The article I attached brought to light not only the reality of the topics we discuss in class, but also how commonality of these Tourism-based injustices. It seems significant to note the employment of bureaucratic tactics by the Brazilian government in order to legitimize the relocation of the favela population. These people live in slums and have never been cared for before by the government, yet when millions of mostly Western tourists are expected to arrive there is a sudden urgency about a flood line.
This reminded me of Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place when she discusses the roads that were paved for the visit of an English Queen, and the accommodations made for some white woman or another who was only just escaping her failed life in the Europe. The difference here is that for the World Cup, the expected tourism is not only the physical presence of people, but off the cameras and the Internet. It was the world stage. Not only did the government have to impress the consumers entering their borders, but the other national powers of the world. So though the true story of Brazil and the location of the World Cup is, at least in part, that of a slum population, there is a pressure to appeal to the aesthetic and comforts of people coming from a more privileged country, but also to establish national pride to an international audience of much greater wealth witnessing Brazil from the comforts of their couch.
Take what I say next with a grain of salt because I haven't fully developed this idea and I may not be able to word it as diplomatically as I intend. This world stage creates a pressure for the Brazilian government not only to aid their tourist industry by appealing to the exoticized aesthetic of paradise for the World Cup B-roll, but also possibly to establish the appearance of a standard of living equal to much wealthier nations as a way to establish an independence or an overcoming of colonial history. If this is in some way true, then the government of Brazil is undermining its people by disguising the true state of things, which could bring these relevant post-colonial issues to the forefront of Western attention, and instead is helping to aid these colonial ideas and keep the Western tourists innocent of and un-phased by the reality of Brazil.
I think your idea is super well developed and analysis! Have you seen the street art piece of a Brazilian child crying over a soccer ball sitting on a plate that might otherwise be full of food? I agree, that the image put forth on the world stage seemed to be more important to the Brazilian government than the needs of it's poor population.
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