I regret the poor article.
Analytical ability is getting rare and rare. Several journalists in Brazil do the very same - jolt down a bunch of ideas, but do not really forward a paper.
In addition, there is a more or less disguised agenda, a sort of political purpose underlying the article. Clearly, there is an attempt to tackle two main embarrassing issues: the first, justifying the timing- why now? The article, however, fails in this respect. None of the items offered - troops back from Haiti, etc. - bear the weight of plausability.
The second, convincing it was "different this time", which seemed to be more relevant than anything else in the article. Accordingly, it is stated many received the panacea as a turning point, which is just lero lero, that is, bullshit. Sorry for my carioquês, I mean ungrounded talk.
The article passes as good once the readers also lack a keen concern with coherence. They read fast and, had they more time, even then they would not go back and take a second reading.
1. it involves an ultimatum for the gangs to leave
and
there remains plenty of drug-dealing with some change, such as being discreet and not showing heavy guns.
2. many gangsters have few other options (being illiterate, etc.)
and
too lucrative a business to give up without a bigger war. So, the governor's plan to set up schools, hospitals, leisure, etc will be useless...
3. the criminals co-ordinately acted to intimidate the governor in view of his plans to "pacify", etc.
and
it was a provocation no worse than many others.
4. It was a turning point, a conquest
and
a trial of strength the government could not afford to lose
By taking in heads and tails, we concluded the government could not afford to lose and... won. It is the main disguised thesis in the article.
Then it goes on like a valsa (dance), one step to one side, one more to the other side. How did the government win?
Win? Not quite, really.
For the gangs, the article states, will regroup; corrupt policemen are still in place; profits are impossible to forsake.
Then, what is different after all?
More valsa: political will (how to measure that?) and "pacification".
By reading three times, one gets a better sense of the real meaning of that pacification: trafficking will go on, but favela-dwellers will have "rights and protection" of citizenship. Hum... So it will remain a territory of organised crime but no one will claim it is not a State territory. Dwellers, you also add, no longer hate both gangs and police, but hate only the former. Gosh, that sounds much worse! A much closer partnership authorities-criminals than just corruption and/or indifference.
How revealing, in this sense, as the article thus ends: the favela-dwellers now "dare to believe that the state is for them too". Too... not only for the gangs.
Should I praise you for the valsa? If readers could read the valsa and eventually get to the interpretation above, it would be fair.
But they cannot.
ah! cariocas are not the residents, but the natives of the city.
Analytical ability is getting rare and rare. Several journalists in Brazil do the very same - jolt down a bunch of ideas, but do not really forward a paper.
In addition, there is a more or less disguised agenda, a sort of political purpose underlying the article. Clearly, there is an attempt to tackle two main embarrassing issues: the first, justifying the timing- why now? The article, however, fails in this respect. None of the items offered - troops back from Haiti, etc. - bear the weight of plausability.
The second, convincing it was "different this time", which seemed to be more relevant than anything else in the article. Accordingly, it is stated many received the panacea as a turning point, which is just lero lero, that is, bullshit. Sorry for my carioquês, I mean ungrounded talk.
The article passes as good once the readers also lack a keen concern with coherence. They read fast and, had they more time, even then they would not go back and take a second reading.
The lack of coherence
One thing or the other, right? But the article states both ideas in each of the pairs below:1. it involves an ultimatum for the gangs to leave
and
there remains plenty of drug-dealing with some change, such as being discreet and not showing heavy guns.
2. many gangsters have few other options (being illiterate, etc.)
and
too lucrative a business to give up without a bigger war. So, the governor's plan to set up schools, hospitals, leisure, etc will be useless...
3. the criminals co-ordinately acted to intimidate the governor in view of his plans to "pacify", etc.
and
it was a provocation no worse than many others.
4. It was a turning point, a conquest
and
a trial of strength the government could not afford to lose
By taking in heads and tails, we concluded the government could not afford to lose and... won. It is the main disguised thesis in the article.
Then it goes on like a valsa (dance), one step to one side, one more to the other side. How did the government win?
Win? Not quite, really.
For the gangs, the article states, will regroup; corrupt policemen are still in place; profits are impossible to forsake.
Then, what is different after all?
More valsa: political will (how to measure that?) and "pacification".
By reading three times, one gets a better sense of the real meaning of that pacification: trafficking will go on, but favela-dwellers will have "rights and protection" of citizenship. Hum... So it will remain a territory of organised crime but no one will claim it is not a State territory. Dwellers, you also add, no longer hate both gangs and police, but hate only the former. Gosh, that sounds much worse! A much closer partnership authorities-criminals than just corruption and/or indifference.
How revealing, in this sense, as the article thus ends: the favela-dwellers now "dare to believe that the state is for them too". Too... not only for the gangs.
Should I praise you for the valsa? If readers could read the valsa and eventually get to the interpretation above, it would be fair.
But they cannot.
ah! cariocas are not the residents, but the natives of the city.
Para ler o artigo da revista: http://www.economist.com/node/17627963?story_id=17627963
mariangela pedro wrote: