Just three years ago, Brazil, the country that long marketed itself as the home of samba and soccer, was all the rage in global affairs. Adorning its cover with Rio de Janeiro’s Christ statue shooting up like a rocket, the Economist proclaimed in November 2009 that Brazil was “taking off.” The first among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the preeminent power bloc of developing nations, Brazil was, it seemed, realizing its enormous potential. It was enjoying strong economic growth. It was aggressively reducing levels of poverty—and even inequality—while fostering a vibrant democracy. If the twenty-first century was really to be the Century of the Americas, Brazil was poised to lead the way. Its star power had few peers. While Brazil basked in effusive praise, Mexico, the other Latin American titan, was portrayed in markedly negative, sometimes even macabre, terms. The media described unremitting, drugfueled violence that, in the most extreme depictions, threatened the very integrity of the Mexican government. Indeed, in a US government report, Mexico was viewed as possibly becoming a “failed state.” Spreading criminality was compounded by a severe recession in 2009. The economy contracted by over 6 percent, largely the result of a financial crisis originating in the country to which Mexico was inextricably tied: the United States.
A PDF version of the article is available for download below.
