The crime is being poor
The policeman in Brazil is a soldier. The police car is “caveirão” (something like a war tank called “Big Skull”). The entire hierarchy, strategy and training of the police is not just military but war. That’s because at some point we buy into the idea that we’re at war.
War against whom? “Against drugs”, replies the father of the family, judge, religious and cocaine user. “Against organized crime”, replies the father of the family, policeman, religious and militiaman.
Everyone knows a drug user, even if they never call them that. Everyone has idols, admires singers and even billionaires, without judging them for the drugs they openly use.
I’m not even mentioning the legal drugs, which are sold in pharmacies or supermarket shelves. I’m talking about drugs so feared by good citizens, who don’t even know why they hate them so much.
Even so, the current policy in Brazil is that drugs should be prohibited, and those who live on them, criminalized. Whoever protects the then criminal, be it his girlfriend, his friend or his own mother, is now an accomplice. “A thug’s friend, a thug is”.
To survive, the criminal also becomes a soldier. Can we call this the easy life? Convenient shortcut? Who knows? Nothing changes the fact that he is now a soldier. He’s going to die young and he’s going to take as many cops with him as he can. Because he’s at war.
Society looks for immediate solutions to his problems and nothing is more immediate than killing and dying. Kill others, die who doesn’t matter. Poor people who kill poor people in an arena, under the watchful eyes of rich society, or far from it, but privileged enough to sit on the couch and watch and judge all these deaths, dramatically presented by Datena (famous TV presenter in Brazil) of the time.
On the last day 11th, the war toppled the memorial to those killed in the Jacarezinho massacre (Jacarezinho is a brazillian neighborhood with high rates of violence, mainly related to the consumption of narcotics and drug trafficking). The memorial said:
“Homage to the victims of the Jacarezinho massacre!
On 05/06/2021, 27 residents and a server were killed, victims of the genocidal and racist policy of the State of Rio de Janeiro, which makes Jacarezinho a square of war, to fight a retail drug market that will never cease to exist. .
No death should be forgotten.
No slaughter should be normalized.”
Understanding that the 28 dead in Jacarezinho are victims is just the first step, still far from the solution, but it’s a step that the Jacarezinho community is willing to take.
On the other hand, the attitude of the Police to tear down the memorial conveys the clear message of the aforementioned maxim that “a friend of a bandit, a bandit is”. An intimidation to all who inhabit the arena of this war and try to make it a home, even losing their children every day to an avoidable conflict.
But war against whom? “Against the people of the hills”, replies the father of the family, a dealer in an upscale neighborhood, with a select clientele. Protected from violence, he lives where the caveirão will never pass. A neighborhood where there will never be a massacre like the one in Jacarezinho.
Every war has two sides that lose and one that makes a lot of money. The Police are one of the sides of this war, and they will use any means they can to win it. Blaming them is useless. We can only state the obvious: war will exist as long as it is profitable.
Profitable for drug lords? For the corrupt cops? No, those are just soldiers. Privileged soldiers, but still soldiers. Profit is rooted in the system and fills the pockets of those who don’t show up and who may not even be able to fight.
So is it a lost war? For sure. But it’s also a war that doesn’t have to happen. Anyone who likes war is not a thief or a policeman.
I already talked about the war in:
