JUST BACK FROM RIO

I am sorry it has been so long since I last wrote any entries to my blog. It has been a pretty busy summer, I was studying for the bar exam and finally took it at the end of July. I won't know the results till November, so I guess in the meantime I will be busy with current events. I did take the opportunity to go to Brazil and spend some time in Rio de Janeiro with my family and making some sense of their reality. As many of you know, Rio is both blessed and cursed. It is blessed with the most beautiful landscape in the world, people of faith, a naturally wonderful world. But it is cursed with the plague of the drug war, and it is a city infested with crime.

The saddest thing about Rio, to me, is that people have somewhat accepted their horrible reality, and they believe that it is something that happens "everywhere" and that they are just always placed in the spotlight. They believe that the closing down of tunnels during rush hour to rob many cars is ok because it only happens "sometimes". They believe that at least it's not Iraq...but I bet anything that there are a lot more deaths in Rio than in Iraq today.

Here is a pretty interesting slide show posted on Youtube that depicts the reality of Rio today. It portrays the war between the police and the drug dealers, and it concludes that the only victims are the people - the taxpayers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtYCK-fIj4w&feature=fvw

I guess most of the victims are in fact non tax-payers, because most of the victims come from the favelas, where they are not required to pay anything at all to the government (fact that still shocks many people I tell it to, since they INVADED public land and remained there AT WILL, but somehow their illegal acts are compensated with the benefit of not having to pay taxes). It is very easy to be the "good hearted person" and claim that these "poor people" had "no other alternative" but I tell you that such IS NOT THE CASE. I personally know of one very inspiring story of a poor, hardworking black woman named Clarice, who raised five children in a very far away, dangerous, poor area of Rio, the hottest part of the city, to be successful men and women today, and she did it with dignity, paying bills, commuting from afar, not committing ANY illegal act. This is something that these people who tend to create excuses for the slum dwellers and the criminals of Rio should spend more time emphasizing. It is people like Clarice, whose story I will be sure to share, who deserve unyielding protection from all possible organizations, but instead, the organizations tend to protect those who make her already difficult life close to impossible.

In order for Rio to change the ones who need to change are the Cariocas. Change can only come from within.