Cup of Cups

The Brazilian World Cup is a cause for celebration and should be preserved against any initiative that attempts to sabotage it. Only cynics, obtuse people, and partisan media have justification for wishing for the event's failure. This inferiority complex that has become fashionable on social media reflects an effort to give a modern and republican veneer to the old xenophobic, prejudiced, and elitist tendencies of the colonized imagination.

Obviously, there are problems with planning, execution, and control. Perhaps there is corruption. Although the federal government has its share of the blame, no honest analysis of this burden can ignore the role of large private corporations and regional administrators. The stadium construction companies, the contractors hired for improvements, the service providers, and the concessionaires also need to be held accountable for delays, misappropriations, and negligence. Governors and mayors, for the funds they received from the BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) and which they diverted from their own budgets.

The debates surrounding the World Cup have turned into election propaganda to prevent Dilma Rousseff from receiving the well-deserved popularity benefits from the major event she helped make possible. Falsely neutral generalizations ("government," "public money," "mess," "the answer will come in October") serve to shield local politicians and businesses from questions that would muddle the Manicheanism of hypocritical indignation. Solidarity with the poor ends as soon as they vote for the Workers' Party's enemy.

I continue to wish for a humiliating defeat for the national team. The success of the players-owned by agents sponsored by the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) and Globo network would symbolize the triumph of a corrupt system that manipulates and rots national football. It's no coincidence that he receives the fervent support of the sports press, so rigorous in its denunciations against FIFA. The patriotic farce surrounding the crude arrogance of Felipão and his millionaire athletes is an insult to the followers of Ponte Preta, Guarani, and other clubs massacred by the television-driven football establishment, under the hypocritical applause of the parochial press.

By the way, I don't think a title would be positive for Dilma's campaign. First, because the connection is historically invalidated. Second, and more importantly, because voting in this turbulent year tends towards breaking expectations and conditioning. Voters susceptible to such influences seem more likely to vote following a bias opposite to their fan impulses than aligned with them.

I like what the jargon "Cup of Cups" unintentionally suggests about national diversity. It's truly a series of different tournaments within the same event. There are the homeless, indigenous people, dispossessed people, students, vandals, sticker collectors, the new middle class, the uneducated elite, fanatics and the indifferent, good and bad civil servants, criminals, children, friends, couples, exorbitant prices, crimes, revolt, celebration, mockery, pleasure, queues, frights, kisses, and fights.

No reason for shame. Brazil is not, thankfully, the homogeneous and predictable illusion that provincials cherish. The more controversial, challenging, and contradictory the World Cup experience is, the more powerful and complex the image the country will build, including for Brazilians themselves. This richness also includes the opportunists who dedicate themselves to destroying it.

Read also "Lies you hear (and repeat) about the World Cup"