Rock star prods Rio's residents to stand up to the violence
Lead singer Tico Santa Cruz is rousing Brazilians from their apathy with highly visible, creative forms of protest.
from the May 15, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Last month, in front of the Rio State Assembly, he had people dress as ghosts to symbolize phantom justice, policing and legislation.
In another, he organized bodies to lie out as if dead in front of the city's court building. And before that, he lent his support to an nongovernmental organization that planted 1,300 roses on Copacabana beach, one for each person killed in the state this year.
Tall, with arms covered in tattoos and small hoops through a pierced lip and eyebrow, the 29-something rocker is a physically striking man. He has a faint yet evident charisma and speaks with a steely integrity that makes him an effective communicator, especially when engaging the young fans of his band, one that is popular enough in Brazil to have opened shows for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The son of an engineer who lost everything and saw his family evicted from their home when he was 15, Santa Cruz has firsthand experience of life's reverses. He was already trying to rouse Rio's notoriously depoliticized youth when his band mate Rodrigo Netto was shot dead in an attempted carjacking last June.
But Mr. Netto's killing so angered him that he decided to devote more time to raising consciousness. Since then Santa Cruz, often with the support of his bandmates or friends who are poets, artists, and musicians, has given interviews, preached to crowds at rock concerts, and taken a road show to schools and universities.
He has also helped organize Rio United Against Violence, an informal umbrella group of victims and human rights organizations whose figureheads are all people whose tragedy has marked the city in recent months.
Those victims have responded to his crusade, and even though he is half the age of some of them they see him as a leader. The movement has no formal leaders and it is not dependent on Santa Cruz, but his ability to attract media attention make its protests more newsworthy and his fellow campaigners say his involvement is crucial in publicizing their plight.
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