Brazilians are right to protest enough is enough

Everyone knows that football is Brazil’s religion. It’s always seemed as though nothing else could matter more. So it’s been a rude awakening as ongoing street protests – stemming from economic hardships and resentment over the government neglect – threaten what has long been regarded as the soul of the nation.

You can point the finger at Brazil’s relative decline in the football rankings and argue that events today might be different had its national team won the last World Cup. But what is undeniable is the scale of the protests – hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, many showing open bitterness at the imbalance between welfare and the World Cup budget. Brazil is hosting the next World Cup, and after that the Olympic Games, but what was once an immeasurable source of pride seems no longer to be so.

What is unfolding in the streets of Brazil just goes to show that the most important thing for every nation is that there must be food on the table – at a reasonable price. Economic hard times can be offset by meaningful events like World Cup victories only when that hardship is bearable. When that hardship becomes extreme, national pride can easily give way to painful realities.

Protests by up to 2 million Brazilians have taken place in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Manaus, Recife, Fortaleza and Salvador. It began as a show of discontent at fare rises on public transport but snowballed into a national rally for social justice and against widespread corruption. Public resentment has also been unmistakably linked with the World Cup.

The protests have added a sour note to the Confederations Cup, hosted by Brazil as a prelude to next year’s World Cup. To many Brazilians, the Confederations Cup and the construction of new, gleaming stadiums rub salt into their wounds. They have a legitimate fear that some of the World Cup facilities will be abandoned after the planet’s most anticipated sporting tournament.

What has tipped the balance between national pride and economic tolerance is long-endured hardship that has become extreme, and the feeling that corruption is responsible for it. Economic woes are forgivable as long as the public still has trust in politicians. Once that trust is gone, not even the beautiful promotional line “Football is coming home” can turn a negative political tide into a positive one.

The Brazilian uprising should serve as a warning. No one is safe from outrage at economic mismanagement, not even those who win the right to host the World Cup and the Olympics back-to-back. Whether politicians and others who won those rights were motivated by nationalism or populism doesn’t matter much now. They are being decried for getting their priorities wrong and doing so at their compatriots’ great expense. A considerable number of Brazilians also suspect that the “good news” on the World Cup and Olympics was probably meant to paper over the corruption scandals the blight the country.

The crisis is still simmering, although the government and authorities must be hoping they can buy some more time. After meeting protest leaders, city mayors and state governors, the powers-that-be offered a “national pact”, whose key points include an agreement in principle to political reform, tougher legal measures against corruption, bigger investment in urban transport, health and education, and more fiscal responsibility.

Nobody knows how much time the politicians have bought for themselves. The government’s offer includes some risky promises, like a constituent assembly to consider political reform. Some critics consider the reform pledge a time bomb, since Brazil’s politicians, as everywhere else, are good at paying lip service to reform but bad when genuine political change needs to be put into effect.

The lesson coming out of Brazil is loud and clear: when the economy is really bad, and corruption adds insult to injury, the powers-that-be must stop fooling around, because there is no “good news” that can ever help them.