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Debate: ‘Is hosting the Olympics a mistake for Rio?’

Yes: Akshay Bilolikar

Brazil had a fairly rotten 2015. Protests took place against rising unemploy­ment, a crippling recession and un­precedented corruption; against this back­drop of deteriorating public finances and living standards, Brazil is set to host the world’s biggest party. Bigger even than Bra­zil’s last party, the 2014 FIFA World Cup, this year’s Olympic Games are expected to cost the indebted South American giant just over $11 billion. 

The situation couldn’t be more different from October 2009, when Rio de Janeiro roundly defeated Madrid to become host in 2016. The economy soared out of reces­sion to yearly growth of 7.5 per cent; as Old Europe and the United States faltered, Brazil and its fellow BRIC economies would be the engine of global prosperity. After Russia and China’s Olympic Games, Brazil would stake its claim to the future world economy.

A new world order was being forged, and Rio 2016 would an­nounce Brazil’s proud new role to the world. Like Sochi and Athens before it, Brazil has fallen into a trap. The Olympics, in all their splendour do not pay. Just days after the closing ceremony, the Greek government was warning the European Union of poor debt and deficit figures; though the $7.5 billion taxpayer bill would barely have put a dent in Greece’s then $168 billion national debt, it was money that could clearly have been better spent. In the agony of austerity Greece, many Greeks regret the ex­pense.

Even in the face of enormous bills, there is talk of the ‘Olympic legacy.’ The investment in often impoverished parts of inner cities can deliver economic and social benefits for generations, while a tur­bocharged interest in sport and exercise can improve health on a mass scale. With these aims in mind, the London Olympics redeveloped much of Tower Hamlets, Ne­wham and Hackney. Transport for London invested heavily for the games, with an up­graded Overground and DLR to show for it. Four years on, though there has been no real uptake in exercise, ordinary people in less af­fluent parts of London have benefitted from investment at a time of government cuts.

The Rio games, by contrast, will be hosted almost entirely in the city’s wealthy Copa­cabana, Maracaña and Deodoro districts, with relatively few resources focused on the city’s poorer residents. Indeed, residents of the city’s favelas (slums) are to host ‘Police Pacification Units.’

The authorities in Rio as a whole have been criticised by Human Rights Watch for ‘rou­tine manipulation of evidence’ in their fight against violent criminal gangs. In one of the world’s most unequal countries, the Olympic legacy is not likely to be widely spread. The hangover will be felt by all, but all the fun will be restricted to a small élite.

This year, the Olympics look set to be an expensive indictment of the Brazilian political class, rather than a celebration of Brazil’s emergence as an economic power. With inflation in double digits and the Rous­seff presidency embroiled in the Petrobras scandal, around half of Brazilians think that military intervention is necessary to combat corruption.

The President’s approval rating currently hovering around nine per cent, will not be helped by the exuberance shown to a lucky few. Just as the World Cup led to protests in 2014, so too could the Olympics catalyse the anger and disillusionment felt by many Bra­zilians into something far more fiery.

There are still many reasons to be positive about the Rio games. Rio might just buck the Olympic trend of reduced tourism, and the Olympics could provide a much needed boost to the Brazilian economy.

The games could provoke a sense of popu­lar optimism about Brazil’s future. However, historical example cautions against such optimism.

Hosting the Olympics has always been a gamble, but after a disastrous 2015, it seems unlikely that the Olympic Games could do anything but worsen the pain for a nation racked by inequality.

 

No: Jamie Huffer

When it was awarded the Olympic Games in 2009, Brazil was the world’s sweetheart. Ex-President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva had navigated his country through the stormy waters of global financial crisis and into a veritable boom, and Lula retired with every confidence for the future of Brazil. Then, it took its rightful place alongside the world’s other emerging markets of the ‘BRIC’ (Brazil, Russia, India and China), and decided, as many emerging economies do, that it was ready to show off its vast progress to the world by hosting not one, but two major sporting events, the World Cup of 2014, and this summer’s Olympics. The sky was the limit.

But was this decision a mistake for Rio de Janeiro and Brazil? The easy – and perhaps, at first glance, most obvious – answer is “Yes, of course!” When you take into account the fact that the country’s President, Dilma Rousseff, is currently embroiled in the largest corrup­tion scandal in Brazilian political history, that the approval rating of her presidency has reached a historic low due to fallout from the scandal, as well as a severe decline in economic performance, the picture is looking fairly bleak for Brazil.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, and, due to all of the above, if the vote were to be held today there is almost no chance that Rio de Janeiro would be selected as the Olympic host city. Unfortunately, Brazil has made its proverbial bed and, come the summer, it will have to lie in it. The Olympics, however, should not become synonymous with the doom and gloom that many commentators expect it to bring. As the first Latin American host city in history, Rio 2016 should be seen as an op­portunity to galvanise both the capital and the rest country and to attempt to recapture the positive spirit of 2009, much like the effect the 1992 Games had on its host city, Barcelona.

Admittedly, like many, I am very sceptical about the level of impact that the tourism from a major sporting event like the Olympics can have on the Brazilian economy. However, the opportunities for and role of international investment in the city since the announce­ment of the successful bid are undeniable. Moreover, Rio will benefit from much-needed improvements in infrastructure, yet it is obvi­ous that this or even greater infrastructural improvement would have been possible with the money used to build the number of Olym­pic venues. It’s obvious that the reasons why hosting the Olympics is not a mistake cannot be economic, as whether there are tangible economic benefits to hosting remains unclear.

Where the Games can make an impact, however, is on the country’s social landscape. In spite of the enormous social progress of the governments of the early 21st century, which have seen tens of millions of people climb either into the middle class or out of poverty, Brazil is still a very divided country, with a vast number of socio-political, racial and historical factors at play. It makes sense, then, that its bustling capital, Rio de Janeiro, is a microcosm of this nationwide divide.

Outside of Brazil, we are all guilty of thinking of Rio as one of the world’s great party cities, of seeing the glamorous, golden beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana through Samba-and-Carnaval-tinted lenses. For the upper-middle class, well-to-do Cariocas that inhabit these beachside districts, this exter­nal perception is largely accurate. Looking down on these affluent districts from the hills that surround, however, are the equally ‘iconic’ favelas, shanty towns that are riddled with extreme poverty, drug use and violence. The divide, then, becomes as much physical as it is social. As Brazilian artist Vik Muniz puts it, “[Rio] is like St. Tropez surrounded by Mogadishu”.

As alarming as this description is, the Olym­pics offer Rio a chance to take a breath and pause; historically, nothing unites Brazil like sport. Nearly 200,000 people crammed into the Maracanã to watch the heavily-favoured

Brazil take on Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup final, and, as one, the nation mourned their shock defeat. Footballers like Pelé and Garrincha came from abject poverty and, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, grew into folkloric heroes as tales of their skill inspired generations of young, poor athletes across the country. In more recent memory, the scenes of Brazilian fans and players in São Paulo at the opening game of the 2014 World Cup were truly breath taking.

Hosting the Olympics in 2016 may not be ideal for Brazil, but if it can be a catalyst for the country to get back on course, then it will certainly not be a mistake.

 

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