Brazil Today

Brazil is immensely diverse—socially, culturally, racially, economically—and rife with profound contradictions that are not always evident at first. All this makes for a complex nation that eludes easy definitions—but is fascinating to discover.

Culture

Brazil’s contrasts are everywhere. Take a look around when you land. Dense forests that are home to pint-sized monkeys and birds found nowhere else brush up against gleaming high-rises, which in turn border favelas (shantytowns). Juxtapositions of this sort can make any experience breathtaking and shocking at once.

Brazilians are known for their warmth, their tiny bikinis, their frequent public displays of affection—it’s not uncommon to see couples kissing at length on a park bench or a beach blanket—and their riotous displays of joie de vivre in annual Carnival celebrations. But the country is also home to the world's largest Catholic population, and conservative sexual mores shape the culture more than visitors might imagine.

A stroll through any Brazilian town will show you this is one of the most racially mixed populations anywhere. The country was shaped not only by the Portuguese, who brought their religion and language, but also by millions of enslaved Africans, the native indigenous, and waves of European, Arabic, and Japanese immigrants. Most Brazilians include elements from several of these backgrounds in their cultural and ethnic heritage.

Brazil never had the institutionalized discrimination that marked the United States, yet it is far from being a color-blind society. In spite of the recent economic boom, blacks and the indigenous still face stiff discrimination and underrepresentation in government. They also far outweigh whites at the broad base of Brazil’s economic pyramid.

Politics

Brazil’s political and economic situation is as fast-moving and unpredictable as its famously over-the-top novelas (soap operas). Even by Brazilian standards the last five years (2013–2018) have been dramatic: The country is only now beginning to emerge from its worst ever recession; and continues to be rocked by a huge corruption scandal know as "Operation Car Wash." The scandal saw many PT (Workers Party) members convicted of financial misdemeanors, and led to the impeachment of the country’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, in 2015. It also led to a 12-year prison term for the enduringly popular former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had planned to run for office in the 2018 presidential elections; his imprisonment on somewhat tenuous charges is seen by many as a political act. As of this writing, the deeply unpopular center-right Michel Temer (himself facing corruption charges) holds office, but the country is preparing to go to the polls in late 2018.

Economy

After punishing years of economic instability and hyperinflation in the 1980s and ’90s, Brazil's GDP began to grow along with prices and demand for the commodities that make up the base of its economy, including soybeans, sugar, iron ore, and oil.

The decade of social progress up to 2013 created real improvement in the quality of life for Brazil’s new middle class. About 35 million Brazilians hoisted themselves out of poverty in that time. More than half of the country’s 194 million people now officially belong to the middle class. However, many still hover perilously close to the bottom, and many more live in neighborhoods that still don’t have such services as trash collection, sewage treatment, and safety. Even though the improvements have been real and visible, there have been protests over issues such as public health care and education.

Religion

Brazil has the world’s largest Catholic population, although Roman Catholicism has been losing worshippers to Evangelical churches. These churches are booming, especially in poorer communities where it is not uncommon to see several modest storefront churches on a single street.

In religion, like in so many other aspects of Brazil, the reality is more complex than it first appears. The country’s rich ethnic and cultural heritage means that the dominant Christianity is often blended with other sects and religions, creating fascinating local variants that are unique to Brazil.

The most widespread examples of this blending happen within Afro-Brazilian religious practices. Forbidden from worshipping the deities they brought with them from Africa, enslaved men and women established connections between their orixás, or gods, and saints from the Catholic faith of their masters. This way, they could pay homage to their own gods while keeping up appearances by seeming to pray to Catholic saints.

Although freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitution, Brazil’s many contradictions surface in attitudes toward Afro-Brazilian faiths such as Candomblé, the more orthodox of the variations, and Umbanda, an even more syncretic religion incorporating elements of French-based spiritualism. Although some Afro-Brazilian practices are popular, including wearing white on New Year’s Eve and leaving gifts of flowers and fruit on the beach to honor Iemanjá, the orixá of oceans and seas, serious practitioners can be frequent targets of discrimination.

Sports

Even before Brazil held the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the world knew that soccer—or futebol—was king here. The country’s mad about it, and there’s good reason: Brazil has produced some of the world’s best players, and it is the only nation to have won five World Cups. The displays of passion seen during major games make them worthy of a visit. Although there is criticism over the way soccer is run, love for the "jogo bonito," or beautiful game, is unabated.

Volleyball is also a favorite. Beaches are often settings for spectacular displays of beach volleyball, and of a Brazilian combination of the two: futevôlei, where the players can use only their feet, chest, and head to touch the volleyball.