Rio's Corcovado, Je Suis Charlie / Eu Sou Charlie Ipanema, Diversity and Tolerance

Since my very first visit to Rio on Christmas 1989, in awe before the sprawling city that I held as birthplace of samba and bossa-nova, I have held a promise. I remember my first view of O Cristo Redentor, commonly known as Corcovado, arms wide open  welcoming mariners from the sea and seemingly offering protection to all below (photo taken from Internet - Rocinha favela at his far right fingers). In a typical sliver through two modern buildings in Copacabana, I had had my first direct view of a favela just below His feet, its narrow access trail beginning from the sidewalk adjacent to both high-end buildings, and its precarious red hollow-brick walls haphazardly agglomerated into makeshift shacks spreading along the edge of the cliff, like roots avid for soft earth.

With the orographic effect of the moist ocean air pushed upwards by the night's sea breeze, Christ looked graced with a holy aureole, immovably still atop his granite peak, a shear 1500-ft wall dropping on 180 degrees right below his feet. My promise had been that I would never visit the Corcovado until I was able to scale the daunting cliff at his side, a route shorter, but akin to the world-famous "big walls" (Chalten in Patagonia, Aiguille des Drus in Chamonix, El Capitan in Yosemite - all dreamworthy).

Half a decade later, while taking tourists on tandem parapente flights from the Pedra Bonita five miles away, I relaxed my promise allowing the option of reaching Christ, if not by scaling the wall (admittedly beyond my best climbing skills) by arriving there on a paraglider (the technology of which seemed impossible at the time). In the last fifteen years, thanks to improved technology, several pilots have managed the flight, some even on tandem gliders. However, it takes a number of favorable conditions, not the least of which is pilot skill, which I no longer think I have at this point.

Recently, my long-time pilot friend Vinicius "Indiana" offered we try for the Christ on his tandem, and I would be up for it. However, whether paragliding or taking any of the tourist means to reach O Cristo, invariably means arriving from his back side. Philosophically, this poses a problem for me, and all the more as I joined millions of mourners of the cold-blooded assassinations at Charlie Hebdo, and confront profound questions about the tolerance for diversity in the lands I call home, all "westernized".

One of the greatest symbols of this Christ for me has been his undifferentiated embrace. As I have said many times about Brazil, it is a nation that shows an exceptional acceptance of race, ethnic background, religion, socio-economic origin, and faith in its largest sense. The Corcovado Christ indiscriminately embraces the sprawling favelas and their lingering misery, as much as the exclusive penthouses of millionaires, the transexual prostitutes who line the Flamengo beaches at night, the homeless who sleep on Ipanema, kids and elderlies regardless of their physical or emotional deficiencies...even the drug traffickers, possibly luring them into a better lifestyle.

But how much better a lifestyle? The vindictive assassinations of a dozen cartoonists for their caricature of The Prophet several years earlier reaches into my very roots as a French leftist hippy of the 70's. While in absolute condemnation of the crime itself, I nonetheless feel  helplessly responsible for allowing our modern society to grow with such immense divergence, that it will inevitably lead to more such attempts. Le Figaro (top three French newspapers) attributed words along the following train of thought to Amedy Coulibaly, as he held fifteen or more hostages in the Cacher Market Porte de Vincennes in Paris: " Why must you wage war on our beliefs and lock up our brothers for petty crimes? You jail us for words of intolerance, but leave your journalists the freedom to insult our Prophet. Why must you strip the veil from our women?..." However shocking these words appear in our Western society, especially his last question and all the more in the context of abject violence, so they should incite in each of us a sense of responsibility for the intolerance that has developed on ALL sides.

A peaceful Je Suis Charlie parade amid tens of
thousands of rambunctious beach throngs

What our westernized society has called "progress" for the last two centuries may be reaching a hard limit, and not simply in the sense of economics, life expectancy, or technology. Climate Change and the Charlie Hebdo tragedy both question the very nature of our socio-economic model. Indeed, a huge number of scientists agree that Occidental activity over the past two centuries has greatly contributed to Global Warming. What we consider "modern standards of living" has come with a price tag that the natural environment is now pressing us to pay; the interests added to the bill may be human intolerance for this same system.

Our materialistic consumerism, our obsession with money, our claims for "Freedom" are all narrow-sighted. For instance, any attempt to reduce consumption, which would be necessary to reduce our impact on climate change, threatens our entire socio-economic system with unemployment (and decreasing returns to stock holders), such that no high-level politician can EVER hope to suggest such a policy. That's why we "market" the world to drink Coke, gobble Mc Donalds', and to soon own more screens than there are humans!

We westerners, dwellers of the "Free" world, enslaved to materi

The favela de Cantagalo behind
snazzy buildings all below Christ

alism, must expand our horizon and innovate a socio-economic system tolerant of radically different forms of "freedom" no matter how much they violate our beliefs, or our current economic system.  WE ALL share a large part of the blame in this latest tragedy , just as we do in Global Warming. We must have the courage to seek true Freedom, first and foremost that others may live the way they wish (or the way they deserve).

Short of ideas for action and evermore moved by the symbol of the Corcovado's indiscriminate embrace, although it will change nothing to the world, my first pilgrimage to the statue will definitely be facing Christ, for I cannot deny my responsibility in today's world.

FRANCAIS

Depuis mon premier apercu du Christ Redempteur, tronant au sommet du Corcovado, je m'etais prete serment que ma premiere visite a ses pieds ne serait autre qu'en escaladant la falaise de 600 metres sous son bras droit. Son ouverture envers les marins rentrant au port, tant qu'envers le peuple infiniment divers de la ville de Rio (photo prise sur Internet avec la favela de Rocinha vers la pointe de ses doigts a droite), merite un pelerinage plus qu'une simple visite en voiture ou en train. D'autant que la voie d'escalade semble en tout point comparable aux traditionnels "grands murs" qui comptent l'Aiguille des Drus, le Chalten en Patagonie, ou encore El Capitan a Yosemite. N'ayant que tres peu d'espoir d'un jour avoir le niveau technique requis, outre le fait que tres peu de gens ne suivent cette voie, et faisant tout les jours des vols biplaces en parapente depuis la Pedra Bonita, en 1995 je m'etais accorde la relache d'eventuellement parvenir au Christ en parapente. A l'epoque c'etait impensable car les voiles etaient loin des performances necessaires; meme les deltas avaient beaucoup de mal a y parvenir. Puis, dans les annees 2000, avec de nouvelles avancees techniqques, plusieurs pillotes y sont parvenus. Mais cela continue a exiger des conditions vraiment exceptionelles et une qualite de pilotage sans doute au dela de mes competences actuelles.

Vinicius, un ami de longue date qui fait des vols biplace depuis vingt ans, me proposa hier de tenter l'excursion ensemble sous son biplace, et je me trouve soudain face a un dileme philosophique, au lendemain de la catastrophe de Charlie Hebdo. En effet, arriver au Christ en parapente signifie arriver de son dos. Or c'est sa propre tolerance envers la diversite la plus totale que represente ses bras ouverts. A ses pieds croulent des favelas encore pauvrissimes dont les sentiers d'acces s'imiscent entre deux immeubles de luxe de Copacabana; des apartements de multi-milionaires dominent la ville; le Christ embrasse tous, aussi bien les riches que les pauvres, les prostitues transexuels de Flamengo, les poivrots qui crechent  sur le sable doux d' Ipanema, les sans-toits, les enfants et les vieux, sans differencier les handicapes ou les malades, et acceptant meme les traffiquants, peut etre avec un espoir de les convertir. Cette neutralite envers une diversite extreme me semble meriter une reverence, un pelerinage, car elle est presque le contraire de celle du systeme dans lequel je vis depuis cinquante ans.

Car les propos attribues par Le Figaro a Amedy Coulibaly, alors qu'il detenait ses otages Porte de Vincennes (le telephone ayant ete decroche, dit le journal), ne me semblent pas completement denues de sens, au contraire de son action. Son blame de l'intolerance de la societe occidentale envers son extremisme (qu'il associe a la croyance Musulmane, chose que je suis resolument incapable de juger) me fait effectivement ressentir une certaine culpabilite.

Car ce n'est pas que le terrorisme des hommes auquel nous sommes de plus en plus confronte. Il y a aussi le "terrorisme" de Dame Nature que l'on libele avec trop de facilite le Changement Climatique. L'unanimite des scientifiques concordent sur les activites de developpement "occidental" comme etant des causes importantes du rechauffement de l'atmosphere. Pourrait-on considerer que, apres deux siecles d'acceleration du developpement industriel et technologique qui nous permet de vivre dans notre confort actuel, la Nature vienne reclamer sa dette?

L'extremisme du changement climatique et de la tragedie Charlie Hebdo me semblent tout deux nous responsabiliser, nous esclaves du fric, de la technologie, et de toute sorte de choses bien au dela de nos necessites. Notre systeme  actuel est tellement pervers qu'il est iminaginable qu'un seul de nos hommes ou femmes politiques aient un jour le courage de dire "reduisons notre consommation!" car cela aurait instantanement des consequences que nous ne saurions gerer: le chomage augmenterait, les retours d'investissements seraient reduit a neant, et tout cela engendrerait un cataclysme social qui nous est inimaginable. Et pourtant, la vrai solution au rechauffement global c'est une enorme reduction de toute notre activite. L'idee que des energies dites "renouvelables" nous sauveront sont une illusion grotesque, tout autant que celle d'imaginer que nous eliminerons le terrorisme par la force. 

Je Suis Charlie recueil a Ipanema

Je suis en extase devant ce Christ indiscriminé, j'ai baigne dans le cortege tranquillement solennel de "Je Suis Charlie" hier a Ipanema, qui formait un contraste semblable au melange de Rio, defilant au milieu d'un tumulte de trop de gens hyperexcites, beaucoup d'entre eux drogues ou ivres le long de la plage. Et plus je cherche d'inspiration dans ce Cristo Redentor, plus j'admire son acceptance, plus je me sens moi-meme responsable d'un systeme voue a l'echec et a l'augmentation des fracas tant ecologiques qu'humains. Mais comment agir??? Pour cela, sans que cela ne change rien au monde, je ferai mon premier pelerinage au Corcovado en lui faisant face, car je ne peux pas fuir ma responsabilite.

N