The world’s fifth largest country is rapidly industrializing and beginning to exploit its vast reserves of arable land. But its wealth belongs to a very few, and a fearful government refuses to trust its people with freedom of speech. Here are two reports on the state of Brazilian society as it exists for the poor and for those who dare to speak out.
“Everything you see in this country the white man built,” says one of the 270,000 whites who live among 6.5 million blacks, “. . . and I’m not going to let any blighter take it.” But the country young Cecil Rhodes began settling fewer than 90 years ago has become a land in limbo. White Rhodesians are ostracized by international society, harassed by guerrillas, and caught in what seems to many to be inexorable pressure to surrender that bountiful country to the black majority.