Friday, September 11, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
CULTURE-BRAZIL: Great Thieves of History Do the Samba
Fabiana Frayssinet
- It soon will be carnival time in Rio and, this year, the great thieves of history will be parading through the Sambodrome of this city in what promises to be one of the most controversial themes of the big event.
At the headquarters of the “Unidos do Porto da Pedra” samba school, hundreds of men and women are working around the clock, putting the finishing touches on the floats depicting ‘Samba in your feet, hands in the air, this is a stick up!”
A man toting a giant Robin Hood head paints golden touches on the face of the legendary British bandit who robbed the rich to feed the poor. Another man polishes the monumental adolescent body of Hermes, the King of Thieves from Greek mythology.
In another corner of the hot shed the paint is drying on dozens of rococo beds, where the legendary womaniser, Casanova, will publically live out his amorous adventures before the spectators of the Sambodrome, on the float dedicated to the “great stealer of hearts.”
The float of which the workers are most proud, has giant replica of the British mail train – robbed by arguably Rio de Janeiro’s most infamous resident Ronnie Biggs who chose exile here over a prison sentence back home.
“Biggs comes into our story in order to draw a parallel with the majority of Brazilian politicians who also steal and also are never convicted,” Mauro Quintaes, the architect who created the float, declared. “Just as Biggs was accepted by Brazil and Rio de Janeiro and today still walks free without being punished for what he did, many corrupt Brazilian politicians also walk with impunity through our streets.”
Biggs, who recently had an extradition request from Britain turned down by the Brazilian courts, was invited to join the parade on the float in his honour – jogging in front of the train on an exercise treadmill.
“He would have been shown running all the time – symbolising his life, always fleeing and from justice – while the long arm of the British law unsuccessfully tries to catch up with him,” explained Quintaes.
But the famous robber, who is currently trying to obtain Brazilian nationality, said he did not want to steal the show in carnival, and turned down the invitation after seeking legal advice.
“The train is very well made, it’s very similar to the train I robbed, but I don’t want to encourage crime. The ‘carioca’ (Rio de Janeiro) people are suffering quite enough with the current level of crime,” Biggs told the press after visiting the Unidos do Porto Pedra headquarters.
“The people who will be in the Sambodrome, who go there to enjoy themselves, won’t want to see representations of what they suffer every day.”
Quintaes is not worried about any citicism as he is used to causing controversy – last year he brought patients from a psychiatric hospital to parade in the sambodrome on a float dedicated to the reintegration of the menta patients into society.
“The aim is to use the carnival as a vehicle of protest by the Brazilian people. As carnival is the biggest popular celebration in the world, my aim is to lodge a massive complaint against the situation of theft in Brazil,” he said. “Everyone thinks that merely presenting a character in the Sambodrome means they are being eulogised, but it can be just the opposite, they can be harshly criticised, being judged by the great public of carnival.”
To justify this argument, Quintaes referred to one of the other floats, where tiny prison cells will be seen carrying at least three former presidents squashed into each. The float will represent the overcrowding in prisons – one of the biggest problems of the Brazilian penitentiary system currently causing rebellions or mutinies on a routine weekly basis.
“The great moment of carnival will be when I call for the prisoners to be reintegrated into society. Those who have already paid their debt must be accepted by society and carnival will be a chance for this reintegration to start,” he said.
In another part of the samba school, the parading Brazilians and tourists will use costumes in which they need to have previously written a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ to the application of the death penalty.
“Our justice within the parade will not be a blind justice. It will have glasses and will see very well, leaving very few free of criticism,” he concluded.
Not needing all these detailed explanations, the wider Brazilian public has already started to interpret Quintaes’s true objective.
“I love this plot because it talks of thieves, of real life, and it’s important to state our situation,” summed up Elaine Constant, a woman from a marginal neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro.
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CULTURE-BRAZIL: Great Thieves of History Do the Samba
Fabiana Frayssinet
- It soon will be carnival time in Rio and, this year, the great thieves of history will be parading through the Sambodrome of this city in what promises to be one of the most controversial themes of the big event.
(more…)
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|
