From Santa Marta, remembering the "King of Pop" Michael Jackson
My heart sank as I stood at the top of the Santa Marta slum, looking down at the chaotic world of ramshackle, dilapidated roofs, the narrow, winding streets that ran through the residential area, and in the distance, Rio. The Rio of the most beautiful beaches in the world, the Rio of debauchery and whoredom, of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado right next door, welcoming the world with both arms raised, but turning its back on places like this.
The subconscious melodies of “They don't care about us” filmed here 18 years ago, among the poor and forgotten, still ring in my ears.
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| Michael Jackson painting at the place where he filmed the clip |
On top of Santa Marta, there is a Michael Jackson
The road leading to the Michael Jackson statue is like a small eel winding skillfully between the shabby houses, some protruding, some receding, the dirty corrugated iron roofs, the heavy and busy clotheslines, the precarious railings over an open sewer running from top to bottom, carrying the foul-smelling wastewater of a crowded residential area with thousands of people. Here and there on that road, there are groups of teenagers standing and looking on with unfriendly looks, even though they smile; fat women are sitting and resting after going to the market; cramped barber shops, old men are sitting and watching the afternoon go down...
Covering everything are the colorful walls, making Santa Marta look from afar like the palette of a free-spirited but sloppy artist before his spontaneous painting.
There he stands, in the form of a statue, at the highest point of Santa Marta, his back to the chaotic world of slums below and the mountains and Botafogo beach in the distance, his arms raised, his feet stepping forward, just like in the video clip “They don't care about us” filmed here in 1996.
In front of him is the small courtyard where this famous and controversial clip was filmed, with a large portrait of the legendary singer made from colored tiles. The statue was erected here on June 26, 2010, exactly one year after his sudden death, with his singing coming from a loudspeaker, before the emotional people of Santa Marta who witnessed it. For them, erecting the statue of Michael Jackson was a way to pay tribute to him, after the clip was filmed, broadcast on MTV and made Santa Marta famous all over the world. And from then on, their lives changed for the better, becoming a different world, not from poor to rich, as a line greets visitors on the entrance (“The rich need peace to continue to be richer, we need peace to live”), but rather less forgotten.
In the clip, a child’s voice says, “Enough with this dump,” and several others sing along, “All we say is they forgot about us.” The song, set in Santa Marta, then a hotbed of crime and poverty, speaks to the discrimination between people in a postmodern world that is increasingly divided into classes. Michael Jackson saw it in the world, and he sang about it. I and many of my generation loved him for it.
16 years after the song appeared on the HIStory album, and 5 years after his death, those injustices still exist. Life in Santa Marta has changed, security is better, children have schools, health care and living conditions have improved, tourists flock here to visit the places that appeared in the clip "The don't care about us" to bring income to the people, top stars in the showbiz world such as Madonna, Beyonce Knowles or Alicia Keys have come here, but in Rio and many other places in Brazil, the rich or middle class still live near the sea, in apartments or rich villas, the poor still live in the favelas.
Michael Jackson changed Santa Marta, but…
But even there, they will not be safe. People are planning to occupy the slums near the sea to build resorts. Where the displaced will go, no one knows, but even if they protested as they did at the Maracana before the World Cup, few people would care. Because by then, the World Cup will be over, and Brazilians will be back to facing the daily struggles of life.
Brazil boasts the world's seventh largest economy, but ranks third among the countries with the highest inequality. But in Santa Marta, at least, the people here have pride in the name of Michael Jackson, who came here, sang, brought this residential area out of darkness and from "They don't care about us," here they sing ''Santa Marta we care'' (We care about Santa Marta).
Paulo, who appeared in a Michael Jackson video when he was 10, said that here, everyone, even the children, knew who Michael Jackson was. “When he died, we were shocked. Many people cried. And now, life here has changed because of Michael Jackson. He did great things for us,” he said.
Paulo doesn’t speak English, but Sonia, the Michael Jackson memorabilia vendor there, translates what he says. The store, which isn’t huge, sells T-shirts with “Odulum,” the name of the samba-raggae drum group that appeared with him in the clip, phone cases, statues of Christ the Redeemer, and photos of Michael Jackson from “They Don’t Care About Us.”
She says she doesn’t care much about the lyrics (which the Jewish community has rejected as anti-Semitic), but that the slum has become a better place since he arrived. Many others in the neighborhood of more than 6,000 say the same. The bullet holes in a wall at the bottom of Santa Marta are a reminder of a time when gunfights between gangs or the police were almost daily. Televisions in small restaurants are tuned to the World Cup, and men flock to watch. In a Jesuit-run elementary school at the foot of Santa Marta, children draw pictures of the World Cup and paste them on the walls.
On the top of Santa Marta, a 7-year-old boy handed me a picture he had drawn with the words “Michael Jackson,” smiled and quietly walked over to the statue of Michael Jackson, picked up a kite and started flying it, in the gentle breeze blowing in from the sea, as the sun began to set. I heard the words of my once great idol echoing in my mind. He sang: “Tell me what my rights are/Am I invisible because you ignore me?” The harsh lyrics still echo somewhere: “I am a victim of police brutality/I am a victim of hate.” He sang those words 18 years ago, and others will continue to sing them in the years to come, never ending.
But a verse from the Bible echoed in me: “God says, there is hope for the future” (Jeremy, 31.15). Never lose faith and belief…”
Santa Marta, before Michael Jackson and after Michael Jackson Here, people are divided like that, not unlike the Catholic calendar dividing BC and AD. Before Michael Jackson, there was a poor and criminal Santa Marta. After he arrived, there was a different Santa Marta, when the slums received the attention of the whole world, and the government had to pay more attention to them. To shoot the clip in 1996, the crew had to negotiate with the godfather of Santa Marta at the time, drug lord Marcio Amaro de Oliveira, to come here and film under the direction of director Spike Lee. Initially, the Rio government refused to let them shoot, fearing that the clip would expose the negative side of the city, which was actively campaigning to host the 2004 Summer Olympics. Now, nearly 20 years later, with the 2014 World Cup underway and the 2016 Summer Olympics just around the corner, Rio is no longer ashamed of Santa Marta in particular and its favelas, which are home to nearly 1.5 million people, or one-fifth of the entire population of Rio and its surrounding areas. Santa Marta has changed a lot since the Michael Jackson clip hit television. Once one of Rio’s hellholes, it was the first place to be “pacified” in 2008 as part of an ambitious Rio state program to drive out drug cartels, install police stations and launch social projects. The narrow streets between the houses where Michael Jackson danced have not changed much since then, but the residential area below has been bursting with colour. The Favela Art Project, designed by Dutch artists Haas and Haan to boost civic pride, saw 34 families repaint their homes in different colors. In 2011, Santa Marta appeared in several scenes in the fifth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise. Marcio Amaro de Oliveira, a figure who became a legend among the common people under the nickname Juliano VP, was assassinated by another gang in 2003, at the age of 33. Six years later, Michael Jackson died. He got a statue, Marcio didn't. But his name lives on here, as the man who agreed to let Michael Jackson come here, and change this place. “They Don't Care About Us” is still considered one of Michael Jackson's most successful and controversial songs. |
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