Brazil: Image Consultant Wanted

When I decided to retire in Brazil in 2003, my friends and colleagues envied me.  Now in June 2020, they all beg me to get out.  Over the years, Brazil’s benevolent external reputation gradually eroded to reach its current pariah status.  The Coronavirus pandemic has exposed to the world a country in a downward spiral and the moral decay of its political leadership. 

Back in the early 2000s, Brazil was regarded as a paragon of democratic values, a progressive Latin American country on the verge of becoming an influential world player.  I still remember the November 12, 2009 cover of the Economist magazine of London roaring that Brazil was taking off.  I was so proud to live in Rio at the time.  I had chosen to retire in this tropical city because I liked its charms, culture and relaxed atmosphere and I had friends and an apartment.  Despite Rio’s endemic violence, I felt very much at home among the Cariocas, Rio’s residents.  On the other hand, I didn’t care much about Rio’s famous staples like the beautiful game, its beaches and the Carnival samba schools. 

Back then, Brazil had the reputation of being an open-minded country.  In the United Nations, where I worked for twenty-five years, Brazil enjoyed stellar status.  The professionalism of its cadre of diplomats was admired and its honest broker standing was regularly called upon to ease tensions and to negotiate between bickering parties.  For decades, Brazil maintained its diplomatic independence, even if most of the time, it sided with the values of Western nations.

In 2009, the Economist warned that “the risk for Brazil’s big success story was hubris.”  It was not hubris, but rather mediocrity and populism that have crushed the country.  Now, the country has been dispatched to the doghouse by its peers.  Even Donald Trump has barred Brazilians from visiting the United States. He has also failed to invite the country to his G7 Pow Wow.  In compensation, he sent 2 million doses of Chloroquine.  Sadly, Brazil is seen through the caricatural posturing and reckless actions of its Chloroquine-loving president Jair Messias Bolsonaro.  Now, Brazil is Latin America’s Coronavirus response basket case.

Against Bolsonaro’s wishes, at the very beginning of the pandemic the governors of Sẩo Paulo and Rio de Janeiro decided to close businesses and schools and imposed social distancing as early as mid-March.  Their decisions started a tug-of-war with the president, who wanted to keep businesses open during the pandemic believing it would prevent an economic disaster.  The international media has given plenty of publicity to Bolsonaro’s stay-at-home bashing efforts and I have nothing meaningful to add.  Seventy percent of Brazilians agreed with the governors and at the beginning people stayed home.  The president’s undermining campaign, compounded with the fact that more than 75% of the Brazilian population works hand-to-mouth in the informal economy and cannot follow the stay-at-home guidelines allowed the virus to spread further and deeper.  

Fatality-wise, Brazil will soon overtake Italy and possibly the UK, the second most affected country in the world.  Bolsonaro may be mathematically right to claim that Brazil, a country of 210 million inhabitants, is, doing better than many European countries and has not been as severely impacted.  It is no consolation for Brazilians who lost a family member or their livelihood.  In permanent denial, Bolsonaro did not, unlike his role model Trump, visit a face mask factory!  His total lack of empathy, as is Trump’s, is a challenging topic for psychiatrists.  Bolsonaro epitomizes the fallacy that autocratic machos do not cry, and like his peers in this fashionable category, he blames others for his failings.  Mind-blowingly, Bolsonaro’s pigheadedness undermines his attempts to open Brazil to investment and tourism.

Mid-March, I self-isolated myself.  As a senior citizen, I continue to do so, increasingly frustrated by the insignificant benefits of our stay-at-home sacrifice.  After two and a half months, we are still in the dark, and the heavy atmosphere comes from a rudderless government and its conflicting orientations.  For lack of testing, the increasing Coronavirus cases are grossly under-recorded and the death toll is probably inaccurate.  Not only are we unable to see one’s friends, but most of us have acquaintances who caught the virus.  I personally know six people, including three who work in our building.  One spent several days in the hospital and is the only one who is part of the Covid statistics.   

On the other hand, I am to some extent grateful to Bolsonaro’s circus in Brasilia, it provides a welcome distraction to my Covid-19 anxiety.  Bolsonaro or BolsoNero as the Economist nicknamed him, is supported by about 30% of the population and can count on a clique of fanatical supporters.  Since Bolsonaro has name recognition, his supporters’ rallies are primarily focused on his re-election in 2022.  To outsiders, they look like members of a sect, organized like paramilitary (militia) and many of them moonlight as social media trolls.  Lastly, thanks to his foul-mouthed rants against members of Brazilian institutions, I have significantly improved the range of my Brazilian expletives and swearwords.

                                                                       Brasilia: Blazing Saddles

Another diversion from the pandemic is the long-standing Brazilian practice of corruption.  Just like the Soccer World Cup and the Olympic Games, Coronavirus offered politicians opportunities for bribes and featherbedding.  As a matter of fact, the governor of the state of Rio is under a cloud for having purchased over-priced equipment to fight the virus.  Seven field hospitals were built in the state, only two are operational so far. 

It is time to take a break and get out, at least temporarily.  Hopefully, I will travel to France on June 21.  Coronavirus battered France, but the country has now re-opened its economy and the atmosphere will be more serene than that of Rio.  I feel sorry to leave my downhearted friends in the middle of the pandemic and in such a bad company.