Allah helps those who help themselves.

 The Letter from Brazil reports on the smarts and collective self-help of people who started out from the pits. One can legitimately suspect that, if they operated under a sacred law such as the Islamic Shari'ah, they might also have been able to minimize the social problems which are currently endangering them from within. The Philadelphia inner-city development projects that lately have been taking shape under Muslim entrepreneurial leadership may indeed illustrate the point. Muslim activists in the US cities can draw inspiration and know-how from these examples, not only to initiate hope and improvements among their fellow Muslims, but also to be a conduit of Divine Mercy for people in general.

Letter from Brazil

By Robert Neuwirth

From: The Nation -July 10,2000 (www.thenation.com)

Rio de Janeiro

 How's this for a progressive pipe dream? A self-governing, low-income neighborhood where the buildings are construct-ed communally. Where the houses are structurally sound- most made from concrete and brick. Where residents visualize the homes they desire-and then gradually create them, adding exuberant flourishes like sliding doors, spiral staircases, tile facades and hanging gardens. Where the community in-vests in itself and the streets feature nothing but locally owned businesses. Where people have created a place they are proud to call home.

 This is no fantasy. It actually exists, created by the squatters who built the favelas of Brazil. Many Brazilians will tell you that the favelas are slums or shantytowns, but that is simply the dictionary definition. The favelas may once have been urban wastelands, but over the past two decades favelados have transformed their junkyard colonies into desirable neighborhoods, achieving something most illegal settlers can only dream of: permanence. Their new brand of self-help urban development could become a model for the rest of the world. Here are its two simple steps: Let the poor build, then work with them to stabilize their self-built communities.

 Mata Machado was the first favela I visited. It was a perfect initiation: small, separate, nestled in the tropical forest near Rio de Janeiro's Parque Nacional da Tijuca. This favela was born seventy years ago when a few families erected a series of shacks on an abandoned farm at the edge of the forest. Over the years, the residents made deals with contractors working nearby to pave their streets with leftover concrete. The city chipped in money to bridge a small stream that cut off the favela from the main road. Today Mata Machado is almost suburban: a bucolic com-munity of modern houses on shady streets that fan out from a central plaza. The approximately 500 families that live here now hold title to their homes-and properties here command prices above $50,000. The average Brazilian worker earns between $3,000. and $5,500 a year, and many squatters survive on far less than that-some on less than $100 a month.

 Halfway across Rio, in the working-class Caju neighborhood, Ladeira dos Funcionários fills a small triangle of land between a long-vacant tuberculosis clinic, a cemetery and a rail line. This favela is much more urban than Mata Machado-a community of attached row houses. Many have architectural features like tile facades and balconies. The city recently installed sewers and built a childcare facility. The favela also features a branch of the Caixa Economica, a government-sponsored bank. These days, the big issue in Ladeira dos Funcionários isn't improvements; it's con-trolling growth. Concerned about overdevelopment, the favela's leaders recently passed a rule limiting buildings to three stories.

 And then there's Rocinha, a favela that runs up the steep hill that separates the wealthy beachfront community of São Con-rado from the equally wealthy inland neighborhood called Gávea. Halfway up the twisty street that traverses the hill, I stood and took in the panorama. All around me, Rocinha was full of life. An estimated 200,000 people live here, and they have created a complete alternative economy: squatter apartment buildings, some rising five stories; more than a thousand squatter businesses-banks, butcher shops, modeling agencies, even video-rental stores-and a main drag with squatter restaurants and bars (the local pizzeria is called Pizza Hit, a subtle dig at the troubles PepsiCo's Pizza Hut has bad establishing franchises in Brazil). Rocinha is a genuine squatter city. It has been so successful that outside investors are starting to sniff around for potential profits. Early this year the golden arches invaded as McDonald's opened an ice-cream kiosk in the favela.. Three favelas, one message. "There has been a very radical change;" said Paulo Cesar Gomes, as he stood in the newly renovated central plaza of Ladeira dos Funcionários, where be has lived for thirty-two years. "The children of today have opportunities that we didn't have. You can hope to be a doctor. It's a reality"

 Favelados like Paulo Cesar (even in newspapers, most Brazilians refer to one another by first names) would be the first to tell you that they didn't set out to do anything revolutionary. It wasn't ideology that brought them to invade land; it was need. And the favelados also acknowledge that they haven't done it alone. Both Mata Machado and Ladeira dos Funcionários have received infusions of cash from the city's six-year-old Favela-Barrio (favela neighborhood) Program, an urbanization effort that taps $360 million from the Inter-American Development Bank.

 Still, despite the caveats, the favelas are inspiring. In Brazil poor people have proved that they can build self-sustaining neighborhoods.

 The first favelas were founded a century ago, when a group of former slaves-freed only to be drafted into the army-were sent to the northern state of Bahia to quash a rebellion. Those who returned to Rio had no homes and no jobs. So they created their own encampments, naming them after a flower they saw during their years in the war. Like the plant, the favelas took root in forbidding soil. Early favelados lived in mud or wood shacks, tapping local streams for water and surviving with no electricity, no plumbing and few city services.

 As Brazil industrialized, the cities swelled with people looking for work. With little affordable housing available, the hillside set-tlements became dense urban concentrations. At first, city gov-ernments ignored many of the land invasions, figuring that the squatter homes would be temporary. But by the sixties, when it be-came clear that the favelas were not disappearing, local policies changed. During the decade, the government evicted about 100,000 people from about eighty settlements, forcing them into new projects on the outskirts of town. People in Praia do Pinto, a venerable and well-established favela that occupied a prime loca-tion in Rio's ritzy Zona Sul, doggedly refused to move. One night in 1969, the favela mysteriously burned, making thousands of peo-ple homeless. The land was quickly redeveloped with highrises.

 From the sixties to the early eighties, Brazil was ruled by a brutal military dictatorship. But in the late seventies, the junta started to relax restrictions on free expression and po-litical association, and squatters emerged as a political force, openly agitating for reform. When the country made the full transition to representative democracy in 1985, the fave-lados were ready to press their demands with more en-ergy. Today about 20 percent of the residents of Brazilian cities are squatters. Out of 5.5 million people, Rio de Janeiro has a million squatters living in more than 500 favelas. Belo Hori-zonte, with 2.3 million people, has 450,000 squatters living in 180 favelas.

 Other countries have huge squatter populations, of course, but Brazil is one of the few places where squatters have transformed their domains into thriving neighborhoods. Here are some of the. reasons why the favelados have succeeded where most other squatters have not. 

• The favelados defy many stereotypes. They aren't anarchists or punks or people raging against the system; most favelados are simply trying to create a better life for themselves and their kids. Also, they don't tend to occupy vacant buildings; most invade vacant land and build their own homes.
• The squatters are shrewd and strategic. Early on, they recognized that one of the legacies of authoritarian rule was that there was a huge amount of fallow land under government control. So they tended to invade these parcels, figuring that politicians wouldn't have the stomach to push for eviction. Where they did settle on privately held land, the squatters tried to pick parcels where ownership was contested, betting that they would be less likely to be evicted. Rocinha, for instance, was founded on a tract where a developer who planned to sell private lots went bankrupt.
• The favelados also understand the need for coordinated action. Since a single person has a hard time erecting a house, the favelas became natural collectives. The residents united in mutiroes-coopêrative building associations-and erected their dwellings communally. Those who couldn't contribute to con-struction-the elderly, the sick and people with full-time jobs- often provided food or money to the effort. The best mutiroes even built small health clinics and community facilities. Today almost every favela has an elected Associacao de Moradores- a residents' association-which sets policies for the community.
• The squatters realized they had to work inside the system. Some favelas cut deals with local politicians-promising support if the officials helped them get city services like running water, sanitation or access to mass transit. And in a few cases, favelados themselves moved into politics. Benedita da Silva was raised in favela Mono do Chapéu Mangueira in Rio. She cut her political teeth fighting for her favela, then used that experience to mount a successful campaign for Rio's City Council. The 58-year-old politician is now Vice Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the state's second-highest elected official.

 The favelados have also been aided in their quest by a mar-velous quirk of Brazilian law and by responsive governments. In contrast to the United States, where property rights are king, Brazil's Constitution explicitly protects squatters. According to the doctrine of usucapiâo, favelados may be entitled to the use (and possibly ownership) of a property if they have lived there for a long enough time without being challenged. The Consti-tution also states that the right to private property is subordi-nate to the "dictates of social justice," another clause squatters have used in court to protect their neighborhoods.

 Also, after the transition to democracy, many city governments realized they needed to improve the favelas. Belo Horizonte, Brazil's fourth-largest metropolis, was one of the earliest to create ties to its favelas. It started a pilot program in 1979 and six years later set up URBEL, the Urbanization Com-pany of Belo Horizonte, a nonprofit dedicated to improving con-ditions in squatter areas. Over the years, URBEL has helped 5,000 families take title to their properties through usucapiao. And it has completed hundreds of construction projects, paving streets, improving river banks, installing street lighting and sewers. The agency has also hired several hundred favelados to work on its pro-grams. Today, URBEL has an annual budget of about $11 million.

 Though it is an arm of the city government, URBEL is also in part controlled by the favelados. "The commUnity discusses how to use the money;' says former URBEL president Tar-cisio Caixeta. "They define what we do?' Favela leaders regu-larly meet with URBEL executives to discuss progress on important programs. At a meeting I attended, approximately 100 favelados berated URBEL executives and other city officials because of the lack of proper drainage and flood control. A few years ago, several dozen people died in flooding, and last year there was a dangerous outbreak of dengue fever, normally uri-known in urban areas, because mosquitoes were breeding in standing waterin some of the favelas.

 Edneia Aparecida, who has lived in favela Conjunto Taquaril for thirteen years, noted that her community has more than doubled in size in the past decade-and that the most recent arrivals are forced to erect their homes in a flood zone. "Each day the problem gets worse;' she said. URBEL has determined that as many as 3,000 residents of Conjunto Taquaril must be relocated. Under pressure from the favelados, URBEL is attempt-ing to raise money from the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. Caixeta promised that URBEL will take action. "We are going to diminish the probability that people will become victims;' he said. Even in areas of risk, Edneia acknowledged, the favelados have hope of a better life.

 Of course, like any urban neighborhood, the favelas do have some serious problems. As in many cities, one of the principal issues involves crime. After decades of total neglect by the police, who refused to patrol the illegal neighborhoods, drug gangs and organized-crime outfits have set their taproots. In Rio alone, 429 favelados died violently in 1998-a murder rate more than five times higher than that of New York City. Residents of some of the wealthier neighborhoods that border the favelas have become increasingly concerned that the violence will spill over into their districts. Many favelas have also developed a home-grown caste sys-tem-and new arrivals can be greeted with suspicion. In Mata Machado, for instance, some families who live in the nicest squatter houses close to the main road are suspicious of recent arrivals, who have hacked new lots out of the jungle and built modest homes at the edge of the favela. Old-timers claim the newcomers are polluting the water supply by dumping garbage in a nearby ravine. Even in almost completely citified Rocinha, the farthest reaches of the favela-accessible only by walking up narrow lanes that crisscross the mountainside-lack adequate sewers, sanitation and electricity.

 What's more, the existing favelas have not been able to keep pace with the flow of immigrants to the cities. In Rio, I saw dozens of families who had created plywood encampments under highway interchanges. And while I was touring lovely Ladeira dos Funcionários, the military police were busy across town, evicting eleven families from their homes on a hillside in the Larangeiras neighborhood that authorities said was prone to landslides. In Belo Horizonte, I visited a site where a favela had been destroyed to make way for a new train station. The former residents were given new homes about a mile away, but new squatters have already occupied some of the old turf erecting rickety plywood and cardboard dwellings in the shadow of the rumbling dump trucks and bulldozers that traverse the busy main road.

 Perhaps most serious, the favelados are bumping up against what might be called the difficulties of rising expectations. They are discovering that all their hard work doesn't guaran-tee success in the service economy. Despite Paulo Cesar's belief that his children can become professionals, Brazil's economy has been in trouble for much of the past decade-and it's been hard for younger favelados to make their way into the job market. The jobs their parents were glad to get-becoming maids, taking in laundry, working as laborers-are no longer plentiful. Many younger favelados are disgruntled; one newly popular release has been for them to form samba fight clubs. The various favela-based cliques square off in dance contests that often culminate in brawls and violent skirmishes.

 Still, these problems don't negate what the favelados have achieved. Over the course of the past century, millions of ordi-nary Brazilians had the courage to seize land and build their own homes. Theirs was an illegal act of great patriotism. They changed their own lives and improved their country.

 The favelados are proud of their achievements. Working by band, Antonio Joâo Ramos built his home in Belo Horizonte's Vila Marcola favela more than two decades ago. Today, the house that started as a crude structure is a fine, two-story dwelling. It is, he says, a comfortable place to raise a family. A few years back he purchased a legal house in a legal neighborhood of the city, but he has no intention of fleeing the favela. Instead, he says, he considers the legal home an investment-one that will help pro-vide for his children.

 A squatter landlord. What could be more delicious? How wonderful to be in a country where a squatter isn't automatically a criminal, and where illegal houses can be more desirable than lawful homes.

 Robert Neuwirth, who has written on urban issues for publications including Newsday, the Village Voice, In These Times and the New York Times, was a community organizer for ten years, working pri-marily on housing and economic development issues. Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.