Viditu

President Barack Obama campaigned personally in Copenhagen to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva fought to bring the games to Rio de Janeiro. As everyone knows, Brazil won. Lula returned home as a hero and Obama went home dejected.

In Lula’s speech to the International Olympic Committee, on October 2 of this year, he spoke passionately about the vibrant and diverse Brazilian culture, the strong economy, and the fact that Brazil is the only nation among the ten largest economies in the world to never host the Olympics.

“Rio is ready. Those who give us this chance will not be sorry,” he said, adding that the event would stimulate further economic and cultural advances in Brazil.

There is one group of people, however, who are already sorry. The Olympics will literally flatten their homes and businesses. It so happens that the construction plans for the Olympic sports and media complexes in Rio will force four thousand low-income residents to move out of their neighborhood, unraveling a relatively peaceful community.

The neighborhood, called Vila Autódromo, has been there since the 1970s. Unlike many other poorer neighborhoods in Rio, this one is not dominated by drug traffickers and militias; it is a place where kids play soccer safely on dirt fields, where residents have small businesses, and where there is a sense of local identity. It’s certainly not idyllic, but real people have real roots in this part of town.

If the government came to your suburban sub-division and told you to leave your home, pull your kids out of school, move away from your friends, and tear down your small business, would you let them do it?

Under the construction plans, the 354 residential lots where one thousand families live will be replaced by a building complex for sports journalists. The Olympics will last about three weeks in August, not counting the Paralympics also scheduled to be held in Rio. So, a short-term event will wipe out a 30-year-old community in a city that’s famous for not having an abundant supply of viable places to live for low-income citizens.

The municipal government has, of course, promised to compensate the residents financially, or provide them with another place to live; this is required by Brazilian law. However, Brazil’s history of giving fair compensation to low-income people is not stellar. And it’s almost certain that financial compensation will be far below the market value of the area once the Olympics move in; these residents could sell their property for far more if the government didn’t force them out. Moreover, the actual relocation or compensation process often doesn’t work as it should. The justice system here, which is notoriously lethargic, can leave people without due process for decades.

Even if the compensation package works perfectly, the break-up of the community will fragment families and friends, and force people to close the businesses they’ve worked for years to build.

Few people doubt that Brazil as a whole will benefit from its chance at hosting the Olympics, but it needs to happen in a way that doesn’t overstep basic principles like “love your neighbor as yourself.” There will always be competing interests, but the goal should be to seek win-win situations so that everyone benefits. Surely there must be some urban planner out there who can figure out a better way. My guess is the government is not too interested in protecting the interests of the people in this community.

Because Vila Autódromo will be occupied by a building complex designed for journalists, perhaps a movement to save the community could be started by the members of the media. It’s real simple: We could all just refuse to cover the event if the press complex is built in Vila Autódromo. Maybe everyone else could at least write a letter to the IOC.

It seems to me that if Brazil is really concerned about its image, taking care of the people in Vila Autódromo would be great for PR.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.