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Sleepless nights and starry skies
The World Cup in Brasil and international surges of insurrection
May 2014

The World Cup is not about football. If a country becomes a candidate for organizing this event, it is because football absolves the same function today as the
spectacle of the gladiators did in ancient Rome, and
because it is a golden opportunity for the managerial
State to extend its economic development and political influence by leaps and bounds. The Cup incurs a
monstrous cost, however the returns on investment
will almost certainly be juicy. Brasil, considered one
of the world’s major economic powers, is counting on
moving up the echelons by organizing the Cup and the
Olympic Games.
The World Cup is also a project of power to bridle
social tensions and worship the spectacle. For State
bodies and economic interests, it is an opportunity to
create the conditions to open up new markets, put an
end to certain kinds of resistance and achieve a qualitative leap in the occupation of the territory and capitalist exploitation. This is the modern High Mass of
the State and Capital, where the arrogance of power is
exhibited in the spectacle of the stadiums, the howling
masses, screens, live broadcasts and national pride.
The granting of the organization of the 2014 World
Cup to the Brasilian State has meant an immediate
systematic intensification of the management of “social peace.” New police units, the Unidades de Polí-

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cia Pacificadora (UPP), have emerged, created along
the model of the infamous “pacification operations”
implanted since 2008 in dozens of tough neighbourhoods and favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The State has regained military control of the neighbourhoods in the
name of the war on drug trafficking. According to official figures more than 5,500 people have been killed
by police in Rio de Janeiro alone in the space of four
years. In neighbourhoods where gangs of traffickers
have been hunted down, the paramilitaries are now
calling the shots.
But the World Cup obviously does not only have the
uniformed side to it. For a sum exceeding 3500 million
dollars, stadiums have been built in strategic points
of the cities. Favelas have been evicted and razed to
the ground to build new middle class neighbourhoods,
shopping centres, luxury hotels and beach facilities.
The transport axis and motorways have been redeveloped and secured; airports, ports and electricity
networks have been built or rebuilt. In Rio de Janeiro
250,000 people have been evicted from their homes
to make way for construction projects related to the
World Cup 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games. Brasilian Justice has not concealed its intentions about its
plans for the future of all these stadiums most of which
will only accommodate a few games: studies are un-