Besides the green that represents the forest and the yellow for the gold deposits, the Brazilian flag sports the phrase “Ordem e Progresso” (Order and Progress). This quick and dirty positivist slogan from the 19th century rightly incites irony. Consider the irrepressible and endearing craziness of the Brazilian people. Not much order. Then consider the dispossessed majority. Not much progress.
Unlike Americans, Brazilians don’t usually wrap themselves in their flag. This week Americans will unveil Old Glory on July 4. The Brazilian flag doesn’t even have a nickname. On September 7, Brazilian Independence Day, we’ll see nothing – except traffic jams on expressways to the beach.
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Not that Brazilians don’t honor dates they consider important. Forget your girlfriend’s birthday and see what happens. Lovers Day, the local equivalent of Valentine’s Day, celebrated here on June 12, generates at least as much traffic as getaway day of a three-day weekend; couples scamper about to meet at bars and restaurants and motels (motels, here, being rent by-the-hour love nests). Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Kids’ Day, and Secretaries’ Day – there’re all dutifully noted. Brazilians seem truly hurt if you suggest that Mother’s Day was originally an advertising ploy or that International Women’s Day emerged from a socialist-feminist tradition. How can you question Mother’s Day? Women’s Day is for giving flowers.
Yet, as I write, a Brazilian flag remains draped outside my São Paulo home. A miniature version is attached to the window of the passenger side of our car. And - partly orchestrated, partly spontaneous – the Brazilian players literally wrapped themselves in their flags after winning the 2002 World Cup.
Thankfully Brazil hasn’t fought a war in over a century. With no external enemies, but with memories still fresh of a nationalist-authoritarian military dictatorship, the World Cup offers Brazilians a singular outlet for their patriotism.
Game Day
Game time in Brazil was 8 a.m. I set my alarm for 6:30 to be able to get to where I was going in time for the kickoff.
I awoke before the alarm sounded - to the sound of firecrackers. I’d gone to sleep to the same sound. I wasn’t startled – just pissed.
Firecrackers are a regular part of the World Cup in Brazil. They rang in slowly at the beginning, when most Brazilians remained unbelievers. But as the team began to win and advance, the explosions became more and more frequent. Because of the time difference with Korea and Japan, games started in Brazil between 3:30 and 8:30 a.m. Woe to whoever dared to try to sleep on a Brazilian game day. Boom! Boom! On go the lights!
As the final approached, explosions thickened. Firecrackers began exploding three days before the game. It is a wonder how anybody still had ammunition by Saturday night, but they did. Silence enjoyed no truce. On Sunday morning, Brazil sounded like the Gaza Strip. I dragged myself out of bed. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Fireworks, like makeshift flags, are sold by ad hoc vendors. The Cup thus encourages what Brazilians call the informal economy – entrepreneurs who pay no taxes and heed very few if any laws. Given absurdly high Brazilian taxes and a bureaucratic maze than any right-thinking entrepreneur must navigate, many small businesses ignore the government all together. These are the informals.
Informals can’t be bothered with safety standards. It would be interesting to learn how many Brazilian kids are unable raise five fingers to commemorate the “penta” (a five-peat championship) because they recently blew off a finger or two.
I managed to bear my firecracker cross and trudged along to something called the Club Transatlântico, the five-star clubhouse of a group linked to the German community in Brazil. There Brazilians and Germans would unite in a 400-seat auditorium to watch the game on a big screen. I’d scammed a press pass for BrazilMax.
At 7 a.m., there I was. Bleary-eyed and unable to take advantage of a great Brazilian-German buffet. Feed me ‘till I gag! Too early. Sorry. I managed to grab some coffee and orange juice. Sticking with the liquid strategy, I soon got myself a beer. They had German beer, better than Brazilian. Before the start: Germany 1, Brazil 0.
The Party
When I arrived, plenty of two-fisted folks had beaten me to the beer-coffee combo. Jim Morrison and Chico Science would be proud. Alas, they’re both dead.
Alive, sort of, were the members of one of those folkloric German bands. You know what I’m talking about – those guys in the funny green hats and knickers who wear suspenders that cross in the back. They play accordion stuff – everything that you’ve heard before but were really afraid to ask about. Listening to them, you understand why Dominguinhos and Renato Borghetti have such a tough time. These “Roll Out the Barrel” guys set the accordion back by at least two millennia.
The Brazilian press soaked it up. Brazil is an immigrant country, and the local press loves to film immigrants and their descendants in traditional garb, eating traditional food, drinking traditional drinks, dancing around idiotically, rooting for the long lost patria. Maybe they can’t speak the old language, but who cares? It makes good TV. (The only problem was finding Americans interested in soccer. The USA team advanced pretty far, but the expats failed their media role. If the USA ever makes a World Cup final, the Brazilian press is going to have a heck of a time finding an American who really cares.)
The Game
About ten minutes before game time, fashionably almost late, an eight-piece percussion group from Rosas de Ouro (Golden Roses), a São Paulo samba school, barged in. Accompanied by four “mulata” dancers, they stole the show.
As the game started, the bateria and the crowd made plenty of noise. I liked that because it drowned out the stupid nationalistic commentary of the Globo network’s Galvão Bueno. Bueno announces games as if the opposing team didn’t exist. If you want to understand what’s happening, forget it. Often he doesn’t even know the names of the players on the opposing teams. For somebody who gets big bucks as the top announcer for one of the world’s biggest TV networks, it amounts incompetence. So I enjoyed the noise.
There was one thing I didn’t enjoy. A bunch of chain-smoking Germans occupied the table in front of me. So I’m American? The Cup is a good time to represent national aspirations, and mine include not having smoke spewed in my face. So what?
At halftime the score stood 0-0. Supposedly we were primed for a Battle of the Bands. But the German accordionists didn’t even try. They let the Sambistas occupy center stage. An accordion player was reduced to dancing with the mulattas - which I don't think he minded too much.
The game was decided in the second half, but at the Club Transamêrico the result seemed anti-climatic. The Germans won on the beer, the Brazilians on music and soccer. Score: 2-1.
I only have one question: will my “informal” flags last until 2006?
