It has been 18 years since the first major invasion of Complexo do Alemão. Nearly two decades later, we are still repeating the same scenario: the state shoots, the press goes live, the authorities promise to “reclaim the area” — and soon life returns to normal: unstable schools, scarce opportunities, the violence tap open.
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The other side of the normal situation in some cities is: gunshots, bombs, and corpses. Unfortunately. The title is no longer moving. More bodies, more cameras, more spectacle are needed.
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With each operation, the toll is predictable: dead, wounded, burned-out vehicles, and corpses strewn on both sides. Exhausted police officers, directionless boys. The question that no one can answer: What happened between one invasion and another? How many nurseries, schools, universities, cultural centers and job opportunities have appeared in these places where the state appears only in uniform?
In Faria Lima, young people are encouraged to dream big, invest and open startups. In the alleys of the slums, they are taught how to survive and escape. Regions of the same country, not separated by kilometers, but by political choices. Creative risks are rewarded there; Here the simple act found is punished.
Meanwhile, the wheels of war continue to turn. Whoever presses the process button rarely steps on the ground where it takes place. He is not the one running, the one bleeding, the one woken up by the sound of helicopters. The cost of one day of confrontation – in ammunition, armour, personnel and funerals – could support schools, scholarships, cultural and sporting workshops for months.
And the plot repeats itself: the phone rings, and the horror begins. Another soldier leaves, and another boy falls. The state records statistics, people notice absences. The country watches as if it were another episode of a tragic series that never stops on the air.
Studies show that Brazil spends more than R$20,000 a year to retain a prisoner and just over half that amount to keep a student in school.
This war has no winners. Those who lose are always the same: mothers, wives, children, siblings. The tears are equal parts pain and abandonment – from mothers who mourn their children in uniform and those who mourn those who never had them. But who cares about these mothers? The principle of war is: Let your mother cry, not my mother.
We know that this conspiracy serves the new phase that the country is experiencing, a phase that turns tragedy into a platform and turns the dead, whether they are wearing military uniform or not, into electoral assets.
When the dust settles, traces remain on the walls and hearts. Fear spreads, hatred brews, and the cycle begins again. We remain captive to the logic of confrontation, unable to realize that while we celebrate supposed victories, we are burying another piece of our future.
If we really want to win, we will need to replace the vocabulary of war with the vocabulary of life. Invest in day care centers and universities instead of prisons. In public policies that see youth before the need to contain them. In actions that offer a path forward, the only path is the dead end of violence.
Until then, we will continue to count bodies, pray for mothers, and repeat the same drama: a war with no winners, where everyone loses – and the price of indifference is measured in lives.
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