Features
Brazil: Sizing up Africa's new suitor
Alyxandra Gomes Nunes and Ama Biney
2013-07-25, Issue 640
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/88401
Printer friendly version
Pambazuka News publishes a special edition for the first time in three languages: English,
French and Portuguese, on the relations between Brazil and Africa
The newsletter has received contributions from thinkers and activists from various
countries, both from the continent and its Diaspora. They include: Mozambique, Ghana,
the United States, Brazil, Burkina Faso and South Africa. The edition covers issues ranging
from the historical relations between freed Brazilian women and men returning to the
region of the Gulf of Benin, to architecture inherited from Brazil brought to Africa and,
most recently, the economic interests of Brazil as the seventh world power forgiving the
debts of some African countries, as announced by President Dilma Rousseff, in celebration
of the 50th anniversary summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa in May 2013.
The articles analyze these aforementioned relationships. However, a critical issue that
should not be left out of the analysis of the readers is the fundamental question of the
resolution of racial conflict in Brazil. Although this special issue of Pambazuka News is not
on race relations, but about relationships between Brazil and Africa, the line of race
permeates any discussion of the leadership of Brazil as an emerging power. Racism
continues to impact the lives of Afro-Brazilians in covert and overt ways despite portrayal
of the country as a racial paradise, which Brazil certainly is not.
The reflection by PATRICK BOND points out the correlation between the actions of the
recent Free Fare Movement in Brazil, which have drawn much attention from the national
and international media, with protests in South Africa at the time of the 2010 World Cup.
In South Africa protests for better living standards and for improvements in service
delivery continue with no abatement in sight. More critically, the people of South Africa
suffer the consequences of having built stadiums that are true white elephants. Will
Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup and Olympics end up the same way as in South Africa,
or can a mobilization of progressive social and political forces in Brazil avert this colossal
danger?
1
The authors ERTHAL ABDENUR and DANIEL MARCONDES DE SOUZA NETO point
out that Brazil has made great efforts in the promotion of electronic voting and judicial
cooperation in Africa, however, we would argue that the Brazilian government under
President Dilma Rouseff also needs to listen and act on the demands of Brazilian protesters
if it is genuinely a responsive democracy. BOAVENTAURA DE SOUSA SANTOS
COIMBRA reflects on the recent protests by social movements in Brazil and contends that
an immense opportunity exists for progressive forces to strengthen democracy in Brazil.
Perhaps progressive social justice movements in Africa can learn from the unfolding social
protest movements in Brazil.
Whilst ODOMARO MUBANGIZI argues that ‘Strategic areas that both Africa and Brazil
need to invest in include: industrialization; tourism; agriculture; infrastructure
development especially power, roads, air travel; human resource development and SouthSouth cooperation’ – it appears that implicit in much of this South-South cooperation is a
committment to neoliberal economic policies where profits come first and the people last.
GARIKAI CHENGU stresses in his article that Zimbabwe stands to benefit a great deal
from increasing engagement with Brasilia in energy, mining, agriculture, or poverty
alleviation policies. However, if we look at Mozambique as BOBBY PEEK addresses in his
article, there is what he describes as ‘neo-colonial exploitation underway’ by the BRICS –
which of course includes Brazil. The author is of the opinion that civil society organisations
engaged with social justice issues must ‘recognise that what the BRICS is doing is nothing
more than what the North has been doing to the South; but as we resist these practices
from the North, we must be bold enough to resist these practices from our fellow countries
in the South.’
Similarly the article by FRIENDS OF THE EARTH raises a red flag about the
performance of the Brazilian corporation in Mozambique, Vale do Rio Doce, or Vale,
which was privatized in 1997 amidst much public protest and corruption. Vale maintains
close ties with the Brazilian government and is booming in Mozambique where the Moatize
project engages in the extraction of coal for export. However, the local people of the
Chipanga community have been relocated. They have also faced poor housing and workers
have been employed on short term contracts with few rights. Alongside this the livelihoods
of 8,000 fishermen has also been adversely affected and there is environmental damage
which show little for Vale’s green credentials. Are we about to see a new colonialism from
Brazil to the South, that is, in parts of Africa?
JULIUS OKOTH realizes that the ‘Bolsa Familia’ program in Brazil can be an example to
be followed by African governments concerned with equitable income redistribution.
However, the author points out that an alliance with Brazil should not be done with eyes
closed, as there are also interests of Brazilian corporations in expanding on the mainland.
Finally, historical pieces by ALINTA SARA, MAE-LING LOKKO, TREVOR HALL,
MARCO ZOPPI remind us about the need for a retroactive look at interrelationships
between Brazil and Africa, particularly on the material heritage of Afro-Brazilian
2
returnees to West Africa and the Africanization of Brazil itself with the coming of the
enslaved to the other side of the ocean. Strong cultural links that Afro-Brazilians have
maintained as a consequence of enslavement are also examined in some of these articles.
Only time will tell how Africa engages with her new suitor, Brazil. Also, time will reveal the
extent to which this new suitor or partner is seeking genuine solidarity and economic
cooperation that reproduces neoliberal exploitative relations or seeks to transform such
relations in a new economic model of society that places ownership of production in the
hands of ordinary people.
In addition to this much needed new economic model, it is necessary that Afro-Brazilians
and continental Africans cross continents in a similar way that many African Americans
and African Caribbeans continue to visit Africa and vice versa. Language (that is, the
colonially inherited languages of Brazil and Africa) should not inhibit such physical
exchange of people to people interaction in the form of school and university exchange
programmes, trade union collaboration between unions in Africa and those in Brazil, as
well as exchanges between farmers’ organisations on both sides of the Atlantic, in addition
to tourist visits. All the aforementioned should be integral to forging genuine South to
South relationships that are people orientated towards greater cultural understanding and
social and economic justice.
*Alyxandra Gomes Nunes is Editor of the Portuguese edition of Pambazuka News
*Ama Biney (Dr) is Acting Editor in Chief of Pambazuka News
3