By Jonathan Power April 8th 2004 LONDON – There is a widely held opinion abroad that Brazil never had the chance of profoundly changing for the better- shedding its widespread poverty and dire income distribution- until Lula (President Luiz Inácio da Silva) came along last year. This is not entirely false, but neither is it entirely true. Brazil has long made a kind of progress- in the last century it was second only to Taiwan as the fastest growing economy in the world- but it has been appallingly uneven. Part of the story of contemporary Brazil is clear to the eye in this small village of 7,000 people in the arid north east, along with the Amazon the poorest part of this vast country. Twenty five years or so ago I used to come to Pilõezinhos regularly when I had a close friend living here, Valéria Rezende, a radical, grass roots-stirring...
