Brazzil April 2003

Xuxa, "the queen of the tiny tots," is celebrating her 40th birthday. Brazilian magazines are marking the event as though it were a milestone in Brazilian history. In five or 10 years will she still be wearing knee-length boots, mini skirts and bobbing around in front of a group of four to five year olds?

John Fitzpatrick

Probably the best-known female face in Brazil belongs to one Maria da Graça Meneghel—better known as Xuxa. For those fortunate readers who have never heard of her, she is a television presenter whose lack of artistic talent is offset by a genius for marketing herself. Barely a week passes without her face appearing on the cover of the innumerable gossip magazines which chronicle the lives and loves of Brazil's "celebrities".

Xuxa is currently celebrating her 40th birthday and, as usual, is sharing her private life with the whole world. "Now I Want Respect", she declares from the cover of one of the numerous magazines marking this event as though it were a milestone in Brazilian history. One publisher has even produced a bulky volume full of photos of Xuxa, "a rainha dos baixinhos" (the queen of the tiny tots) as she is coyly known.

It used to be said that magazine sales increased whenever Diana, the late Princess of Wales, appeared on the cover. I am not sure if this is the case with Xuxa, but it may explain the fascination she has for Brazil's magazine editors. Sometimes she features on nearly all of the main gossip, television and women's magazines in the same week. It is unusual for more than two or three weeks to pass without her grinning face appearing on a cover, generally accompanied by her young daughter, Sasha.

Domestic Trivia

The articles are trite and moronic—Xuxa at Sasha's birthday party, Sasha's first day at school, Xuxa is sad because she does not have a boyfriend, Xuxa is happy because she has a new boyfriend etc. Of course, it is not by coincidence that the cameras are there when Xuxa appears at a particular spot. The magazines are just playing her game and lining up to give her free publicity.

One cannot blame her in professional terms, but to make her private life a public affair, and particularly to involve her daughter, shows an immaturity one would not expect from a successful 40-year-old woman. This can also be dangerous in a country like Brazil where the rich and famous are targets for kidnappers. Of course, the real culprits are the people who actually buy these rubbish magazines but, as someone once said, you can never underestimate the intelligence of television viewers.

However, Xuxa is unlikely to change, since even the gestation and birth of her daughter was surrounded by publicity. As far as I know the actual conception was not filmed—since the father was an actor, who seems to have played a purely biological role, this may be a possibility—but practically every other part was. The birth was given prime-time coverage on the television news programs and, since then, every step in the child's young life has been chronicled faithfully by the media. I bet more Brazilians know the name of Xuxa's daughter than that of the finance minister.

Like many Brazilian women personalities, Xuxa has undergone plastic surgery and appeared in magazines showing her new-look face and body. As far as we know, Sasha has not been subject to the surgeon's knife but it is just a matter of time I suppose. Just as the male offspring of the English aristocracy are put down for public schools like Eton at birth, perhaps Sasha's name is already on the waiting list of Brazil's most famous plastic surgeon, Ivo Pitanguy. In her younger days Xuxa also posed nude for magazines so viewers can make their own comparisons and choose which nose, chin, breasts etc they prefer.

Jailbait Rock

Xuxa first surfaced in the early 80s when, as a teenage nymphet, she presented children's programs on television, dancing and singing. The combination of scanty outfits and a well-scrubbed face, bouncing ponytail and jailbait appeal soon attracted as many fathers as kids and she proved to be extremely popular with all ages.

She made records and films, was reported to have had an affair with Pelé, and became a star. She tried to export her appeal abroad, targeting the US along with other Latin American countries, but with mixed results. The entire Chilean population rose in my estimation when, a couple of years ago, Xuxa was booed by an audience in Santiago when she appeared on stage clutching a bewildered little Sasha.

As her fame grew, so did her fortune. Last year Veja magazine estimated she had a personal fortune of R$250 million (around U$ 80 million). Her face was—and is—everywhere. She advertises toys, food, clothes etc and even had her own children's entertainment park, magazine and Xuxa dolls. She still has a TV program, releases CDs and films which, while panned by the critics, are extremely successful with children and people from the lower social class.

It is interesting that these people identify with Xuxa, who is fair skinned and blue_eyed and the opposite of most people's ideas of a Brazilian woman. Politically correct foreign journalists have tackled her about this but, as she correctly said, not everyone in Brazil is black or brown and there are lots of fair-haired blue-eyed people, particularly in the south.

She has also less successfully shrugged off accusations that her shows attract pedophiles through "eroticizing" young children by making them act older, apply make up, dance suggestively etc. Some of this criticism has hit the mark and her latest series is said to be providing an educational element and less razzmatazz.

She recently separated from her manager, a woman who had guided her entire career, and people are waiting to see if she can retain the Midas touch. She will probably continue to be a success, but may find it difficult to remain a female Peter Pan after 40. In many ways, it is a miracle that she has lasted so long since the public can tire of someone very quickly and easily. Xuxa should be careful because staying in the public eye while getting older requires a bit of planning and dignity.

In five or 10 years will she still be wearing knee-length boots, mini skirts and bobbing around in front of a group of four to five year olds? If she continues as she is, then she could end up like two vulgar females who have failed to age gracefully: Hebe Camargo, who is in her 70s and rarely absent from the gossip magazines or, even worse, Derci Gonçalves, who is over 90 and a few years back exposed her breasts on television.

Xuxa for President

A host of other dyed blondes have subsequently presented children's programs and although some, such as Angélica and Eliane, have been successful, none has come near Xuxa. Xuxa has shown staying power and proved to be a good businesswoman in a tough business. After two decades of prominence it would be good if she were to change and become more mature and follow the example of someone else with enormous popular appeal, who rose to fame round about the same time—President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—Lula. What then—President Xuxa?

John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish journalist who first visited Brazil in 1987 and has lived in São Paulo since 1995. He writes on politics and finance and runs his own company, Celtic Comunicações—  www.celt.com.br, which specializes in editorial and translation services for Brazilian and foreign clients. You can reach him at jf@celt.com.br

Reuters, 03.28.03, 4:54 PM ET SAO PAULO, Brazil, March 28 (Reuters) - Brazil's financial markets closed higher on Friday, brushing aside war jitters amid signs the economy at home is withstanding the fallout to the U.S.-led conflict in Iraq. The country's currency, the real , strengthened to its highest point since mid-January to close at 3.361 per U.S. dollar, bolstered by a fresh flow of greenbacks into the market as an increasing number of companies raise debt abroad. Helped by the firming real and an uptick in prices for Brazilian bonds, the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange's benchmark Bovespa <.BVSP> index closed 1.45 percent higher at 11,396, leaving it 1.1 percent higher since the start of the year. "Brazil is showing foreign investors that it is going to pass structural reforms, and funds from abroad are flowing in," said Mauricio Gallego, a stock trader at Concordia brokerage in Sao Paulo. The gains came after the Central Bank said on Friday that the public sector posted a primary budget surplus of 7.6 billion reais ($2.3 billion) in February, putting the country on track to beat its first-quarter target agreed on with the International Monetary Fund. The primary surplus excludes debt servicing costs. The data was the latest in a slew of economic numbers showing that the new center-left government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is sticking to its promises of fiscal austerity, further boosting the administration's market credentials. "The positive surprise is that the fiscal performance of the Lula government is maintaining the fiscal performance of last year," said Marcelo Salomon, chief economist at ING Bank in Sao Paulo. Despite the good news on the fiscal front, investors remained on edge as the U.S.-led war in Iraq, now in its second week, showed few signs of abating any time soon. A prolonged conflict in Iraq could further trip up Brazil's slow-growing economy by choking off much-needed foreign investment. Citing war concerns, the Central Bank earlier this week slashed its forecast for foreign direct investment this year to $13 billion from $15 billion. Still, at least two banks managed to tap the growing confidence in Brazil on Friday. Banco Banespa <BESP4.SA>, the local arm of Spain's Santander Central Hispano <SAN.MC>, sold $125 million in nine-month notes, while Banco Votorantim began offering $50 million in 1-year eurobonds. It said it expects to close the deal next week. In stock action, shares for steelmaker Usiminas <USIM5.SA> rose 7.67 percent to 8.98 reais after reporting strong-than-expected fourth quarter earnings. Telesp Celular Participacoes <TSPP4.SA>, which accounts for 4.7 percent of the Bovespa index, closed 6.02 percent higher at 4.40 reais, making up nearly all of the ground it lost the past two days. Market bellwether Tele Norte Leste Participacoes <TNLP4.SA>, which accounts for 14 percent of the Bovespa, finished up 1.76 percent at 28.30 reais. In the mining sector, shares in iron-ore giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce <VALE5.SA> slipped 0.79 percent to 88.20 reais in quiet trade. Earlier Friday, CVRD confirmed recent reports that it got the go-ahead from its shareholders to start talks to buy a 50 percent stake in its iron ore unit held by Japan's Mitsui & Co Ltd <8031.T>.

<a href=www.nytimes.com>NY Times By LARRY ROHTER

CAETÉS, Brazil — Half a century ago, Antônio Ferreira de Melo and his older cousin Luiz were playmates here in the poor and arid interior of Pernambuco state. They would chop down tree branches and pretend they were riding horses or use their slingshots to hunt birds and lizards for their families to eat. Advertisement

Drought eventually drove Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his family 1,300 miles south to São Paulo, where he became a factory worker, labor leader and, as of Jan. 1, the president of Brazil. But Cousin Antônio and most of the president's other relatives remain here, living much as they did when he was a child and confronting many of the same problems that led to his departure.

"Things here have changed very little since Lula left," Mr. Ferreira, a 54-year-old farmer, said as he watched his wife and some neighbors grind yucca into flour for sale at a market. "We're still poor, and the government down there in Brasília still doesn't do much to help us. It's always been like that."

The hermetic rural world that Brazil's new president was born into in 1945 is a shrinking one. Today, 80 percent of the country's 175 million people live in urban areas. But Mr. da Silva has talked often of how the parched poverty of his early years here continues to color his view of the world, and he refers frequently to his experiences and the experiences of others like him who escaped indigence by migrating south to Brazil's big cities. Yet the battery of glaring social and economic inequalities still on display here in his hometown are a microcosm of the challenges he now faces on a national level.

With 11 head of cattle and 23 acres of land on which he grows corn, beans and "a bit of cotton," Mr. Ferreira considers himself one of the lucky ones here. In a good week, he said, he earns as much as $50, which he estimates is enough to put him "in the top 1 or 2 percent" of the 26,000 people who live in this municipality about 1,000 miles northeast of the capital.

But there is no school nearby, so Mr. Ferreir, whose education, like that of the president, ended when he was 12, insists that his eight children go to the county seat to study. An emergency medical post is two miles away, but it is often out of vital medicines, which most local farm families cannot afford anyway.

In the last decade, electricity has finally been extended to remote rural hamlets like this one, allowing residents to install refrigerators, lamps and televisions. But telephone service, sewage disposal and even running water remain distant, much yearned-for dreams.

"We don't even have a well at the ranch where we live, so any time we need water, one of my daughters or I have to walk two leagues," said Raimunda Josefa de Farias Xavier, 48, an illiterate mother of eight, referring to a distance of about eight miles. "After all these years, I've got back problems that I think have come from walking such long distances with a heavy bucket on my head."

With opportunities lacking here, the traditional outlet for the young has always been to do as the president's family did and head south to São Paulo and find work in a factory or store. That is still the case, but with Brazil's annual growth rate having slowed from a high of 8 percent in the 1970's to 1.5 percent last year, their chances of success have diminished.

"Of every 100 who leave here, only 10 do well, and some end up so poor that they can't even afford the bus fare to return," said Aurino Duarte de Almeida, the municipal government's secretary for administration. "For a guy who is illiterate, has no job skills, training or experience, the best he can hope for when he comes back is to work in a neighbor's fields at $1.50 a day."

Some of those coming back from São Paulo may have also brought with them the maladies that afflict Brazil's big cities, like crime and violence, but have been rare here. Mr. Ferreira complained that hooded gunmen not long ago robbed his son-in-law in his own home, and the authorities blame migrants for a recent string of daring bank robberies and highway assaults.

"People who have gone south tell crime gangs like the Red Command that the pickings are easy up here, and the criminals are taking advantage of that," said Adelvando Alexandre de Pontes, the chief of staff of the local government. "We're not used to robbers armed with machine guns, and our police sure aren't equipped to confront that."

Official corruption also appears to be a problem. Most of the people here are poor enough to qualify for a government food relief program known as "the basic basket," but many say that the monthly $4 payment often does not get to them, and that when it does, it takes the form of inferior products.

"We end up with all the merchandise the store owners can't get rid of because no else one wants it, like black beans that have been sitting around for six years and spoiled cooking oil," complained Nelson Vieira da Silva, a 63-year-old farmer. "Some of the stuff is so putrid that I've tried to feed it to my pigs, but even they won't eat it."

The president-elect returned to his birthplace in November, and at an outdoor barbecue that Mr. Ferreira helped organize, his relatives and former neighbors besieged him with grievances and complaints. Having one of their own in power is a novel situation, and they are looking to him to remedy all the social ills that afflict the world he long ago left behind.

"We hope he is thinking of us," Mr. Ferreira said. "It is a miracle and a dream that he has become president, and we know that all of Brazil wants to talk to him. But we really need for our lives to improve."

<a href=www.brazzil.com<Brazzil

Brazil has not completely finished the process of becoming a Republic. Nor has it completely abolished slavery. In 21st-century Brazil the elite feel as distant from the people as they did in the 19th century. The Brazilian elite do not feel like citizens who pertain to the same people.

Cristovam Buarque

One hundred fifteen years after the Proclamation of the Republic, the Brazilian members of Congress still call each other "Noble Colleague." It is as if the Empire still existed but under the name of Republic. It is not a matter of congressional etiquette, nor is it true only of members of Congress.

In 21st-century Brazil the elite feel as distant from the people as they did in the 19th century. The Brazilian elite are not citizens. The inequality between the rich and the poor—be it in income, education, housing, transportation, leisure, food, or customs—is so large that they do not sit at the same table, do not discuss the same affairs, do not feel like citizens who pertain to the same people.

The members of Congress do not call each other "Citizen Deputy" or "Citizen Senator" because Brazil has not completely finished the process of becoming a Republic. Nor has it completely abolished slavery. After Independence, Brazil remained a slave-ocratic empire for 70 years; then, in only 18 months it abolished slavery in 1888 and proclaimed the Republic in 1889; yet everything continued much the same as before. Almost 200 years after Independence, the members of Congress continue to be nobles, forced labor has been replaced by unemployment, the slaves have been transformed into famished poor people, and education continues to be available only to the few.

The regime became republican but Brazil continued divided between a noble elite and a plebeian mass. Just as slavery was abolished, little by little, the Republic expanded the right to vote, permitting liberty of expression and of political party organizing, but it concentrated land in a few hands and education in a few heads. The legacy of Lula's government, therefore, will be to complete the process of the Republic and of abolition.

To do this, we must not repeat 1888 and 1889 by postponing that which everyone hopes for—a complete Republic, without exclusion, one in which everyone would be equal citizens. We were elected not only to administer well, but rather, administering well, to undertake the republican revolution for which Brazil has waited more than a century.

Since the republicans did not connect with the people, the Republic was never completed. As "neo-nobles" they lost their capacity to become indignant about the poverty surrounding them; they enjoyed the privileges of aristocrats; they became used to the customs of power and the demands of the bureaucracy. We in Lula's government cannot run this risk: disconnecting from the poor; losing our capacity for indignation; becoming addicted to the glitter of power; and falling into the clutches of the bureaucracy. We must not become accustomed to the same incomplete Republic while forgetting that our task is to complete it.

The principal way to avoid accommodation is to move forward from the present difficulties, never forgetting the legacy that our government must leave to future generations: Administer the present difficulties without losing sight of the obligations of the dreams for the future; have one foot in arithmetic and the other in utopia. Lula was not elected to establish or change the central structure of the economy; nor was he elected to create equality of income or of consumption. He was elected to make everyone equal as citizens, thus completing the Republic and abolition. This will be Lula's legacy for the future of Brazil.

To complete abolition we must undertake the intensive, total, radical agrarian reform that Brazil desires, using 21st-century technology with no disruption of production. Job creation is another measure necessary to finish off slavery and interrupt the century-old Brazilian tragedy of transforming the shackled and fed slaves into the free, starving unemployed.

To complete the Republic we must guarantee an egalitarian education to all citizens, which is possible only through free, quality public schools for everyone. A society is not a republic when it invests practically 80 times more upon the private education of middle-class children—R$ 240 thousand (US$ 71 thousand) —than upon the public education of poor children—R$ 3,200 (US$ 949). Middle-class students spend R$ 1,000 (US$ 297) per month and receive educational investments for up to twenty years. The others receive R$ 800 (US$ 237) per year and remain in school an average of four years. This is not merely inequality: It is difference. And as long as this sort of difference exists, the country will not be a Republic.

Lula's legacy is the completion of the Republic and abolition. His role is leading Brazil so that we take the measures necessary to change reality in the four years before the elections of 2006, creating a dynamic in which the republican revolution will continue in the following years. So that, before the end of his administration, all Brazilians will be literate, all children will be attending schools of increasing quality and, before the bicentennial of Independence, all Brazilians will have the equivalent of at least a high-school education.

This is possible. Poor countries with more difficulties than ours have already done this. We have the resources and the know-how. It is possible if the administration has zeal, determination, and the support of society, especially that of the members of Congress when they vote on the next budget. This is the greatest obstacle: convincing the noble heirs of the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 that the time has come to make a decent investment of the national resources in a republican revolution, one that can be achieved only by providing free, quality public education for all.

But action by the administration and the Congress will not be enough. What are you doing so that we can complete the Republic and abolition?

Cristovam Buarque - cristovambuarque@uol.com.br, 59, Ph.D. in economics, is Brazil's Minister of Education. He was the rector of the University of Brasília (1985-89) and the governor of the Federal District (1995-98).

Translated by Linda Jerome LinJerome@cs.com  

Narco News By Adriana Veloso Part IV in a series, reported from Rio de Janeiro April 2, 2003

A leading health official from the new administration of the Brazilian national government this week told a group of 35 authentic drug policy experts (see related story, "A Drug Policy from Below"), that she favors their approach: “harm reduction as a political and clinical strategy of treatment.”

"We have to produce arguments in favor of the Health Ministry to assume harm reduction policies as a question of public health," said Regina Benevides, Executive Secretary of the Health Ministry.

Regina Benevides Last Wednesday, Benevides attended a meeting with the National Anti-Drug Secretary (SENAD), headed, since the last administration, by the Colonel Paulo Roberto Ulchôa. About that meeting, Benevides said, “We presented the issue from another point of view; harm reduction as a priority for the Health Ministry.”

“The current drug policy is the same that was formulated by the former government,” clarifies Benevides.

Congressman Fernando Gabeira: War on Drugs is "stupid" The federal Congressman Fernando Gabeira, asked about Benevides' statement, told Narco News that, “the idea of a National Anti-Drug Secretary is as stupid as the war on drugs.”

Marcelo Araújo Campos, the president of the Brazilian Association of Harm Reduction (ABORDA, in its Portuguese initials), agrees. He says that, “the SENAD doesn’t have the legitimacy or the competence to define national drug policy.” As one of the leading voices of the harm reduction movement, Araújo said, “We don't dialogue with the SENAD. We cannot work together with an agency that has the words 'anti-drug' in its name.”

Benevides clarifies that, “there is no official policy of the Lula government regarding drugs, what we have is the policy as the SENAD has defined it." And her alternative goes beyond simply shifting responsibility to her department: "We believe," she said, "that this issue cannot be solved only by the Health Ministry, but rather with the participation of many sectors.”

The new administration inside the Heath Ministry is already working toward new legislation. In fact, the Health Ministry has proposed a complement to the law passed in 2002 amending drug policies: "The Health Ministry is in charge of normalizing harm reduction programs," which it defines as, "making utensils and places for the safe use of drugs available," said Benevides.

The assembled harm reduction workers received her words as a sign of hope.

"This law," said Benevides, the public health official, of the 2002 drug "reform" law passed by Congress, "doesn't contemplate harm reduction and does not make field work viable or more flexible." Organizations that do this kind of work, she said, need, "the government as an ally," and that is exactly what this woman, also a member of the "Torture: Never Again" organization in Brazil, wants to install inside the new government of which she is a member.

“However, there is still a prohibitionist path being followed in Brazil's drug policy,” accuses Araújo, the ABORDA president. He explains that, “the SENAD is directly involved with the Lula administration, so it is hierarchically superior than the Ministries.” But there is a sign of hope. “Now both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health have the sensibility to treat this issue in a better way than the SENAD,” he explains.

Congressman Gabeira believes that, in the new administration, the Health Ministry “will influence the SENAD much more that the Justice Ministry, because it has a different way to treat the subject, since the drug consumer is no longer considered an object of police action but rather is a medical concern.”

But Benevides warned that "to maintain the status quo is much easier than making change," and that's why she asked the members of the Movement of Civil Society for Harm Reduction to "pressure the government to develop a national harm reduction strategy."

Thus, the struggle to redefine Brazil's drug policy is now being fought inside the highest levels of the Lula administration. Washington is betting on the SENAD. But Benevides' view carries the weight of Civil Society. President Lula: The Whole World is Watching.