To my friends abroad. My dear friends, I am sure some of you have heard about what has been going on here in Brazil. A few days ago, a series of protests have taken over the streets of São Paulo and now they are spreading all over the country. The reason, apparently, was a recent increase in transportation fares that have gone up 10 cents of dollar per trip. A lot of people claim that the protesters are just trouble makers and that the change in fares makes little difference. Those people fail to understand the problem that is being faced here. Brazil is one of the richest countries in the world. It is also one of the places where citizens pay the highest taxes. Most of us, however, see few results coming from that money. Transportation itself gives us a good example: in São Paulo, bus, subways and train tickets are expensive, there are no monthly plans, and the system is inefficient (most people spend four hours and pay up to ten dollars every day in to get to work). The soccer World Cup, that is scheduled for 2014 makes everything worse. Billions were spent in stadiums in order to make them suitable for international games, no other improvements (none that would benefit regular people) were made. The manifestations that have taken over the country are about that, but our government seems reluctant (to say the least) to hear them. Protesters are being pursued by the police and a lot of people (some of them are my friends and my students) have been hurt or arrested. Next Monday, I will take part of the movement myself. I hope no harm comes to me, but the truth is I can´t be sure of that. Please share that to make sure the rest of the world knows what is going on with us.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 21:29:31 +0000
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