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July 2001
Dear Friends,
We bought a new refrigerator yesterday. Our old one still works;
recently we replaced its rubber gaskets and, more recently still,
we replaced the thermostat. But the motor runs too frequently,
and this became a critical problem in the light of our energy
crisis. The government is threatening to cut off the electricity
of anyone who fails to lower their usage by 20 percent. For us,
that means less than 144 kwh this next month. Since we’re
not at home much, our bills are usually quite low, so in a way,
we’re being penalized for our very modest usage in the past.
And I feel frustrated because we couldn’t seem to do anything
about the refrigerator. We’ve taken all the responsible other
steps we can: we purchased and use compact flourescent light bulbs;
we’ve mothballed our breadmaking machine and ditto (almost)
for the microwave oven. We’ve disconnected our clock-radios
and we take very brief showers under our (electrically) heated
showerheads, which supply the only hot water in the apartment.
We read articles about people having to do without their electrically
heated swimming pools and others who take showers and use hair
dryers in their athletic clubs so as to reduce their personal
electric bills. My frustrations and anxiety about a possible cut-off
because of excessive usage made me think about my Center’s
clients in
tenement buildings called "cortiços."
People in cortiços usually have only one electric meter
for everyone in the building. An average number of families per
building might be twenty. So each is dependent on the collaboration
of nineteen other families to meet the 20 percent reduction. And
not just collaboration is required: those having refrigerators
must have efficient ones—or be able to spend the equivalent
of several hundred dollars to buy a new model—an obviously
absurd assumption. Most cortiço-dwellers use one or two
light bulbs, (after all, they live in one-room "apartments")
but there was a run on compact flourescent bulbs, which are either
out of stock or cost a great deal, perhaps 10 dollars
each. People who live in cortiços can’t afford this.
So what can they cut? The only common, non-essential item they
have is television, which is their only entertainment. It would
be inhumane to demand that they forego it. But unless they collectively
achieve the government mandated reduction of 20 percent, their
electricity will be cut off. Another worry is that without electricity,
people use candles. Candles, children, and cortiços, whose
living spaces are often divided by curtains, produce fatal fires.
I have a file of newspaper articles on the terrible deaths that
have occurred under these circumstances.
Newspapers also attempt to tell us the reasons behind the energy
crisis. The government says it’s St. Peter, who (according
to popular Catholicism in Brazil) is being held responsible for
the lack of rain this year. Most of Brazil’s electricity
is water-generated, and we’ve experienced droughts in large
areas of the country. But experts point out that droughts are
periodic and planning for them doesn’t require a great deal
of intelligence. Others have pointed out that the International
Monetary Fund prohibited the kind of investments that
could have prevented the energy crisis. The same IMF was responsible
for pressures to privatize many electric companies, whose new
owners have also not made the necessary investments to avoid the
crisis.
Friends who worked there tell me that the owners of our local
electric company are French and American. The privatization of
public services was accompanied by huge layoffs, and those laid
off joined others who were laid off because of technological/
competitive reforms. For example, auto workers were replaced by
robots, so that the products could compete on world markets. One
such former auto worker now works in one of my Center’s projects
where he is a trash recycler. His income is much reduced, and
as a
self-employed worker he no longer has any fringe benefits. Now
we are reading about more layoffs because of the energy crisis—people
aren’t buying electricity-using products for their homes,
so manufacturing workers and salespeople are being dismissed.
A few are being hired to produce for the new demand in kerosene
lanterns and fluorescent lights, but predictions are that there
will be a serious decline in overall productivity and employment.
Many Brazilians, like many others in the Third World, are suffering
the consequences from First World pressures to "open"
their economy to international investments. The IMF insisted on
its version of fiscal responsibility, and the results have been
record unemployment, and now, a severe energy crisis and more
unemployment. The most victimized, as usual, are the poor, the
increasingly unemployed, and those who can’t buy new refrigerators
or go to their athletic clubs for showers and who have no swimming
pool heaters to turn off in order to reach the required 20 percent
reduction.
Please pray for the enlightenment of the policymakers at the
International Monetary Fund and other national and international
agencies, that they will perceive the terrible blight their policies
have brought and are bringing to lives of so many people in Brazil
and other Third World countries. Please consider becoming active
in the defense of the poor in the Third World. One suggestion
for becoming informed about the issues: www.newint.org—it’s
the New Internationalist Magazine’s Website that can lead
you to many articles on the IMF, World Bank, etc. The organization’s
statement of purpose says it "exists to report on the issues
of world poverty and inequality…to debate and campaign for
the radical changes necessary within and between those nations
[rich and poor] if the basic material and spiritual needs of all
are to be met." Of course, it is good not to be dependent
on only one source of information. Perhaps you can share your
sources with me.
Finally and always, please pray for the poor and our own spiritual
discernment, that we can begin to understand how our actions and
inaction as First World citizens influence their lives.
Shalom,
Linnis Cook
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 258
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