“Brazil?” I was a bit surprised by that, “I was under the impression that your work was going rather well? I admit, the last two and a half decades have not been kind to the country, but I thought it was rather on the upwards trend.”

“It is not that simple,” Abba Abe, whose name I always found a little humorous, was in an odd position. Over a decade ago, mismanagement and corruption- coupled with a drop in global commodity prices- had just about caused Brazil to collapse. It mostly went unnoticed, in the United States at least, but considering who was president at the time I find it hard to blame anyone for being to distracted. Not that I had much cared who was elected, Trump might have been gigantic idiot whose attachment to his hair and reality are equally questionable- but if you knew the things I did about the Clintons… Well, let us just say that they were not the kind of people I would ask for ethical advice, and I am ordering a private military using military grade hardware to intervene in a conflict on the other side of the world.

“My country, like all countries, has a habit of trying to pave over old conflicts until they boil out of control,” Abba continued. “It is quite a complicated issue, because officially race does not exist in Brazil- only colour.”

This much, I am aware of. Brazil was the last country to ban slavery, as well as one of, if not the, largest importer of slaves during the African slave trade. Slaves were very commonly worked to death and replaced because the journey to Africa was far shorter than the journey to the fledgling States, and thus it they were cheap enough to be used and thrown. In 1888, slavery was outlawed, and there was a somewhat unique solution to the problem of racial inequality that was adopted.

On the surface, I actually really like the way the solution looked. Far better than the bullshit that went on in the United States, or at least, it was for a time.

See, Brazil said from close to the start that everyone was equal- there was no inequality, whereas many parts of the United States fought hard against that concept. However, those fights were the rallying cry of the civil rights movements and exposed many of the underlying inequalities that existed after the abolition of slavery. Discrimination was challenged with increasing frequency and volume, and it became a widely spoken about topic.

Brazil, on the other hand, lacked a lot of that- but that led to an even sharper divide between the wealthy and the poor that was almost perfectly along the lines of their skin color.

Even in the 2010’s, dark skinned people could still be pointed to service elevators when visiting their friends in certain apartments, and getting a job could be very difficult for someone who was especially dark skinned. But the discrimination was harder to fight against than it was in the United States, at least some people felt that way. The reason is that officially, they are all the same and there is nothing to discriminate against.

But a lot of that was mostly history at this point- Brazil had been moving forward in the past two years and was very nearly a beacon of progress and development- largely due to Abba’s work.

“Bluntly, the country is on the verge of splitting,” Abba continued. “Brazil has quite a few separatist movements and contrary to my expectations, the general upward trend of the country has only strengthened them.”

“The issue is economic inequality by region, the southeast, northeast and western areas are in quite different positions- different enough that the south is in danger of breaking into four separate countries- three of which would form a federation and one that would simply be independent.”

“It might be a stopgap solution,” one of the Russian members said slowly. “But would it not be easy enough to solve this by investing into the less prosperous areas? If they seem to be pulling their own weight, the issue will lessen.”

I had no idea what this members name was, he was from Latin America- and I had been told his name- but I do not remember… Oh well, I will look it up later. For now though, he was disagreeing with the previous statement.

“It would not really matter,” he sighed. “Brazil is not the only place with issues, there are issues elsewhere a well. One big collapse and the whole continent could go up in flames.”

“I have some leverage in the area,” I admitted. “But it does not extend very far, I have to work hard just to stop random military groups from killing refugees… You would have thought with all the power we have as a group that things would go more smoothly than this- does that other group have their fingers in South America as well? Nevermind, I will investigate that myself.”

We kicked around ideas for a bit, but again the only solution seemed to be the unsavory one.

“They have to have some dirty secrets,” Wang drawled. “Find them, expose them, and the public will hang them and we will never have to worry about it again.”

But even to that, Abba was skeptical. “It would not work unless it was a local discovery. Otherwise they will just paint it as a false charge and claim government corruption.”

“I suppose an appeal to reason is off the table?” Brenard chimed in, “just a quick glance at what I can pull up now shows that anyone with a passing knowledge of economics can show them why this is a bad idea.”

“It is not about economics, it is about identity.”

“But if you tie this debate into one about livelihood- what parent would support something that could lead their children to poverty?”

“Unless Mrs. Wang is hiding something, I do not think we have much media control in South America though…”

Ideas were kicked around and I stepped into the ring myself. “If we want to appeal to reason, I could always manipulate search results and ads into the country.”

“That ended up backfiring on Russia five years ago, and that one social site had to swallow its teeth about five years before that- are you sure you can get away with it?”

“It is all in the phrasing,” I smiled at this- this much I can do. “Instead of opposing anything, I will simply spin most of the articles to make the separation seem inevitable and talk about preparations people should make. Written correctly, they will not even realize that they were manipulated.”

“I will get some of my staff to help you,” Mrs. Wang agreed and the issue was settled.