Modern culture shows drugs as a way out of poverty. In Scarface–Brian Di Palma’s iconic 1983 tribute to immigrants realizing the American Dream, which of course becomes a nightmare because is it built on murder, crime and deception–Tony Montana achieves it all, only to loose it all in a hail of machine gun fire as he falls from the balcony of his mansion into the foyer’s fountain.
In the favelas, drugs rule. Drug lords and their soldiers are the main money makers and spenders. In Favela Rising, one teenager tells the filmmakers that drug dealers make about $650 US a week. The kid points out that all the girls like drug dealers because they have motorcycles, and he too wants to make enough money so he can get one–and thus attract girls.
With fast and easy money comes the ability to buy modern consumer goods, the flash of Scarface translated to the favelas. Even Rocinha, the largest favela with over 100,000 residents–painted by Robert Neuwirth as an upwardly mobile, almost Utopian favela–has had drug lords and drug wars.
In 2005, a violent war for control of Rocinha’s drug trade erupted between Rocinha’s original drug gang, Comando Vermelho (Red Command) and Amigo dos Amigos who emerged victorious. Peter Mork, writing in the blog Economics With a Face sees the effects of drugs on Rocinha. Not only only are black flags hung in memory of a slain drug dealer, there is a larger water tower built by drug lords for the people. The dealers give back to the community.
Less than a week after Mork posted this story to his blog, Eduino Eustaquio de Araujo Filho, a drug lord nicknamed Dudu, was arrested for setting of the Rocinha turf war which left 20 dead.
Drug lords employ youths to act as watch out and street dealers, and if they prove themselves they can move up the ranks, earning more. In Favela Rising, we meet Chupetinha, who runs a home kitchen where she sells her cooking to drug dealers but then refuses after AfroReggae starts suporting her. (She has since gone on to become a Brazilan TV star with a her own cooking show.)
Favela Rising director Matt Mochary told Firedoglake:
And of course any disputes are settled by the favela’s drug lord. Which is actually what makes the favelas such safe places to be. The drug lords’ justice is swift and brutal. The penalty for theft is death. So, there is no theft inside the favela. But just outside the favela, theft is rampant.
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