Yesterday the Brazilian soccer team lost 7 x 1 to Germany. It was an unprecedented loss not only in the Brazilian soccer history but in the entire World Cup history. Yes it saddens some, but this is NOT what pisses most of us out.
Since the beginning of the World Cup I've read many comments of my international friends. Seems like everyone has an opinion about Brazil but most of them don't have a clue about what really happens here. Truth be told, the remarks annoyed me a little a bit but then I realized it's not their fault, they don't know what the Brazilian people has to put up with so I decided to write this post to enlighten some of you.
As some many remember there was A LOT of protesting going on during July 2013 - the entire "It's not about the 20 cents" campaign. It may come as a surprise but a great part of the population didn't want the World Cup to happen here. Wanna know why? Because we need investments in different areas of our country. Our health system, public education, safety and so on. And we already knew what was going to happen. Most of the money would end up in the politicians' pockets and not much would be done - why do you think this World Cup cost more than the last THREE World Cups combined?
And not much got done. Of course stadiums were built and redone but at exorbitant costs. The Amazônia Stadium - which after the World Cup will only be attended by an average of 500 spectators - had a 604 million reais (a little over 300 million dollars) investment. It is outrageous!
Do you want to know what pisses me off even more? The infamous "jeitinho brasileiro" - the Brazilian way of doing stuff. It goes like this: if you talk to the right person and pay them the right amount of money you can fix anything; nothing is taken seriously, and major issues are fixed with band-aid solutions.
Let me illustrate it to you. The Brazilian healthcare is public. There are many capable professionals but what is really missing is structure. I know of doctors who work in small towns who have to buy medicine with their own money to treat their patients because there aren't available where they work. Hospitals that don't have working X-rays and that don't have the most basic lab exams. How did our "beloved" president fix it? She brought numerous doctors from Cuba! And check this out: they did not need to validate their medical diploma! It was said they would have to take a test, the Revalida, but in the end they did not take it. I'm not against IMGs (International Medical Graduates) but in every country you need to prove you have the necessary knowledge and you need to spend time learning how your new country's health system works. I feel bad for the Cuban doctors because they are getting paid scrap and the Cuban government is the one who is actually receiving all the money.
The problem is way more complicated. I don't even understand half of it. And you know why? Because Brazilian politics are not made to be understood. We have an extremely corrupt system that gets which ever candidate they want elected. They steal trillions and trillions and there's no consequence! The few politicians who were persecuted last year are already out of jail. What a wonderful country!
I don't want to go on much longer. But whenever you see Brazilians pissed out the government or trying to overthrow it, it is not because our team lost. It is because we actually live in a dictatorship where an honest politician who tried to speak out got murdered or shut up in different ways. It is because the government has some of the most absurd laws. And even though the taxes are so high, almost nothing gets done for our community. It goes straight into politician's pocket. Brazil is not the world's 5th economy and not much of what is on the international news is the truth about our reality. I really hope someday our country has the decent government it deserves.
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