Only in Brazil!
If you’ve been scanning the papers in the last day you may have seen this horrible story (Portuguese / English) about a 20 year old named Daniel Barroso abusing dogs at a grooming parlour/pet shop here in Rio.
A day after the story broke here in Brazil, it was also reported in Britain.
I think it goes without saying that this is a very ugly story – people entrust their loved animals to be groomed and instead of taking car of them, this guy is hitting them and generally maltreating them. Unfortunately stories like this come up occasionally.
As well as causing a huge amount of outrage and upsetting people there is often a kind of mini-back-lash in which people say “People care more about animals than people”. I actually haven’t seen that one so far, but what I have seen a lot of is this: Vergonha, só no Brasil mesmo! (Shame! Only in Brazil!).
Here are some more from the Globo website:
Só no Brasil mesmo que nao temos leis que protegem os animais (It’s only in Brazil that we don’t have animal protection laws)
Brasil é isso. Vergonha mundial. (This is Brazil. Global shame!)
I know, I know, I shouldn’t pay too much attention to the crazies who comment on youtube and newspaper sites, but it still makes me wonder. Do people really believe that things like this only happen in Brazil? Why are they so down on their own country?
When I lived in the London there were people who would constantly be down on the UK too. Whenever a fiasco or scandal emerged they would immediately proclaim that this kind of thing only happened in Britain. Are people saying this all over the world? Is there a guy in Ulaanbaatar reading the paper, shaking his head and muttering “Only in Mongolia…”? I suspect there is.
“Damned delinquent goats. They wouldn’t put up with this kind of behaviour in Kazakhstan…”
Good point and I see this a lot.
I think a lot of Brazilians are very insecure about Brazil in general, mainly because they are completely ignored (for the most part) from the world, nobody knows that people there don’t speak Spanish, and in general the world just doesn’t seem to really, REALLY care about Brazil like it does the US or Europe, which is really sad and stupid.
Plus, couple this with Brazilian Drama, and I think Brazilians think, at times, that other places (like the US) are picture perfect and have no problems whatsoever, which is a complete joke.
I think (or hope) with more development, Brazilians will have a little more pride for their beautiful country.
Nice one Alex, I agree. I think some Brazilians (not all, just some) need to try to learn to be cool with the fact that Brazil has some failings. It’s not the end of the world – every country has its fair share of failings. I’m not saying they should bow their heads and accept the failings, but accept that every country has background levels of bad stuff happening. Was this guy’s cruelty indicative of a wider problem in Brazil? Of course not!
Perhaps what is lacking in what you described is orderly and rational thinking, instead of jumping directly to a conclusion (Only in – – – -, and so forth). In this case: pets were found to be beaten in location A, humm, I wonder if they are beaten elsewhere? If research is possible then ask questions as to the results encountered: is this due to legislation, culture, income, all of the above, none of the above?
Anyway, given this mindset, I think it better for people to be hard on themselves and/or country, rather than lenient: I find it depressing and dangerous when people use nationalism to sweep everything under the carpet (I suspect it also empowers those in charge to do whatever they want under the guise of national interest and foreign threat). What I also find disturbing is the difficulty one encounters in discussing diverging ideas : it seems so hard to point out inconsistencies in someone else’s argument in everyday conversation in Brazil, and then discuss them. More often than not, when talking with others here, I observe that a doubt or disagreement regarding what a person says is automatically considered a personal insult by said person. Even if you actually say something like “I think you are wrong on this: Brazil actually fares better in (insert topic) because the numbers you provided are incorrect. Allow me to point you to my sources”. Shame, since when looking at errors and the faulty reasoning behind them one often finds clues leading to the truth (and once there solutions are just soooo much easier to consider).
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Man, you just had to go all lonely planetely and use Ulaanbaatar instead of the westernized spelling: Ulan Bator. :-)
Love me some Mongolian barbeque btw. Which turns out not having originated in Mongolia at all, according to this.
http://www.johannesrebane.ca/history483/
Ha ha, Ulaanbaatar was a cut & paste job! But yes, I just love to say it like the locals…! ;)
On the subject of people lacking orderly and rational thinking, I guess a lot of people lose their heads when emotions run high, and animal cruelty is one of those subjects that really hits a nerve in many parts of the world.
In the US, the “only in America” comments about a negative story sometimes come across as a sort of distorted national pride. It’s almost as if people are shaking their heads with a rueful smile, the way they might when discussing a disobedient child, whom the family loves in spite of his chronic misbehavior. Or maybe they think that the US has such a bizarre conglomeration of people that weird things are more likely to happen here.
My take on comments like these is that they are probably made by people who don’t have much awareness of the rest of the world, and therefore honesty don’t realize that human beings all over the world manage to screw things up on a regular basis. We like to think of ourselves and our culture as being unique and special, even if it means we are uniquely dysfunctional.
An alternate theory is that people bring out the “Only in _______” comment as a pre-emptive strike, criticizing their own country before any foreigners can do it. Again, it’s sort of like the family analogy, where relatives are quick to criticize members of their own clan, but take extreme offense if someone outside the family dares to say something negative about one of their own.
Hmmm, it’s a puzzling one isn’t it?
Regarding America, I remember a British stand-up comedian saying something along the lines of this:
:D It does seem that America produces more than it’s fair share of crazy, outlandish, extreme stories. But who knows, maybe it’s media bias…?
I agree- there s sometimes that rueful smile/ headshake thing going on in the USA. And there’s the shame one, too.
But overall this is just a very self-centered view of life. Boring, but true I think.
Now, I have been a part of convos or situations that can only happen in one place and said “Only at ____” but those are pretty rare.
I think smthg else is going on here.
Sorry Jennifer, just realised I missed your comment! I think it’s pretty common around the world and I think after a while people stop thinking about they’re saying. It just becomes auto-pilot: “only in X”. I think also we’re influenced by the media with things like this. I remember the tabloids back in the UK were always going on about “Broken Britain” and how dysfunctional the country was. Tell people something enough and they start to believe it.
People say the “only in Brazil” thing because they are fed up, really. This is what I do. I mean, Brazil is obviously not the poorest or worst country in the world, but it is full of serious issues that don’t exist in first world countries. We don’t use Ethiopia or Somalia as a benchmark. Brazilians might not easily confess, but they feel very sad and concerned about their country’s problems. Thus, the “only in Brazil” thing is a blend of grief and angry.
Tom, rest assured that even the most nationalistic and boastful Brazilian will eventually say a “only in Brazil” when waiting for hours in line at “DETRAN” or paying $80000 for a cherokee which costs $15000 in the US.
it’s our “scape valve”.
It’s interesting that so many (probably all) nations seem to do it though. Perhaps it’s an extension of that “Things like this always happen to me” mentality. When I was younger I’d often think that way – I wouldn’t think much about the good luck I had, but when I was unlucky I’d moan “Why me? These things always happen to me!”. Not very rational (or appreciative of all the good things I had going), but probably quite common.
As you say, we we tend to concentrate on the people/countries that have more than us, without looking sideways/down and considering how much worse things could be. Again, perfectly natural and I’m sure it is healthy to aspire to more, rather than be content with things the way they are.