NOTHING BY ACCIDENT: Brazil On The Edge

On a sweltering March night in 2018 Marielle Franco was shot lifeless. Rio de Janeiro is a routinely violent place however this was completely different. Marielle was a rising star of town’s political scene and was hit 4 instances within the head by knowledgeable hitman. Elected the identical 12 months, President Bolsonaro, an fanatic for torture, homicide and the worst excesses of the nation’s 1964-1984 navy dictatorship, subsequently declared warfare on the nation’s establishments. Brazil is on the sting. Whoever ordered Marielle’s killing severely underestimated each her recognition and the outrage at her homicide, which has revealed a profound rot on the core of a divided society.

Damian Platt spent 13 years residing and dealing in Rio. In Nothing By Accident, he describes occasions within the metropolis throughout the tumultuous decade that preceded her homicide and the election of a tyrannical President. Shifting past normal discourse about violent gangs from poor communities, Nothing By Accident overturns stereotypes and gives a brand new narrative – far more complicated and far nearer to sources of energy – to clarify the operation of violence and corruption in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil.

Nothing By Accident additionally goals to specific the influence of insecurity and persistent armed violence upon peculiar individuals pressured to dwell in irregular situations. Digging beneath the superficial representations of occasions, the ebook identifies and displays upon components that bind this disastrous situation collectively.

Nothing by Accident is split into 4 elements:

The primary, “Chaos”, describes city warfare in Rio’s favelas and the failure of a state “pacification” programme to scale back violence within the metropolis.

“The Biggest Present” introduces a little bit identified however enormously highly effective department of Brazilian organised crime, jogo do bicho, “the animal sport” in English. Unlawful in Rio because the finish of the nineteenth Century, the sport is extraordinarily well-liked and run by household clans who management town’s Carnival parade and have tight hyperlinks to the navy dictatorship.

“Fact and Lies” focuses on the 2014 Fact Fee (which was meant to disclose info behind Brazil’s 1964-1984 navy dictatorship) and the mass avenue protests of 2013. Each processes spotlight fault traces in Brazilian society: when the chief witness of the Fact Fee is murdered in suspicious circumstances, I uncover that the path for his homicide leads again to the jogo do bicho. Inspecting the failure of the road protests, I inform the story of Bruno Teles, a younger protestor framed in a terrifying episode of staged violence.

“The Hornet’s Nest” discusses the aftermath of the homicide of Marielle Franco in 2018. When a cover-up fails, investigators uncover that not solely does one of many precise alleged assassins dwell in the identical housing complicated as President Bolsonaro, the group additionally take pleasure in connections along with his household. The gunmen belong to a racketeering demise squad shaped by ex-police and militiamen with sturdy connections to jogo do bicho clans.