People who have just arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will be warned by experienced predecessors: "Don't go out with a bag, if there are many bits and pieces, you have to use what to pack, take a black garbage bag, camera, watch, mobile phone, can not bring it without it, wear it plainly, it is best to slippers old man shirt." Don't bring too much cash, but bring at least 20 Reyrells in case you get robbed. ”
If you laugh and say, "It's not that serious, aren't you too nervous?" ”
The seniors will put their faces on the face and tell you seriously: "After living in Rio for a long time, no one is not robbed, I am by no means joking with you, sometimes drug addicts, for the money of a drug use (about 20 Rarell), can shoot you." ”
This is the truth!
Locations of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, one of the most violent cities in Brazil, is so horrific that the violence is so appalling that crimes occur from time to time, taking 2018 as an example, in this short year, Rio has had 5346 homicides, an average of 15 homicides per day. And the roots of these crimes almost all come from the slums outside Rio called the "City of God."
The homicide rate in Rio de Janeiro in 2000 was 51/100,000, well above the Brazilian average of 26.76/100,000 in the same period
Such a beautiful city, but there are so violent gangsters, people do not understand why God created such a city of God: beautiful, but people dare not get close.
The most expensive villas in Hong Kong are in the Mid-Levels, but the most beautiful in the Mid-Levels of Rio, those with sea views, are slums.
Slums are the land of original sin, and many of the violent crimes that occur in Rio are based on or inextricably linked to slums.
Rio with mountains on its back to the sea
Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil. According to statistics, there are more than 1,000 slums in The city of Rio alone, and of the nearly 12 million Rio people, about 25% of the population, that is, nearly 3 million people live in the slums.
The legendary stars Ronaldo and Pele, who are loved and sought after by the people of the world, have also spent their childhood in the slums.
▲ Rio's slum built on a mountain
There is no government police and army in the slums to maintain order, and gangsters have long been entrenched in the slums to do evil, and even replaced the government to manage all affairs in the slums.
Gangs are the rule-makers in the slums, where all illegal businesses become the norm, including drugs, arms, and pornography.
Here, shop opening hours, school hours, are determined by the gang. Here, if a resident is robbed, the "enforcer" they turn to is the gang, not the police. Here, gangsterism is king.
The biggest source of income in the slums is the drug trade, gangsters use force to monopolize the drug trade in Rio, they are well organized, have their own set of business operations, and have a strict hierarchical structure, different levels of employees receive different salaries, like the operating system of large companies.
▲ During the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, drugs with the logo of the Rio Olympic Games printed on them
Gangs used large sums of money from drug exchanges to take advantage of Brazil's lax gun control system to buy guns, bombs, planes and other weapons and equipment.
The gangsters' weapons and equipment are much more high-end and atmospheric than those of the Rio police, so that the average police officer does not dare to enter the slums except for the elite troops.
Moreover, every time the elite troops entered the slums to surround and suppress drug dealers, they also had to use high-end equipment such as armored vehicles and helicopters to dare to enter.
▲ Rio police found 6 tons of drugs and marijuana hidden in the slum, which were only collected by helicopter
There are many gangs in the slums, and these different gangs often have vicious murders with each other in order to compete for profits.
Whether it is a violent clash between gangsters and police, or a gunfight between gangsters, there will be many innocent people who have been injured by stray bullets, which is one of the reasons why there are so many homicides in Rio.
Gangs have a very developed drug chain, and in order to maintain and further expand their drug trafficking networks, they need people who sell drugs, and young and beautiful women are their prime targets.
The gangsters use the method of first luring girls into drugs, and then forcing them to go into prostitution to earn money to take drugs, so that these women who have lost their feet become an important group of gangsters who collect money and support drug sales.
▲ Underage runaway girls soliciting business on the side of the Road in Brazil
When violence becomes a social trend, the most direct impact is on children. Under the influence of violence, their cognition and behavior become extreme and extreme.
As a result of witnessing the crimes of adults for a long time, the children who grew up in these slums are born to know what sin is, and at a young age, they have begun to rob, kill, and do no evil.
Their idols are gangster bosses, big drug lords, who use violent crimes and killings as games, thus growing into a new generation of gangsters who continue to commit lawless violent crimes.
How did these thousands of slums in Rio come about? And why do millions of people live in slums?
The favelas of Rio date back to the end of the 19th century. At that time, the Peasants' War broke out in Brazil, and after the war subsided, a large number of veterans returned to the then capital, Rio de Janeiro. They thought the government would be able to pay military salaries and bonuses, but the government was slow to cash in on the rewards and salaries.
These disappointed veterans had to build a simple shed on an uninhabited hill in the center of Rio de Janeiro, and renamed the mountain favela (Portuguese, a vigorous weed) mountain, which became the first slum called favela. Since then, favela has become synonymous with slums.
At that time, Brazilian society had a large number of slaves, slaves were extremely cruelly abused by Brazilian plantation owners, in order to survive, many slaves escaped from the plantations and ran to the capital Rio de Janeiro, the exiled slaves had nowhere to live, and built many shantytowns on the unowned land of Rio, which were called "fugitive slave castles".
In 1888, slavery was abolished in Brazil. Many of the emancipated slaves chose to settle in cities of a certain size. Using natural materials that could be found, they built a bunch of simple and low houses under Monte Cristo on the outskirts of Rio City, and the slums of Rio were officially born.
By the 20th century, global urbanization was accelerating, and Brazil was no exception. Rural people poured into the cities, but the level of industrialization could not keep up with the process of urbanization, and the urban facilities were not complete, and the lack of jobs and housing made the cities unable to accommodate these many immigrants.
Slums became the only option for these immigrants, and the slums grew in size, spreading from the foot of Mount Jesus to the rest of Rio and finally to what they are today.
If the "City of God" in Rio is a paradise for crime, and the chronic disease of slums has penetrated into the marrow of Brazilian society, what is the reason for the existence of the "City of God" and what causes the Brazilian government to eliminate slums, to eradicate gangs in slums, and to stop the spread of violent crime?
First, the deformed economic structure has caused a lag in the development of Brazilian society
Although It has been nearly two hundred years since Brazil got rid of colonial rule, today's Brazilian economy is sluggish, the gap between rich and poor is serious, political corruption, various political and economic groups are tilting against each other, and gang activities are repeatedly prohibited.
At that time, the Portuguese colonists established a large plantation economy in Brazil, allowing Brazil to establish trade with its own suzerainty, but not with other countries. This makes Brazil's economy monolithic and capitalist economy slow.
More than forty years ago, the Brazilian TV series "Slave Girl" told the story of what happened during the era of the great plantation. This TV series once swept the world, and the big countries in the East, which were still on the eve of opening up to the outside world, also introduced this TV series.
Chinese poster for the Brazilian TV series "Slave Girl" (top) and local propaganda poster for Brazil (part 2)
Brazil is extremely rich in natural resources, with fertile arable land for coffee and sugar cane, high-quality minerals rich in diamonds, gold, ore, iron, manganese and countless other mineral resources.
Just as some countries in the Middle East derive their wealth mainly from the sale of oil, Brazil's abundant natural resources are also the main source of Brazil's wealth. This also contributes to the dependence of Brazilians on natural resources.
In the face of insufficient domestic demand, Brazil has chosen "import substitution" and "export-oriented" policies, that is, exporting agricultural and mineral primary products in exchange for the required industrial products, resulting in a continuous decline in the international competitiveness of Brazil's manufacturing industry and slow industrial development.
Secondly, the flawed political system has caused problems in Brazilian society
According to Brazil's political system, the president is elected by referendum. Instead of forming the basis of political civilization, the one-man,1-vote political system has created political barbarism.
Brazil's education for all is relatively low, and in some places the literacy rate is basically the lowest in South America. Influenced by empathy, many less educated voters tend to vote for people who have similar life experiences to them. For example, former Brazilian President Lula, known as the "son of Brazil", only went to the fifth grade of primary school, and his successor Rousseff did not finish college.
Brazil is a country with low literacy rates in South America
Although the education and knowledge of a leader is not necessarily directly related to the ability to govern the country, it turns out that after these leaders ascend to high positions, they begin to accumulate money madly (Lula was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison by a Brazilian federal judge for embezzlement and money laundering; Rousseff was impeached for oil corruption), and failed to make due contributions to Brazil's economy and people's livelihood, but further aggravated Brazil's corruption situation, and the economy stagnated, making the people at the bottom more and more impoverished.
Lula and Rousseff
At the same time, because the government relies on democratic methods to solve problems in everything, and brazil's existing system has many loopholes, democracy has become populism, and the exchange of power and money is cloaked in the legal cloak of democratic politics.
The inefficiency of government affairs, coupled with the contradictions between the internal political parties, the government has become weak and weak, resulting in the gradual deterioration of public order, the emergence of gangster forces, and these gangster forces are difficult to eliminate as soon as they appear, and finally, the gangs continue to spread like a virus, and the government is powerless to solve it.
Brazil's society is full of structural contradictions, slow economic development, race, class, rich and poor are seriously divided, although there is democracy and freedom, but the national legal system is not smooth, the country's guns are rampant, and the serious social problem is the reason why Brazil's slums have existed for a long time and have not collapsed.
The slums are lined with gangs, pornography, drugs, and violent murders. In response, the Brazilian government has only addressed the symptoms rather than the root causes, simply using force to suppress and reduce violence, while ignoring the deep-seated causes behind the slum problem.
Heavily armed elite troop fighters patrol the slums of Rio
Because of extreme poverty, coupled with lack of good education and lack of means of livelihood, people here have lived in slums for almost all generations, and very few people can go out, theft, drug trafficking, robbery, violent crime, and their way of survival. Even if the older generation of gangs is suppressed, a new generation of criminal gangs will soon re-emerge.
Politics, economics, education, all kinds of factors cause Rio's crime rate to be high and cannot be eradicated, this city of God is the ultimate test of God's will to mankind, and Rio de Janeiro, which has all the good things, is still the world of the dark forces.