Brazilian Indians were in the spotlight of world media this week and the local blogosphere has much to say about it. From the images of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, which were ‘leaked’ first in a blog that is now claiming attribution rights for its scoop, to the enraged protest caught on camera against the building of dams along the Xingu River in the Amazon basin where an official of Brazil’s national electric company got slashed by traditional machetes and clubs. Bloggers had different takes from the dominant mainstream media narratives.

Here is the Brazilian GLOBO video of the engineer’s encounter with the Indians.

Since the gathering in Altamira, the Brazilian media have focused mostly on the issue of violence. GLOBO included a special report in its extremely popular weekend TV magazine FANTASTICO and here’s the text (computer) translated into rough English. As you can see, the focus is on the engineer and the Indians associated with the confrontation and there is very little about the many consequences of building the dam. While the Brazilian mainstream media are preoccupied with the “hot” story, various blogs and NGOs have been struggling to deliver the deeper messages. Encontro Xingu ‘08 provides great coverage of the whole event with in-depth analysis by David Cunningham and lots of wonderful photos by Sue Cunningham. The Xingu Encounter was also reported by International Rivers along with English translations of the declarations of the Xingu Peoples. And here’s the (computer) translated final statement of the broad coalition of Brazilian grassroots organizations that are opposing building of th,e Belo Monte dam.
Violence - Vision Share

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by Juarez Duarte Bomfim
translated from the Portuguese by Jose Murilo and Lou Gold

The journalist Carlos Marques, who is today an adviser at UNESCO living in Paris, was 20 years old when the managers of Manchete magazine decided to send him, accompanied by a photographer, to do an article about the distant city of Rio Branco, capital of Acre state, in the year of 1969. [1] Among the many interviews, Marques talked with the Italian bishop Giocondo Maria Grotti, who two years later (1971) would die in an airplane accident in the region of Sena Madureira.

When asked about the problems he was facing in the region, the bishop complained about the Santo Daime Doctrine, which was founded by a black man from Maranhão state, Raimundo Irineu Serra.

Marques decided to meet Master Irineu Serra, who was working in the cut field on his property when the journalist arrived.

- That meeting was the most extraordinary experience in my whole life. Master Raimundo said he knew I would come, and that he was waiting. He said my name, that I had recently been released from prison, and that I had a scar on my leg.

Marques also said that he spent 3 days at Alto Santo and drank Daime, but he did not reveal details of his experience.

- He told me I would some day come back to Acre, but I never believed in this possibility.

During his farewell to Master Irineu Serra, surprisingly he was offered a bottle of Daime with the recommendation to drink its contents along with his sensitive friends. [2]

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Changing the command in a Brazilian Ministry used to be a domestic affair, but the resignation of the renowned rainforest defender Marina Silva from the Environmental Ministry has sparked global reactions. Ms. Silva’s replacement was quickly announced by President Lula, through the designation of Carlos Minc, former environmental secretary of Rio de Janeiro State and one of the founders of the Green Party in Brazil. Here are some comments from local bloggers on the shifting sands of public environmental policy.

By leaving the ministry, the ex-rubber tapper and ex-domestic worker, who learned to read only when she was 17 years old [and later to become Brazil's youngest senator at the age of 36], has generated — inside and outside the country — a reverberation that overshadows those that eventually occurred with the fall of former powerful finance ministers. She hopes that her replacement in the ministry, Carlos Minc, will be able to assure the continuity of the government environmental policy, resisting the pressure that comes from Blairo Maggi, the governor of Mato Grosso State who is working against retaining the National Monetary Council resolution that will oblige the financial system to require conforming with environmental regulations as a precondition for access to rural credit in the Amazon…. Marina Silva has declared that when you are in a position of power, even if it is something small (the editor of a newspaper column, for example), we suffer the temptation to look at people from the top down. — “I’ve learned, and it was not now but with many people I had the opportunity to meet along my life, people like Chico Mendes and Dom Moacir Grechi, that we have to look from the bottom up. From the bottom up we are able to watch what is above us. The Amazon is above us. And with such a look we are able to see that, in order to do something that is really good, we have to put ourselves in the perspective of service, which can also mean the gesture of cleaning the path so that another person can take your place. I’ve said before that it’s better to see your son alive on someone else’s lap than to see him dead on your own lap.”
“The Amazon is above us” - Altino Machado

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After a long period of dictatorship, and since the political liberalization of the 80’s, Brazilians have learned to value freedom of expression as a key democratic right. But the last weeks have shown that some issues such as marijuana legalization still don’t hold the status of being entitled to a legally sanctioned public debate. This year’s edition of the Marijuana March was prohibited by courts in 9 capital cities across the country due to allegations of illegal promotion of drug use. The theme provoked responses by many local bloggers.

While in some countries marijuana use is accepted with restrictions, in Brazil the debate on the issue is not even permitted. Talking about marijuana has turned into a taboo, as the march was prohibited by the Public Ministry a few days before scheduled date, leaving no chance for appeals due to the lack of available time. It becomes clear the country is unable to allow its citizens to debate their relationship with some of the problems we have around here. Should we label a demonstration for legal reform as drug use promotion? To debate necessarily means to influence? There are some terms that are not well defined in the heads of the justices, which results in hindering the citizens from claiming their right: the freedom to express themselves.
Tropical Fascism - Obrog!!!

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