Brazil, Between Life and Death
“This photo-journalistic work has as main objective to show the reality of emergency rooms, the lives of people in favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the struggle to fight this invisible enemy, coronavirus, the burials, the tragedy of this genocidal government, the suffering of the population in favelas, and the daily life that the pandemic has failed to change.” — Fabio Teixeira
Cajú cemetery, in Rio de Janeiro. April 2021.
Municipal cemetery of Duque de Caxias. May 2020.
Curfews have always been a part of life in Rio’s favelas. Long before the pandemic, being out in public has inevitably meant imminent danger. Disputes between criminal/political factions and the widespread use of military artillery pose a blatant threat to life and to the physical integrity of residents. The sounds of bullets, police cars, shouting, blood and bodies on the streets unscrupulously reminds the population of the punishment that comes with disobeying orders to stay home. The imminent threat to life posed by COVID-19, however, isn’t as blatant. The virus is invisible, silent, and kills behind closed doors in off-limits hospital units. In this photo-journalistic series, Fabio Teixeira visually exposes the overwhelming presence of these microscopic entities, and their crushingly material repercussions.
São José Municipal Hospital, a unit in Duque de Caxias exclusively dedicated to coronavirus patients. April 2021.
“Everything continues to function normally in the favelas,” says Neila Marinho, journalist and communications advisor for Voice of the Communities (Voz das Comunidades). Historically, “the curfew is an imposition of local drug traffickers” in order to make the population “comply with the rules.” But today, there is no social distancing, only “government neglect aiming mostly at the opportunity for corruption, without caring about people's lives.”
Last year, Rio de Janeiro’s governor, Witzel, was impeached for conducting fraudulent COVID-19 supplies acquisitions, and misappropriating emergency funds. While similar situations occurred in other regions of the country, such as in Santa Catarina, Pará and Amazonas, Rio remains the country’s epicenter of police violence and heavy-handed militia. Not only is money being stolen from the people, there is money being invested in sustaining a reign of terror in some of the largest, most marginalized communities.
Rocinha, the largest favela in Brazil. April 2021.
Dona Marta Favela. March 2021.
The founder of Voz das Comunidades, Rene Silva, reported a few days ago that homes have been broken into by police in the ‘Alemão Complex’, a region of favelas in Rio’s northern zone. As well as only a few days ago, during cross-fire between the military police and criminal factions in communities across Rio, 9 people were killed in less than 12 hours.
As a photographer and resident of the Maré favela complex, Fabio describes these police operations, which forces people in favelas to stay home in fear of getting shot, as a serious obstacle to keeping them safe from the virus. This double-edged sword is the choice of eating and getting vaccinated at the risk of being caught in the cross-fire. Whatever rules being imposed by the state or the parallel powers of organized crime, they seem to signify a blatant disregard for the lives of marginalized peoples.
In Nova Holanda, Maré. February 2021.
Maré. March 2021.
Marginalized peoples, however, do what they can to take matters into their own hands, despite the obstacles posed by this unjust system. For a year, Thiago Firmino, from the Dona Marta favela, has put forth the initiative to sanitize his community’s streets, which eventually began distributing basic foods and household items to people in need as well. In an interview from a year ago, he explains that:
"The favela does not need to wait for the government. Because the government will wait for a lot of people to die in the favelas before taking action. So, we will already begin taking preventive measures. We have no support from the government, from any company; we are doing it on our own — Asking for donations from friends and collaborators, so that we can continue taking this idea forward."
Today, this group’s work in Dona Marta is as needed as it was a year ago, if not more. In the last week of April, they gathered thousands of masks and food donations at vaccination sites, while continuing to keep the streets clean for pedestrians.
Dona Marta favela. March 2021.
Street vendors, most of whom live in favelas and marginalized communities, are particularly exposed to the dangers posed by both the pandemic and the State. In Niterói, the Association of Street Vendors (Acanit) have had difficulty taking matters into their own hands — businesses started to reopen while they continue to suffer brutal police repression whenever they try to get back to work. The president of the association, Fabio Luiz, wrote:
“[W]e feel wronged by the city in its last decree, reopening establishments that operate in closed places such as shopping malls and centers, theaters, cinemas, and other street commerce, while street vendors are banned — who work individually, serving one customer at a time, outdoors.
[W]e are not against opening other stores or against closing stores if necessary to preserve lives, but we are against opening "street commerce" without including us, as we are also street commerce, and we have our difficulties too.
We do not understand why the city did not include us in the [so called] ‘orange phase’, together with the other street businesses. It seems like discrimination, or a policy of privilege for one economic sector in detriment of another — in order to reduce competition for the beneficiaries in the last decree.”
Clinic of COVID-19 testing, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. April 2020.
Cajú cemetery. February 2021.
According to Fabio Teixeira, the war on drugs is a “ridiculous chronic disease”, responsible for making working people’s lives a living nightmare inside and outside their homes. To believe these government measures of control, decrees and police operations have common people’s best interest in mind is a trap one ought not to fall into. Misery will only be exacerbated by the pandemic in Brazil, while police violence does nothing to mitigate the social ills associated with the drug trafficking industry in Rio’s marginalized communities. The virus will be subdued — and so will the stray bullets?
Cajú cemetery. April 2021.
PLATAFORMA 9
is a media collective based in Niterói, Brazil, that publishes articles, translates, and offers media literacy, production and language courses.
MIRNA WABI-SABI
is a writer, political theorist, teacher and translator. She’s site editor at Gods and Radicals, and managing editor at PLATAFORMA9.
FABIO TEIXEIRA
is a photojournalist and documentarist based in Rio de Janeiro, who has worked for The Guardian, Folha de São Paulo, the international Red Cross, UNICEF and more. He is a founding member of the Plataforma9 collective.