Be very careful what you wish for: Egypt: Dictatorship, mass execution, incarceration. Libya: A decimated failed state. Syria: Civil war, country in ruins, and so on.
The continuing reference to the Arab spring demonstrates an unfortunate political naivety in what is left of last year’s Brazilian protests.

99% of Brazilians are too smart to go along with these protests, and since last June the numbers quickly dropped to single figure thousands, by 2014, often not even that.

They have a higher standard of living than at any time in history, and the last 20 years have brought unprecedented improvements for the poor.
The upper classes have not seen that rate of improvement, and therefore are the origin of most complaint.

This article also makes the oft-repeated, and fallacious inference that the cost of the world cup is somehow related to health & education, or roads.
To be clear that $11 billion dollars was the total cost of the project, over 7 years, including new airports & infrastructure.

This is in the context of a $431bn annual budget for Health, Education & Urban Mobility.

Yes, so the total cost of the World Cup over 7 years, including the new infrastructure, airports etc, is equivalent to ONE MONTH of Brazil’s Education budget alone.
There are all kinds of problems, but that was never a significant one, it was a distraction, a catchy slogan for social media.

Street protests without very specific goals and clear messages rarely, if ever, deliver anything constructive, at worst they are counterproductive.
Without clear messages & goals, someone, somewhere, will decide what the narrative is, and those present are pulled along with that, whatever their intent as they took to the street.

Be under no illusion that images of burning on Brazilian streets has massively discouraged foreign investment & involvement in the country.
That is of course caused by a small minority, but unfortunately the media will pick only those images to use. This is a major strategic flaw.

Sending thousands out to the streets with vague slogans of “Change” or against “Corruption” when nobody really knows what that means and are selective in where they choose to see it, is futile. Meanwhile, very organised, very direct protests by groups like MTST and Public Sector unions have delivered on specific goals. These protests are evidently constructive.

If Brazil wants to improve its democracy it needs to also look at breaking up the media monopolies, from which much of the partisan criticism of the current Federal government comes.

There also needs to be greater distinction and understanding of State & Federal powers. It is not sufficient to just refer to “Government”, when States run most of the services the public complain about, and yet at national level, almost all of the focus is on PT whereas PMDB are the most corrupt party in the ruling coalition – a remnant chunk of intransigent dictatorship-era power that needs to be broken down if reforms are ever to occur.

Although well meaning, these kind of articles appearing in English, for the benefit of foreigners, are not actually shedding much additional light on the complexities of Brazil.

There are all kinds of problems some unique to Brazil, most not, but attempts to involve the world in them with juvenile hashtag politics, as if Brazil can’t solve these on its own, are a insult to Brazilian democracy.