Brazil’s Olympic excitement exposes country’s social problems

Pan American Games in Rio 2007. (Photo by Wilson Dias, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The world is not yet ready to see the “real” side of Brazil.

On Oct. 2, Brazil was selected to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), beating Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago.

The result came as a bit of a surprise, yet it will be a historic moment for Brazil and the government  pulls $14.4 billion from the budget  for the games – almost as high as the budgets of the three finalists countries combined.

The Olympic Games will be a great opportunity to showcase Brazil and its rising global importance.

According to a poll by the IOC, 85 per cent of Rio residents supported the Olympic bid.

But not all Brazilians are excited about the Olympics as much as Rio residents.

Sabrina Fernandes-Thomas, a fourth year student at St. Thomas from Goiânia, Brazil, said she wasn’t sure if Brazil is ready to host the Olympics.

“It is an honour to host the Olympics,” she said. “ But it seems to me that it is more like a political strategy because when they talk about permanent improvement that will help people, unless they are talking about infrastructure for Rio, people from the rest of the country won’t benefit at all,” she said.

She said Brazil should learn from its experience hosting the Pan American Games in 2007.

The Pan American Games are a multi-sport event held the year before every Summer Olympics for all the countries in the Americas. Brazil spent more than $177 million hosting the 2007 event in Rio.

“Everything was excellent during the event. All these police were hired and a new stadium was built so there were jobs offered for people,” Fernandes-Thomas said. “But as soon as the event was over, it was gone. The new stadium barely had funding to keep it going.”

She said that, with the investment bias Brazil has, the Olympics might create more problems for the country’s poor, rather than offering a solution.

The government announced a new subway plan on the day it was picked as host, she added.

“Somehow, all the money from the government goes to Rio and São Paulo, almost $15 billion goes that way. What about the rest of the country?” she said. “And it is indicating the bias.”

Another thing that concerns her is a possible high unemployment rate after the event.

“(The government) says they will create jobs, but that’s a lie. They are going to create them, but that will be gone as soon as the event is over. People started being hired now for the constructions and they are hiring more people,” she said. “But as soon as the Olympics is over, those people have nowhere to go.”

She said one thing that happened in Rio after it hosted the Pan American Games was a higher concentration of poor population in the city.

“If you have one area offering jobs, people migrate there,” she said. “They went and got jobs but  they were fired, because their jobs were temporary. And because they were poor, they didn’t have anywhere else to go, so they just stayed there,” she said.

The government is investing its money on the Olympics and the concentration of the investment will be in the rich part of the city, she said.

“A lot of things could be translating into permanent benefit for the city, but so far nobody has been talking about anything. Nobody has actually a plan to make the benefits permanent for the people.”

She also pointed out the money the government plans on using for the event can be used better to improve the social situation in Brazil such as education and health care.

“When people don’t have basic needs, why invest money into entertainment?” she said. “It’s not like it’s not a good thing to host the Olympics, but the country needs to get the priority straight.”

But she still hopes the Olympics help address one issue in Brazil – the way the country treats its athletes.

“Brazilian athletes don’t have a lot of funding. There are not a lot of investments if you are going to be an athlete in the country,” she said. “People in tracking sometimes have to train without sneakers because they don’t have enough money. So hopefully hosting the Olympics will change the situation for the athletes.

“There are two sides in Brazil. One is to show the rest of the world and the other is to show the rest of Rio. And it is the reality for people.”

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Posted by Maiko Tanabe on Nov 1, 2009. Filed under Features, This Week's Edition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.