{"id":24895,"date":"2007-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisaclone.fapesp.br\/2007\/06\/01\/the-joyful-dictatorship\/"},"modified":"2015-06-10T12:55:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T15:55:00","slug":"the-joyful-dictatorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/the-joyful-dictatorship\/","title":{"rendered":"The joyful dictatorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

As soon as shops close their doors in its central region, the Salvador of 2007 seems more like a city under curfew. Important thoroughfares like avenida Sete de Setembro<\/em> and rua Carlos Gomes<\/em> are quickly vacated, whereas bottlenecks form\u00a0 close to the areas where\u00a0 shopping centers are concentrated at the region of avenida Paralela<\/em> giving rise to traffic as chaotic as\u00a0 the traffic jams in S\u00e3o Paulo. Everyone seems in a hurry to get home. While the city\u2019s subway development works have, at last, started once more, the city\u2019s inhabitants convey the impression of being uneasy, cornered and distressed.<\/p>\n

Apparently, the leading motive is the day-to-day violence that confines dwellers of all ages and classes to their homes limiting their leisure to the shopping malls, which have sprung up like slot machines throughout the city. On the last Saturday of May, for example, while the city\u2019s beachfront was almost deserted at around 09:00 p.m., at Shopping Iguatemi, the city\u2019s biggest mall, it was almost impossible to obtain a ticket to watch a movie or to make it to an empty table at one of its countless snack bars or fast-food restaurants. There are those claiming that violence has become a public-calamity problem in the city, although the number of hold-ups cannot yet be considered on par with S\u00e3o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It was not by chance, that a survey on a local TV station included the question of how many times each interviewee had been held up.<\/p>\n

According to Professor Antonio Albino Rubim, from the Federal University of Bahia, the end of carlismo<\/em>, brought on by the election of governor Jacques Wagner, has given rise to the expectation, at least, of the beginning of a break with what he call \u201cthe dictatorship of joy\u201d. The expression embodies several meanings. It is related, for example, to the supposedly innate flair typical of the Bahian citizen which has been intensely exploited by the tourism industry, by music and by Carnival for nearly 20 years. Or somewhere where television has the strength to impose the idea of\u00a0 a place of non-stop festivities and where it is possible to be happy forever . A condition symbolized by the lyrics of anthroposophical songs like \u201cWe are Carnival, we are reveling, we are the world of Carnival, we are Bahia<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

It should be said that the idea of Salvador as the \u201cLand of Happiness\u201d \u2013 modernized to the \u201cLand of Joy\u201d \u2013 is not new. Back in the nineteen thirties, Ary Barroso availed himself of an expression to compose the classical Na Baixa do Sapateiro<\/em>, whose lyrics glorified the beauties of the Bahian woman and that of the \u201cBoa Terra\u201d (\u201cThe Good Land\u201d) <\/em>of Senhor do Bonfim (Our Lord of Bonfim)<\/em>. But what one is experiencing in 2007 is anchored on a more updated concept of \u201cBahianism\u201d, which the anthropologist Goli Guerreiro \u2013 author of the book A trama dos tambores \u2013 A m\u00fasica afro-pop de Salvador<\/em> (The Plot of the Drums \u2013 Salvador\u2019s Afro-Pop Music) <\/em>(Editora 34) \u2013 claims one may depict\u00a0 links between politicians, artists, members of religious orders, intellectuals, advertising executives and tourism managers\u00a0 which meets with acceptance among several social classes.<\/p>\n

The dictatorship of frolicking, continues Rubim, might also be attributed to the close ties, which the carnivalesque and musical markets enjoy with the state and municipal powers by means of Bahiatursa<\/em> and Emtursa<\/em>, companies that promote tourism. A complicity, he claims, that would end up being connected with the figure of Antonio Carlos Magalh\u00e3es, who, on reassuming the governorship of the state 1990, knew how to capitalize on the phenomenon of the Bahian music that was emerging at the time \u2013 and that would be pejoratively be labeled as ax\u00e9-music \u2013 in order to transform it into a\u00a0 product for tourists.<\/p>\n

Carnivalesque blocks<\/strong>
\nAccording to the researcher, at the same time that it provided artists, producers and block leaders with infrastructure and sponsorship the ACM (Antonio Carlos Magalh\u00e3es) <\/em>group gave them all ample freedom for managing the Carnival. As a result, he completes the concern of several groups with regard to the Workers\u2019 Party (PT) ascension to power. Wagner (the current governor)<\/em> might kill two birds with one stone: weaken the grip of the carlista <\/em>group on the city\u2019s cultural life and bring to an end the omission of\u00a0 public powers, which have permitted Carnival to be manipulated\u00a0 detrimentally to the tradition of the festivity.<\/p>\n

Bahia, observes the anthropologist Antonio Ris\u00e9rio, sells many myths that are not true. Author of Uma hist\u00f3ria da cidade da Bahia<\/em> (A<\/em> history of the city of Bahia<\/em>) (Versal), he cites several: one states that it is a sunny city, when in fact it rains torrentially throughout the year. \u201cCaymmi fostered the idea that one does not work, however, the Bahian is very hardworking\u201d, he observes. The vision of the joyous city, reckons Ris\u00e9rio, contrasts with the names of ancient sites, such as Largo dos Aflitos (Park of the Distressed)<\/em>, Pra\u00e7a da Piedade (Park f Mercy) <\/em>and Ladeira<\/em> do Desterro (Slope of the Banished<\/em>), among others. \u201cOne implanted a bizarre image, where nobody has the right to be sad, but you only have to talk to people, in order to encounter a lot of loneliness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sociologist Paulo Miguez could not agree more.\u00a0 \u201cIn Salvador one is not allowed to be sad and if this never happens, the individual becomes deeply distressed, because sadness is a dimension of human life that should not be disregarded\u201d, he observes.\u00a0 In his\u00a0 doctorate thesis \u201cA organiza\u00e7\u00e3o da cultura na cidade da Bahia\u201d (The organization of culture in the city of Bahia)<\/em>,\u00a0 Miguez\u00a0 presents revealing conclusions about Salvador\u2019s musical and carnivalesque industry. \u201cDepression, low spirits, all this, from time to time, enriches us. A population that is permanently happy becomes boring, given that it is not possible to construe happiness on a daily basis within a city of serious social inequalities.\u201d According to his viewpoint,\u00a0 a \u201cfantasy island has been created,\u00a0 although, at times, such a circus comes to end, as on the occasion of the police-officer strike [in July 2001], when the population\u00a0 became hostage to the city\u2019s criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand the complexities of Salvador and to defend a broad and urgent discussion with regard to the city\u2019s way forward,\u00a0 has been an almost exclusive concern\u00a0 in\u00a0 Bahian academic circles in the past few years. Primarily at the Center of Multidisciplinary Studies in Culture\/Cult,\u00a0 the Post Graduation Multidisciplinary Program in Culture and\u00a0 Post-Culture Society, at the UFBA. The seminar took place between the 23rd<\/sup> and 25th<\/sup> May at the 3rd<\/sup> Meeting of Multidisciplinary Studies in Culture (Enecult), which brought together\u00a0 almost two hundred researchers from Brazil, Latin America and Europe.<\/p>\n

Carnival
\n<\/strong>The researchers claimed that any\u00a0 planning for sustainable growth in Salvador must include the elaboration of a project for the re-evaluation\u00a0 of the role of the state and the\u00a0 municipality\u00a0 at Carnival, to save Bahia\u2019s most important popular festivity. This implies, taking it out of the hands of small group of entrepreneurs, who for more than two decades have dictated the rules and granted privileges on behalf of what they call the \u201cprofessionalization\u201d of the \u201cworld\u2019s most democratic\u201d Carnival. In practice, however, this apparatus has privatized public spaces and strangled\u00a0 the traditional popular events\u00a0 or those associated with the afro culture.<\/p>\n

Although one claims that Bahians are friendly, the fact is that the fear of violence has scared both tourists and inhabitants away from the festivities.\u00a0 Carnival\u00a0 2007 reflected, according to Rubim, the crisis in the Carnival model and served as one more warning: the hotels were below maximum occupancy and it was possible to purchase fancy dresses (abad\u00e1s<\/em>) without difficulty and during the festivities. \u201cOne has to create ways forward, a market logic that is not submissive, predatory, in search of immediate gains, in order to give margin to innovation\u201d, he recommends.<\/p>\n

A respected communications theorist, Muniz Sodr\u00e9, one of the lecturers at Enecult, point out that both the Bahian carnival and music must be rethought. \u201cPopular culture has been carried out by Salvador\u2019s media, primarily due to the strength of TV. However, it continues to have, on the part of the population, various appropriations and in different places.\u201d For this reason, he believes that the concept of place is imperative to define diversity, \u201cbecause it is not the place of the media, but that of\u00a0 small communities, from the hinterland, with their own form of expression\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bahia, observes Sodr\u00e9, has already been the place where, all of a sudden, these differentiated symbolic expressions made it to the top, but soon became commercial.\u00a0 If, on the one hand, the music market gave rise to a certain identity that previously had been repressed, on the other hand it was immediately taken over by the entertainment industry and by the state as a tourism attraction. \u201cI believe that, at the outset, this had a very important political role and the problem is to verify whether this radiation has already ended. Personally, I believe that this influence is on the wane, given that it has not concerned itself with continuity to a great extent.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it gave rise to the emergence of some groups, Carnival, he states, has great economic limitation and does not touch upon the issue of inequality. \u201cThe carnivalesque blocks, which had a\u00a0 sense of freedom, are today cordoned off.\u201d In this manner, the concept one witnesses on the streets during the festivities, favors the idea of a Dionysian, free Carnival. The old ideology of patrimony predominates among entrepreneurs, artists, the state and the municipality in his opinion.\u00a0 \u201cIt is the ideology of illicitness, of favoritism. The country continues to be like this, and irrespective of how leftist\u00a0 the culture might be, one cannot infringe this logic, which establishes territories. It is stronger than any leftist or rightist ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Injustice
\n<\/strong>For the journalist and reveler Bob Fernandes, Carnival is just one more of the grave phenomena\u00a0 that has marked Bahia\u2019s “evident” social injustice over five centuries of history. \u201cA street carnival goer\u201d, as he defines himself, he claims that\u00a0 it is not demagogy\u00a0 that proposes to discuss the festivity, but those that defend its continuity from the comfort provided by the boxes and official grandstands. \u201cI hang out in the middle of the people\u00a0 and am aware that to meddle in the scheme is not going to solve Bahia\u2019s apartheid problem, but it may signal the opinion of the public authority in this regard. If not, at least expand the number of ‘ owners’ of this business.”<\/p>\n

The first step, he suggests, is to do away with the cordons. \u201cThe cordon is the bludgeon, it is the sale of public space and the imposition of prejudice and segregation.\u201d Fernandes believes that the future of the festival is going to depend on the capacity of the new administration to impose, to discuss and to carry out some kind of a project for the city. \u201cSalvador is the jewel in the crown and it is not possible to refrain from an in-depth debate before the forthcoming year\u2019s Carnival. Given its nature as a great popular festivity,\u00a0 a more enduring and fair policy should be established.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most serious issue in his opinion, resides in the power that the blocks have established over the organization of the festivity. \u201cIt is a Carnival of persecution, with an objective limited strictly to half a dozen men, boys and girls. Persons that do well in a scheme invented as a gigantic lie created to sell the event: that of Salvador welcoming a million tourists in five days.\u201d How can this be possible, he asks, if the city has only 27 thousand hotel beds? \u201cThere are no houses or apartments for rent to accommodate such an amount of people.\u201d According to his estimates, if 30 blocks should parade at the same time with approximately 90 thousand dancers, the number of people on the street could not be more than 500 thousand.<\/p>\n

Bob Fernandes identifies serious problems of a cultural and political nature that might turn the Bahian capital into a place unfit for living, in the medium term. The symptoms are already present in the chaotic traffic in the city\u2019s main thoroughfares, as a result of the concessions granted to shopping malls and deluxe-condominium construction companies. \u201cCurrently and at any cost, they are intent on increasing the beachfront buildings\u00a0 to turn\u00a0 it into a modern-day Copacabana,\u00a0 damaging the environment and\u00a0 the quality-of-life which will affect the whole city.\u201d In addition, he emphasizes his concern with regard to a certain \u201cmoral cowardice\u201d on the part of the population that witnesses the taking over\u00a0 of public property without reacting. \u201cThe Bahian adores to enter the fray on his own, but has shown himself incapable of reacting collectively against the actions of these small groups that do as they please in the city\u201d, he provokes.<\/p>\n

Challenges
\n<\/strong>The secretary of culture M\u00e1rcio Meirelles, five months in office, is aware of the challenges and of the reforms he must carry out. One of the renovators of the Bahian theater during the past two decades, he speaks out cautiously with regard to the challenges facing him. Among his priorities is the decentralization of culture towards the hinterland, in order to preserve or revive rich traditions threatened by the steamroller\u00a0 which the city\u2019s music and carnival have become.<\/p>\n

Meirelles laughs prior to speaking about the hornet\u2019s nest, into which\u00a0 he intends to put his hand: the exchange of favors among Bahiatursa and Carnival entrepreneurs and artists. \u201cWhen there is no longer a relationship\u00a0 with a political leader or colonel, things have to change.\u201d According to him, \u201cthere are many people stamping their feet because they are losing their privileges. It is that old story: he, who feels threatened, reacts. And this is what we are beginning to witness: the attack of the privileged\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of the Bahian culture that has awakened interest in the academy is the importance of Afro-Brazilian music, which left the ghetto to become successful on radio and on TV and\u00a0 to animate carnival\u00a0 during the eighties. Furthermore, it brought on deep transformations, such as the break up of the barriers of prejudice and re-locating the blacks to their own space in a city where 70% of the population is of African origin. This is the positive side of a predatory industry, punctuated by equivocacy, as Rubim explains.<\/p>\n

Miguez emphasizes that the cutthroat competition for Carnival-goers had a positive aspect: it led to the noncompliance with racial and beauty parameters. \u201cCurrently, I am convinced, the screening of carnival-goers\u00a0 gives priority to the economic issue.\u201d Even the plan for setting up an agenda for off-season carnivals throughout the year \u2013 the\u00a0 micaretas<\/em> \u2013, which fill up the timetables of carnivalesque blocks and artists, seems vulnerable in its\u00a0 lack of innovation.<\/p>\n

Rubim points to the university proper as responsible, to a certain extent, for the onset of the afro culture valuation, such as the creation of the Center for Afro-Oriental Studies (Ceao) in the 1960 decade. Another relevant aspect, he emphasizes was the industrialization of the Rec\u00f4ncavo<\/em> with the creation of the Cama\u00e7ari petrochemical complex and\u00a0 the Aratu Industrial Complex in the seventies, which led to the appearance of black groups more conscious of their rights and of the importance of their culture, with new needs and in tune with the American Black Power movement and with black music, primarily reggae. This awakening brought forth the Il\u00ea Ai\u00ea<\/em> afro block, conscientiously recalling the value of\u00a0 the black in Bahia.<\/p>\n

Caetano Veloso
\n<\/strong>The third element was the engagement of a group of composers coming from the middle class in the 1970 decade and led by Antonio Ris\u00e9rio, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. The latter only discovered the strength of black culture after\u00a0 his experience as an exile and with his engagement in the Sons of Gandhi block. They would sow the seed of what was to become ax\u00e9-music.<\/p>\n

Ris\u00e9rio agrees with Rubim and takes over his role in the story. He recounts that there was a clear political investment for what happened in Bahia to \u201ca great black turnaround, with the population being treated respectfully, \u201cgiven that what was interesting\u00a0 in the local culture was of black origin\u201d. This effort became apparent, for example, in the recording of Beleza<\/em> Pura<\/em>, by Caetano; and in the afox\u00e9 <\/em>beat, that Moraes Moreira managed to extract from his guitar. \u201cWe played a few notes and helped transform black culture into a hegemonic ideology.\u201d The anthropologist recalled that with Caetano he would attend various events linked to black music promoted by blocks, such as Badau\u00ea, Il\u00ea Ai\u00ea e Zamzimb\u00e1, among others.<\/p>\n

To curious observers,\u00a0 the expectation remains of how the\u00a0 ritual of praising\u00a0 the politicians by a number of important singers\u00a0 will take place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Intellectuals defend changes to save Bahia\u2019s most traditional celebration","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"coauthors":[337],"class_list":["post-24895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24895"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=24895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}