Estudo concurso comentada (55)

Prévia do material em texto

Questão 43 
 
Brazil a 21th century power 
When I appeared on a panel of journalists from international publications recently,                       
the moderator asked us to nominate our big story for the next year.  
One of the panellists suggested the UK parliamentary elections. A second                     
mentioned the continued ramifications of the financial crisis. I said Brazil, which I                         
was about to visit for the first time. 
Consider, I said: Brazil had come through the financial crisis in reasonable shape. It                           
was sitting on a vast deep sea oil find. It had just seen the world's biggest stock                                 
market listing this year the $8bn flotation of part of the Brazilian arm of Santander.                              
It would also be host to the world's two biggest sporting events: the 2014 football                             
World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games which Rio de Janeiro had won this month                              
over Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago.  
Yet as I sat on my flight to Rio, I could not suppress some trepidation at the                                 
country's well -known drawback. "Violence and crime can occur anywhere and often                     
involve firearms or other weapons," the British Foreign Office travel advice on Brazil                         
says. "Cases of carjacking occur, sometimes with the occupants being taken and                       
forced to withdraw money from their accounts at cash machines." 
Official advice is often frightening. Should the worst happen, governments do not                       
want you saying they should have warned you. 
But old Brazil hand Peter Robb was no more reassuring. Brazil was "a country of                             
immense atural wealth, at peace with its neighbours and facing no unusual                       
turbulence or social unrest within its borders. Yet the killing rate in Brazil, tens of                             
thousands of violent deaths a year, falls within the parameters of the United                         
Nations' definition of a low intensity civil war," he wrote in his hypnotically                         
compelling book A Death in Brazil. 
I saw none of this. But within two days of my departure, gun battles between rival                               
Rio drug gangs claimed at least 14 lives, including two police officers killed when                           
their helicopter was shot down. 
It is to Brazil's great credit that during several days of talks and interviews in Rio                               
and São Paulo, not one person denied that the country's violent crime was real and                             
could have a serious impact on its development, not to mention on its two                           
showcase sporting events. 
Yet Brazil is a country with outstanding potential, a welcoming and richly diverse                         
people, excellent food and several world class companies. Unlike China, Brazil has                     
no sharp ethnic conflicts and is a ulti party democracy. Brazilians complain about                       
their politicians' corruption, but point out that, unlike in the US, results in                         
presidential elections the next is due in October 2010 are announced swiftly. 
Fonte: www.ft.com/. (adaptado)