Culture Is Our Weapon by Patrick Neate

Author:Patrick Neate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Mediators

“During all this confusion between the moradores, Anderson, Vitor, Altair, and Dada tried to stop them fighting. But there were fewer residents of Vigário, so the people from Lucas began claiming Anderson was on the Vigário side. One in particular started giving him real grief so Anderson invited him out for a fistfight. This man didn’t want that. Instead, he went back to Lucas and spread a lie. He said that Anderson had kidnapped twenty moradores from Lucas, that he’d raped a girl, that he was brandishing a gun and threatening people from Lucas. Even though this was ridiculous, people believed it. Then the police kidnapped the dono of Lucas (to earn some money), so Anderson had lost his friend and protector.

“By now, early on Friday evening, seven people from AfroReggae were stuck in the middle of all this and the BOPE had gone. I set off to try and negotiate with a boss of the Terceiro Comando in another favela and got stuck in a traffic jam. At the same time, a crowd of people from Lucas armed with guns, rocks, and sticks had gathered where Anderson was. He called me and I listened to all the yelling and shouting. I turned back to Vigário, prepared to die with my friends.

“I had two phones with me; on one I was listening to the scene in Vigário and on the other I had a trafficker from Lucas saying that if he saw anyone from AfroReggae with a gun, he’d kill them. This made me both more anxious and more calm because I knew that no one in AfroReggae had guns.

“I kept on listening to what was happening. Anderson, Altair, and the others went on the offensive, arguing with the mob and pointing their fingers in their faces. They got worked up into a kamikaze frame of mind and refused to back down. Even though the people were all armed and, obviously, they were scared, they didn’t show any fear. It was all a front as they shouted: ‘Get fucked! Fuck you!’ The gang in front of them wasn’t expecting that, and the crowd calmed down.

“I was nearing Vigário. Up to this point I’d heard everything, but then my phone cut out. When I got there I expected to find dead bodies. Instead, I found my friends celebrating their survival. Despite the chaos around them, they’d managed to mediate and turn the situation around. Some of the traffickers from Lucas had even apologized.

“The favela was like a ghost town. But while we were celebrating, thinking that the story was over, we found out that it wasn’t. I was told that people in the CV from Vigário had issued a death sentence on Anderson. So on Friday the Terceiro Comando wanted to kill him, and on Saturday, the Comando Vermelho wanted to. So once more we had to take him out of the favela. Me and JB then went around a whole load of places trying to talk to different people.

“Things became seriously absurd when the real bosses in Bangu prison heard about this latest development.

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