discussões sobre a próxima Copa do Mundo: a) os brasileiros são indignos do privilégio; b) o país não está preparado para tanto; c) possuímos outras prioridades ou urgências. […]

O terceiro preceito utiliza retórica bem-intencionada, mas ignora os ganhos potenciais para a saúde, a educação e a cidadania proporcionados pelo esporte. Mesmo que discutamos investimento público (o privado virá apenas por causa dos Jogos), como distinguir os gastos obrigatórios dos supérfluos? Alguém pode propor a suspensão dos campeonatos de futebol para bancar a alfabetização, ou que hospitais sejam construídos com as fortunas “torradas” em exposições e festivais de cinema, teatro e dança.(…)

Acima de tudo, evitemos os perigos da condescendência. Para empreendimento dessa importância é fundamental promover um amplo choque de civilidade, a começar pelo cidadão comum. Por exemplo, os imbecis que vaiaram Lula na abertura do Pan-americano (e depois cinicamente comemoraram sua vitória olímpica) retornarão às arquibancadas. E os motoristas cariocas precisam entender que europeus acreditam em faixas de pedestres. Porém, enquanto os governantes se contentarem com favelas muradas, ônibus disfarçados de “metrô de superfície”, lagoas e praias infectas e banditismo policial, o padrão de qualidade continuará baseado no improviso, no paliativo, na malandragem “ishpérrta”.

The Brazilian bloggers from Esse Tal de Meio Ambiente [pt], Minas Ambiente [pt] e Coisas de Sampa [pt], for instance, have created a standard post for those who have no time to create their own posts for the Blog Action Day but still want to reach their readers with a relevant message. They have also launched the campaign “A day without a plastic bag”:

Você imagina o que acontece com as sacolas plásticas que pegamos nos supermercados para acondicionar nossas compras, quando as jogamos no lixo?

Algumas vão direto para aterros sanitários, onde levam mais de 300 anos para decompor. Outras, jogadas nas ruas, entopem bueiros e provocam enchentes nas áreas urbanas. Outra parte, ainda, é ingerida por milhares de espécies animais – em terra ou no mar – provocando-lhes asfixia e morte. As estimativas são de que, todos os anos, a ingestão de plásticos causa a morte de cerca de um milhão de aves marinhas, cem mil mamíferos e inumeráveis peixes.

Dia 15 de Outubro é o Blog Action Day, dia em que blogueiros de todo o mundo se juntam para mobilizar a sociedade em prol de uma causa. [..] nessa data um desafio é proposto: um dia sem sacola plástica. E aí? Vai ficar aí parado? Junte-se a nós. Mobilize. Faça parte desta ação.

Fire in the Amazon Forest. Photo by Flickr user leoffreitas.

Blogger Aninha from O Divã de Einstein [pt] has based her post for Blog Action Day (#BAD09) on the B F Skinner book “What is Wrong with Daily Life in the Western World?”, depicting many cases in which people don't react to the climate change discussions because they don't feel like it, and won't necessarily experience the impact of global warming today.

She adds:

A solução está muito mais nas mãos dos que têm poder para mudar as regras do reforçamento do que na “vontade”, “consciência” ou “informação” dos indivíduos em particular, porque a situação requer uma mudança drástica e rápida dos comportamentos de muitas pessoas – ou melhor de TODAS as pessoas – ao mesmo tempo. Não temos tempo para esperar que o ambiente remodele os comportamentos, porque quando estiver quente pra dedéu, e todo mundo começar a se preocupar em fazer coisas que não aumentem ainda mais a temperatura, a coisa não terá mais como ser revertida. E é por isso que é tão importante pressionar os caras que têm o poder de mudar o ambiente imediato das pessoas: sobretaxando o uso de combustíveis fósseis, fazendo leis que diminuam a emissão de poluentes que aumentam o efeito estufa, investindo em produção de combustíveis alternativos e na mudança da matriz energética, educando a população para a diminuição do consumo, etc e talz.

É por isso que eu digo: Obama!! Já ganhou o Nobel, agora se mexe, meu filho!!!

On the other hand, the bloggers from Homens Modernos [pt] emphasize that although most of the responsibility for the environment rests with the governments, ordinary citizen can make a difference too:

Não preciso nem dizer que mudança climática não é somente uma lenda urbana mas sim uma realidade em progresso que pode (ou não) vir a ter consequências desastrosas pra nós se ficarmos sentados de braços e pernas cruzados sem nada fazer pra reverter ou amenizar o quadro. Sim, claro que uma fatia grande deste fazer cabe aos governos do mundo, mas isso não quer dizer que não possamos dar uma bela “contribuída” nessa. E nem que esta contribuição não vá fazer lá muita diferença, porque vai. Afinal as escolhas que a gente faz todo dia tem peso e com certeza vão refletir no futuro do planeta, para o bem ou para o mal do próprio. Portanto, pondere as suas and take the green way as much as you can.

Tower of Belem in Portugal surrounded by garbage. Photo by Flickr user starrynight1.

Journalist and blogger Wander Veroni from Café com Notícias [pt] brings the role of journalism about climate change to the discussion. He says that nowadays weather forecasts and related news get much more attention than before:

Até bem pouco tempo, a previsão do tempo era tratada como uma editoria “menor” em boa parte dos noticiários. Coisa de menos de cinco anos atrás. Era muito comum apenas se noticiar a previsão do tempo do dia - ou no máximo do dia seguinte. Se acontecesse algo de mais importante no montante de notícias do dia, a previsão do tempo era a primeira a cair e não entrava no ar.

Hoje, vemos uma situação completamente diferente. Muitos veículos mantêm jornalistas apenas para cobrir fatos relativos ao tempo e temperatura no pais e no mundo. Além de render pauta constantemente, a editoria ouve especialistas e traduz termos técnicos importantes para que o público entenda o porque dos fenômenos meteorológicos interferirem no seu dia-dia.

Blogger Daiane Santana from Vivo Verde [pt] has made a selection of the 15 blog posts related to climate changes that had been discussed in her blog. She is among the most popular Brazilian environmental bloggers. As she says:

Hoje é um dia bem especial para a blogosfera e principalmente para nós, blogueiros ambientais, que tratam dos assuntos voltados ao meio ambiente com o coração aberto para nossos leitores.

Daiane has also blogged for the group blog Nerds Somos Nozes [pt], in which she brought up the issue of toxic waste and its impact on society. She pointed out the way every citizen can contribute towards fighting it:

Quando  empresas de telefonia promovem campanhas de devolução/coleta de baterias , não pense você que  com esta ação a empresa está gerando apenas lucro para ela, lembre-se que o seu ato de depositar aquela bateria inutilizada e até a carcaça de seu celular que “você considerou” como lixo, poderá ter um destino qualificado e deixará de ser um fator de perigo para você e sua família.

From Portugal, blogger Marta from the Mil Visões blog [pt] listed some tips that the average citizen can follow for an environmentally friendly lifestyle,  saying:

Apontada como uma das grandes causas para as alterações climáticas, as emissões de gases poluentes para a atmosfera têm deixado os “Deuses loucos”! E a nós também. É por isso urgente todos intervirmos para que os nossos filhos, netos, bisnetos e por aí fora, possam usufruir de um planeta mais limpo e seguro.
Se já se pode considerar lugar comum dizer-se que já se faz isto ou aquilo para combater estes fenómenos, muitos há que ainda acham que reciclar um pacote de leite não irá fazer a menor diferença. Mas faz, e muito! É a tal história do “grão a grão enche a galinha o papo”.

Finally, Elisio Leonardo from Informática Moçambique [pt], published his post to the Blog Action Day too. He says:

É momento de pensarmos no futuro e mudarmos o nosso modo de vida, para fazer-mos da terra um lugar melhor. Michael Jackson disse isso no seu “Heal the World”,  e é exactamente o que o Blog Action Day está a tentar mostrar.

Many other bloggers from all over the world have been contributing to the Blog Action Day. You can track the updates through this link.

See below a selection of Twitpics and Creative Commons pictures posted on Flickr showing the celebration, the Brazilian sense of humor and also the concerns that the news have brough.

Brazilians wait the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to announce its decision and then celebrate on the streets of Copenhagen:

Copenhagen Countdown. Photo: comawe

Copenhagen Countdown. Photo: comawe

Meanwhile, in Rio de Janeiro, an Obama lookalike holding a flag of surrender and a cutout Michelle wearing a Rio2016 outfit were caught on Twitpic:

Photo by @SuzanaLinhares

@sergiofonseca commented on his own similar picture:

Obama saiu às pressas de Copenhagen. Mas tinha motivo. #RIO2016.

And thousands celebrated in Copacabana, by the Sugar Loaf mountain and the Christ the Redeemer statue, up to the small hours of Saturday:

Twitpic: @sergiofonseca

Messages of support to Rio2016 bid have been left by those visiting the Rio 2016 Wheel, located at Copacabana Fort, which publicized the city’s bid for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. More than 150,000 visitors were able to admire the landscape of Rio de Janeiro from the 36 meter high in the month it was opened.

Photo: Marco Pompei

The Galactic Empire shall win the Olympics in 2016, according to Flickr user Stéfan in his daily shot of Stormtroopers:

Vader says: "2016 push-ups for Rio 2016". Photo: Stéfan

The Olympic Committee just announced that Rio de Janeiro will be hosting the Olympics in 2016. Amongst the four finalists, Chicago was the first city voted out, then Tokyo. The final choice was between Madrid and Rio.

Congratulation for Brazil, the first south-american country to host the Olympics!

Now, everyone get ready, as the Imperial team has already began its intensive training program. They will own these Games.

The man in the poster below is Mussum, a deceased Brazilian humorist, member of the Brazilian comedic quartet Os Trapalhões. “Créu” is a Portuguese slang made popular by Funk music lyrics and meaning, in this context, ‘nailing it’ but in a very funny way. A take off from Barack Obama's campaign slogan of ‘Yes We Can’ but with a quite different meaning,”Yes, We Créu” made it to the Twitter trends on the days following the announcement.

Photo: ursonate

Leodf explains the meaning of the bilingual word play in a language web forum:

it is a funny way to say you “got it”

I went out with that girl and “créu” her: that means I had *** with her
I went to that test and “créu” it: that means I got most of the questions, it was easy
I “créu” the opportunity: that means I was selected for the opportunity

ok it is most used in Rio… but a very famous Funk Music brought it to our routine as we had a lot parody of this music […]

And I doubt who started the “Yes We Créu” had intentions to offend Obama or USA, that was just a joke, a nice one for our context that only brazilians will get its spirit

Brazil will host the two most important sporting events of the next decade, as the country will also host football's 2014 World Cup. Many critics say Brazil does not have the necessary facilities or the level of security and safety required, and doubt the country can offer more than a spectacular setting with stunning beaches and famous landmarks, despite its positive evaluation by the International Olympic Committee in its final report on the four finalists for 2016. The series of pictures Rio 2016: We are already ready! published by Twitpic user @microcontoscos portray this worry:

Cyclism. We are already ready. Twitpic by @microcontoscos

Whereas Nelson Correa, from Pomeu, highlights the extreme poverty that many cariocas – as Rio citizens are known – live in.

Panis et Circense. Photo: pomeu.

The text in the picture above reads:

Copenhagen, 2nd October 2009

“…Rio being chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games makes Brazil stop this mania of thinking we are small” (Luis Inácio Lula da Silva)

Date: 30 September 2009

Time: 1:30 pm on a rainy afternoon

Local: Rio de Janeiro, in a side street on a corner with an important avenue in the Southern area of the city, where competitors and supporters will pass through during the Olympic games.

Then ruling party Frelimo joined in, creating a group on Facebook, using Youtube, and creating a tweet. (Frelimo also has a Hi-5 group.)

Blogger Elísio Leonardo of InfoMoz recapped [pt]

[No Hi-5] Daviz Simango – 1580 amigos e 250 comentários sobre o perfil […]

Frelimo – Tem um grupo no Hi5, com 440 membros […]

O Partido Frelimo possui vários grupos no Facebook, sendo que o primeiro retornado possui 134 membros. Além disso, o perfil do Partido Frelimo possui 142 amigos, e o evento campanha eleitoral da Frelimo possui 67 presenças confirmadas.

Não encontrei nenhum grupo reelevante referente ao Partido MDM, mas encontrei o perfil do MDMWIKI, que possui 19 amigos. Nenhum evento reelevante relacionado ao Partido MDM foi retornado.

Frelimo also created a professional site called “Frelimo online” that includes text of speeches, photos, and even a chat section. Interestingly, Frelimo's blog “A Voz da Revolução” (”The Voice of the Revolution”) includes links to critical blogs and even opposition bloggers.

Also new in the Mozambican online world is the blog of President Armando Guebuza, who is running for a second term. His party Frelimo has ruled Mozambique since independence in 1975. Hosted on Blogspot, in the header image of the blog, Guebuza appears dressed informally, without a suit a tie.

The blog so far has two entries, the first entitled “Exploring other forms of consolidating citizenship” and the second “Employment: a crosscutting problem requiring multisectoral interventions”. The blog has open comments, with over 50 comments on the first entry and at least half that on the second, including signed comments by public intellectuals like Edígio Vaz [pt].

Photo by Flickr user Maanskyn

Quoting from Guebuza's first entry [pt]

No âmbito da Presidência Aberta e Inclusiva, visitei os Centros Multimédia Comunitários de Chitima, na Província, de Tete, de Chokwe, na Província de Gaza e da Catembe, na Cidade de Maputo. Os jovens gestores e beneficiários destes Centros, interpretando o sentimento de outros compatriotas nossos, pediram-me, na altura para fazer o uso das tecnologias de informação e comunicação para com eles e com outros compatriotas interagir.

[…] Na verdade, para além daqueles jovens, o nosso belo Moçambique orgulha-se hoje de possuir já uma massa crítica de internautas que, entre si, trocam informações e escalpelizam a Nação nas suas diferentes dimensões. Este é um grupo que dá conteúdo à grande capacidade crítica e analítica do heróico Povo Moçambicano.

Decidi pois avançar já em dar expressão ao conselho que me foi dado por aqueles jovens e juntar-me ao cada vez mais crescente círculo de debate virtual sobre esta Pérola do Índico. Sei que esta é uma forma de interagir também com internautas de todo o mundo que se interessam por Moçambique e pelo seu progresso e paz.

Comments on the blog, overwhelmingly enthusiastic, reflect what for some might seem a certain formality, with writers addressing the President as “Your Excellence”, “Mr. President of the Republic”, “Illustrious Mr. Guebuza”. Others opt for “Comrade President”, alluding to the socialist roots of Guebuza's party.

Blogger Nelson Livingstone at Meu Mundo writes in a rather tongue-in-cheek way [pt]

Alguns dos comentários não tem nada a ver com nada. Uma auténtica “graxa”. Não se trata aqui de “proibir” que as pessoas opinem. Não se trata de concordar ou discordar com seja oque for ou seja lá quem for mas fazê-lo na “medida certa”. […]

Seria bom, muito bom que quem fosse lá(blog do Senhor Presidente) não o fizesse pura e simplesmente para “engraxar”, mas para estimular e amadurecer as ideias do Senhor Presidente que muitas vezes virão em forma de “raw material”.

It does appear that comments are indeed quite open, as one anonymous commenter attacked the use of funds for decentralization, and commenter Artur Matavele challenges Frelimo's policy on sanitation and water [pt]

O combate a pobreza pressupõe a satisfação das necessidades mais elementares das pessoas, em primeiro lugar, o acesso a água potável e saneamento adequado são parte desses serviços básicos. Sem água não há vida.

Todavia o manifesto do Partido não põe a devida ênfase neste elemento. Como combater a pobreza dos nossos compatriotas sem se satisfazer estas necessidades básicas? Como reter as raparigas na escola sem que elas tenham fácil acesso a água potável? Como dignificar as nossas mães, esposas, irmãs e filhas com o fecalismo a céu aberto-Saneamento inadequado?

Guebuza seems to have responded to certain comments on his blog, saying that he awaits more “interventions, teachings and advice” from readers.

Aside from the beginnings of debate online, the campaign on the ground has seen various moments of tension and conflict as documented by the Centro de Integridade Pública (Center for Public Integrity).

Another online monitoring project was set up by the weekly free paper A Verdade, using Ushahidi crowd-sourcing software [pt]. The tag line of the site reads “VOCÊ pode ajudar seja um CIDADÃO REPÓRTER!” (”You can help, be a CITIZEN REPORTER!”) With four weeks to go before the vote, the site has already received nearly 200 reports of intimidation from all over the country, the majority of which are deemed to be “confirmed”.

The real question about all of this online activity is whether it can impact the results of the election, in a country where in 2007, only 9-10 out of 1000 people had internet access according to the World Bank.

One thing is certain, the Mozambican appetite for interaction with politicians is undeniable, and bloggers and internet users will continue to demand this well after the Presidential vote. As commenter Maguezzi writes [pt]

Entrar na Internet é bom. Vai sempre encontrar gente aqui. Mas mais do que encontrar gente, é como responde a essas pessoas; é dar respostas aos anseios desses compatriotas.

Brazil has now been involved in an unusual diplomatic situation. Even though there is as yet no evidence that Brazil was behind the crisis in Honduras, it is safe to say that there are no similar events in the history of international law. The crisis has reached the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa and prompted Brazilian bloggers to discuss international politics in Latin America and Brazil's role in these events.

Zelaya at the Brazilian Embassy. Picture by @kattracho on Twitpic.

Cesar Fonseca, who blogs at Independência Sul Americana [South American Independence, pt], describes the events in Honduras as a disgrace among the Latin nations because they involve the exercise of power through violence, bolstered by the military forces and the hollowness of the legislation in place:

Roberto Micheletti, presidente do Legislativo de Honduras, o Carlos Lacerda golpista hondurenho, errou o time histórico, ao aliar-se aos militares, para detonar governo constitucional de José Manuel Zelaya, que propôs referendo constitucional para respaldar nova Constituinte, que, entre outras determinações, suprimiria limite para mandatos presidenciais, como ocorre nas democracias européias.

For Bruno Kazuhiro, from the Perspectiva Política blog [Political Perspective, pt], if Zelaya was wrong to contravene the terms of the country's constitution, so were the Congress, the military forces and the judicial system that ousted him from the country without a proper trial:

O que o exército hondurenho fez foi muito errado no modo, mas não, na essência. Não deveria ter sido o exército a retirar Zelaya do poder, porém, aceita a renúncia deste pelo Congresso e nomeado o novo Presidente, Manuel Zelaya deveria sim, no fim das contas, deixar o governo. Melhor que tivesse sido voluntariamente.

Para os que me disserem que o povo hondurenho desejava mais um mandato do grupo de Zelaya, pergunto:

Por que então Zelaya não indicou sucessor e respeitou a lei?

Picture brought by @jeneffermelo on TwitPic

On September 22nd, Zelaya managed to smuggle himself into Honduran territory and reach the Brazilian embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa, finding shelter for himself and 63 other supporters on the premises of the country's diplomatic mission. Immediately, the Honduran government surrounded the building, blocked access to the place and imposed a curfew on the citizens. Energy supply has been cut off, as have telephone lines in the Brazilian embassy building.

The controversy arises from the fact that Zelaya does not intend to apply to the Brazilian government for asylum, according to an interview he gave to the Globo TV Network, and that he is staying in the embassy for protection and as a way of mustering political support. If this is his intention, it puts Brazil in a delicate position, since Brazil is harboring a persecuted politician who isn't seeking shelter, but rather wishes to summon forces to fight those who removed him from the presidency.

The Movimento Ordem Vigília Contra a Corrupção blog [pt] believes that the admittance of Zelaya to the Brazilian embassy was directly supported by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and demonstrates inconsistencies that point to alleged lies told by the main players in this crisis:

A diplomacia terceiro-mundista tupiniquim inovou, em matéria de Direito Internacional, criando a figura do perseguido que pretende ENTRAR e não SAIR. Costuma-se conceder asilo para aquele que tenta sair do país, perseguido pelo seu governo, e Zelaya, ao contrário, entrou no país com uma súcia de 60 simpatizantes, o que desfigura a individualidade do asilo. Pior: Zelaya está usando o prédio diplomático como “bunker” da guerrilha para conclamar seus desordeiros e convulsionar as forças de ordem do país.

Chávez, moreover, is a recurring figure in reports about Zelaya's return to Honduras. He himself told the BBC that he knew that Zelaya would come back to Honduras and that he had helped the president to baffle the authorities. But not all bloggers accept the idea of Chávez's influence on these events. For Leandro Fortes, who blogs at Brasília, eu vi [Brasília, I have seen, pt], this theory is the cue ball of the Latin American press and the weak point of mass media. He believes that recent left-wing demonstrations have been covered in a superficial and watered-down way, ignoring their regional nuances [pt]:

A demonstration in front of Brazil Embassy in Honduras. Photo by vredeseilanden on Flickr.

The possibility of the Brazilian government's involvement in promoting Zelaya's return to his country has been discussed, but not confirmed, and was vehemently denied by the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Amorim, in an interview for the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo [pt]. According to Amorim, Brazil has only admitted Zelaya to the embassy's premises in order to comply with the international rules of political asylum. Formally, the Brazilian government advocates the peaceful return of Zelaya to the presidency of Honduras and the call for elections. Journalist and blogger Luis Nassif [pt] noted the apprehension in the Minister's comments during his interview with CNN, emphasizing that the paradigm shift in the political world now requires Brazil to take a more decisive stance on events such as Honduras' [pt]:

Mesmo que seja verdade (como disse Amorim) que o Brasil foi pego e surpresa no episódio (pedido de abrigo de Zelaya) um país que deseja se firmar como global player tem que estar preparado, não só para “surpresas” dsse tipo, como para assumir, sem hesitação ou insegurança, sua condição de protagonista, particularmente nas questões de politica continental. Para o bem ou para o mal.

Bom, espero que pelo menos a insegurança demonstrada por Amorim, (inegável na minha percepção) sirva de aprendizado.

Gabriel Purcelli, from the Desabafo Brasil blog [Outburst Brazil, pt], maintains that the Brazilian government's behavior reaffirms its position as a leader in the region. The sheltering of the so-called “constitutional president” Zelaya, in the face of the excesses of the “de facto president” Micheletti is a step which indirectly allows it to fill the gap left by the decline of US influence in Latin America [pt]:

A jogada brasileira, na qual já estão publicamente envolvidos o chanceler Celso Amorim e o próprio presidente Lula, e para a qual estão utilizando a caixa de ressonância da Assembléia Geral da ONU, em Nova York, deve ser vista à luz da inquietação provocada em Brasília pela remobilização da IV Frota dos Estados Unidos no Atlântico Sul e a presença desse país em bases militares colombianas. Convencidos de que esses movimentos se destinam a contrabalançar sua força como potência emergente, os brasileiros não deixarão passar a oportunidade de se projetar, reafirmando-a.

Raphael Garcia Tsavkko [pt] follows the same line of reasoning and points out some interesting facts regarding Brazil's participation in the resolution of this conflict. He argues [pt]:

O Brasil não sai prejudicado, na verdade foi forçado - a contragosto talvez - a mostrar porque é ou quer ser o líder da América Latina. Não mais o papo de que é mas ações concretas. Resolvendo ou ajudando a resolver o conflito no país o Brasil sai fortalecido como nunca, sai com mais força para pleitear a vaga permanente no Conselho de Segurança - que conta já com o apoio entusiasmado de Sarkozy - e sai fortalecido no cenário internacional.

The restrictions imposed on the Brazilian embassy provoke discussions about the sovereignty of the nation within the limits of the building. Although many people believe that a country's diplomatic mission constitutes foreign territory, law professor and blogger Túlio Vianna points out [pt] that, even though it is not technically considered as such, the attack of an embassy must be repudiated in the same way:

A teoria atualmente dominante para legitimar as imunidades da Missão Diplomática é a “teoria do interesse da função”. Ainda segundo Celso Mello, estes privilégios e imunidades podem ser classificados em: inviolabilidade, imunidade de jurisidição civil e criminal e isenção fiscal (v2., nº511). Nas suas palavras:

“A inviolabilidade significa que nestes locais o Estado acreditado não pode exercer nenhum ato de coação (ex: ser invadido pela polícia), a não ser que haja o consentimento do chefe da Missão. Do mesmo modo, não pode ser efetuada uma citação dentro da Missão.”

Se os golpistas hondurenhos invadirem a embaixada brasileira em Honduras para capturar Zelaya, não estarão invadindo o território brasileiro, mas violando uma imunidade diplomática.

Pode ser tão grave quanto, mas não é a mesma coisa.

It has been confirmed that on September 25th there was a toxic gas attack on the Brazilian Embassy, causing stress to the people inside the building. The attack was firmly criticized by the UN Security Council [pt].

The Brazilian government says it is seeking a peaceful solution to the deadlock triggered by the return of Manuel Zelaya to Honduras. Bellicose gestures are not possible, as they would result in sending military forces to a foreign country. Still, bloggers are continuing to debate Brazil's role in the unfolding of this story.

You can read more about the political crisis in Honduras by following these Global Voices special coverage posts:

June 27th: Honduras: Political Crisis Over Controversial Referendum
June 29th: Honduras: Zelaya Arrested and Removed as President
July 2nd: Caribbean: On the Honduran Coup
July 4th: Honduras: Was it a Coup?
September 24th: Honduras: Citizen Videos from a Country Under Curfew
September 29th: Cuba: Eye on Honduras

The competition aims to raise awareness about climate change and discuss the consequences of climate change in different countries, points of view all over the world, and how local media and the public approach the subject. Organized by the EJC (European Journalism Centre), the launch event was split over two days, the first featuring a series of lectures from experts on climate change, and the second devoted to a visit to the Danish eco-village of Dyssekilde, in the north of the country.

The launch event kicked off with a welcome lecture by Wilfried Rütten, Director of the EJC, followed by a talk by Svend Olling, Head of Department, COP15 Logistics. Mr. Olling gave a presentation on the work that the Danish government has done for the competition and the expectations surrounding the COP15 conference.

Journalists from many parts of the world joined a round-table discussion moderated by Raymond Frenken from EUX-TV. Names such as Tasha Eichenseher, a National Geographic science producer and editor, Gerald Traufetter, a science and technology correspondent for Der Spiegel, Asbjørn Jørgensen, from the Århus School of Media and Journalism in Denmark, and Ramesh Jaura, Regional Director of IPS Europe, discussed how the media covers issue relating to climate change and the environment.

François Roudié, the European Commission Policy Coordinator, gave a rundown on the EU's response to climate change. A counterpoint to this was provided by Andreas Barkman from the European Environmental Agency, and Head of the Group for Climate Change Mitigation, who highlighted the problematic aspects of the negotiations that are going to be held at COP15.

Greenpeace Nordic Executive Director Mads Christensen also underlined what bloggers can do to encourage climate change discussion and voiced Greenpeace's expectations for a possible agreement resulting from COP15. In his talk, he expressed the view that, taking into account current negotiations and the speeches of national leaders all over the world, a huge cut in CO2 emissions and an idealistic agreement are unlikely to take place.

Probably the most eagerly anticipated lecture of the day was given by Søren Hermansen. Søren was one of the Heroes of the Environment named by TIME magazine in 2008, and he gave a presentation on the Samso experiment before the audience of bloggers. This experiment aims to introduce alternative energy resources to local environments. In this case, wind energy is responsible for meeting all the villagers' energy demands. Readers can check out some of the Samso experiment photos in this Flickr pool by Phil Lacombe.

On the second day of the event, bloggers visited the eco-village of Dyssekilde in the north of the country. The village has 70 households and a population of 130 adults and 50 children. It was created more than 20 years ago, and its inhabitants share an environmental approach, feeling the urge to act as pioneers of a lifestyle that allows a more ecologically friendly, sustainable community. Like the Samso experiment, Dyssekilde also depends on wind energy to meet the villagers' energy demands, and since they don't use much of the energy, what is left over is sold to a Danish energy company.

A Dyssekilde household.

Dyssekilde houses have a peculiar appearance. Villagers build their own homes, and many of them have solar panels attached in order to encourage the use of clean energy. Houses also have south-facing windows, so that they can make as much use of the solar energy and natural light as possible, and reduce the use of internal lights and heating units during the day.

Another great example of sustainable living in Dyssekilde is the non-chemical waste water cleaning system. The villagers created the system based on natural cleaning, which uses 30.000 willows to cleanse the water thoroughly, without chemicals or other products. Even though their current system reached its maximum capacity in 2006, they are now planning to build the biggest non-chemical waste water cleaning system in the world.

Who are these bloggers anyway?

“Would you like to participate in an international blogging competition about Climate Change in Copenhagen?” Some ninety people from all over the world said YES to the above question and have just spent three days in Denmark, attending the launch event of the TH!NK ABOUT IT blogging competition. But who are those people? And why did they decide to engage in environmental cyberactivism?

Most participants came from Europe, but the novelty of this second edition of TH!NK ABOUT IT was the participation of people from various developing countries, such as Brazil, India, Mexico, China and South Africa. Many participants came from Eastern Europe, but Western Europe was also well represented, with many British and Italian bloggers. The nature of their blogs and their motives for participating in the event were as diverse as their countries of origin.

Journalist Charles Nisz Lourenço from Brazil

Many professional journalists also took part in the competition, showing that blogging can add to a profession that already deals with reporting and expressing one's views of the world. Charles Nisz Lourenço, from Brazil, works as a journalist and is about to start a PhD in Economics, and is quite new to blogging. He only started his personal blog, Fragmentos da Realidade Cotidiana [Fragments of Daily Reality, pt] in February this year, and has covered political, financial and environmental issues; he also blogs for the Lixo Eletrônico blog, which was behind the Electronic Waste Manifesto.

Maltese journalist Keith Demicoli has his own TV program about politics in “the happiest place on Earth”, as he described his country of origin, and is participating in the TH!NK ABOUT IT competition for the second time.

Maltese Journalist Keith Demicoli

Chinese-Spanish language translator Ding Dawei, also known by his Spanish name, “Diego”, works as a professional journalist for the Chinese People's Daily [en], but is a newcomer to blogging, through which he wishes to look more closely at Climate Change issues and expand his horizons.

Ding Dawei. Chinese Journalist and newcomer blogger.

Non-journalists were, however, in the majority. A friendly pair of bloggers from Pilani in India, brother Abhishek Nayak and his sister Anindita Nayak, enjoyed the launch event for the competition. She is only 18 years old, but already blogs for the AoC Initiative, a youth delegation to the UN Negotiations on Climate Change. He was coy about his blog, which he says is “full of very ironic comments”, but with a little pushing we got the URL. He has been blogging since 2006 about politics and Indian issues, as well as sharing his photos and news about events he attends.

Anindita Nayak and Abhishek Nayak, participants from India

Lucy Setian [bg], from Bulgaria, works as a journalist, but has an online dream-come-true literary project with her boyfriend called Azcheta.com [bg], where they write book reviews and organize literary events in Sofia, and have gained fame with events such as “Coffee goes with books, not cigarettes”. Blogging about the environment allows her to address her political aspirations, too.

Lucy Setian

American Devin McIntire, from California, USA, has just set up the blog The Green Cadet, hoping to disseminate green business opportunities online and, who knows, maybe one day make them happen in reality. He believes that the solutions for environmental problems will come not from politicians, but rather from local eco-entrepreneurial initiatives.

Devin McIntire from the USA

Some bloggers were notably more high-tech than the others, like the Italian Frederico Pistono, who participates in no fewer than 12 blogs! A movie maker, from the beginning of the launch event he was filming the bloggers (at lectures, on the metro, etc), and is bound to have some interesting video clips of the competition. Here are some other blogs where you can check out his work: AsianCineBlog [it] and Activism [it].

Frederico Pistono from Italy

Other video bloggers were present at the competition. The British drama student Matthew Turner maintains a YouTube account where he “takes the piss out of himself” online - in typical British style, he aims to treat serious issues with humor.

Matthew Turner from the UK

Radka Lankasova has a personal blog and is also a contributor to the number one blog in the Czech Republic, but her main motivation is to make friends and travel through blogging opportunities like TH!NK ABOUT IT.

Radka Lankasova from Czech Republic

Some bloggers taking part in the competition were still crawling in the blogosphere or experimenting with it for various reasons, but the EJC (European Journalism Commission) hopes to encourage them to start blogging about the environment, too. From 23rd September to 16th December 2009 bloggers will discuss climate change on the official competition platform. Although there are prizes, one of them being an environmentalist's dream - to attend the COP15 conference for two weeks in Copenhagen with all expenses paid by the EJC - there is a sense of community rather than rivalry amongst the bloggers. As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to blog about the environment!

Bruno Fernandes, from Patos de Minas, Brazil. Photo available under a Creative Commons license.

Acredito que vocês devam está habituados em ver os pais levarem e buscarem seus filhos em lan houses. Esta é uma locadora que fica aqui na minha cidade, veja só a quantidade de bicicletas. Tinha mais ainda do outro lado.

The photo and caption above illustrate the “Lan House Revolution” taking place right now in Brazil. Across the country, the majority of Brazilians accessing the Internet today do so through Local Area Networks (LAN) spanning all cities and communities. The concept of the LAN arrived in Brazil in 1998 but it had been previously observed only in the rich Brazilian neighborhoods. Now it has become a phenomenon especially in poorer and smaller communities, where computers and broadband connection are beyond the reach of the population. According to Ronaldo Lemos, director of the Center for Technology and Society at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) School of Law in Rio de Janeiro, “lan houses are places of intense sociability, and are occupying an important place in the life of the favelas”. His paper LAN Houses: A new wave of digital inclusion in Brazil was presented at the recent Harvard University Communication and Human Development Conference.

Internet for all?

There are over 90 thousand lan houses nowadays in Brazil, which account for 50% of the Internet access in the country. Research published in 2008 by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) shows that in Brazil 48% of all users access the Internet from commercial premises like lan houses. When it comes to people from the poorest classes D and E, this number jumps to 79% - a 60% increase from the 48.08% in 2006. Brazil's government and Brazilian researchers break down socio-economic groups into five categories according to the householder's education level and the ownership of a series of domestic items, A through E, with A constituting the richest and E the poorest class.

Another poll [pt], conducted by TV Cultura earlier this year in 27 lan houses throughout the city of Sao Paulo and drawing from 376 interviews with users and owners, revealed a growing presence of users from classes C and D and indicated that for 17% of the users, the lan houses are their only way to access the Internet, the same proportion of interviewees also have access at home (usually people who need to access the Internet when they are out), 15% at work and 12% at school. Playing video games is the main activity at lan houses for 42% of respondents, but an equal proportion access websites, culture, news and entertainment. Social networks, especially Orkut, and online chat are also very popular. In addition, the lan houses are also used for various research, school work and job searches.

Has the digital inclusion promoted by the lan houses across the country affected human development in Brazil?

Jeimy Remir [pt], who has interviewed lan house owners and users, says that they improve lives – both of owners and users – and have changed the face of the country, especially in peripheral areas of big cities:

Fruto de criatividade e empreendedorismo, a construção de uma lan house tem mudado a vida de seus proprietários. Geralmente acopladas à casa de quem administra, as lan houses apresentam-se em ambientes estilizados, muitas vezes estruturados nas garagens de residências, com iluminação e decoração diferenciadas. […] Outra característica das lan houses é servir como espaços para encontro de jovens, intencionados em fazer amizades, interagir e paquerar. Com as ferramentas atuais da Comunicação, como msn, orkut e bate-papo, a utilização desses espaços para semelhantes fins tem sido mais intensa e confirma tais ambientes como um reflexo social. […] Por isso, as lan houses afirmam seu poder por servirem para a inclusão digital, dando acesso à internet para pessoas de baixa renda, e confirmam com singularidade suas inclinações: fonte de renda para quem administra e ponto de encontro para jovens.

Photo by Yasodara used under a Creative Commons license.

Lan house, até aqui?
Lan House em Pirenópolis. Fica em frente ao Banco do Brasil.
Ah, o pogresso.

Facing prejudice and hurdles

However, despite promoting social inclusion, the lan houses are victims of prejudice. A piece of news on a major Internet website that recently drew attention was about the police being called by the owner of a lan house to arrest a customer who had brought along pornographic pictures of children to make them available online. According to users, the way the media treated the news led to the impression that lan houses are paedophile meeting points. Rodrigo Lara Mesquita [pt] commented in forums and blog posts:

O título da notícia que está sendo veiculada na internet ,e que com quase toda a certeza será veiculada pelos jornais, é Suposto pedófilo é preso em lan house com fotos de crianças, como você podem ver neste link do Terra e neste outro de uma procura pelo tema no Google News. Quem fica com a fama, quem fica mal na foto é a Lan House. Antro de desmandos e desvirtuamento de caminho para adolescentes.

Não é este o quadro. As lan houses sofrem os mesmos riscos que qualquer outro setor da economia enfrenta. Lans Houses, cybers cafés, telecentros e o que for, têm um papel fudamental no processo de inclusão à infraestrutura da era do conhecimento, da inclusão digital à inovação, como eles demonstram nesta apresentação estatística do mercado brasileiro.

André Rubens [pt] realized that this prejudice is widespread throughout the country in a meeting he attended last December with other owners and presidents of lan house associations. He said it was possible to see that “people seem to think that lan houses are something that damages the health and well being of the individual.” He explains how this situation used to be worse, when this new, then unknown, type of business saw a rapid and significant increase:

Tudo isso virou uma grande bomba, até que começaram a aparecer novos dados que mostram que somos responsáveis pela inclusão digital no país e que jogos eletrônicos fazem BEM SIM para a formação da criança e do adolescente INCLUSIVE aqueles considerados violentos e principalmente as pessoas que nos atacavam receberam seu contrata ataque devido e hoje nos respeitam! Nossa briga continua, argumentando com as autoridades, rebatendo comentários estúpidos e fazendo novos projetos vamos conquistar simpatia da sociedade e seremos reconhecidos com grande importância na inclusão sócio-digital.

Av. Paulista - São Paulo - Brasil. Photo by cassimano used under a Creative Commons license.

Diversas questões foram tratadas, tais como a questão da informalidade, as propostas de regulamentação para o setor, os principais problemas técnicos enfrentados, sugestões de customização do Firefox e as restrições ao uso de jogos. (…) A primeira fase do Projeto Lan House consistiu exatamente em identificar quais eram os problemas enfrentados e mapear as opções de como ajudar.

State control and tough regulations

In an interview on Ceila Santos' blog [pt], the director of ABCID (Brazilian Association of Digital Inclusion Centres) [pt] Rafael Maurício da Costa explains how new, fierce regulations may cause many lan houses to close down:

Associou-se intensamente que lan house equivale à evasão escolar. E deduziu-se que para combater a evasão escolar, basta combater as lan houses. Como conseqüência disto produziu-se uma série de leis pelo País que dificultam de sobremaneira a instalação formal do negócio. O que acontece é que há uma demanda vertiginosamente crescente pelo acesso à tecnologia, e ela produz a oferta que vemos, dessa forma, como não há amparo na atuação legal a informalidade é majoritária. O interessante é que é justamente nessa informalidade que predominam todas as más praticas que a legislação pretende combater e como conseqüência infeliz o aumento do número de pessoas formais que encontram cada vez mais “cláusulas de barreira” à operação legal.

There are already quite tight regulations for lan houses, and these differ according to which state they inhabit. In Sao Paulo, for instance, every lan house must keep a record of users' names and addresses. In Paraná, a bill proposes that every user accessing a computer from a lan house is filmed [pt] and that management keeps all recordings for two years. In the state of Amazonas, underage users must provide a written authorization from their parents to access a computer from lan houses. A draft bill considers requesting ID for every user [pt]. Luiz Rodrigo Silva de Souza [pt], a 14 year old blogger who sometimes uses lan houses in the Amazonas capital Manaus, comments on regulations and how they do not seem to work – maybe because they are far from reality.

Já deve ser a décima lei que fazem tentando regulamentar lan houses. Regulamentar não, proibir permitindo. Já tentaram proibir lan houses num raio de 1 km de escolas, proibir as crianças de usar os computadores por mais de três horas seguidas e competições com prêmio em dinheiro, e funcionou? (…)

O ideal é a criança estar na escola, não na lan house, mas tirá-las de lá não é somente criar uma lei, se fosse assim, por que também não cria uma lei que proíba crise econômica, cigarro e miguxês? Está mas do que claro que estas medidas não vão tirar as crianças da exploração e prostituição infantil, o máximo que vão conseguir é falir as lan houses. Manter uma lan house legalizada em Manaus é inviável com os custos de uma conexão banda larga por aqui, e com essas leis querem responsabilizá-las por um problema cujos principais culpados são os responsáveis e a própria sociedade.

In this upcoming lan house, the spelling has been adapted to "lan rause" to help with the pronunciation in Portuguese. Photo: Barata Blog

Como podemos perceber, essa super “lan rause” ainda está passando por reformas em seu prédio para que seja possível abrigar adequadamente a grande multidão ansiosa para acessar internet de 1 Giga!! Um espanto!! E ainda dizem que o Brasil é um país atrasado…

Social inclusion through digital inclusion

As of now, there are more than 90,000 lan houses in Brazil, whereas the country has 2,000 movie theatres and 2,600 bookstores. Can they be a place for more than just playing games or updating orkut, or even to use citizenship and e-government services? Pedagogue Rita Guarezi says that lan houses already play a key role in distance learning [pt]:

Espalhadas pelo Brasil inteiro, as lan houses ganham expressão ainda mais relevante nas regiões mais carentes, norte e nordeste, onde são registrados os maiores índices de evasão escolar do país. […] Dentro desta realidade de crescimento constante de usuários da internet e das lan houses, a Educação à Distância pela Internet (e-learning) vai se firmando como um instrumento de auxílio no combate à evasão escolar entre jovens, oferecendo as mais variadas opções para quem quer complementar seus estudos, reciclar e aprimorar conhecimentos. […] Por tudo isso, podemos visualizar a lan house como um espaço também de estudo. Acreditamos que a EAD pela Internet no Brasil está intimamente ligada ao futuro das lan houses e suas novas nuances. E as perspectivas são extremamente promissoras.

And they can also be a space for culture. The writer Simone Campos [pt] has a project: to make best use of the lan houses popularity to turn Brazil into a country of readers. One of her future projects is interactive fiction, using the language of games, more familiar to new generations than the one of books, to make literature:

A lan house é o novo rendez-vous. Eu simplesmente tenho que aproveitar isso. Pretendo plantar um vírus que transforme a lan house em biblioteca.

Gil Giardelli [pt] sees the ferment of a revolution. What will it be like?

Nas periferias das megalópoles, o cool são as sessões de lan house corujão R$ 6,00 passa a noite lá e pela manhã tem um belo café!

Os garotos se socializam, os pais ficam tranquilos, os educadores se preocupam e os terapeutas certamente terao mais pacientes em um futuro próximo!

50% dos conectados no Brasil, estão nas lan houses! Como será esta revolucao? Garotos antenados? Garotos solitários? Garotos com a educação diferenciada? Economia e educação coletiva elevada ao cubo? Um nova humanidade?

"Lã Rause", with an even more Brazilian spelling. Photo (or montage) from PraLer Blog.

With the reform, the restrictions that used to ban all campaign advertising on the Internet have changed – and a few perplexing caveats, especially when it comes to blogging, have been put in place: now, personal websites and media outlets shall be treated equally, follow the same rules of conduct and be liable to the same punishments, already applied to the mainstream media. For it to come into force by next year's presidential and state elections, President Lula must sign the bill into law by October 2, exactly one year before the polls.

Political parties will campaign for their candidates from July 5 through October 3, 2010, the election date. The law will be enforced during this period, regulating the political propaganda as well as voters' participation on the Internet. The National Chamber of Deputies, who call themselves “the People's House”, released the news through their official news website [pt], stating in bold headlines that the “Chamber allows the Internet in election campaigns,” as if the use of the web was a gift given to citizens by members of parliament. So did the Senate.

The joint report [pt] by two of the Chamber's Commissions (Justice and Citizenship and Science, Technology and Innovation) upheld the point of view of the bill's author, Deputy Henrique Eduardo Alves [pt], and saw no objection to making independent Internet users' expression equal with political propaganda on radio, TV and print media.

Unfortunately, the national parliament has missed an excellent opportunity to display support for Brazilian society, choosing instead to respond to political interests only to the detriment of the broader freedom of expression. Regarding this point, Raphael Tsavkko on the Trezentos blog [pt] criticizes the lack of sense of the Brazilian Parliament in bringing the electoral reform close to the laws imposed on people by the military dictatorship 70 years ago. He highlights [pt] the contradiction that while bloggers can not speak their minds anonymously, campaign donors have kept the right not to reveal their identities:

Eles brigam, nós, o povo, perdemos.

A tentativa de colar a idéia desta censura à uma suposta moralização é inútil, soa ofensiva quando os políticos corruptos e com ficha suja continuarão a concorrer em total liberdade. Existe liberdade para a bandalha, para o roubo, mas não para a livre expressão! Nós, palhaços, ops, eleitores, para piorar, sequer podemos sabem quem financia nossos candidatos! A piada da doação oculta permanece. OS parlamentares tem medo de dizer a verdade, de mostrar de onde vem o dinheiro de suas campanhas e pra quem irão, efetivamente legislar. Para nós é que não é, disto já sabemos!

The same blog suggests that readers send mass e-mails to the members of parliament responsible for the reform, stating dissatisfaction with this rights restricting law, and lists the relevant e-mail addresses.

On the other hand, the news pieces about the project's approval last week proved that society no longer remembers the censorship imposed by Law 9504/1997, a legal text that had already put the Internet and mainstream media in the same bag. To refresh your memory, this symbol of negative individual rights of the Brazilian people prohibits “disseminating opinion for or against a candidate, party, coalition, or their representative organizations” online (Article 45, item III), under penalty of a fine of up to R$ 100,000.00 (approximately US$ 50,000).

The current project does not differentiate personal blogs and web pages from those belonging to mainstream media, and includes other restrictions, such as those regarding debate and interviews with candidates. Should a netcitizen “commit this crime”, they may suffer criminal penalties and be subject to fines ranging between R$5,000.00 and R$30,000.00 (approximately US$ 2,500 to 15,000). According to the Members of Parliaments' interpretation, anyone who talks about a candidate is dangerous and should be tightly controlled. Moreover, if a blogger criticizes a candidate, they must give the right of reply according to fairness rules, which has made many Internet users wonder, like Rogério Martins, from the Marginal Conservador [pt] blog:

A Câmara manteve a liberdade de blogs, redes sociais, sites e programas de mensagens instantâneas (até o msn neguinho quer vigiar!), mas com ressalvas. Ressalvas um tanto inusitadas: o direito democrático de cada blogueiro em expressar sua opinião por um ou outro candidato está liberado, mas caberá o direito de resposta e a proibição do anonimato em artigos e reportagens. […] Direito de resposta para blogs?!?! Ora, os blogs estão entre os meios mais democráticos da internet, pois o “direito de resposta” já é algo inerente a eles, na ideia dos comentários que qualquer leitor pode fazer após a leitura das postagens. É isso que torna a internet 2.0 única. Aqui, o leitor também tem vez: cada post tem espaço para comentários, elogios, críticas, “direitos de resposta” etc. E há também a flexibilidade: podemos sempre “corrigir” textos já escritos, acrecentando algo ou cortando eventuais tropeços.

The MP's fear of losing control over the free expression of all citizens is shown in item I of Article 57-D of the bill, which prohibits news pieces dealing with electoral research regarding the campaign and candidates, including:

Art. 57-D - It is forbidden for content providers and multimedia services, as well as media companies on the Internet, in their content available on the web pages:

I - To transmit, albeit in the form of journalistic interviews, images, text or sound about electoral research conducted, or any other kind of popular consultation about the elections where it is possible to identify the [candidate] interviewed or where there is data manipulation.

In other words, besides forbidding comments about any candidate, no online vehicle, including blogs, will be able to mention electoral research results, even if in a critical or journalistic instance. An online article that a netcitizen eventually writes can not bear the names of candidates, parties, coalitions, images, videos or other means to identify them. According to Arturios Maximus, from the Visão Panorâmica [pt] blog, the behavior of the members of parliament reveals a fear of having their personal lives exposed [pt] by the work of individual netcitizens:

A fantasia de honradez de hombridade e de progressividade longamente cultivada diante das lentes da televisão e dos gravadores de jornalistas subservientes e tolhidos por empresas dependentes de publicidade e de financiamentos públicos; de repente se torna a carantonha feia e asquerosa, corroída pela corrupção e por toda sorte de vícios e ilicitudes cometidos ao longo de décadas de dissimulação estudada, tolerada e incentivada. Do dia para a noite o “nobre senador” ou o “nobre deputado” vê sua verdadeira imagem de escroque oportunista exposta aos quatro ventos para quem quiser ver; bem ali, ao alcance de um simples clique do mouse.

Member of Parliament Flávio Dino, who co-authored the controversial bill, gives a lesson in empty rhetoric, acknowledging that the Internet, radio and TV are all the same but at the same time denying that he had acknowledged so in an interview for the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo [pt]:

“A internet não é igual a rádio e televisão, mas é também rádio, é também televisão. É também equivalente a jornal e a revista. Então, o regime jurídico tem que ser também misto, tem que ser também híbrido. A equiparação absoluta que nós fizemos foi apenas em relação aos debates. Ou seja, se é feito um debate em um portal comercial e em uma rede comercial de TV há que se observar as mesmas regras que são democráticas. São as regras de garantir voz para todos”.

Marcelo Träsel, in his homonyms blog [pt], analyses the problems of comparing media traditionally linked to the market with Internet individuals, noting that the private nature of the Internet does not allow it to be treated in the same way as mainstream television channels, radio and press:

O maior problema é a comparação da Internet com rádio e televisão, completamente falaciosa. As regras para propaganda e jornalismo em rádio e televisão são mais restritivas por se tratarem de concessões públicas. A Internet não exige uma concessão para que qualquer pessoa ou instituição possa se manifestar, portanto não pode seguir as mesmas regras de rádio e televisão. Nas redes de computadores, os candidatos podem ocupar espaços livremente, sem depender da chancela de um jornalista ou empresário de comunicação. Assim, as possibilidades de manipulação por parte do poder econômico são muito menores — embora existam.

The disservice done by this piece of legislature to the press and Web 2.0 reaches unimaginable proportions for a 21st century that is free from dictatorial moorings. The lone netcitizen has been legally obliged to behave as a media entrepreneur, unable to analyse the posture of candidates and the conduct of the elections in his country, and has had his constitutionally guaranteed right of expression restricted. Another shovel full of earth on the fragile democratic state.

This re-fuelled the always heated and controversial debate on racism in Brazil (follow this link for a previous Global Voices post on this subject) and inspired many blog posts, most of them repudiating the upper class' thought that racism does not exist in Brazil and that social class issues are the real reasons for cases like Januário's.

On September 11 students and employees of the University of São Paulo, where Januário Alves de Santana works, gathered together to discuss how racism is still present in daily life. The round table “Racism, Violence and Globalization” declared: “Carrefour attacks a Brazilian black man: that's the year of France in Brazil”. The Pão e Rosas blog brings us [pt] photos of the event and comments:

Todas as falas enfatizaram que o caso não é isolado, mas expressa sim como o racismo ainda é uma marca profunda da sociedade em que vivemos. Nós do Pão e Rosas nos colocamos de pé, ao lado de Januário e todos os negros e negras que sofrem com o racismo e a violência policial. Do mesmo modo, nos colocamos ao lado dos moradores das favelas que têm se manifestado contra a repressão da polícia , como em Heliópolis na semana passada. A realidade impõe que nos levantemos!

Alex Castro, from the Liberal, Libertário e Libertino blog [liberal, libertarian and libertine, pt], addresses the racism issue very meticulously and points out an alarming fact of Brazil's racial historicity by saying that the problem is actually that society lacks racial conflict:

No Brasil, nunca houve leis racistas proibindo negros de ingressarem em restaurantes, hotéis, tribunais porque a própria estrutura socioeconômica perversa já era garantia mais do que suficiente de que negros somente entrariam nesses ambientes pra varrer o chão e servir café. O Brasil é tão arraigadamente racista que nunca nem precisou de leis racistas para manter seus negros em posição totalmente inferiorizada.

His blog post was also featured on Rachel Glickhouse's Adventures of a Gringa blog and a few readers responded to his thoughts. For instance, Roger Penguino commented [pt]:

Para aqueles que sempre pensaram que no Brasil não ocorre problemas raciais, aqui encontra-se um ponto de partida para nova reflexão sobre a realidade. Sempre ouvi de amigos Americanos que no Brasil “everyone just gets along” e sempre foi difícil explicar a complexa e sistemática institucionalização do racismo brasileiro. Muitos ao olharam para população brasileira dizem ver uma mistura racial maior que de outros grandes países, mas claro que deixam de perceber os milhares que lutam contra si mesmos porque nesta mistura aprenderam a odiar sua própria condição.

In June this year, Lucrécia Paco, one of the greatest Mozambican actresses who was acting in a play staged in São Paulo, suffered from racism when she accidentally bumped into a white woman in the queue of a money exchange agency in a shopping mall. Leonardo Sakamoto from Blog do Sakamoto [Sakamoto's blog, pt] and the Viomundo blog [pt] republished and commented on the piece of news originally made public by Época Magazine [pt].

On that occasion, the woman pointed Lucrécia out as a potential mugger and screamed out loud asking for the immigration police. Lucrécia reacted shouting back to her that there were many Brazilians going to live in Mozambique, but rather than being mistreated they were being received with open arms. The journalist Eliane Brum, who interviewed Lucrécia Paco, reported:

Lucrécia não consegue esquecer. “Não pude dormir à noite, fiquei muito mal”, diz. “Comecei a ficar paranoica, a ver sinais de discriminação no restaurante, em todo o lugar que ia. E eu não quero isso pra mim.” Em seus 39 anos de vida dura, num país que foi colônia portuguesa até 1975 e, depois, devastado por 20 anos de guerra civil, Lucrécia nunca tinha passado por nada assim. “Eu nunca fui discriminada dessa maneira”, diz. “Dá uma dor na gente. ”

Glória Cabo, a reader from Blog do Sakamoto commented on the interview. She added her own family testimony on why Brazilians cultivate racism:

No Brasil não só é difícil ser negro, como também: nordestino, pobre, tatuado, gay, punk, feio. Nem as loiras escapam… Mas, de onde vem esse preconceito? E como acabar com ele? A origem do problema, no meu ponto de vista está nas nossas próprias origens. Somos descendentes de europeus preconceituosos, retrógrados e antiquados. Eu como filha de europeus, convivi com racismo explicito de meus pais, com comentários absurdos de que meu pai não queria ter um “negrinho” o chamando de avô. Eu mesma, confesso, que já tive pensamentos racistas. Mas, com a maturidade, analisei meus preconceitos e descobri que não eram meus, e sim uma herança pobre e sem sentido herdada de pais preconceituosos. Buscar a origem do racismo, analisar que diferenças são normais e necessárias, isso faria toda a diferença.

Pedro Turambar from the blog O Crepúsculo [pt] cites another case he witnessed while shopping at Carrefour and that he considers racism. The shop assistant of the retail store asked a black woman to confirm she was the holder of the credit card she was using to pay for her shopping. Pedro suggested that the assistant only asked for confirmation because of the amount of goods the woman was buying. The black woman was actually a housekeeper and her employer, an old white lady who was away from the queue at that moment, came towards the assistant shouting “This is prejudice! This is racial discrimination”. He says:

O trabalho dela é perguntar e pedir a identidade. […]. DESDE QUE ELA FAÇA ISSO COM TODO MUNDO. Mas tanto você quanto eu, sabe que isso não acontece e não foi por isso que a moça pediu para a empregada provar que era titular do cartão

And added:

Eu iria pagar a conta com o cartão de crédito do meu irmão e tinha certeza que o caixa não iria me perguntar se eu era o titular do cartão. Dito e feito. Paguei com um cartão de uma conta da qual não sou titular, mas como sou branco, gordinho, fofinho bonitinho, jamais pensariam que eu roubei o cartão para comprar meia dúzia de produtos de limpeza.

O melhor foi o medo que eu coloquei no caixa que me atendeu. Ele ironicamente e sarcasticamente comentava o fato, e quando o cara do casal de trás disse brincando “Eu não to pagando com meu cartão não em! e se você falar que não é meu eu subo aqui em cima e fico louco”, o caixa morreu de rir. Até que eu disse que o cartão que eu acabara de pagar não era meu. Disse isso rindo também, por isso ele achou que era brincadeira, até que eu fechei a cara e repeti “O cartão não é meu. Mesmo. Eu não me chamo Daniel.” Ele olhou para mim e viu que eu falava sério. Engoliu o riso e claramente ficou com medo. Eu apenas disse “A mulher tá certa. Certíssima em dizer que foi preconceito, porque foi.”, me despedi do casal – que olhava para mim com uma cara de júbilo – peguei as compras e fui embora.

Finally, a comment on the Alex Castro blog post is worth noting. The reader Te clearly says:

É mesmo, no Brasil faz falta uma Rosa Parks. […]

The video campaign Where do you keep your racism? features many true testimonials of racism in Brazil. It was produced as a public campaign against racism by Diálogos contra o Racismo (pela igualdade racial) [Dialogues against Racism (for racial equality)], a group of more than 40 civil society organizations dedicated to eradicating poverty and inequality and to stimulating debates in schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, clubs, households about racial relations, and how to change them.

On September 8th, at 10:30 in the morning, 70% of the rain expected for the whole month had fallen in São Paulo, as reported by flicker user gd365. This is said to be the most rainy winter since 1943. As a result, there were traffic jams and cut off phone services and electricity in some neighbourhoods of Latin America's biggest metropolis.

Photo by gd365

Later on the day, in another part of the city, Flicker user ManoelNetto described the scene unfolding in front of him as “The Apocalypse”.

Photo by Flicker user ManoelNetto

(15h55) Dá um saque no final dos tempos. Essa foto foi tirada por volta de 15h, da janela do 9o andar da Abril (Marginal Pinheiros).

Photo by alémdoquesevê_2

Veja que delícia, dia começou com céu preto com sol…

Faculdade teve apagão (o negocio da luz explodiu bem na minha frente) e alagou, a rua alagou, o metro alagou, minha calça molhou (mesmo tendo guarda-chuva,que ficou levemente destruido), e bem na hora que tenho que sair de novo o dia virou noite de novo e sem condiçoes de eu ir pra rua, ah e agora a luz daqui ta ameaçando acabar e eu cheia de coisas pra fazer no computador…ê dia bom

At 11 AM on the September 9th, the sky so dark that it appeared to be night in São Paulo, as registered by the lens of Flicker user erika.tricroche. About 30 spots around São Paulo were submerged by heavy rain, which also brought traffic on normally congested roads to a standstill.

The luminous sign reads: slow traffic. Photo by erika.tricroche.

Na minha volta pra São Paulo na terça-feira, em pleno Castelo Branco chegando em Barueri, antes de todo caos que a chuva causou: Muito transito + alagamento + destruição + soterramento = caos total!!!!
Ainda bem que ainda era de manhã e cheguei sã e salva!!!!!

Avenida Paulista, the largest avenue in São Paulo, on 3 of September. Photo by Gustavo Minas.

September 11, Tenente Portela, state of Rio Grande do Sul, South of Brazil. Photo by Flicker user Robvini.

September 11, Tenente Portela, state of Rio Grande do Sul, south of Brazil. Photo by Flicker user Robvini.

Unknown city on 8 of September, photo by Flickr user rodrigojunk

A picture taken after the rain in the north-western state of Acre, on September 8th:

Photo by Sérgio Vale/Secom

Chuva na mata traz novos cheiros, novas vidas, novas cores e um pequeno arco-íris se forma colorindo o entardecer

Argentina and Paraguay were also hit by the rain, described as a freak “tornado” by local media. Throughout Brazil, the rain and wind have affected over 70,000 residents in 45 cities. The Brazilian National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet) forecasts a rainy weekend in all regions of the country.

This devastating episode has become known as the Black September of East Timor. According to this documentary, the violence was such that the Laksaur (a pro-Indonesia militia) didn't even shoot people, choosing to butcher the victims with machetes instead in order to save expensive bullets.

The Church of Suai. Photo by J. Orosco shared on Flickr by Patfranca

The campaign of terror had been spread around the country several months before the popular consultation by pro-Indonesian militias called Besih Merah Putih (White and Red Iron, the colours of the Indonesian flag). Although they intended to keep people away from voting, 90% of the eligible citizens went out and the result showed that a vast majority of the population wanted freedom. Mari Alkatiri, the opposition leader, recently alleged the manipulation of results, to which former Ambassador of Portugal in Jakarta, Ana Gomes (@anargomes) replied on Twitter:

12:54 AM Sep 1st: Alkatiri disse LUSA resultados referendo seriam 90/cento, mas ONUalterara-os para salvar face a Indonesia. Mas 80/cento salvam face?

Back in 1999, the Timorese knew that people would have to die in order to bring Timor Leste its independence. However, no one ever expected such violent crimes against humanity as those that took place in Suai. Despite the violence, trauma and destruction, in the commemorations of the 10th anniversary of the referendum, President Ramos Horta has asked for forgiveness, in what Amnesty International calls a “culture of impunity” as it urges the “International Tribunal to examine the human rights violations in East Timor“.

East Timor, Suai 2000. Photo by Rusty Stewart on Flickr.

Meanwhile, former Laksaur militia commander Martenus Bere, who allegedly led the attack on the church in the town of Suai in September 1999, has been released from prison. The Dili Insider translates the Indonesian news to English:

As an anniversary ceremony was taking place, authorities in Dili released an Indonesian citizen accused of leading one of the worst massacres in East Timor in 1999. Martenus Bere was brought from cells at Dili's main jail and handed over to Indonesian officials. Bere, a commander of a brutal pro-Indonesian militia group responsible for a reign of terror, led an attack on a church in the town of Suai during which three priests and dozens of people were killed. Prison officials said Bere was released on the order of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. He had been indicted for crimes against humanity by the UN's Serious Crimes Unit in 2003. Indonesian authorities had pressured East Timor to release Bere after he was arrested two weeks ago after crossing the East Timor border from Indonesian West Timor.

A growing wave of netcitizens against the release of Martenus Bere immediately started to spread the word on the case, many discussions have taken place and Facebook groups been created (such as Don't let Martenus Bere Escape Justice and Justice NOW for East Timor).

On the same day of the celebrations, a peaceful demonstration in Dili finished up with one more attack on justice and democracy. Ana Gomes broke the news on Twitter, and then reported on the blog Causa Nossa (Our Cause, pt):

12:39 AM Sep 1st Pedro conta 3 estudantes foram presos véspera em manif sobre Justiça. Arrancamos p/ Policia Dili

12:41 AM Sep 1st: Esquadra Policia Dili, dia 31/8 - confirmam-nos presos. Razões suharto/salazarentas: manif ilegal.

12:45 AM Sep 1st: Telefonema a Vice PM, velho amigo Lugo: “Sabes dos presos?”. Nao sabia. 10 minutos depois: “Vao já ser soltos”. Excesso zelo policial.

12:47 AM Sep 1st: Conclusao: Policia timorense precisa muito aprender democracia.

Disillusioned with politics and governance in East Timor, Loro Foho reflects on the future implications that such an act against democracy may have, especially for the younger population. In a post [pt] on the Timor Lorosae Nação blog:

Liberdade para os criminosos, repressão para o Povo, é o lema que nos parece estar a ser seguido pelos governantes.

A libertação de Martenes Bere, que liderou crimes contra timorenses, a punição de estudantes que pacifica e justamente (felizmente já libertados) pediam o fim da impunidade reinante em Timor-Leste, a política insana da AMP persistindo em duvidar da nossa clareza de análise, levam-nos a manter o sentimento de que urgente se torna reconquistar os valores que fizeram de nós Gente Respeitável. (…)

A realidade Mundial que muitos ainda não perceberam, flui na direcção da Justiça, da Verdade, do Desenvolvimento e Integridade dos Povos. Sabemos que a nossa luta flui na direcção certa, e é comum à luta de qualquer povo que se sinta injustiçado e descriminado. Fomos afastados e perseguidos, mas isso já é para nós a força da nossa da razão.

É previsível que os grandes senhores das cadeiras do poder dominante se irão gloriar futuramente de nos terem transformado num povo desprezível, cujos filhos irão cultuar o roubo, a mentira, a repressão… não nos bastando a cultura deixada no tempo das milícias desumanas e cruéis, eis os exemplos de uma política que facilita a impunidade a quem matou e destruiu massivamente, e que nos rouba a dignidade da justiça.

This sequence of events has put the first democracy of the millennium in jeopardy and once again shown that a path still needs to be made for the true self-determination of the Timorese people, including a fair mourning needed for Justice before Reconcilliation. Ivete de Oliveira shares the tragic story of her father, Manuel Magalhaes, who was the leader of the CNRT in Bobonaro District during the Indonesian occupation. He was killed on Sept. 9, 1999, at a lagoon near Maliana:

(…) He fought with all his heart and he did not get to experience how independence is like. is justice too big to ask?

Till today I still wonder how and where exactly my father was killed. We have never found the body because it was hacked to pieces and thrown into the sea.

Few years ago the serious crime unit collected the evidence from our family, which was the remaining of my father’s clothes on the day he was killed. Since then we have not heard any progress of the investigation.

This is just a story from one person and I could not speak for everyone but I strongly believe victims will say justice needs to be done in order for us to move on. We shouldn't just forget the past because past is what has brought us to where we are today.

An online petition implores “the United Nations institutions to take all necessary action to establish an international criminal tribunal to bring those responsible for the grave violations of international law in East Timor to justice without further delay”. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has already reacted in an open letter to the President of the Democratic Republic of East Timor.

A mosaic of rocks written and painted by residents in Port Phillip to send condolences to the people of Suai. From suaimediaspace.ning.com

A previous post on Global Voices with an interview with Jen Hughes from Suai Media Space highlights a video-documentary with a dramatization of the genocide in the Church of Suai. This post is the last of a series to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the popular referendum in East Timor, which led to the territory's internationally recognized independence. In the first post we highlighted the support of the international community for the freedom of East Timor. In the second, we interviewed Abe Barreto Soares who is one of the organizers of the celebration events for solidarity taking place in East Timor in August and September 2009. The third post amplifies Timorese bloggers' celebrations while questioning and comparing the current and the past status of the Nation. In the fourth post we amplified the debate on the draft Land Law, and among other things, its implications for community lands.