BRAZIL: Utopian Pauper

Four centuries ago, subequatorial Salvador was the capital of all Brazil and the haughtiest, gaudiest citadel of Portuguese wealth and power in the New World. Since then Salvador's fortunes have ebbed away, until today the capital city (pop. 597,000) of the fabulous State of Bahia, on Brazil's coast just south of the bulge, has about it the aura of a sunset prettifying a corpse. Its baroque facade of gnarled towers, sleepy parks, blue-tiled courtyards and narrow streets hides poverty and decay.

The historic booms of rubber and coffee that enriched other Brazilian states bypassed Bahia. The federal government scandalously neglected it. Now, under Governor Juracy Magalhaes, Bahia is setting forth on the hard road back to prosperity.

"Africa's Rome." Amerigo Vespucci, at the head of a Portuguese expedition, first sighted what is now Salvador on Nov. 1, 1501. In honor of the day, the place became Sao Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, Holy Saviour of the Bay of All Saints—"and of almost all sins," adds Brazilian Sociologist Gilberto Freyre, speaking of the modern city. The biggest share of early immigrants, however, were not Portuguese but African slaves. Now 80% of the 6,000,000 people in Bahia are Negroes, and their influence runs deep. French Novelist Paul Morand called Salvador "Africa's Rome."

The veneer of Roman Catholicism in Bahia is not much thicker than the gilt on the strikingly beautiful altars of Salvador's many churches. African spirits are called by Catholic names (Ogun, god of warriors, is dubbed St. Anthony; Oxossi, god of hunters, is St. George). At the University of Bahia's Afro-Oriental center, Bahians by the scores study Bantu and Yoruba, two of the major tongues of West Africa.

The state is 68% illiterate. Disease is widespread, and outside the city of Salvador there are only 245 doctors. The average weekly income for Bahians is $1.25, one of the lowest wages in the world. Gambling and prostitution proliferate. Yet Bahia is perhaps the most exotic part of Brazil. Salvador is still a baroque jewel box and a magnet for tourists. The huge hinterlands, though lacerated by the extremes of drought and flood, raise cattle and sheep, grow sisal and vegetable oils in abundance. A zone near the south Bahia coast grows 97% of Brazil's cacao. Bahia produces all of Brazil's petroleum—but the total of Brazil's production is a trifle by world standards.

A Plague of Problems. When Governor Magalhaes took over 17 months ago, he quickly singled out specific problems: ¶ Bahia's big exports of cacao bring much foreign exchange to Brazil ($120 million last year), but after the money is converted to cruzeiros at discriminatory rates in Rio's Bank of Brazil, only a little of it ever gets back to Bahia. ¶Petrobras, the government oil monopoly, pays Bahia only 4% royalties on the value of production at an artificially low rate (compared to 50% of profits paid by U.S. oil companies in foreign lands). ¶Bahia's rich lodes of lead, chrome, iron and gold lie unmined for the most part. Natural gas is undeveloped. ¶Roads and other federal public works are badly neglected, lately because President Juscelino Kubitschek has preferred to spend money on Brasilia, the new capital of Brazil.