IS ELITE SQUAD 2 A PARADIGM FOR POLITICS EVERYWHERE BESIDES BRAZIL?
News stories emerging from Brazil nowadays mention that the police are cleaning up the slums (favelas) in preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games but are vague on details. Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within (Tropa de Elite 2 – O Inimigo Agora É Outro), directed by José Padilha, starts with the disclaimer that the story is fictional, but nevertheless identifies the true scope of the problem, who and how the “cleaning” is being conducted, building on true events. Captain Nascimento (played by Wagner Moura) is the cop, clearly modeled on Serpico, who tries to stop the corruption of the police and the politicians who profit from the drug trade and avenges an attack on his son by the mob. Diogo Fraga (played by Irandhir Santos) is a human rights professor, who presents the skyrocketing of incarceration statistics to his class when Nascimento calls upon him to mediate in a prison riot to secure release of prison guards. Several themes emerge, from which filmviewers are supposed to conclude that crime fighting is heavily politicized: (1) Prisoners are able to kill one another because prison guards give them guns. (2) Police in the favelas extort money from druglords. (3) Druglords who fail to pay are killed by the police, events that are portrayed as victories in a supposed war on drugs. (4) Demagogic politicians, to get votes, rely on police to intimidate police and voters in the favelas with violence. (5) Corrupt police extend their protection racket to anyone who makes money in the favelas, not just druglords. (6) The media are under threat, as journalists will be assassinated if they tell the truth. (7) Paramilitary units are unable to stop the corruption but can inflict massacres. Because the film explains what is perhaps going on in Río de Janeiro, even if characters and conversations are fictionalized, the Political Film Society has nominated Elite Squad 2 for awards in all four categories–best film exposé, best film on human rights, and best film arguing for the need for real democracy as well as nonviolent methods of conflict resolution. MH