Olympics Interview: Sportswriter Dave Zirin on Olympic Corruption, Displacement and Violence Ahead of Rio 2016

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.

You visited Rio in May. What did you observe while you were there? Any police violence?

I didn’t observe police violence largely because I’m a American reporter, and most of the violence is confined to the favelas. There’s an expression in Brazil, it means “For the English to see”, and for tourists, it’s as if there’s a pretty sheen on the country, and a willing mutual obfuscation for happy first worlders not to look too closely under the surface. Amnesty International is doing a lot of work around police violence. In addition, politicians, whether they were pro- or anti- Olympics, are discussing the violence. Many of them attribute it less to the Olympic movement, and more to budget squeezes, and social control due to cutbacks.

Do you think there will be large scale Brazilian protests leading up to the eve of the Games?

In reading the tea leaves, [I think] there will definitely be protests, I sat with people who are planning protests. For the World Cup, there were protests, but they were relatively small because the area was so militarized in anticipation of them. I expect the same for the Olympics. But anything can happen. Also, Brazil is such a large country, bigger than the continental U.S., and the Olympics are so Rio-centric, so a large police presence can be intimidating to dissent. A group called the Comité Popular is planning some protests of police brutality, around the issue of race consciousness and how the two are related. So while the level of security is discouraging to some activists, it’s difficult to say what will actually happen.

You were ahead of the curve about displacement and lack of post-Games economic and housing opportunities when you wrote Brazil’s Dance With The Devil. What led you to this topic: exploitation at past Games, or a particular element about Brazil?

The issue is about the Olympics and the gap between promise and actuality. I noticed it in Greece in 2004. Even when I was a college student, the Atlanta Games in 1996 were presented as an showcase of The New South. You had Muhammad Ali lighting the flame, and Bill Clinton giving the opening addresses—two sons of The South. Meanwhile, there were protests going on outside those very games, about poor Black families who were thrown out of their homes to make room for the Games. At every Games since 2000—in Sydney, Peter Norman [the Australian 1968 200-meter dash silver medalist who raise his fist on the victory stand in solidarity with U.S. gold and bronze medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ black gloved Black Power salute] was kicked out, and there was housing displacement. Then there were the scandals that came out of Salt Lake City 2002. The lunacy around the 2004 Athens Games. When I heard these Games were scheduled for Rio, back-to-back after the World Cup, which has never been done before, and in a post 9-11 world, I knew this story had to be extremely honest, and I wanted to talk to the readers about how this trends in Brazil.

Are exploitation and corruption particular to summer Games sites?

If you had asked me that several years ago I would have said yes, Winter Games are more benign, because they cost less, and less is invested in them, so there’s less controversy. Historically, all the Winter Games combined cost less money to stage than one Summer Games. But that was before Sochi. Putin staged the Sochi Games in a city which at that time of year was warmer than Miami. It’s about how strong leaders can get away with things over the protests of social movements or groups.
I knew an ABC cameraperson who participated in the cleanup after Sochi, and he told me there were communities and residences that were fake, which were built solely for the facade of the Games, and then taken apart afterwards. That’s a perfect metaphor for the level of deceit around national imagery.