Il calcio è anche alla base del patriottismo brasiliano, che durante i mondiali si innalza. La bandiera nazionale diventa oggetto d’adorazione. E sventola nell’aria.

Ma nel 2014 è diverso. Slogan come “La Coppa del Mondo non Esiste” abbondano, ci sono proteste e l’opinione pubblica si divide sull’impatto dell’evento. Le persone interessate dalle preparazioni hanno scritto una lettera aperta e, il quindici di maggio, c’è stata la Giornata Contro la Coppa del Mondo, che ha spinto migliaia di persone nelle strade in tutto il Brasile.

È stato il risultato prevedibile delle politiche adottate nel paese, politiche che hanno promosso l’uso massiccio di denaro pubblico e il pugno d’acciaio dello stato per mandare via la gente dalle loro case (espropri discutibili anche secondo i traballanti standard legali brasiliani) e costruire pachidermi bianchi per usarli soltanto per un breve periodo. I principali beneficiari sono la FIFA, le ditte di appalti, le grandi aziende alleate tra loro e lo stesso stato.

Per schivare la concorrenza, secondo la Lettera del Primo Incontro delle Persone Interessate dalla Coppa del Mondo, “la Legge sulla Coppa del Mondo istituisce zone di esclusione per un raggio di 1,25 miglia (2 chilometri) attorno alle aree della FIFA e gli stadi, e aree per i fan dotate di megaschermi, aree in cui soltanto gli sponsor possono vendere.” I venditori ambulanti, che muovono miliardi ogni anno, sono esclusi da grosse porzioni delle città.

Si potrebbe dire che viviamo una “situazione sportiva d’eccezione”, ma è un fatto che le preparazioni dei mondiali abbiano mostrato tutte le disfunzioni e le ingiustizie dello stato brasiliano. Le grandi imprese hanno ricevuto grossi aiuti economici tramite la banca pubblica BNDES, imprese che si sono alleate tra loro per attaccare coerentemente la proprietà dei poveri. C’è stato l’impulso irresistibile a controllare l’accesso dei poveri alla terra, per non dire della repressione generale dei venditori ambulanti in un paese in cui le leggi dicono di difendere la classe lavoratrice.

Questo incubo sportivo è la realtà quotidiana del paese, una realtà che punisce i poveri più di ogni altro, ma che oggi appare più evidente che mai per via dell’associazione con uno degli eventi mondiali più importanti per i brasiliani. Questo stato di cose è sempre esistito, ma oggi c’è un pretesto. Il paese del calcio ha capito che i campionati non sono semplicemente sport. Hanno a che fare con il denaro, le influenze, i mezzi politici, non lo scambio volontario.

Niente serve meglio ad illustrare la differenza tra mezzi economici (lavoro, produzione, scambio) e mezzi politici (forza, costrizione), per dirla con Franz Oppenheimer. Un’altra Coppa del Mondo è possibile, un mondiale senza espropri, repressioni, soldi pubblici, ma sarebbe una Coppa del Mondo senza il potere dello stato, fatta da persone che fanno a meno della forza.

Nel 2007, il governo disse che la Coppa del Mondo sarebbe stata pagata interamente dal settore privato. Con lo stato che ci ritroviamo oggi questo non accadrà mai. Nessuna società è disposta ad accollarsi il rischio di investire in un mondiale politicizzato come quello brasiliano. Neil Stephenson, in Snow Crash, la mette così: “Ecco com’è lo stato. È stato inventato per fare quello che un privato non si sognerebbe di fare, il che significa che probabilmente non c’è alcuna ragione di farlo.” Lo stato fa questo, ma fa anche cose che fanno pendere l’ago della bilancia a favore di certe imprese private.

“Speriamo che la nostra storia non sia soffocata dall’urlo goal,” dice la Lettera del Primo Incontro delle Persone Interessate dalla Coppa del Mondo. Se dovesse prevalere la coscienza, l’ingiustizia dello stato nel nome dello sport non potrà essere dimenticata.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Soccer is also one of the foundations of Brazilian patriotism, that reascends during the FIFA World Cup. The flag colors come to be worshipped, the flag itself is flown.

In 2014, however, it feels different. Slogans such as “There Will Be No World Cup” abound, there are protests and public opinion is split regarding the event’s impact. There was an open letter from those affected by the preparations and, on May 15, the Day Against the World Cup, that pushed thousands of people to the streets everywhere in Brazil.

It was a predictable result of the policies adopted in the country, that promoted the extensive use of government money and the iron hand of the state to remove people from their houses — in expropriations questionable even according to the dubious legal standards of Brazil — and build white elephants that will only be used for a short while. The greatest beneficiaries are FIFA, the contractors, allied corporations and the government itself.

To sidestep competition, according to the Letter from the First Meeting of the Affected by the World Cup, “the General Law of the World Cup establishes zones of exclusion of 1.25 miles around FIFA’s areas, stadiums, and fan areas with large screens, where only official sponsors will be allowed to sell.” Street sellers, who move billions every year, yet again, are excluded from large swathes of the cities.

One could argue we are living under a “sporting state of exception,” but it is a fact that preparations for the World Cup have amply shown the disfunctionality and injustice of the Brazilian state. There have been huge subsidies to large enterprises through state bank BNDES, and the uncompromising defense of the property of big corporations allied to the consistent neglect to the property of the poor. There has also been an irresistible impulse to control the poor’s access to land, not to mention the repression of the street sellers all over a country in which the laws claim to defend the working classes.

This sports dystopia is always the reality in the country — a reality that overwhelmingly punishes the poor — but now it seems clearer than ever because it is closely associated with one of the most important world events for the Brazilians. This state has always existed, but it now has a pretext. The soccer country has learned that Cups are not only sport. They are about money and influence, about the political means, not voluntary exchange.

There is no better illustration of the difference between the economic means (labor, production, exchange) and the political means (force, coercion), as Franz Oppenheimer put it. Another World Cup was possible, without expropriations, repression, subsidies, but it would be a World Cup without the power of the state, made by free people forgoing the use of force.

In 2007, the government stated that the World Cup would be paid for entirely by the private sector. However, that would never happen with the state we have nowadays. No company would ever take the risk of investing in a politicized World Cup like the Brazilian one. Neil Stephenson, in Snow Crash, put it like this: “[T]hat’s how the government is. It was invented to do stuff that private enterprise doesn’t bother with, which means that there’s probably no reason for it.” The government also does stuff that allows private enterprise to tilt the table in their favor.

“We hope that a shout of goal won’t suppress our story,” states the Letter from the First Meeting of the Affected by the World Cup. Should conscience win, state injustice in the name of sports can’t be forgotten.

Translated into English by Erick Vasconcelos

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Il Brasile Ha Capito che i Mondiali non Sono Solo Calcio.

We may harken back to Henry David Thoreau. He used to criticize the idea that we should expect the majority to change a law or an unfair government action, because man should live according to his conscience, not by the majority’s will.

Because of that, “when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.” He referred to slavery and the Mexican-American War, which led him to stop paying taxes.

Lysander Spooner, on the other hand, teaches us how to resist the state peacefully, in the market. As a jurist, he argued for the unconstitutionality of the United States Post Office monopoly. Like Thoreau, he didn’t stop at words and wait for the majority to take action.

Spooner, in 1844, opened up a competitor, the American Letter Mail Company, much more efficient and charging lower prices than the government monopoly. Despite the government’s determination to close it, which it was finally able to do in 1851 with the approval of a more stringent law that closed the legal loopholes that Spooner had been exploiting, the action was successful: Government was forced to lower its prices by pressure of competition of a civil resistant!

How can we do something similar during the World Cup?

We can trespass the zones of commercial exclusion created for FIFA’s benefit, giving their partners a selling and advertising monopoly in a given area. We can also record with our cell phones every instance of police abuse against free protests during the World Cup.

As Augusto de Franco said about the occupation and reconfiguration of public spaces by free commerce:

Each one of those activities reconfigures hierarchies dominated by autocracies toward more networking (more distribution, connectivity, interaction) and freedom. There is no other way of doing that besides civil and political disobedience.

If this “entrepreneurial civil disobedience” happened in a large scale, we would be making a large step toward liberty from the coercive institutions of the state. Because the occupation of public spaces by markets and free exchange, challenging the territorial monopoly gifted to FIFA, would reverse the mentality that allowed our freedoms to be taken away and weakened the liberating potential of voluntary cooperation networks.

Again, as Augusto de Franco said, social revolution “is not that taking of some Winter Palace nor electoral victory against ‘the elites!’ It is not just a change in the people who make up the state, but something that happens at the very core of society, altering the interaction flows of social life and changing people’s behaviors.”

Individual freedom and liberation from poverty and political exploitation will only be achieved through the widening of the social cooperation networks and markets. As Thoreau would say, that’s the counter-friction that should stop the machine and break its injustice.

The government is generally not as straightforward in trying to protect corporations from losses. It seems that this time, the state didn’t try to be very roundabout and just funneled money directly from the pockets of the tax-paying poor to those of the tax-eating rich.

The consortiums that control other World Cup stadiums have similar sweetheart deals, with “investment” money generously coming from BNDES, the largest tool of upward wealth transfer in Brazil. President Dilma Rousseff appears frequently on TV to assure us that the total spent on stadiums was “only” $4 billion, whereas total overall is around $11.5 billion, most of which should actually be “recouped” by the public, because they were “loans.”

Rouseff forgot to account for subsidies and concession contracts. She also forgot to account for evictions and urban make-up projects intended to hide our poor from fearful tourists. Not to mention the cost of the police state that has wreaked havoc since the World Cup and the Olympics were announced to be held in Brazil.

We’re less than a month from the World Cup and yet we see few flags hanging from windows, few paintings of the tournament’s mascot on walls. The announcement of the national team was met with little anticipation or surprise, and very little positive speech is heard about the championship at all.

Protests and criticisms have abounded, however, culminating on May 15 in the International Day of World Cup Resistance (15M). People took to the streets in many Brazilian capitals, accompanied by teachers, public transportation workers and, in Pernambuco, police strikes. Also worthy of note was the manifestation of the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), comprised of people who have the biggest reasons to complain: The World Cup caps off a model of urban development that evicts the poor from the city centers and pushes the value of their labor even lower.

The government, as always, tries to paint the Worker’s Party (PT) administration as the halcyon days of neverending development, but the honeymoon is over. No matter who conquers the World Cup, the real winner is corporate capitalism.

Nothing illustrates this better than the gentrification of Maracana stadium, once a hub for the people, but now a place attended exclusively by the elite, where fans are supposed to watch the game sitting down, taking off your jersey is forbidden, fireworks are “unsafe” and the flags you take are strictly regulated according to FIFA’s rulebook. If not even soccer is like we used to do it, we can only ask the biggest question from 15M: World Cup for whom?