Brazilians often say they live in a
continent rather than a country, and
that's an excusable exaggeration.
The landmass is bigger than the
United States if you exclude Alaska;
the journey from Recife in the east
to the western border with Peru is
longer than that from London to
Moscow, and the distance between the
northern and southern borders is
about the same as that between New
York and Los Angeles. Brazil has no
mountains to compare with its Andean
neighbours, but in every other
respect it has all the scenic - and
cultural - variety you would expect
from so vast a country.
Despite the immense expanses of
the interior, roughly two-thirds of
Brazil's population live on
or near the coast; and well over
half live in cities - even in the
Amazon. In Rio and São Paulo,
Brazil has two of the world's great
metropolises, and nine other cities
have over a million inhabitants. Yet
Brazil still thinks of itself as a
frontier country, and certainly the
deeper into the interior you go, the
thinner the population becomes.
Nevertheless, the frontier
communities have expanded
relentlessly during the last fifty
years, usually hand in hand with the
planned expansion of the road
network into remote regions.
Other South Americans regard
Brazilians as a race apart,
and language has a lot to do with it
- Brazilians understand Spanish,
just about, but Spanish-speakers
won't understand Portuguese. More
importantly, though, Brazilians look
different. They're one of the most
ethnically diverse peoples in the
world: in the extreme south, German
and Italian immigration has left
distinctive European features; São
Paulo has the world's largest
Japanese community outside Japan;
there's a large black population
concentrated in Rio, Salvador and São
Luís; while the Indian influence is
most visible in the people of Amazônia
and the Northeastern interior.
Brazil is a land of profound economic
contradictions. Rapid postwar
industrialization made Brazil one of
the world's ten largest economies
and put it among the most developed
of Third World countries. But this
has not improved the lot of the vast
majority of Brazilians. The cities
are dotted with favelas,
shantytowns which crowd around the
skyscrapers, and the contrast
between rich and poor is one of the
most glaring anywhere. There are
wide regional differerences ,
too: Brazilians talk of a
"Switzerland" in the
Southeast, centred along the Rio-São
Paulo axis, and an "India"
above it; and although this is a
simplification, it's true that the
level of economic development tends
to fall the further north you go.
This throws up facts which are hard
to swallow. Brazil is the industrial
powerhouse of South America, but
cannot feed and educate its people.
In a country almost the size of a
continent, the extreme inequalities
in land distribution have led to
land shortages but not to agrarian
reform. Brazil has enormous natural
resources but their exploitation so
far has benefited just a few. The
IMF and the greed of First World
banks must bear some of the blame
for this situation, but
institutionalized corruption and the
reluctance of the country's large
middle class to do anything that
might jeopardize its comfortable
lifestyle are also part of the
problem.
These difficulties, however,
rarely seem to overshadow everyday
life in Brazil. It's fair to say
that nowhere in the world do people
know how to enjoy themselves more -
most famously in the annual
orgiastic celebrations of Carnaval
, but reflected, too, in the lively
year-round nightlife that you'll
find in any decent-sized town. This
national hedonism also manifests
itself in Brazil's highly developed beach
culture ; the country's superb music
and dancing; rich regional cuisines
; and in the most relaxed and
tolerant attitude to sexuality
- gay and straight - that you'll
find anywhere in South America. And
if you needed more reason to visit,
there's a strength and variety of popular
culture , and a genuine
friendliness and humour in the
people that is tremendously
welcoming and infectious.
