People dressed as Native Americans surrounding Shakira will help you understand. They participated in FIFA World Cup's Live Closing in Brazil, 2014, while FIFA officially ignores Brazil’s indigenous history!
FIFA made no mention of Indians:
FIFA said: "Officially, however, it is Portuguese Pedro Alvares Cabral who is regarded as the discoverer of Brazil. His fleet, in search of the Indias, sailed into the South of modern-day Bahia on 22 April 1500".
Indian leader Davi Kopenawa Yanomami said: "The whites shout out today ‘We discovered the land of Brazil’. This is nothing less than a lie. It existed from the time that Omame, the creator, created us and it. Our ancestors have known this land for ever. She was not discovered by the whites. But the whites continue lying among themselves thinking that they discovered this land! As if it was empty! ‘We discovered this land. We have books and therefore we are important!’ say the whites. But these are lies. The only thing the whites did was to steal the lands from the peoples of the forest and destroy them. I am the son of ancient Yanomami and I live in the forest where my people lived when I was born and I don’t go around telling the whites I discovered it! I don’t say I discovered this land because my eyes fell on it, so therefore I own it. It was always there, before my time. I don’t say ‘I discovered the sky’. Nor do I shout, ‘I discovered the fish and I discovered the animals!’ They have always been there since the beginning of time".
And Brazil’s Indians even have their own versions of football…
But Shakira may have other opinion! Maybe she did not know that all those people dressed as Native Americans surrounding her were NOT real Indians! Maybe she believes that all Native Americans have been executed! Shame on her! I wonder, for how much money did she accept to participate in such a disgraceful spectacle?
Watch for yourselves: Shakira - La La La (Brazil 2014)
[Live Closing at FIFA World Cup 2014] (Full HD 1080 & Sound), Via Youtube
But scratch the surface and you'll find a darker side, because what's missing from the popular image of Brazil is the shocking treatment of its first peoples.
Its football stadiums are built on Indian land, and its new-found wealth comes from the dispossession of the Indians and the theft of their lands.
But Brazil was also planning a new assault on its first peoples: targeting the lands they had managed to keep!
You can also read the articles titled: "Brazil Amazon dam project suspended over concerns for indigenous people" and "Amazonian tribes unite to demand Brazil stop hydroelectric dams", about the same topic on The Guardian's web page. Unfortunately, in the year 2014 Indian tribes lost their fight to halt the construction of the Belo Monte dam, threatening their entire way of life. But, what about Shakira? What about FIFA, that officially makes no mention of Indians? And what about our white and/or christian privilege, and Capitalism, in our globalized world?
Why did the International Olympic Committee chose Rio de Janeiro as the third city in the Southern Hemisphere to host the Olympic Games, despite all the above facts, but even despite forced prostitution and modern slavery and the reports on homophobic violence and the transgender murders in Brazil, or the illegal river dolphin slaughter and the threat of extinction of the Guiana dolphins, due to which this species is in danger of remaining just an image on a flag?
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