It took some doing, but I got my old phone number back. I’m still waiting for some of the people whose numbers I lost to call me, but otherwise I have recovered well from the robbery. (So far only one woman has told me that she doesn't believe that I was robbed -- she said that I was just avoiding her while I spent my time with other women.) For the rest of September I was nervous walking down the block where I was robbed. I used to live on the beachfront, and two blocks from the beach front is a busy street. I was robbed while walking in between the two, and for the next three weeks – until I moved – I sometimes took a detour of two blocks in order to cover that space by walking past three restaurants and their security guards. Before I was robbed I felt safe, but since then I have been more attentive, and with attention comes unease. I notice everyone on bicycles now, and I watch where they go. If a man or men on bicycles take the same route I planned on taking, I take a different route.
I moved from my old apartment – which was on the beach front and therefore expensive, but also very near not one, not two, but three favelas, which made it expensive and dangerous. Now I am only one block from the beach (although I rarely go to the beach) and far from the favelas. The street itself is very safe – my building has a security guard, as do four other buildings on the same block. On one end of the block there is a taxi stand, which makes that street safer to use when I come home from the bus stop at night. These are the things I think about now, the things that everyone in Brazil thinks about. But Brazil is still Brazil, and I still like it here. And the more I think about it, despite the ever-present threat of armed robbery – whether on foot, in a car, or on a bus, Brazil is a better place to live than the US.
In June I met a woman on the beach. She had just lost her job, but she remained optimistic. As we talked about her situation, she punctuated everything she said with “but at least we don’t have a war.” And she had a point. She was unemployed, but nobody in her country was dying for oil. She was likely facing a long, discouraging job search, but her country wasn’t, and still isn’t, hated around the world. Her country has serious problems with poverty, and from that stem crime, malnutrition, and exploitation. But Brazil hasn’t painted a bulls-eye on its back, and while there are many legitimate reasons to lack confidence in Lula, he isn’t likely to reach for the red and white paint.
And despite the war, or at least until the war, Brazilians had a positive opinion of the US. They were, and are still, confused about how someone could lose the popular vote and still win the presidency. They don’t understand why the people of the United States (Estadosunidenses) went along with the invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq really bothers the Brazilians. They ask about it all the time. They know that Brazil isn’t a realistic target for invasion, but they recognize, apparently better than a large proportion of the American people, that the stability – which used to be a favorite goal of Republican foreign policy (remember Bush praising Musharaf for bringing stability to Pakistan with his coup?) – of the world has been upset.
The United States had a history, and apparently still has (Pakistan, ), a history of supporting military dictatorships. The US supported Brazil’s military dictatorship, as well. And despite this, the Brazilian people have always loved the US. The US represented the best that humanity could achieve, the potential for self-government and the ideal of democracy. Brazilians were willing to forgive these lapses in support for democracy abroad, because in comparison with other countries, the US was responsible in its use of power. Not anymore.
Brazilians are following the US elections closely. Strangers, when they discover that I am from the US, ask me why Bush is ahead in the polls. People tell me that I’m okay, but they aren’t so sure about the rest of the people in/from the US. Sympathy for the US, world-wide, is about to dry up. The next time the US is attacked, and according to Rumsfeld and company it’s an inevitability, there will be no outpouring of grief. There will be no headlines like Le Monde’s “We Are All Americans.” The opinion in Brazil will be that the US asked for it. And this is a country that is basically sympathetic to the US. How will people who are already suspicious of the US react if W isn’t replaced?
Brazilians don’t understand the pervasive media bias in the US. They don’t understand the strange system that allowed W to lose the popular vote by half a million and still assume power. They don’t understand the problems with Diebold voting machines. What they understand is that the American people are letting it happen by voting for Bush. In 1988 Brazilians took to the streets and their last period of military rule came to an end. What will it take for Americans to do the same?