Abaixo a copa capitalista: The games of brazil’s world cup

The metropolis is a terrain of constant low intensity conflict, of which the occupation
of Basra, Mogadishu, or Nablus are the culmination points. The city, for soldiers,
was for a long time a place to be avoided, or perhaps to beseige; the metropolis on
the other hand is perfectly compatible with war. Armed conflict is merely another
episode in its constant self-reconfiguration. The battles waged by the great powers
are like incessantly repeated policing tasks in the black holes of the metropolis –
“whether in Burkina Faso, the south Bronx, Kamagasaki, Chiapas or the
northeastern suburbs of Paris.” These “interventions” aren’t really so much aiming
for any victory or to restore order or peace, but rather they are performed in the
maintenance of the great enterprise of forced “security” that’s always/already at
work. War can no longer be isolated within time, but is diffracted in a series of
military and police micro-operations to ensure security.

The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection

The official games are over. The trophy and medals have been given to the triumphant; the officials have departed either content in the halo of nationalistic sentiment or smitten by the shame of national defeat; the media has left for other circuses; the stadiums echo their silence … and behind them all, in the shadows of so much light, people oppressed and dispossessed.

If the games on the pitches of the stadiums are over, they are not in the streets of Brazil’s cities. Indeed, the true matches never took place on the greens, for FIFA’s World Cup is first and foremost an exercise in extraction and profit, and these will continue, even after the final match. And thus the real games of the Cup were played elsewhere, in the confrontations before and during the month long event, between the State’s police and the many that protested and resisted their exclusion. If the demonstrations were not multitudinous, they were constant. And the State could only respond with ever greater violence: beatings, gassing, until finally, all protest became illegal. The speculation on and appropriation of land, housing, common wealth had to be secured at all cost. (Click here) It was here that the games were played, against 200,000 military and police (A Nova Democracia).

Against the violence stood, and still stands, a we, a we in part formed in Brazil’s winter of discontent of June, 2013, in part rooted in decades of political and social activism; but ultimately, a we that is “neither a subject, nor a formed entity, nor a multitude. We, is a mass of worlds, an infra-spectacular, interstitial world, of unavowable existence, woven of solidarities and dissensions impenetrable to power; and then it is also the lost, the poor, the prisoners, the thieves, the criminals, the crazy, the perverted, the corrupted, the too-living, the exuberant, the rebel bodies. In brief: all those who, following their line of flight, fail to find themselves in the tepid warmth of the imperial paradise.” (Tiqqun, Contributions à la guerre en cours, thesis 67)

Testimonies in photography (from Mídia NINJA), video, graffiti, music, of the sporting wars of Capital in Brazil …

For an excellent interactive video focusing on the impact of the World Cup in Fortaleza, see Copa Para Quem?. 

Anarcho Funk …

A copa mata

Derrubaram a minha casa
Agora quer levar minha vida
Essa copa é homicida
Essa copa é homicida
Exterminando o povo pobre
Pra fazer uma cidade mais limpa
Essa copa é homicida
Essa copa é homicida

Gentrifica o extermínio
Higieniza o genocídio

No jogo da bola, a copa
No jogo da bola, a copa
No jogo da bola, a copa
Da copa que te bolou
Foi bolando esse sistema fascista competidor
Bota pobre contra pobre pro rico ser ganhador

No jogo da bola, a copa
É você o perdedor

O crack chegou, dominou
O crack chegou, viciou
O crack chegou, se apossou
O crack chegou, higienizou
O crack chegou, exterminou
O crack chegou, dominou
O crack chegou
O crack chegou
O crack chegou
E fez gol

The work of alternative media collectives (in addition to NINJA Mídia, see also Guerrilla GRR, Journal A Nova Democracia, Fotografos Activistas, Laboratório de Rua, etc.), social networks (“Não vai ter Copa“, “Contra A Copa“, “Copa pra quem?“, etc), social movements (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto, etc.) and grass roots Anti-World Cup assemblies (see: Portal Popular da Copa) has been crucial in the organisation of opposition to the politics of capture of FIFA, multinational corporations and the Brazilian State.

Chico Buarque, Hino de duran …

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