As someone who is from here, it goes very deep. There is a certain "victim mentality", indeed, where the population seems to think that they are both "better" than the others at the same time feeling envy of others (think of Americans and Europeans as standard). To make this short, Agriculture and Cattle is a powerhouse due to climate and the soil, and the resources are something which makes its GDP and the PPP incredible. But that's where it stops.
When you see what Brazilians have to toil and sweat to pay, they sustain the political class who live off endless benefits, basically a kingly or "noble" class, with incredibly "otherwordly" things like "jacket assistance", "car assistance", "home assistance", and many other things - as well as a 5 digit salary. Someone has to work to pay this, no free lunch, and both the poor and middle class do as such.
And outside the economic factor, culturally, Brazil has never really had a "nationhood", per se. I define it as an "Empire", because it has many races/ethnicities living together in a federation, divided by
5 regions which are assembled in states:
- Norte: Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Tocantins;
- Nordeste: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe;
- Centro-Oeste: Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Distrito Federal (Federal District).;
- Sudeste: Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo;
- Sul: Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina;
If you read the Wikipedia article to fill the blanks, you'll see that it has separate economical factors, yet Norte and Nordeste lack infrastructure outside the big cities, unlike Australia, for example. Sure that it is sparsely populated, yet if you go to a small Australian town, you can find the very basic needs (sanitation, electricity, etc). That has only arrived, as some have commented, during the 19th AND 20th century - while some villages still lack the basic during the 21st century. This caused an exodus of many of the population to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, located in the Sudeste.
But why is this an "issue"? Because Brazil - at least on my observations - seems to have "Regionalism", meaning each region seems to feel superior to another. And this isn't strict from Sudeste or Sul - Nordeste claim they are "macho" while the sulistas are a bunch of faggots (not too different from Latinos akin to Mexicans). And lately media and certain institutions are making this a "racism" issue, since Nordestinos are darker skinned, while Sulistas and the ones from Sudeste are lighter-skinned. Yet, if you observe the big cities in the south, you'll see that it is quite well distributed the black population, so it's very strange to me see Brazil being touted as "having overcome racism" while here we hear almost weekly about racism: particularly during soccer matches.
And another thing: while there are, obviously, people who want to help others and be generous - there are many who want to screw you over in order to advance in life, even if it is something as miserable as a meagre cell phone, or a car. This can work in other ways too: where someone wants to get advantages over a queue or a process, and needs to bribe an attendant or even as high as a doctor to get medication. Pettiness knows no bounds here, the so called "Jeitinho Brasileiro".
====================================================================================================================================================================================================
Something extra I'll leave: A famous writer, Gustavo Barroso who lived in the 20th century, wrote "A História Secreta do Brasil". He was part of the """"nazi"""" movement here, called Ação Integralista Brasileira (Brazilian Integralist Action), which its core tenants - if I am not mistaken - was the "sum" of all its inhabitants (from the indigenous, the orientals, the africans, and the europeans), who spoke Portuguese and were Catholic.
Anyway, such book had 5 volumes, and delves deeper in the foundation of Brazil, with converso Portuguese (Portuguese Jews who became Christians) discovering it and merely exploring the land. I don't know if it is available in English, however!
