The Olympic Games are coming to a close, having demonstrated once again that Rio de Janeiro knows how to organise and promote big events. But after the party, and the billions spent to show the world that we deserve a place among the great democracies, comes the hangover; the bills begin to arrive, and we have no way to pay. As the festive air and the tourism subside, and with the Paralympics due to start in a matter of weeks, the old problems remain.
It is now that the residents of Rio de Janeiro begin to wonder: what will the legacy be? As we present ourselves to the world, have we revealed our faults? Or has the power of our cultural creativity come to the fore? Therein lies the contradiction of Rio: the combination of beauty and poverty, hedonism and inequality, a carnival atmosphere and bloody violence.
Hosting the Olympics in Rio was the latest effort – an extreme, titanic one – to impose the ideal version of Rio over the complexities and contradictions of real Rio. In real Rio, the state government does not have enough money to keep police vehicles on the roads. Police stations are running out of paper. Hospitals are in a precarious situation. State universities are on strike: so far they have not received a penny towards the costs of the current academic year. The state’s 500,000 public servants have received their salaries late. Building work has been interrupted. Unemployment is increasing. Social and economic inequalities have become more pronounced. Just before the Olympics, Rio state declared a state of emergency, shifting all these problems on to the shoulders of the federal government – which handed it almost a billion dollars to prevent chaos during the Olympics. But Rio’s anxious population is already wondering not so much how the Games have gone as what will happen afterwards? Full story...
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It is now that the residents of Rio de Janeiro begin to wonder: what will the legacy be? As we present ourselves to the world, have we revealed our faults? Or has the power of our cultural creativity come to the fore? Therein lies the contradiction of Rio: the combination of beauty and poverty, hedonism and inequality, a carnival atmosphere and bloody violence.
Hosting the Olympics in Rio was the latest effort – an extreme, titanic one – to impose the ideal version of Rio over the complexities and contradictions of real Rio. In real Rio, the state government does not have enough money to keep police vehicles on the roads. Police stations are running out of paper. Hospitals are in a precarious situation. State universities are on strike: so far they have not received a penny towards the costs of the current academic year. The state’s 500,000 public servants have received their salaries late. Building work has been interrupted. Unemployment is increasing. Social and economic inequalities have become more pronounced. Just before the Olympics, Rio state declared a state of emergency, shifting all these problems on to the shoulders of the federal government – which handed it almost a billion dollars to prevent chaos during the Olympics. But Rio’s anxious population is already wondering not so much how the Games have gone as what will happen afterwards? Full story...
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