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#SPicollective #street_persons #street_vision #portrait_shots #myfeatureshoot#lensculture #lensculturestreets #londonist #natgeo_lovers#natgeohub#hikaricreative #leica #leicam240 #leicaphoto #independentphoto #afpmagazine #portraits_ig#portrait_planet #lensculturetalent #thestreetphotographyhub #streets_storytelling #photoobserve #zonestreet #mafia_streetlove #🔴#nycspc#fotografiaderua #fotografiadocumental#life_is_street#gf_streets#londonist (at London, United Kingdom)

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#nycspc #mafia_streetlove #framed_legit #brasil_photolovers #leicaphoto #canon6dshots #street_photo_club #streets_storytelling #photoobserve #people_infinity #fotografiadocumental #londonist #streetlife_award #beststreets#hikaricreative #lensculturestreets#storyofthestreet#streeyphotographyinternational#streetleaks #streetbwcolor#streets_oftheworld #urbanomantix#streetphotographers #irimages #urban#magnumphotos #creative #myspc17#storyofthestreet #urbanphotograph#capturestreet #life_is_street#fotografiaderua (at London, United Kingdom)

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#nycspc #streets_storytelling #zonestreet #photoobserve #framed_legit #people_infinity #fotografiadocumental #street_photo_club #mafia_streetlove#streetlife_award #beststreets#hikaricreative #lensculturestreets#storyofthestreet#streeyphotographyinternational#streetleaks #streetbwcolor#streets_oftheworld #urbanomantix#streetphotographers #irimages #urban#magnumphotos #creative #myspc17#storyofthestreet #urbanphotograph#capturestreet #life_is_street (at London, United Kingdom)

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The OGs. • • • #street_photo_club #mafia_streetlove#streetlife_award #beststreets#hikaricreative #lensculturestreets#storyofthestreet#streetphoto_brasil #streetphotographyinternational #streetleaks #streetbwcolor#streets_oftheworld #urbanomantix#streetphotographers #irimages #urban#magnumphotos #creative #myspc17#storyofthestreet #urbanphotograph#capturestreet #life_is_street#fotografiaderua #fotojornalismo#streetphoto_brasil #fotografiadocumental (at Paris, France)

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Dedicated to a former boss, who never thought I would make it out of this trip alive.

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A photo essay on my view of Brazil and especially Rio de Janeiro has evolved.

[iseeiwrite]

You don’t need to be a refugee to be a rapist, you just need to be a man

You don’t need to be a refugee to be a rapist, you just need to be a man

Brazil, Portugal, US and England. Four different countries, four different cultures. I have lived in all of them and I’m sad to report that they all have, to different extents, a lot of work to do in the way they treat their women. What happened in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve — when some 1,000 men of “North African and Arabic” appearance allegedly got together to rob, rape and assault…

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The Justice Minister is a black woman but in Portugal I'm still a 'nigga'

The Justice Minister is a black woman but in Portugal I’m still a ‘nigga’

Some of my white Portuguese friends call me “nigga,” affectionately that is. The connotations of one of the most despicable words in the English language is lost in translation with the country’s younger population, who think the term is nothing more than a funny way American rappers and Hollywood actors have of addressing  each other. Growing up in Portugal, I often wondered why I had never had…

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The Ebola epidemic shows there're first world diseases and third world ones

Once again tragedy and misery is plaguing a few African countries, once again the name of the entire continent is getting dragged through the mud. This time is Ebola. The latest headlines go as follows: "Why did the Ebola outbreak occur in West Africa"; "Ebola cases could hit 10000 a week in West Africa"; "Feds not ruling out banning travellers from West Africa."

The deadly virus has killed thousands in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Senegal's reported one case, but no fatalities, and it's now considered Ebola free. Nigeria's had seven confirmed deaths so far, but the WHO is now very close from also declaring it Ebola free. So, as I write this article the number of countries feeling Ebola's devastating effect is four, and four only. Pick any random newspaper, however, and "West Africa" is the geographical location of choice.  West Africa, though, is comprised of 16 countries. From Mauritania in the north to Ghana further south, their culture, environment and peoples could not be any more diverse. Just in case you're wondering, neither Mauritania nor Ghana have registered one single Ebola case. Still, if the epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo goes into next year, experts are predicting an economic drain of 26.5 billion dollars, which unlike Ebola, will impact the whole of Western Africa for years to come.

Liberia has now relatively more foreign journalists in its territory, than the much mored needed foreign doctors and equipment to fight the epidemic. The government there has taken the bold step of imposing restrictions on Ebola coverage, as a way to protect patients' privacy. International journalists will now need an official permission from the country's Health Ministry, before contacting, conducting interviews, filming or photographing patients. Some in Western media scream censorship, I say good on Liberia.

Just like with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, international powers and their media are getting it wrong with the Ebola crisis. There's a crisis, no doubt, but it is not knocking on our door, as news broadcasts and tabloids would have you believe. The deadly but treatable disease killed its first victim in Guinea in 2013, but it was not until it took the lives of a couple of western doctors that global news outlets and the international community decided to act. The exact same applies to ISIS in Iraq and Syria: the terror group has been chopping the heads off of Iraqi and Syrian civilians for a good year now, but that wasn't enough. It needed to kill a few white westerners, with white western names to get the attention it so desperately craved, and they got it. If one truly reads between the lines, the racist and prejudiced undertones become undeniable. The message being, "The lives of dark people in foreign lands are not really a priority for us."

It seems to be our default setting these days. Whenever there's trouble in far corners of the world, be it war or disease, in Africa or the Middle East, we look for shortcuts to explain and solve the problem. We say "West Africa", because naming the four individual countries takes too much space in a newspaper headline and too long to read in a TV or radio broadcast. But we also say "West Africa" out of ignorance and intellectual laziness, because trying to understand what goes on in a piece of land big enough to fit India, Europe and the US takes time, patience and tolerance- in the era of 24 hour news, those are luxuries journalists on the ground and their editors back in the news rooms cannot afford. In the US especially, whenever there's a situation that poses a threat to the country, be it the decade's long war on terror or now with Ebola, the media blindly falls in line with government rhetoric, even when it makes no sense.

The UK media machine is slightly more critical but it still caters to populist views. Reports of planes being halted, and people being screened at airports abound. Those measures, though, will do absolutely nothing for the Liberians, Guineans or the people in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And even though the WHO has said the Ebola epidemic is as bad as AIDS, the chances of you or me ever catching it are minimal. As in Iraq and Syria, what's truly needed to fight Ebola is boots on the ground- foreign health workers and equipment to fight the disease at the source. But just like in Iraq and Syria, sending western expeditions to foreign countries, be it to fight disease or wars, is anathema these days. Voters don't like to see their compatriots in harms' way,- not after the Bush and Blair years and the Iraq debacle,- to solve what in their eyes are foreign problems, and politicians still depend on voters to make a living. The media, though, doesn't depend on votes, but it should rely on the truth. And the truth is that Ebola doesn't pose any threat to Western civilisation, none whatsoever. But it does pose a major threat to people in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Journalistically speaking it truly is a great story- the pictures are moving, the reports heartbreaking, the subplots fascinating. But Ebola has also blatantly shown that for Western nations there are first world diseases and third world ones, and the attention devoted to the latter will always depend on the threat they pose to people like me, writing this article on my Mac, from my London apartment.

[iseeiwrite]

Home-grown Muslim extremists a threat to multicultural Britain

The fact that hundreds of British citizens have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS is not just a testament to the hate some in the British Muslim community feel towards a nation they were supposed to call home, but a reminder of how truly multicultural Britain is today- look at any conflict in the world and there’s probably a community in this country being affected by it, which if asked, could probably find a justification to take flight and join their people in battle. 

There are now more than twice as many British Muslims fighting for Islamic State than there are serving in the British armed forces, and that tells us something. It tells that for a significant number of young Muslims, especially those in the capital, Britain is no longer home, and it hasn’t been for some time. Over the years the government’s infamous war on terror has specifically targeted Muslims, raiding their homes and mosques (sometimes indiscriminately), holding suspects without charge indefinitely, with some even doing time in Guantanamo. The ones now fighting in the Middle East grew up witnessing or experiencing these regular humiliations, and they want payback.

That leaves the government facing a conflict on two fronts: defeating the terror ISIS fighters are spreading in Iraq and Syria, and winning the hearts and minds of a group of young, alienated British Muslims, which although small, need to be dealt with. These young men are undoubtedly angry. Angry at a government and society which they see as disrespectful and xenophobic, in addition to a media that constantly vilifies them. Some of these young men initially fled to Syria to actually try to protect civilians, but somehow got into a brutal cycle of violence and an underworld controlled by vicious characters. Others are just impressionable individuals, trying to escape a bleak future and dead-end jobs in the UK- ironic for a country which people die to trying to reach, as the discovery a few days ago of 34 Afghan Sikhs trapped inside a metal container showed. 

A nationwide manhunt is now underway for the killer of American journalist James Foley. When the killer’s accent heard in the video was proven to be from London, antennas were raised- this not just any terrorist, this is a British terrorist killing an American. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a  telephone call between Barrack Obama and David Cameron, the conversation ending with Obama saying something like, “You need to sort this out.”

It’s all well and good to arm the Kurds in their fight against ISIS, but how are we going to fight this new breed of terrorists- people who on paper are supposed to be British, but who for a variety of reasons felt compelled to join the other side. How do we reach out to these boys, how do we convey to them that the path they are following is fundamentally wrong, while at the same time trying to address their grievances. Ghaffar Hussain, managing director of counter-extremism think-tank Quilliam, said it was now almost inevitable that people who had fought in Syria would come back to try to stage attacks in Europe.

Three years ago David Cameron launched a scathing attack on multicultural Britain. He said the government must adopt a policy of "muscular liberalism" and warned Muslim groups they would lose government support if they failed to promote women's rights and cultural integration.  

It is a waste of time to attack multiculturalism. This country has been multicultural for over half a century, prospering greatly during the process, and will continue to be so. But both the government and the Muslim community need to invest heavily on prevention and de-radicalization programs to combat the increasing number of home-grown islamic extremists. Failing to do so will not  just threaten our security at home and abroad, but irreparably shake the foundations of a multicultural Britain, of which most Brits and foreign nationals living in this country are so proud of.

[iseeiwrite]

Middle-East Crisis: The wrong people are calling the shots

Watching and reading international leaders give their two cents on how best to solve the problems afflicting the Middle-East, I cannot help but notice one thing. These are all Western, mostly white, middle-aged and affluent men, discussing and deciding from their ‘thrones’, how people in far away lands should live- it almost reads like a history book from the fifth grade, when children learn about kings and queens. 

Which brings me to my almost two years working and living in Brazil. Although not white or affluent, I too was a westerner and by default privileged, in a country where most people are not. I too looked at this country from my high horse, confident I had a ‘solution’ to its endemic problems. I could not and did not want to understand why things were done a certain way, despised the logic the locals used, and could not get my head around why, in the face of so many adversities, Brazilians always kept a nonchalant attitude. I irked politicians in interviews and news conferences, asking critical questions about the corruption in their  government, the social inequalities, and the inefficiency of public services. They would inevitably get defensive- all they saw was a western, English speaking journalist questioning their competence. Needless to say I didn’t make many friends. For them, even though I am and look Brazilian, I was the English guy who thought he was better than everyone else. What I failed to understand is had I tried to look at the world through their eyes, I would have gotten much further.

That’s our fundamental mistake when it comes to the Middle-East: people, individually or as a nation, don’t like and don’t want to be told what to do, especially by outsiders. This idea of bringing the light of democracy and freedom to the ‘dark corners’ of the world was always a western concept, our view of how the future of those regions should be. Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians- they never wanted what we have. They never asked for our armies to take over their countries, but take over their countries we did (again), creating an entire generation of young men who have made it their mission to kill as many non-Muslims as possible. We invade those nations under the pretext that not only the lives of the people there will be better off, but the lives of our own citizens back home will be safer. Neither is true-  just ask the Yazidis in northern Iraq or the family members of those who perished in the 7/7 attacks in London, in 2005.

Today ISIS is the personification of evil on Earth. Fourteen years ago it was Al-Qaeda, then the Taliban. The enemy evolves, our policies do not- we keep on intervening, invading and arming whoever is necessary so “democracy” can prevail. But it doesn’t and it won’t. One, because Muslims don’t want us in their land (rightly so), and two, because of the arrogance and inability of western leaders to look at the world through their eyes. 

David Cameron said the UK is prepared to arm the Kurds in order to defeat ISIS- a tactic which has backfired time and again. Once upon a time the US armed and trained what today are the Taliban to fend off the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s- we all know how that turned out. With that in mind I leave you with Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

[iseeiwrite]

How I lost my job to the Ukrainian-Russian crisis

What the eyes don't see the heart doesn't feel, so goes the saying, especially when it comes to a war between countries. The downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 while flying through Ukrainian airspace with 298 people on board a little over a week ago, though, served as a reminder to us all that in this globalised world everything is connected, even if it doesn't seem so at first.

When the Ukrainian-Russian crisis broke out I was working for The Voice of Russia, in London. I was the Deputy Editor of a daily online international news bulletin, and for no particular reason I was given the Ukrainian crisis story.  I would come in at 8am every morning, see what the agencies had, and write my report according to what was coming through the wires.

In the beginning I thought it was a pretty riveting story. A group of dissenters armed solely with rocks and handmade catapults, taking over the icy streets of Kiev, trying to get rid of a corrupt president - in many ways it was surreal. But as is mostly the case when it comes to this business, I had to keep my personal emotions and opinions in check and always bear in mind who may paymasters were - in this case the Kremlin. My boss was a former BBC Moscow producer from Wales, and always encouraged me to show both sides of the story, regardless of how lopsided the Voice of Russia desk back in Moscow wanted my reports reports to be. In the beginning their demands were limited to not mentioning Russia on a certain line, or referring to the Kremlin on that line - Russia was involved in the crisis from the very beginning, but they didn't want to be mentioned alongside with what was going on in Kiev. Editorially we never saw eye to eye with our colleagues in Moscow, but we tried to accommodate their demands as best as we could. I remember a story in which I referred to  Viktor Yanukovych's government as a "house of cards", after which my editor immediately received an email from Moscow ordering us to not use that term. I was actually quite proud of myself for coming up with that. 

A few weeks later I understood how my Russian counterparts viewed this crisis and indeed the world. I was sitting at home watching Channel 4 news when a Voice of Russia journalist came on the show as a guest. If I hadn't read his title, though, I would have thought he was working for the Russian Foreign Ministry - not only did he throw impartiality out the window, but he was still of the mindset that it was the West against Russia.

As the conflict escalated and the stakes got higher, the pressure on us started to mount. Moscow never recognised Ukraine's provisional government, which meant we could not mention it either. Then came the annexation of the Crimea region. Except that in Moscow's view, the word 'annexation' implied force, so in my reports I had to say the residents of Crimea "chose" to join Russia. 

My boss' concern became apparent. I never had any direct contact with the people in Moscow (most of them didn't speak English), but it was obvious they weren't happy with our reluctance/unwillingness to be part of the Russian government's propaganda machine. 

As the international sanctions on Russia started rolling in we knew our jobs were on the line. Our paychecks came directly from the Kremlin, and it was inevitable that at some point our position would become untenable. In March we received a letter from Moscow confirming our worst fears - we would be shutdown. The company cited the financial restructuring underway at the time as the reason, but we all knew what the real motive was.

So no, I'm nowhere near as unfortunate as the people in Ukraine- a month after losing my post in London I was in Rio de Janeiro covering the World Cup for a German broadcaster. But it does show how conflicts such as these, in addition to leaving a path of destruction and misery for the local population, can also have unpredictable and sometimes disastrous consequences for people in far away lands.

[iseeiwrite]

The Brazilian way of doing things proves the world wrong

Anyone who knows me on a personal or professional capacity, knows how critical I have been of Brazil and its preparations for the World Cup. 

I was here last year covering some of the worst street protests this nation has seen in decades while the Confederations Cup was underway, and trust me if you asked any journalist at the time no one would tell you (myself included) that 12 months later the country was going to stage football's marquee event. Forget the street demos- construction work on the stadiums was way behind schedule and over budget, infrastructure projects were either late or cancelled altogether, the airports weren't up to standard, and some host cities didn't have enough hotel beds- in other words the whole tournament was doomed to be a nightmarish experience.

Fast forward to today and not only is Brazil one game away from playing a World Cup final in the Maracana, but those nightmares (mainly from the international media) never materialised- stadiums were somehow finished and have been packed every single game, street protests have been a non-factor, the atmosphere is brilliant, and last but not least this has been some of the best football in the history of the competition. FIFA's President Seep Blatter said as much last Wednesday: "The tournament has been unquestionably a great success. I can only thank the Brazilian people for having accepted to host the tournament.”

Back in 2012, though, FIFA's Secretary General, Gerome Valcke, said Brazil "needs a kick up the arse" to speed up its preparation projects. While FIFA and the international media showed exasperation at the slowness of the preparations, Brazilian officials oozed defiance and the typical optimism. Everything would be ready on time and Brazil would host a great party. 

And a great party it has been, indeed, so much so there is talk in some quarters that this might go down as one of the best World Cups in recent memory.

But how has everything turned out so peachy in the end? For one, Brazilians, too scared of the police crackdown and too caught up in all the football madness, didn't take to the streets in massive numbers like they did last year. And secondly and perhaps most importantly, the doubters and naysayers (myself included) grossly underestimated the power of what the locals call "o jeitinho brasileiro." The literal translation is "the brazilian way of doing things" and it's an allusion to the resourcefulness and improvisation skills of the Brazilian people. It's something so ingrained in the culture here, it's a wonder FIFA officials didn't take it into account.

Do you know those massive white tents very common at music festivals? Well, that's what the new terminal in Fortaleza's International Airport was- a massive white tent as time ran out to build a real building. While waiting for my flight to Belo Horizonte, there wasn't a lot I could do inside this white tent- it had rows of seats, toilets, air-conditioning, and a couple of vending machines. There was also a flat screen around which dozens of passengers gathered to watch a World Cup game while waiting for their flight. It was a tent but it served it's purpose. In Curitiba the same thing. Journalists were supposed to work out of this brand new building which was going to be the media centre, but instead they were put in tents in the stadium's parking lot.

Better urban mobility was supposed to be one of the World Cup's main legacy, but after several delays public transportation projects connected to the tournament were abandoned, so "the Brazilian way of doing things" had to be called upon once again. There's no need for better roads or public transport, lets just tell everyone to stay home? That's exactly what government officials did. They declared a half working day whenever there was a match in one of the host cities, and whenever the national team was playing the holiday was a national one- no one went to work. The select few who had tickets to the games were able to glide through the empty roads and empty tube carriages and happily make their way to the stadiums in a timely fashion. 

In an interview for a select group of international journalists last month, Rio de Janeiro's mayor Eduardo Paes, conceded there were probably too many cities involved in the tournament. "I think that when Brazil decided to have 12 stadiums, we are a continental country, we are very big, I think we made a mistake. We should have fewer cities hosting the World Cup than what we have, and that prompted this kind of situation."

So no, this World Cup won't be remembered for improving the lives of millions of Brazilians. But for the thousands of fans who flew to these shores, the players on the pitch, the fans in the stands, and to skeptical FIFA officials, Brazil definitely showed it can organise a major event, albeit in its way- the Brazilian way.

[iseeiwrite]

Brazil 2014 World Cup: Spot the black face

When I was a kid there were these books called Where's Wally. They consisted of a series of detailed double-page spread illustrations depicting hundreds of people doing a variety of amusing things at a given location. Readers were then challenged to find a character named Wally hidden in the crowd.

Some 20 odd years later and now covering the World Cup in Brazil as a journalist, I find myself playing a similar game whenever I enter a packed arena, only this time the question is a bit more serious. Where is all the black folk? I've been to five host cities so far and each time the answer was never easy to come by- I've even missed goals while looking through the crowd.

Salvador is the most Afrocentric city in Brazil. At the Germany v Portugal game however, if I didn't know any better I would think I was in Kansas. 

In Sao Paulo, Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, Recife the same thing. Where have all the black people gone? This in a country with the biggest population of African descent outside of Africa. Brazil is sold internationally as this rainbow nation, as close to a racial democracy as any country can get, and to some degree it's true. For all its sheer size and diversity there are no ethnic or religious conflicts and everyone speaks the same language.

Socially, though, it's a different story. The government hoped to use the World Cup to showcase the country's cultural diversity and thriving democracy in all its splendour, but all it did was to highlight the deep rooted prejudices and inequalities in this nation of 200 million.

So, in a piece of land where 60 percent of the population is black or mixed, why then, during one of the most important single events in its history, is the absence of those 60 percent so conspicuous? 

The answer is as obvious as it is tragic. Most black people in Brazil are poor. Unlike in South Africa or America, here there's no black middle class, and perhaps most importantly there isn't a black political class. A World Cup ticket is officially priced between $90 and a $1000, but in a country where the minimum wage is a little above $350 a month, a seat at the Maracana is out of many people's reach. 

In Fortaleza the game was between Germany v Ghana. For obvious reasons there were more black people than usual in the stands, but were it not for the Ghanaians, the only black people anywhere near the stadium were the poor residents from the nearby favela, selling drinks and snacks to white middle class fans, who couldn't be bothered with the long queues inside the arena.  Or for those who didn't feel like walking the three kilometres imposed by FIFA from the road blocks to the stadium, there were throngs of poor, black, favela kids eagerly awaiting on their bikes, ready to take the fans to their final destination.

Brazilians always had a peculiar attitude towards race. This was the country's football superstar, Neymar, reply a couple of years ago, when asked if he had ever been a victim of racism. “Never. Neither inside nor outside the field. Because I’m not black, right?” The players of the national team are clearly mostly black or mixed (including Neymar), many though, dye their hair blonde (including Neymar)- get the picture? Other Brazilian sporting heroes have equally dismissed the issue of race in the past. Ronaldo has also denied his black heritage in an interview, and the country's biggest football icon, Pele, is too busy doing commercials to say anything meaningful on the issue. 

In 1881 slavery was officially abolished in Brazil- the last country in the Western Hemisphere to do so. Fast forward to 2012 and it enacted one of the world's most sweeping affirmative action laws, requiring public universities to reserve half of their admission spots for the largely poor students in the nation’s public schools and vastly increase the number of university students of African descent across the country.

Brazilian officials said at the time the law signifies an important shift in Brazil’s view on offering opportunities to big swaths of the population.

When it comes to this World Cup, however, for all the things it has provided, opportunities to large swathes of the population isn't one of them.  On this particular issue Brazil has scored an own goal.