HAITI
Caetano Veloso e Gilberto Gil

When you are invited up on the terrace
of the Casa de Jorge Amado Foundation
to watch from above the row of soldiers;
almost all black
beating on the necks of black good for nothings
of mulatto thieves and other almost white ones
treated like the black ones
just to show the other almost black ones
(and they are almost all black)
and the almost white poor like black ones
how it is that blacks, poor, and mulattos
and almost white ones, almost black and poor are treated
and it doesn’t matter if the eyes of the whole world
might for a moment be turned to the square
where the slaves were punished
and today a pounding of drums,
pounding of drums
with the purity of boys
in secondary school uniforms on parade day
and the epic grandeur of a people in formation
it attracts us, astonishes and stimulates us
nothing matters:
not the trace of the mansion’s architecture
not the lens from Fantástico,
not Paul Simon’s record
no one, no one is a citizen
if you go to the party there at Pelô,
and if you don’t go
think of Haiti, pray for Haiti
Haiti is here—Haiti is not here

And on TV, if you see a congressman
in badly concealed panic
when faced by any, absolutely any, any, any
plan for education that seems easy
that seems fast and easy
and will represent a threat to democratize
primary school education
and if this same congressman
should defend
the adoption of capital punishment
and the venerable cardinal should declare
that he sees so much soul in the fetus
and none in the criminal and if,
when you run a light, the old familiar light
red as usual
you notice on a street corner
a man pissing
on a shiny bag of garbage from Leblon
and when you hear the smiling silence of São Paulo
in response to the massacre
111 defenseless prisoners
but prisoners are almost all black
or almost black, or almost white
almost black and so poor
and poor men are rotten,
and everyone knows how blacks are treated
and when you go on holiday in the Caribbean
and when you go fuck without a condom,
and participate intelligently in the blockade of Cuba
Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti
Haiti is here, Haiti is not here.

…

“Elite Squad”, a much-hyped film about Rio’s special forces police is having its official launch today in Rio and São Paulo, and the nationwide premiere is scheduled for Oct. 12. The peculiar thing about this release is that an estimated crowd of 3.5 million people have already seen it before its debut. The [unauthorized] copy of the film can be viewed or downloaded from many different places on the web, and the speculation is that more than a million copies of the DVD have been sold on Brazilian streets across the past few weeks.

Capitão Nascimento

Praised as a “City of God 2″, but presenting a narrative based on a policeman’s perspective, the film is provoking heated debates across the country about the causes of violence in big cities. There are interesting discussions also on the morality of the widespread use of an unauthorized copy leaked to the web of an unreleased film. Surely, this case has made Brazilians go deeper into the actual meanings of piracy in the digital era, and it can turn out to be a defining moment for the audiovisual industry. Bloggers are all around it.

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Dialogue Forum on Internet Rights
Rome - 27 September 2007 (a personal account)

The Internet Governance Forum in Athens did an admirable job setting up a number of instruments for remote participation at the meetings. These include web casting, a discussion forum, live text chat, email, SMS, blog aggregation, and even submissions via video!

The effort was admirable — just the mere fact of the existence of such possibilities in Athens brought new elements into the process. But we could observe also that the remote participation procedures in Athens did not raise much interest. This is a serious problem if the IGF wants to project itself as a new kind of open framework for dialogue on Internet governance.

It’s not like there aren’t important topics being discussed: freedom of expression, cyber-crime, multi-lingualism on the net, surveillance, spam, etc. Certainly there are lots of potential interest, expertise and experience out there that could be integrated into the discussions.

In my view, the problem is that the “if you build it, they will come” approach doesn’t work for remote participation. It requires more.

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