By CARLOS EDUARDO ARAÚJO*
To the apologists of the civil-military dictatorship, who have promoted demonstrations to invoke this dark past: Be careful what you wish for!
“Who knows, a few decades from now, we will be able to accomplish the remarkable feat of making a dictatorship simply disappear?” (Edson Teles and Vladimir Safatle [1]).
Thomas Hobbes once said that his mother gave birth to twins, to him and fear. In 1588, England was at imminent risk of suffering a naval invasion by the so-called “Invincible Armada” of Spain. This possibility engendered a near-panic that spread throughout English society at the time, due to the legendary power of the Spanish squadron. And fear would have been responsible for the premature birth of the philosopher's mother, accompanying Hobbes throughout his life, being noticeable in his main work, Leviathan.
I cannot say that my mother gave birth to twins, to me and to the dictatorship, but she barely did. Nor was I born prematurely, as a result of the fear induced by the infamous autocracy, since it was triggered a few months after my birth. I was born in August 1963, and the military coup took place a few months after my advent, on April 1, 1964. Therefore, I grew up during the military dictatorship. My childhood, adolescence and entry into adulthood took place under his heel. When it expired, in March 1985, I was already 22 years old.
Therefore, I did not suffer, directly and consciously, its harmful and violent effects. I was then, in the darkest period of the dictatorship, which took place from the AI-5 of 1968, too young to have political awareness and perception of what was happening in our country, in those “years of lead”. However, in my most distant memory of that nefarious era, figures such as Ernesto Geisel, João Batista Figueiredo, Jarbas Passarinho, Golbery do Couto e Silva and Delfim Neto survived. I have the memory of seeing them on the news in the newspapers. The last president of the authoritarian regime, I remember well. Mainly because of his outbursts, his bad mood, his rudeness, the verbal violence that emanated from him. I was an eyewitness and earwitness to phrases like these: “I arrest and break. I have no doubts". Or “If I earned minimum wage, I would shoot the coconut”.
I participated, but as a spectator and enthusiast, in the “Diretas Já” movement, which mobilized the country between 1983 and 1984 and suffered its defeat. I saw Tancredo Neves elected, indirectly, by the Electoral College, only to see him die shortly thereafter, plunging the country into enormous sadness. I attended the convening and installation of the “National Constituent Assembly”, on February 1, 1987. Months before, it was discussed whether it should be autonomous or congressional. I was a supporter of the first alternative, in the sense of avoiding problems related to conflict of interests, if it were drawn up by the parliamentarians themselves, elected to the ordinary functions of legislative life and whose mandates would survive the Constituent Assembly. The opposite thesis won.
I remember that I attended a debate, held in the Auditorium of the UFMG Faculty of Law, whose theme was precisely whether the National Constituent Assembly should be autonomous or congressional. The speakers were professors Dalmo de Abreu Dallari and José Alfredo de Oliveira Baracho.
I studied Law between 1986 and 1991. I was, therefore, in the 2nd period of the course when the constitutional process was launched, which aimed, after 21 years under a truculent arbitrary, authoritarian and oppressive regime, to provide the country with a Constitution again democratic. My classmates and I watched the progress of the work carried out within the framework of the National Constituent Assembly, in which our Constitutional Law professor, at the time, the current Minister of the STF, Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, provided legal advice.
I clearly remember the session in which our current Constitution was approved. On that occasion, the then president of the Chamber of Deputies, the valiant federal deputy Ulisses Guimarães, who brandished it between his fingers, in a crowded plenary of the National Congress and launched these eloquent, emphatic and historic words:
“The persistence of the Constitution is the survival of democracy. When, after so many years of struggles and sacrifices, we promulgated the statute of man, freedom and democracy, we cried out for the imposition of their honor: we hate dictatorship. Hate and disgust. We curse tyranny wherever it disgraces men and nations, especially in Latin America”. [two]
This long introit aims to situate me in the face of the theme, which I set out to reflect on, related to Bolsonarism, understood as an anti-democratic, authoritarian, far-right populist, demagogic and violent movement, which today thrives among us. Bolsonarism is clearly and unmistakably antagonistic to civilizing values, democratic ideas and plural and inclusive coexistence, which, unfortunately, have suffered infamous interregnums, throughout our troubled history. Under Bolsonarism, Brazilian democracy is at permanent risk.
As, in the civil-military post-dictatorship period, we were endowed with a new democratic Constitution, enacted on October 05, 1988, with the recovery, among other rights suppressed by the military regime, the right to vote directly, for President of the Republic. Everything seemed to indicate that we were paving the way, once again, for the much-desired foundation of our democracy, although, as always, more formal than substantial.
As the years and new elections followed, we were convinced that our democracy was consolidating and strengthening, even though it was permeated by serious social, economic and political problems, which were never properly faced. Despite having crossed the last despotic era, not long ago, I had the illusion that we would no longer venture into the murky waters of authoritarianism, nor that we even ventured the possibility of a return to hell.
I imagine how dramatic and even traumatic it must be, especially for those who experienced the Brazilian dictatorship, during their adult life, directly or indirectly suffering its influxes, to see a substantial part of the Brazilian population elect a president, governors, state and federal deputies, in the election 2018, with laudatory speeches from a dark period in the recent history of this country. Speeches riddled with a reckless fascist or proto-fascist bias.
People endowed with a minimum of democratic spirit and political conscience, are shocked, scared, revolted, indignant, perplexed, with the simple perspective of returning to Tartarus. For those who experienced the terror, torture, restlessness, torture, anguish and death of friends and relatives, which took place in those years, which consumed two decades of their lives and that of an entire country, there is a clear perception of everything that represented that nefarious period, in terms of loss of freedom of expression and rights, violence, deaths and imposition of an authoritarian ideology. And, with what dismay, they see the ghosts of the past reappear, emerging from their putrid sarcophagi, like the living dead haunting them again.
As I said lines above, it seemed unlikely or even inconceivable that we would again invoke evil spirits, which seemed to be properly exorcised. But behold, an extreme right, always present, surreptitiously, in the dark basements of Brazilian society, found the occasion to emerge. And that, in addition to the flag of the “return to the dictatorship” and the AI-5, it also started to brandish the flags of obscurantism, backwardness, reactionaryism, irrationalism, egocentrism, anti-intellectualism, anti-scientificism, contempt for arts, culture, cultural, political, religious, ethnic and gender diversity.
Biographer Ruy Castro, in an article recently published in Folha de São Paulo, recorded the following statement:
“For those of us who spent 21 years of adult life (1964-1985) under the dictatorship, the generals were sinister subjects, with dark glasses, who dictated to us when, if and for whom we could vote, what we could read, watch, listen to, say and write and, if we talked about institutions, rights and freedom, they would arrest and break up. They had the weapons, the funds, and the pens with which to enforce their authority. And the cellars, instruments of torture and bailiffs to apply it. The mere sight of a uniform was intimidating. It reduced us morally to minors, to short pants, to diapers.
There is something incomprehensible for a Brazilian today. He won't understand how the military could have that strength. For him, the military are subjects that Jair Bolsonaro puts in the government, displays on social networks and soon begins to belittle, diminish, demoralize and, finally, fulminates with the dismissal. In less than two years, he has already done this with 16 generals, four brigadiers and an admiral, and only among high-ranking officers ”. [3]
It is, at the very least, irrational or the result of masochism, inherent in the collective unconscious, on the right, to see people, in public events, amidst flags, posters and loudspeakers, scream, scream, scream, shriek, call out, howl, beg, begging, vociferating, begging, postulating, using for this purpose, “songs”, slogans and bizarre and grotesque dances, all to ask the autocrats and sadists on duty, to dictate when, if and for whom we can vote, what we can read, see, listen, say and write and, in addition to taking away our rights and freedom, have us arrested and destroyed. They, with their weapons, funds and pens, with which they would impose their authority, their authoritarianism. How many of these mental criminals would clamor to be thrown into the basements of “their” esteemed dictatorship, experiencing the most different instruments of torture and bailiffs. Is that what these fools want? Unbelievable!
However, perhaps the most likely hypothesis is that this Bolsonarist crowd, in its substantial constitution, is composed of sadists and resentful people. According to Freud:
“[…] sadism would correspond to an autonomized and exaggerated aggressive component of the sexual drive, moved by displacement to the preponderant place. The concept of sadism oscillates, in everyday language, from a merely active or even violent attitude towards the sexual object to a satisfaction exclusively conditioned by subjection and mistreatment inflicted on him. In a strict sense, only this last extreme case deserves the name of perversion. […] That cruelty and the sexual drive are intimately correlated is taught us, beyond any doubt, by the history of human civilization, but in clarifying this correlation we did not go beyond accentuating the aggressive factor of the libido”. [4]
Nelson Werneck Sodré portrays, with bitter lyricism, what the despicable civil-military dictatorship represented and still represents today, which dragged on for two decades, inoculating its gall among us:
“The most difficult thing is not to forgive the dictatorship for some of its most ostensible and even typical manifestations. The most difficult thing will be to forgive him – if that would be possible, that is, if things will be like that, in terms of reckoning – to forgive his infamy. The saddest, the most bitter, the most clamorous was, without a doubt, this infamy that, inserted in our life, started to accompany us, to surround us, to suffocate us. It is clear that the dictatorship did not invent infamy. It has always existed. It was part of life. It was inseparable from the human condition. But as an accident, as a circumstance, as an accessory element, whose effectiveness was known sporadically, here and there. It was the exception, which confirms the rule, the isolated element, which appeared from time to time, and was marked, like a brand, engraved in fire, staining figures or episodes. The dictatorship institutionalized it, systematized it, made it official. It was an exception; became the rule. It was dishonorable; it became glorious.” [5]
In another excerpt from his memoirs, Nelson Werneck Sodré gives an idea of the environment of obscurity and violence against culture and intellectuals:
“The atmosphere in the country was dark: the culture was trampled underfoot, demoralized, accused of being infamous; intellectuals were arrested, mistreated, persecuted; their activity was censored and violated – in short, cultural terrorism reigned”. [6]
Later, in the unfolding of his memoirs, Nelson Werneck Sodré vents, dismayed:
“We now lived in a sad, agonized country, with the population going through deprivation and in an environment that was always tense. Developing intellectual activities, in this climate, was painful”. [7]
Little did he know that things, which were already bad since April 1964, would still suffer a marked worsening with the issue of the ill-fated AI-5, of December 13, 1968.
Let us not forget that one of the sordid and crazy flags of Bolsonarism is the reissue of AI-5, the infamous normative act of the civil-military dictatorship. I want to believe that Bolsonarists have no clear and realistic idea of what this draconian norm was. According to Nelson Werneck Sodré:
“The AI-5 thus corresponds to a response by the forces that controlled power to attempts, still quite disorganized and therefore weak, at liberation. By that edict, the individual lost all guarantees and elementary political rights were summarily eliminated. The dictatorship now revoked the rights of the entire Brazilian people.” [8]
And Werneck Sodré continues:
“There were no half measures now. It was necessary to destroy, eliminate, raze everything that opposed the dictatorship, in its purposes and ends. Of course, in the first place, there was culture. Against it, then, a war was waged without truce: censorship was installed in the editorial offices of newspapers, in radio and television stations; the theater was reduced by her to the simplest expression; the cinema, forbidden to face reality. Even popular music was not spared. […] Everywhere, fear set in.” [9]
Unfortunately, the infamous Brazilian civil-military dictatorship left indelible marks on the heart of Brazilian society. Its insidious practices of torture, violence, authoritarianism, racism remain present in individuals and institutions of the present. As Edson Teles and Vladimir Safatle maintain:
“Because we believe that a dictatorship can be measured (why not?, let's have the courage to say that measuring a dictatorship is a good idea). It measures itself not by counting the dead left behind, but by the marks it leaves in the present, that is, by what it will leave in the future. In this sense, we can safely say: the Brazilian dictatorship was the most violent dictatorship that the black Latin American cycle has known”. [10]
Brazilian society lacked the cathartic opportunity to put the dictatorship on trial, to punish its main executioners, to vehemently repudiate its execrable legacy. As this was not carried out, it gave rise to some fools paying homage to her in the present and seeing her, retrospectively, with a tender and nostalgic look. I have already heard, to my astonishment, from close friends that the dictatorship era was good for Brazil. It is appalling, shocking and discouraging! Even so, I was taken by surprise and indignation to see some of them confess their vote for the sordid and perverse PSL candidate, Jair Bolsonaro.
Edson Teles and Vladimir Safatle expose the issue, in a masterful synthesis, in line with the infamous reality that we live in these dark Bolsonar times:
“When studies show that, contrary to what happened in other Latin American countries, practices of torture in Brazilian prisons have increased in relation to cases of torture in the military dictatorship; when we see Brazil as the only South American country where torturers were never tried, where there was no transitional justice, where the Army did not make a mea culpa of its coup tendencies; when we systematically hear officers on active duty and in the reserves pay unbelievable praise to the military dictatorship; when we remember that 25 years after the end of the dictatorship we live with the concealment of corpses of those who died at the hands of the Armed Forces; then we begin to see, a little more clearly, what exactly “violence” means. For no word better than “violence” describes this way that the dictatorial past has of remaining like a ghost haunting and contaminating the present”. [11]
The Brazilian civil-military dictatorship created fictitious enemies to amalgamate around itself, in addition to the imperialist, aristocratic interests and the bourgeois elites, of which it was spokesperson, a conservative, retrograde, resentful and ignorant middle class, resulting in a group of people , terribly undemocratic companies and institutions. At the beginning of the 60s, in the midst of the cold war, this fascist bourgeoisie threatened the mad crowd with the ghost of communism, making it responsible for all the ills that afflicted them.
I found in Nelson Werneck Sodré’s work, “Life and Death of the Dictatorship – 20 years of authoritarianism in Brazil”, an excellent and illustrative allegory, which Sodré in turn found in a play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, about the creation of enemies fictitious to divert people's attention from the real problems that afflict them. Werneck Sodré in the introduction to his book tells us that:
“From 1933, when Nazism took hold in Germany, Brecht never ceased to travel, always with the Nazi advance in his wake: from Berlin to Vienna, from Vienna to Copenhagen, from Copenhagen to Helsinki, from Helsinki to the United States. , for a relatively long break. In this last stage, he did not fail to denounce the Nazi expansion, the McCarthyist fury, with the inquiries that made so many worthy characters leave the country. For him, it was about living and fighting: his weapon would be the theater. The long exile gave him unforgettable experiences. His pieces from this period will naturally be controversial. They pose new themes, which he will return to later on, to improve. Hence the heterogeneity of what he produced during this period. One of those plays clearly marks the era, on the one hand, and the stage of Brecht's theater, on the other. Started in 1932, when Nazism was just a dark threat, and ended in 1935, with Nazism in full power. Round heads, pointed heads will represent the raw satire of Nazism. Not one of Brecht's best plays, naturally, but one of the most interesting as a form of political action. Nazism, financed by the West, that is, by Imperialism, was born out of the economic and financial crisis, politically mobilizing capital, the military aristocracy and the petty bourgeoisie in panic at the rise of the workers. The play, reflecting the situation, will be allegorical. It is located in the imaginary kingdom of Jahoo, where the rich landowners, fearing the revolt of indebted peasants, appeal to the services of a providential man, Iberin. It is about hiding the reality of the crisis and its material causes, replacing it with a myth. The providential man knows that the people are not used to abstractions and, to divert them from the path, it is necessary to point out a concrete, palpable, close enemy of their area of knowledge. Thus, operating as an indoctrinator, he presents a false antagonism to the people: between people with a round head and people with a pointy head, accusing the latter, in propaganda based on frantic, furious and systematic repetition, of being responsible for the crisis that the kingdom is going through. It guides, channels, concentrates, therefore, in the pointed heads the frustrations, the deep resentment, the accumulated hatred of an impoverished middle class and even of a working class devastated by unemployment. Thus, these classes are diverted from the claiming action. Brecht shows how everyone, without distinction of class, comes to expect from Iberin the satisfaction of everything: that it serves landlords and tenants, bosses and employees, owners and employees, sellers and consumers, that it lowers and raises prices, that issues and ends with inflation, which raises and reduces taxes. That, in short, establish conciliation where antagonism reigns and establish, above all, order, that is, that no one complains. It is clear that the pointy heads will pay a very high price for all these miracles: they are exiled, arrested, tortured, deprived of work, murdered. The greatest miracle of this round-headed reign is semantic: Nazism will be nicknamed democracy; the plundering of those who have little will be called development; imposture will be known as culture; the truth will be the lie and the lie consecrated as truth.
The long passage, reproduced above, taken from the introduction that Nelson Werneck Sodré wrote to his work, published in 1984, very clearly outlines the strategies that the right and the extreme right have used throughout our history, that is, the creation of fictitious enemies, with the purpose of diverting attention from real and concrete problems, which have been present in Brazilian reality for a long time.
The real and concrete problems, which demanded and are still demanding to be faced, were listed in the core of the “basic reforms”, which were outlined in the early 60s, as a project for a fairer and more egalitarian country: agrarian reform, political reform , banking reform, political reform, fight against social inequality, preservation of national interests to the detriment of the interests of big capital, USA at the forefront. These alleged reforms were the reasons for the outbreak of the 1964 coup.
And, to justify the 1964 coup, the fear of communism was exasperated. Stratagem that had already been used by Getúlio Vargas to decimate the Communist Intent, of 1935. In 2018, Bolsonarism, allied with the traditional right, raised to the nth power an anti-PTism that had been gestated and fed in previous years, with a massive media campaign traditional, always allied with Imperialism, neoliberalism and with the most retrograde and reactionary sectors of Brazilian society. They also resurrected the ghost of communism, the bogeyman that has terrorized the Brazilian middle class for decades.
As has repeatedly happened throughout our history, these sinister forces, whenever they glimpse the possibility of social and popular changes taking shape on the horizon of Brazilian society, organize themselves to disrupt and annihilate any possibilities in this regard.
Today, he occupies power, a heinous idolater of the infamous civil-military dictatorship, which is, over the years, repeatedly praised, celebrated and honored by him. The most abject and notorious torturers and murderers deserved, on the part of the execrable head of the executive branch, from that disastrous period of recent Brazilian history, like the example of then Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra. Bolsonaro committed a crime by publicly praising him at a session of the Chamber of Deputies that resulted in the arbitrary impeachment of then-president Dilma Rousseff, of sad and shameful memory. He should have been exemplarily punished for such a deplorable act at the time. He wasn't. Which has led him to relapse, repeatedly, with his criminal speech.
Recently, proving that there are no limits to his ridiculous acts, perpetrated to exhaustion, in an “interview” with his son Eduardo Bolsonaro, he once again softened the barbaric acts committed by the dictatorship and praised the memory of his vile tormentor, the notorious torturer Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra. This fact was reported in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, published on the 20th of December, from which the following is extracted: “In an interview on his son Eduardo’s YouTube channel, President Jair Bolsonaro stated that the dictatorship’s repression center in São Paulo treated political prisoners with “all dignity” .[13]
And he also said, “No, he wasn't a political prisoner. Terrorists were treated with dignity at DOI-Codi, including pregnant prisoners. These are facts, true stories.”
In the same “interview” he mentions the torturer Brilhante Ustra, whom he calls a hero.
As is well known, Bolsonaro and his entourage of madmen and fools have total disregard for the truth, for facts, for history. Deception, fraud, deceit, mockery, farce, deception, misrepresentation, deceit, deceit, trickery and mendacity are constitutive matter for him and his, being an essential element of their mediocre existences.
The “Report of the National Truth Commission” listed 434 people killed or disappeared by the dictatorship. In the São Paulo DOI-Codi, mentioned by Bolsonaro, among other cases, journalist Vladimir Herzog was brutally tortured and killed in 1975.
The aforementioned DOI-Codi in São Paulo was known, among other names, as “A Casa da Vovó”. We owe journalist Marcelo Godoy a singular work, of historical-documental rescue, of one of the darkest and most violent moments of our recent history, still vividly present. His work in the basements of DOI-Codi consumed more than a decade of his life, in readings, research, interviews.
As Godoy describes:
“A SYMBOL OF THE ARBITRIUM and the crimes of a regime, the Information Operations Detachment (DOI) was given a code name by its members. They called it Grandma's House. There, military and police officers worked side by side during the years that many of them now consider memorable. Officers were transformed into 'doctors' and delegates into 'captains'. There were other codes in that place: 'general practitioner', 'clients', 'patients', 'flirts', 'dogs' and, depending on which side, terrorists. Hundreds of agents frequented it and some even gave it another nickname: 'Açougue'. Created in São Paulo, its model spread across the country. In the city of São Paulo, he occupied a plot of land between Rua Tutoia and Rua Tomás Carvalhal, in the neighborhood of Paraíso. First it was known as Operation Bandeirante, the Oban; later, they decided to baptize it with the acronym that made it famous: DOI. Even today, many of those who worked there prefer to call it Casa da Vovó, because, as one of its agents explained, 'that's where it was good'. The antinomy is evident. Even more so when these men and women decided to tell what they knew about the deaths of 66 people, of which 39 were under torture after arrest and another 27 after being seriously shot during detention in what was described as ambushes or shootings”. [14]
Bolsonaro's hero was responsible for organizing and commanding DOI-Codi in its most violent and cruel phase, with an abundance of torture and death.
As Godoy will say:
“The functionality of torture is the most recurrent explanation and justification given by agents for its use. Accepted as necessary even by those who did not work for the DOI, torture marked the regime. To fulfill their mission, the agents could not reason in moral terms, but from the point of view of efficiency. It's like President Ernesto Geisel said: 'I think that torture in certain cases becomes necessary to obtain confessions'”. [15]
The Archdiocese of São Paulo carried out an exhaustive survey of the torture to which political prisoners were subjected during the civil-military dictatorship. The document, published in 1985, was named “Projeto Brasil Nunca Mais”. At the head of such an important and courageous undertaking were the religious Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, Rabbi Henry Sobel and the Presbyterian Pastor Jaime Wright. The survey coordinated by them resulted in several tomes and volumes. [16]
Hundreds of people who experienced the horror of torture were heard, which was exercised in the most varied and perverse ways, which in the documents are classified in “Types of Torture”. Let's look at a few for illustrative purposes:
1 - Moral and psychological constraints – Generic – tried and consummated (threats – threatens sexual rape – threatens to pull out balls – threatens family – threatens to torture siblings – threatens to bury anthill – threatens to cut off a limb – threatens to kill child – threatens to cut off fingers – threatens to kill family – threatens to play in a plane – threatens with cockroaches – threat of dogs – threat of snakes – threat of burying alive – threat of alligator – threat of cutting off ear – threat of rat – threat of hurting eyes – etc.
2 - Physical constraints – Generic – tried and consummated (scourges – slap – cane – truncheon – whip – whip – kicks - Polish runner – elbows – blows to the head – butt blows – pushing -judo blows – karate wheel punches – jerks – beatings – slaps – telephone – punches – physical abuse – etc.
3 - Physical constraints – specific and consummated (tying penis to avoid urinating –insertion of electric stick in anus –introduction of broom handle in anus –inserting cigarette access in anus –introduction of cockroach in anus –peeled genital organs with a needle –hanging by testicles -inserting stylet in penis -testicles tied up – testicles crushed – sticking a wooden handle into the vagina – rape of a woman in prison – sexual violence with women – sexual violence with a wife in prison – violence to the genitals – etc. [17]
There are many other “types of torture” listed in the books of “Projeto Brasil Nunca Mais”: Torture with piercing, blunt, cutting and burning instruments, torture with mechanical and electrical devices, etc.
I will not go on detailing all this macabre engineering of torture practiced in the basements of the dictatorship, with the knowledge of the presiding generals, as evidenced by documents known today. I believe that the list above is more than enough for us to realize that the dignity of political prisoners was, unlike what the unspeakable genocide claims, outraged, in a vile, cowardly and everyday way, in the basements of the dictatorship.
According to a given historical interpretation, the dictatorship would only have started to use its usual truculence from the issue of AI-5, of December 13, 1968, which is contested by a varied range of historians, based on testimonies and abundant evidence. documentary. The dictatorship showed its lead teeth from the first day of its unhappy existence.
In this sense, historians Maria Celina D'Araújo and Mariana Joffily inform us:
“In the days after the coup, a series of arrests and arrests followed. The governors of Sergipe and Pernambuco were removed from their functions. In Recife, during a demonstration against the arrest of Governor Miguel Arraes, two students were shot dead. Leaders of social movement entities such as the General Command of Workers (CGT), the Peasant Leagues, Popular Action (AP) and several unions were arrested. The headquarters of the National Union of Students (UNE), in Rio de Janeiro, was invaded by troops and set on fire on the day of the coup. The University of São Paulo (USP) was taken over by the military; that of Minas Gerais, submitted to intervention; the one in Brasilia suffered severe interference in its program. Several detainees were taken to places such as the Maracanã Stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, or Navy ships, which became makeshift prisons, such as the Custodio de Mello and Raúl Soares. Estimates by the US embassy totaled 50 arrests a few weeks after Goulart's deposition. Without identifying sources, Alves mentions a survey that indicates the arrest of 18 people throughout the national territory in the first months of the new regime. Repression advanced in front of a cornered, surprised or relieved society. Feelings were mixed.” [XNUMX]
What can I say to the apologists of the civil-military dictatorship, who have promoted demonstrations to invoke this dark past: Be careful what you wish for!
*Carlos Eduardo Araujo Master in Theory of Law from PUC-MG.
Notes
[1] Edson Teles and Vladimir Safatle. What Remains of the Dictatorship. Boitime, 2010.
[2] Full speech by the President of the National Constituent Assembly, Dr. Ulysses Guimaraes. Chamber is History, 2020. Available at: https://www.camara.leg.br/radio/programas/277285-integra-do-discurso-presidente-da-assembleia-nacional-constituinte-dr-ulysses-guimaraes-10-23/.
[3] Ruy Castro. Folha de São Paulo, 12/11/2020.
[4] Sigmund Freud. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. VII, 1905. Imago publishing house, 1996.
[5] Nelson Werneck Sodré. Caliban's Wrath – Memories of the 64 Coup. Bertrand Brazil, 1994.
[6] Nelson Werneck Sodré. Caliban's Wrath – Memories of the 64 Coup. Bertrand Brazil, 1994.
[7] Nelson Werneck Sodré. Caliban's Wrath – Memories of the 64 Coup. Bertrand Brazil, 1994.
[8] Nelson Werneck Sodré. Caliban's Wrath – Memories of the 64 Coup. Bertrand Brazil, 1994.
[9] Nelson Werneck Sodré. Caliban's Wrath – Memories of the 64 Coup. Bertrand Brazil, 1994.
[10] Edson Teles and Vladimir Safatle. What Remains of the Dictatorship. Boitime, 2010.
[11] Edson Teles and Vladimir Safatle. What Remains of the Dictatorship. Boitime, 2010.
[12] Nelson Werneck Sodré. Life and Death of the Dictatorship – 20 Years of Authoritarianism in Brazil. Voices, 1984.
[13] Folha de São Paulo, December 20, 2020.
[14] Marcelo Godoy. Grandma's house: a biography of DOI-Codi (1969-1991), the Military Dictatorship's Kidnapping, Torture and Death Center. Alameda, 2014.
[15] Marcelo Godoy. Grandma's house: a biography of DOI-Codi (1969-1991), the Military Dictatorship's Kidnapping, Torture and Death Center. Alameda, 2014.
[16] Brazil Never Again Project. Archdiocese of São Paulo, 1985. Volume V, vol. I, The Torture.
[17] Brazil Never Again Project. Archdiocese of São Paulo, 1985. Volume V, vol. I, The Torture.
[18] Maria Celina D'Araújo and Mariana Joffily. Republican Brazil. Volume 4. The time of the authoritarian regime: military dictatorship and redemocratization. Fourth Republic (1964-1985) / organization Jorge Ferreira, Lucilia de Almeida NevesDelgado. – 1st ed. – Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization, 2019.
