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(...)tion Police find these favela folk an ungrateful
bunch. They in turn have had only
bitter experiences with the police. Previously
the only time you ever saw them
was collecting bribes, or in sudden shoot-outs.
You'd just come out of the shower,
ready to go to work; the police burst into
your house looking for a crook, shot you
dead and went off again without so much
as a by-your-leave. Oh yes, the drug trade
still continues, after the pacification.
The gangs are now entrenched higher up
the mountain, and spy the scene through
binoculars. But they no longer rule the
streets. You breathe more quietly now.
Metropolitan Rio has about one thousand
favelas. Several dozen-including the
largest-are pacified. Because we have
to be realistic, but without being cynical,
we can dare to say it's a start.
Recently I was sitting in an outdoor
café on the edge of a pacified favela as
a woman walked by. Tall, slim, young and
brown-toast colour, with a sinuous walk,
and everyone she passed (on the way
to the beach?) said 'wow'. She looked
straight ahead, and I stared after her in
somewhat melancholy fashion. In Rio,
many sigh, you see so many more beautiful
women than elsewhere. In Rio, others
sigh, the men are much more up-and-go.
But use your mind a bit and you know
that's not true. The proportion of grace-ful
and repulsive people, and those
in between, is the same as anywhere
in the world-statistics can't be fooled
by the mind's dreams.
(...)essence of our culture. Football more
than anything else gives us a greater
sense of freedom."
Recently I stood at Jesus's feet. From
the hunchback Corcovado Mountain,
he blesses the city. "My peace I give you,
my peace I leave with you": the Lord's
pacification programme. The incomparable
view over Rio, seven hundred metres
below, is the subject of many a clicking
camera and postcard sent home. From
here you can also see the hills where
the favelas lie, solidified avalanches of
houses tumbling down over each other.
If we could glide down to one such favela,
over broken-glass wall-tops, along streets
that branch out into alleys and dark gorges,
there too we would find the Lord-a thousandfold.
Albeit in various guises. There
is the Jesus of classical Catholicism,
enriched with African elements. There are
the Jesuses of the Protestant churches,
with their increasingly robust presence.
With the evangelical variants and especially
the Pentecostal Universal Church of
the Kingdom of God, with its daily singing
and prayer meetings and its weekly,
heavily attended exorcisms.
It is precisely these newer churches that
insist on personalised glad tidings. They
say you can change your life for the better,
with Jesus's help. So it exorcises your
devils: the booze, the drugs, the urge
to beat your wife. This therapeutic bonus
makes these churches very popular. But
for safety's sake the ancient African gods,(...)
