By Mauro Donato, from Diary of the Center of the World
“Emma, 25, a member of the Black Bloc in Rio,” according to the caption identifying her face covered by a t-shirt on the cover of Veja magazine, is outraged. And she stated that she will write an “Open Letter to Veja.”
On Saturday afternoon, shortly after the magazine reached her hands, Emma, camped at Ocupa Cabral, seized the cell phone that was live-streaming via TwitCasting and spent more than an hour ranting against the publication (video). here).
Outraged, she demonstrated her complete disagreement with the article. On the cover, she points out what she considers a fundamental error in including her as a member of a group. "Black bloc isn't a group, it's a protest tactic. I can't be a member of something that doesn't exist." The headline ("The gang of blind guys") also sparks anger regarding the pun, which she says is "worthy of Zorra Total" (a Brazilian comedy show) and that journalists should be ashamed to work for a magazine like that.
Assisted by a masked man who helps her leaf through the magazine whose pages are rustling in the wind from the beach, Emma analyzes and curses prejudiced and moralistic passages. Her outrage (and that of those around her) intensifies when faced with the account of drug use and promiscuous sex. “Between a joint and a sip of vodka, (…) cheap wine and cocaine! Where is that?”
She continues throwing Molotov cocktails at Veja until she reaches the gray background panel, a section she considers to have been made especially for her. Below a photo of her reading Leo Huberman's *History of Man's Wealth*, the text attempts to attack her in a way that reduces her dissatisfaction to adolescent ravings. Emma ridicules the magazine's attempt to expose intimate details and isolated phrases simply to belittle her.
The masked man also vents his frustration: “This was all made up. That's how the mainstream media works; they tell the story they want. This story here is completely false, not just fallacious, it's outright lies. The intention is to manipulate public opinion,” he says.
Emma points the camera at the tents: "Look, everyone's having sex and doing drugs." She's furious at being called a flirt and suspects that undercover people ratted her out in the scene where she "hooks up" with two campers on the same day.
The photos in which she appears (cover and inside) are a controversial subject. Although only her blue eyes, thin eyebrows, and a bit of her nose are revealed through an elliptical slit—all with suggestively Middle Eastern features and a mysterious air—it's clear that Emma stirs curiosity. While recounting how the photographer posed as a member of an international agency, Emma receives a compliment on her beauty through the interactive chat. “Thank you, but the article didn't boost my ego. It's no use having a beautiful photo if the content is awful,” she said. “I didn't sell any photos; they published this without my authorization.” A woman nearby asks if she can sue the magazine for unauthorized use of her image. “Yes,” Emma replies. Another humorous viewer says he missed a centerfold poster in the magazine. “Poster my ass, I already told you to stop with the idolatry. I didn't come here to show my ass, I came to show what I have in my brain.”
Emma says she was approached at the camp by a reporter from Veja magazine and also by Globo. She implies that she refused both invitations because she disagrees with the mainstream media. She stated that she told the Veja reporter that she wouldn't talk to her because the editor would manipulate everything according to his interests. However, while reading the article, she repeatedly declared: "I didn't say that, not in that way."
In addition to the inaccuracies denounced by Emma, the article states that the Black Blocs are a small group and do not number more than two hundred militants. Just last week, in front of the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo, there was a group of approximately one hundred individuals. Black Bloc communities on Facebook are found in São Paulo, Caxias do Sul, Minas Gerais, Ceará, Niterói, and Rio de Janeiro. The Rio de Janeiro community alone has more than 23 "likes".
It is also not true when the magazine claims that black blocs burned a turnstile during a demonstration (the act is symbolic and religiously provided by the MPL, it had nothing to do with black blocs) or when it alleges that no McDonald's or Starbucks escapes unscathed from protests in which there is at least one masked person (on Friday night, again at the Assembly, no spray or gas war occurred even in the presence of 60 or 70 black blocs).
Criticizing university professors who admire the movement, Veja magazine incites the police to charge the "troublemakers" with the crime of forming a criminal gang, something that has not yet been done, obviously, because it is not legally possible (as stated by a member of the Activist Lawyers here in the newspaper).
In the Letter to the Reader in the same edition, it reads that "VEJA has always been guided by the pursuit of accurate information in the name of the public interest." At the end of her participation in the Twitcasting, Emma says to Editora Abril: "The public is seeing what you are doing."