My perception of Brazil and that of many Haitians has been for years the land of exotic opportunities with three prominent "S" : Soccer, Samba, Sensualism, which include the Rio de Janeiro Carnival not necessarily in the same order..
A parallel to Haiti and Brazil is in the racial context, music, food, and religion.The African influence is dominant in Bahia on the north side which is now called Salvador, with many descendants of African slaves. Every New Year's day by the thousands they dress in white and head to the ocean to honor the spirit of their ancestors just like the small village of Soukri near Gonaives, Haiti . It's not just confined to Salvador. Rio has those traditions as well as other parts of Brazil.
Every Saturday night candles burn in ceremonies for the Vodou (Vodun) gods. Of all the Latin-American countries Haiti and Brazil are steeped in the practice of Vodou. In Haiti, calling up the ancestors, as per The Haitian Times' August 22 online edition: " Every year on August 15h, Vodou practitioners gather in the small village of Soukri near Gonaives, to honor the spirit of their ancestors. The ceremony coincides with Assumption Day, a Roman Catholic tradition."Carnival and soccer are passions of the first order in Brazil and Haiti. Cuba to a lesser extent is ingrained in vodouism and santeria due also to an important part of the population that is of African descent. Its most famous Ambassador-at-large to the western world for the past 50 years plus, has been Afro-Cuban singer Celia Cruz, Queen of the salsa.To the south of Brazil the European influence prevails where the climate is cooler and closer inland to Argentina.
I remember as a teenager in Haiti that my siblings would emphasize maliciously when we heard about the racial lynchings in the U.S., that due to my darker skin, Brazil would be an ideal country to immigrate to, instead of racist U.S.A.
After conquering Brazil in 1928, by the 1940s the Brazilian performer Carmen Miranda having a recording contract with RCA, was the queen of Latin songs and dances in the movie capital of the world, Hollywood, California, with all the trimmings to satisfy a U.S., race-conscious predominantly Caucasian public, unaware of Latin-America's strong Indian and African influence. America began adopting her style of dress as the latest fad. In 1955 I saw one of her last live shows, at the world famous Tropicana nightclub in Havana, and she died a few months later the same year on August 4, 1955 of a heart attack. She was 46 years old.
I finally did satisfy my curiosity by visiting Rio, my spouse twice in 1976 and 1983, and on her enthusiastic suggestion myself in '83. I was not to be disappointed as far as the three 's" were concerned (I could add a few more), and found out that dancing seriously one samba song took a good forty-five minutes to an hour to accomplish. The drums never stop and if one wants to be a good sport, you don't sit... I never complained after that how long a Haitian "konpa" was.
Rio was great regardless that Portuguese is the common language and not the familiar Spanish. Spanish was useful in responding to the Brazilian's popular ritual of "multo obligado" (much obliged), I would quickly react with ”mucho gusto" in Spanish to reciprocate as a courtesy. Both being romance languages there was immediately an affinity of cultures and therefore human warmth and friendship.
Out of my many casual observations in Rio I will start by mentioning a trivial one which had to do with wine. Having a "feijoada" (a mixture of 28 types of meat) for dinner I asked for the most popular Brazilian brand they had and to my chagrin the bottle brought by the waiter was "Chateau Duvalier". Of all places all the way in Rio, I was being haunted by memories of oppression (although to be fair, excluding the name, there was no connection between the Duvalier family of Haiti and this wine). I made sure after dinner to have a few "batidas" which is a Brazilian drink made of a sweet rum and juice flavorings, which helped me wash down the wine and forget the meaning of its name . The wine steward still was compensated and forgiven for the innocent role he played in his choice of beverage. What's in a name? No use blaming the messenger. The next day for lunch I tried a "churrascaria" which is a variety of Brazilian grilled meat but made sure I picked a Cabernet with no innuendo attached to the brand's name.
My other casual observation as a tourist, which I focused on a bit, was the racial composition of the Brazilians. There were many Carmen Miranda types but many more Whitney Houston's looks. Brazilians from the ruling class seem to be mostly caucassians, with mixed white, Indians, blacks in the middle class, and an African majority among the masses. There are also Brazilians of Japanese descent mainly in Sao Paulo and in 1983 the Japanese population in this city was estimated at 20 per cent
There is evidently much more of a cultural camarederie among Brazilians of different ethnic backgrounds than among Americans in the U.S., but the racial divide exists. In comparison again on a smaller scale in the same vein, this can be also said of Haiti's next-door neighbor Dominican Republic where all its citizens are conveniently defined as "indios". . How humorous not to say ingenious.
The very latest is a call for affirmative action putting focus on racism in Brazil. In step with last month's United Nations' global conference on racism, and copying the U.S. civil rights movement, Ivanir Dos Santos, head of of the Center of Marginalized Populations (CEAP), an organization in Rio de Janeiro, demanding affirmative programs, declared: "This country is not a racial democracy. It is one of the most racist countries in the world ".
I also visited neighboring Argentina, home of the Tango, the traditional soccer rival to Brazil and found the people warm and hospitable although there is a persistently malicious saying in South America, that if one wants to fit four Argentinians in a Mercedes, one has to "take the air out of them”. I beg to differ and during my short stay I was received as a first class visitor and actually made friends there... No complaints.
The land of Carlos Gardel is still a very beautiful place vibrating with romance and how could I forget " El Caminito: Desde que se fue, Triste vivo yo, Caminito Amigo, Y tambien me voy": El Caminito (famous Argentinian song): Since you left, I am so sad, Caminito my friend, and me too I am on my way out... It used to be a favorite of my brother Lionel, an aficionado of Castilian culture and songs. He passed on recently this year.
Argentina next door to Brazil on the southern tip of the South American continent, by contrast is considered the Europe of South America, 97% are of white European origin out of a population of 37 million people. The remaining 3% are mostly mestizos a mixture of indigenous peoples and Europeans.
As per African-American writer Elliott Hester: " Due to high mortality rates, migration, the decline of the slave trade after 1806, and a successful campaign aimed at "whitening" the country with European immigrants while eradicating non-whites in the process, the black Argentine population receded to its present state of near invisibility."
Racism is a serious problem the world over and evidence from the United-States and South Africa for instance show that race discrimination can be beaten. Giant steps for the better in that field in those countries have been taken. Its' too bad that the United States in the person of its Secretary of State Colin Powell declined to attend the United Nations conference on racism convened this last September 1st., in Durban, South Africa. As per the Miami Herald " it does not help that the primary targets of the demonstrations are not listening. Virtually no political heavyweights from Europe, North America or Asia are at the conference, while Cuban President Fidel Castro, the most prominent of 15 heads of state in attendance, is treated as a world hero."
Brazil was brought again to my attention recently after hearing the latest important changes that have occurred in the country making women finally equal to men under Brazilian law. It took the past 26 years for the Brazilian Congress to approve equal rights for women in this enormous country of 178 million people. Let's hear it: A) A husband has finally lost the right to obtain an annulment if he learns that his wife was not a virgin at the time of their marriage. B) Anyone determined to have committed adultery, which is a criminal offense, was prevented to re-marry. This law now is abrogated. C) Paternal power is presently limited. Wives will now share this responsibility and single mothers will be accepted as heads of household that was never heard of before.
Some Brazilian newspapers are in the forefront of this progress by calling the congressional approval of the new code "the burial of machismo." " These are important advances" said Jacqueline Pitanguy, a sociologist and women's rights advocate. "But we also have to ask: What took so long?" The idea that one has of Brazil as a liberal, libertine nation is ludicrous. It is the largest Roman Catholic country in the world. Divorce is shunned upon and it's only in 1978 that it was legalized. As for abortion it remains illegal except in absolutely extreme circumstances.
What I find surprising is that despite Brazil's image being perceived abroad as a liberal and open society its legislation has been extremely conservative. It seems that many judges continue to make rulings based on outdated civil codes. Many of these traditions I suppose are colonial syndromes and residues of the Catholic Church's traditional rigidity and the curse of slavery.
It is certainly not practical, really absurd, for a country suffering from poverty not to relax those rules, which in the modern world have not proven beneficial to the nation as a whole. Tell it to the pope.
( Published in The Haitian Times, New York, New York online edition 14 November - 20 November.)
