Brazil’s love of soccer has been blamed for distracting the population from its social problems. Therefore, it is ironic that it is the World Cup that has mobilized Brazilians. Raising flags with no party color, the people on the street are crying out for an end to corruption and against the waste of public money, both of which are so common in Brazil.
These protests will strengthen Brazil’s democratic culture and could not come at a more timely moment: With the legislation currently weak, corruption is rife and those who steal from the public are let off the hook. As a congressman for the Brazilian Socialist Party, I am comfortable being so critical of the state of the law in my country, because for a long time I have not shied away from pointing out the abuses that take place around here.
When Brazil won the bid to host the World Cup, other politicians were in charge of the country and our political reality was different. I supported the bid because it promised to generate employment and income, promote tourism and strengthen the country’s image.
Since then, Brazil has been affected by the turbulence in the world economy. Government plans were redrafted, public investment was cut — yet the commitments signed with all-powerful world soccer body FIFA stayed the same. Investment in cities hosting World Cup matches were prioritized over the people’s needs. Money was channeled predominantly toward sport projects, at the expense of health, education and safety.
In many cities, conditions in schools are deplorable. Teachers are poorly paid and demoralized, and Brazil is now ranked second-last on Pearson’s education quality index out of 40 countries. Worse, one in four students who start out in basic education leave school before they complete the last grade.
SOCIAL LOSS
Brazil’s public health situation is worrying, too. Those who have to rely on public hospitals often end up with their sickness aggravated by the lack of professional treatment. There have been press reports about people dying while on hospital waiting lists, without receiving even basic treatment. Who is responsible for this criminal irresponsibility?
Problems with education, health and safety were inherited by previous governments, making the country socially vulnerable, in spite of what the economic index may say. Brazil is now one of the 10 major world powers, but how does that matter to the people if the social loss is so evident?
Under former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the World Cup proposal was to have an event in which there was transparency on public spending. The opposite has occurred. An initial budget of 25.5 billion real (US$11.4 billion) has risen to 28 billion real — almost three times the cost of Germany’s World Cup in 2006. Why are we organizing the most expensive World Cup in history, without any of the benefits to the community we were promised?
LOST LEGACY
Plans to improve traffic around host cities have turned out to be chaotic, too; only three have stuck to their budgets and deadlines. Numbers like these have made the public angry and fuelled popular protests, in a bid to reverse the logic of a system that privileges money over social matters.
Meanwhile, FIFA has announced that it will make a 4 billion real profit from Brazil’s World Cup, tax-free. Its easy profit contrasts with the total lack of an effective legacy. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff repeats what Lula said, reassuring us that we will “host the best World Cup of all time.”
I do not agree, because we have failed on what matters most: a legacy to make us proud.
I never thought the World Cup would solve all of our problems, but now my fear is that this mega event will only deepen the problems we already have.
Romario de Souza Faria is a Brazilian Socialist Party legislator and a World Cup-winning soccer player with Brazil.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers