São Paulo Pride Goes Off!
Over the weekend São Paulo, Brazil hosted their annual gay pride parade. It’s the largest parade of its kind in the world – this year five million people were marching in the streets, around 20 sound trucks.
In terms of numbers, it makes Mardi Gras look like tea and sandwiches – not that our 10,000 strong parade, 18,500 strong party and 300,000 onlookers are to be sniffed at!
“We still see cases of homophobia in [Brazil],” Tourism Minister Marta Suplicy told the crowd. “We still don’t have a law making homophobia a crime, and that needs to change. Congress has to approve this law.”
Later, Suplicy told journalists, “This is the diversity the country wants, the diversity that we have to foster as a country seeking a tourist niche among the gay community.”
Apparently the parade attracted 330,000 tourists to São Paulo and nets almost $124 million. In a world where money talks, those kind of figures equal very real power indeed. But has it gotten too big?
While the large numbers and the obvious spectacle have been widely reported, other reports of violence, theft and substance abuse are starting to make their way into the public arena.
One report on Made In Brazil says that the parade has become too big and is now nothing more than a dangerous street carnival. “After experiencing the parade last year, I promised myself that I would not go again this year… Last year instead of feeling a sense of belonging, I was saddened to see people falling all over the place due to drug and alcohol abuse, and people being robbed and attacked. Unfortunately this year was not much different.”
Apparently on Friday afternoon, a 25-year-old man was found dead at Mercure Hotel in the Jardins area. His body was discovered at a one metre deep pool, next to where one of the hotel guests had passed out sleeping. No official statements about the death have been released by the police yet.
Some news reports have suggested that this year’s parade was more violent than the previous year’s. Several people reported being robbed while standing right next to police officers and official data quoted by Made In Brazil states that the number of thefts this year went up 78% from last year. That’s a huge jump.
The hospital was apparently overflowing from alcohol and drug problem cases, and at around 3pm, a 56-year-old man had his leg crushed by one of the floats. He was rushed to hospital, where his leg was eventually amputated.
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caloanwalker
said on the 28th May, 2008