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Brazil Society and Its Environment
The Society and Its Environment
THE FIFTH LARGEST country in the world, Brazil is the largest country
in Latin America and has territory slightly larger than that of
the continental United States. Its population, estimated officially
at nearly 160 million in mid-1997, is the largest in Latin America
and constitutes about half of the population in South America. With
80 percent of its population living in cities and towns, Brazil
is one of the most urbanized and industrialized countries in Latin
America. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are among the ten largest
cities in the world. São Paulo, with its 18 million people,
is the world's third largest city, after Mexico City and Tokyo.
Yet, parts of Brazil's Amazon region, which has some of the world's
most extensive wilderness areas, are sparsely inhabited by indigenous
peoples still in the process of coming into contact with the modern
world.
More than for its superlatives, however, Brazil stands out for
its regional and social disparities. Brazil is noted for having
one of the most unequal income distributions of any country. In
the rural Northeast (Nordeste), there is poverty similar to that
found in some African and Asian countries. Although increased urbanization
has accompanied economic development, it also has created serious
social problems in the cities. Even the wealthiest cities contain
numerous shantytowns called favelas.
While in many ways this diversity or heterogeneity makes it similar
to other developing countries in Latin America and elsewhere, Brazil
is also unique. One of the fascinating elements of this uniqueness
is that it is different things at once, presenting different faces
or identities of a single coherent whole. Both local and foreign
perceptions of Brazil tend to exaggerate particular features, lack
a balanced view, and fail to grasp how the parts of the whole fit
together. During the twentieth century, for example, Brazil came
to be known to the rest of the world and to many of its own inhabitants
in picturesque motifs that could best be fit together coherently
in terms of a "land of contrasts." The country was considered
a tropical paradise famed for its exports (coffee), music (such
as Carmen Miranda, samba, and bossa nova), and soccer (thanks to
Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé)), as well as the nearly
mythical Amazon rain forest. Rio de Janeiro was associated with
Sugarloaf (Pão de Açucar), Copacabana, income tax
fugitives, and even the mastermind of Britain's "Great Train
Robbery" of 1963. On a more serious level, Brazil often was
disparaged for its inability to solve basic political and economic
problems, such as consolidating democratic institutions, controlling
runaway inflation, and servicing the foreign debt. However, the
nation is noted for being an emerging industrial power and for constructing
giant public works, such as the new capital city of Brasília,
the Trans-Amazonian Highway, and the world's largest hydroelectric
dam (Itaipu). Brazil also stands out for its leadership role in
Latin America and the developing world.
Most Brazilians saw the military regime (1964-85) as a repressive
dictatorship, although others regarded it as having saved the country
from communism. Brazilian society was viewed as conservative and
male chauvinistic, yet simultaneously freewheeling or even licentious,
as revealed in its Carnaval (Carnival) festivities. In the 1980s,
much of the world saw the Amazon, the world's greatest store of
biodiversity, and its native peoples as falling victim to unparalleled
destruction. In the early 1990s, the news of massacres of Yanomami
Indians, street children, and favela dwellers who inhabit Rio de
Janeiro's hillsides sundered Brazil's image of cordiality. Although
there were other reasons for pessimism and a continuing identity
crisis (Brazil became the first democracy to impeach its president,
in December 1992), there were reasons for pride as well (inflation
was brought under control in 1994). Was Brazil a "serious country"
destined to be a great power, or was it always to remain a land
of the future?
One can find ample evidence for countervailing trends: unity and
diversity, modernity and tradition, progressive government policies
and deeply rooted inequality, tight control by elites and broadening
popular participation, principles and pragmatism. There are no simple
answers. This chapter examines Brazil's social and environmental
complexity and its characteristic paradoxes and nuances of meaning,
beginning with the physical setting and moving into the more mercurial
social issues, with special attention to how society relates to
nature.
Data as of April 1997
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