First let me be clear I have incountered no direct predjudice, on account of being American, but I people approach me differently once they know I am a foreigner.
The Brazilian attitude towards America is made up of two almost contradictory semtiments. In regards to purely cultural aspects Brazilian national pride is strong. Brazilain music, food, traditions, are all highly valued. In general Brazilians concider themselves apart from, even above, other South-American cultures.At the same time there is a strong admiration even envy of anything American or European. This attitude is held most strongly among young Brazilians. This envy focuses mostly on foreign technology, cinema, and life style. These two attitudes are in costant conflict, not only in Brazilian pop-culture but also in governmental policy.
I asked a Brazilian friend about this contradiction and he told me, “See we want everything American, we want their money, their style, there success, everything, everything American we want, but we don’t want to be America.”
A simple example of this is McDonald’s. McDonald’s in Brazil is an extremely trendy almost high class returant. The McDonald’s closest to my house has two stories, includes a separate, McCafé coffee shop, and offers free internet access to it’s customers. The food is exactly like food in any American McDonal]s, but it is much more expensive. For the same price as a Big-Mac combo meal I could pay an all you can eat Brazilian Grill Buffet. The admiration of American culture is obvious.
Yet all around town you find no Brazilian copies of McDonalds. Brazilian Hambergurs outside of MdDonald”s are different intirely from American Hambergers. I’ve even heard some Brazilians comment that “Brazil burgers” were invented separately and orrigionally by the Brazilians withought American influence. They admire American culture but do not want to accept that they are influenced by it.
Incidently they think the same thing about the Airplane, insisting that the first airplane was invented by a Brazilian, Santos DuMont. Who worked completely independent of any external influence.
This national pride rarely leads to serious predjudice. Last week however I witnessed first hand the extremes which these sentiments can drive people.
President Bush visited Brazil, primarily to negotiate the opening of trade barriers between the U.S. and Brazil. All the people I questioned about these negotiations were unilaterally in favor of opening trade barriers. It would bring American products and American bussness to Brazil. At the same time in cities all over the country there were huge demonstrations against Bush’s visit. Here are some photos.
To me the reasoning behind the protests was unclear. When I asked why they were protesting people gave two answers, first that Bush had constructed trade barriers that had hurt Brazil for decades and secondly of coarse the war in Iraq.
Whenever I pointed out that Bush could not have been responisible for trade barriers erected decades ago, and that his purpose in visiting Brazil was to open barriers they immediately resorted to the “we want peace not war,” occationally I tried to explain that the purpose of the war we were fighting was to bring peace, that if America did not fight this war, war would soon spread even to Brazil.
Two aspects of the protests struck me as nearly obsurd, first that the “Peace protests” were aceptionaly violent.
A sort of it’s “O.K. for us to use violence to end violene, but you cannot do the same.”
Secondly that the protests were held mostly by women as part of the “International women’s day” celebration. I could not help but think what the Islamic extremists think of women being so vocal. Or what they think of the “International Women’s Day,” for that matter.
This womans sign reads “Women for Peace,”
One woman I saw, but will not show pictured, wore only a string bikini bottom. She was painted in Brazilain colors except for her Breasts which were painted Black. She held a “American’s get out of Iraq,” sign. I wonder if the terrorists would praise this women for Bravery, or try to kill her for immodesty.
I guess At the heart of all this confusion and contradiction their the same pride and predudice that exists in all parts of the world. Ironically I think much of this anti-American sentiment is taken from American culture.
I belive that in order to move forward the world must unite. We must find a way to convince people that they can accept all good things world cultures have to offer without loosing any of their own culture. Better yet we need begin to see ourselves as members of a world culture.
3 comments:
Boy;
Great post, very insightful. Your first hand experience is beyond mine. I do think you have hit on the point of why the Brazilians are anti-war. It is part of they are effort to be like Americans. You were more subtle in making this claim; allow me to be blunt. These marchers, who obviously do not know enough to be marching, are just like the ones who marched today in Salt Lake City, and that is who they want to be.
What is equally ironic, is that the mindless marchers in Salt Lake are also trying to be someone else, the anti-war hippies of the 60's. Of whom they have no clearer concept than the Brazilians do of American's motivations or politics. Thus we have masses of foolish people pretending to be who they are not, protesting a war they cannot comprehend, and angrily attacking all who speak the truths that would bring in the light to dispel their carefully concocted illusions.
Exactly, Library girl I could again use the example of the Hamburger, obviously not an american inverntion Hamburg I assume though I could be wrong. How many times did I hear people shout the slogan Language, Borders, Culture, meaning the presurvation of the American way of life. How nieve, don't they realize that all three of these things are transitive combinations of varrious other languages, borders, and culture. Peolple in my field talk about globalization as if it were something that is threatening to spread throughout the world in the next fifty years. I think the world has been globalized at least since the British Empire, and of coarse if we go back far enough we find an entirely integrated human race, or seperations are temporary, unnatural, and completely arbitrary, kept in force today only by predjudice.
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