Olympics Interview: Sportswriter Dave Zirin on Olympic Corruption, Displacement and Violence Ahead of Rio 2016
Photos by Michele Bollinger/The New Press and Mario Tama/Getty Images
With the 2016 Rio Olympics just around the corner, the issues around Rio hosting the Games mount. While many sports fans are largely unaware of the controversies concerning displacement, exploitation, police brutality, and corruption in Rio, Dave Zirin, author and sports editor of The Nation, has anticipated them since at least 2014. Zirin consolidated his research and reporting in Brazil’s Dance With The Devil: The World Cup, The Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy (Haymarket 2016), which has been re-released with a new forward in anticipation of the Rio Olympics.
In Brazil’s Dance, Zirin introduces readers to the Rio residents hit hardest by mega-event development, such as a man in the Favela do Metro whose job was to collect and recycle scraps of tin from the businesses around a stadium construction site. As the stadium grew, the man was removed from his home in the favela to make room for more construction. As a result, his commute to work—and his former home—grew into a two-hour trek on public transportation.
Zirin explains how developers’ dreams for Rio went far beyond stadiums and athlete housing. The tycoons began to envision the revenue possibilities of a Rio free of favelas. As Rio has been a tourist destination for decades, eliminating impoverished enclaves and their inhabitants would meet government goals of whitewashing a blemish on what officials and visitors see otherwise as a scenic, sunny sightseeing locale. Zirin posits that such a desire conflicts with the significant role the favelas have played in the culture and imagery of Rio.
To the developers’ chagrin, many news organizations ran stories about the communities, their conditions, and the commercial conflict of planning a global showcase either in their stark presence, or erased absence. Zirin was welcomed to observe the pending ramifications of the sporting spectacle in Vila Autódromo, a Rio community named for the Formula 1 raceway built next door. In 2013, this community was scheduled to be destroyed in favor of luxury accommodations or a parking lot for the adjacent Olympic Park. Readers learn that developers have desired this area on the banks of Lake Jacarepaguá for some time. Unlike most favelas, which are hillside pueblos, Vila Autódromo is accessible through Barra da Tijuca is Rio’s West Zone, a section which constitutes only 4.7 percent of Rio’s population, but pays 30 percent of its taxes. As relocation in Vila Autódromo looms, we meet its residents through Zirin’s eyes and hear of the importance of their homes, their fear of the future. It is all a sharp contrast to the public bonanza World Cups and Olympic Games are purported to be.
Brazil’s Dance With The Devil also provides some historical context, unpacking Brazil’s history of colonization by the Portuguese, the ensuing slave trade (more people of African descent live in Brazil than any nation outside Africa), the nation’s longtime prominence in futbol, which figured in its bid for the 2014 World Cup, and the corruption that predated its having been awarded the world’s grandest two sporting events. The synergistic manner in which the author blends backdrop, personal interviews, and biting social critiques render a compelling read. Zirin reminds us that while the World Cup and the Olympics are a contrived show, Brazil did not invest in the sorely-needed schools and hospitals for its citizens. Even some of the stadiums and venues which were built for the Cup and Games will be underused once the tens of thousands of Olympics attendees leave Rio. Zirin’s travelogue behind the curtain of corporate wizardry, is a worthwhile and timely read on the eve of the 2016 Olympics.
Bijan C. Bayne interviewed Zirin, whose other books include The Muhammad Ali Reader and A People’s History of Sports.