Brazil: violence in (merged thread)

[flagg]

Here's a YouTube link to a decent documentary about a favela in Rio, Brazil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP9eYxELA8Y

I particularly like the part from approx 15:00 to approx 21:00 minutes.

It follows the local slumlord(urban warlord meaning of the word) "Spiderman" in his unenviable tasks that seem to include:

Mayor
Police Chief
Judge/Arbitrator
Bank Manager
Public Works CFO
Drug Dealer

He's wearing a lot of hats filling the vacuum left by a failure of legitimate local governance.

To me, after having seen this and then reading Kilcullen's "Out of the Mountains" it really struck home the points of "conflict entrepreneur" and illicit networks where drug revenue is A, or possibly THE revenue stream(of the moment), NOT the purpose of the network.

It also helped better define for me forum member Bob's World's description of self-governed/ungoverned spaces that I've seen in his previous posting.

I've been following the UPP(Brazil's Police Pacifying Unit) project with great interest, and look forward to more in-depth analysis targeting those with a professional interest in the growing megaslum future.

So far, what little has made it into the mainstream has been less than promising:

Rio Police Officer Is Indicted for Torture While Lecturing on ‘Smart Policing’ in New York

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...ype=blogs&_r=0

Brazil's favelas are in big trouble, despite the World Cup marketing push

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...lings-security

As an interested amateur, I'm left thinking that some source material worth researching for future solutions, might include a look into certain directions from the past.

I think if I had the opportunity to visit and understand the Brazilian favela ecosystems or Karachi slum ecosystems I'd want to do some homework in areas such as:

Shanghai Municipal Police(pre WWII) for low-tech historical efforts and innovation to quell organised crime in urban ghettos that has a foreign/colonial component

Northern Ireland 1970's-to present for more modern efforts to counter a capable insurgency with an urban component that covered the gamut of old school manual coal face work up through and including more modern interagency efforts leveraging technology

Political Machines(Tammany Hall as one example) in US urban ghettos from late 1700s to early 1900s for examples of networks leveraging their power to transition from illegal to quasi legal to legitimacy and recognition as one of the political centres of gravity/influence/control.

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I sometimes wonder if the life cycles of insects may be an analog to illicit megaslum networks?

embryo
larvae
pupa
imago/maturity/legitimacy

Comparing the favela video above with the Vice series on Karachi found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgIl1vmIchA

It would superficially appear that Karachi's slums/ghettos are well into the transition to political machines

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Are developing world megaslums simply echoing our own western history of slum/ghetto development with two adjustments for sheer scale and the catalysing effects of technology?

IF that is the case, and while I am a big fan of David Kilcullen's book and derived great value from it(particularly his conflict entrepreneur and "city as biological system" perspective), I don't see enough emphasis on what I see as the life cycle of illicit networks on the journey from criminality to legitimacy.

Using Kilcullen's own biological system viewpoint, I wonder if the illicit networks can be viewed as a parasitic/symbiotic biological system within a system?

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I look forward to seeing how this thread develops in the exciting times ahead!