Journal of Social Science Education ©JSSE 2015 Volume 14, Number 2, Summer 2015 DOI 10.2390/jsse-v14-i2-1428 Soraia Ansara Social and Psycho-political Impacts in the Social Construction of Political Memory of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship This article refers to a research on the political memory of the military dictatorship in Brazil, held in three Brazilian cities (Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and São Paulo) in which we analyzed the social and psychopolitical impacts caused by the dictatorship as well as the redemocratization process in building the political memory of community and union leaders. The study revealed two important legacies that were found in the reports of interviewees: the first one refers to police repression, impunity, and authoritarianism still present in Brazilian society; the second legacy refers to the existence of a political memory built by social movements and communities that care about passing on, to the new generations, the events that occurred during the military dictatorship. Research has clearly shown that there is no single memory but several "underground memories" (Pollak, 1989), built by the popular classes, which contradict the versions disseminated by the official memory and enhance the social movements capacity of action as a strategy of resistance and political struggle of the movements today. To the extent that this fight is assumed by other spheres of Brazilian society it may contribute to memory policies in the fight against forgetting. Keywords: (1994b), three phases: the first from 1964 to 1968, Political memory, authoritarianism, military dictatorship, covering the governments of Castelo Branco and Costa e memory policies Silva; a second phase, between 1969 and 1974 during the government of General Emilio Garrastazu Médici, charac- 1 Introduction terized by a strict political repression and accelerated The Brazilian military dictatorship, with all its repressive industrialization; and a third phase, from 1974 to 1985, apparatus, has left many legacies for future generations, characterized by a period of political opening, including both negative - which remain in Brazilian society as the governments of Ernesto Geisel and João Batista remnants of an authoritarian and repressive society and Figueiredo, which marked the beginning of the demo- represent a setback for the advance of democracy - and cratization of the political system, with the end of positive - stimulating the resistance practices of social bipartisanship and the uprising of strike activities and movements. social movements. The present article refers to part of a research on the However, like other dictatorships in Latin America, the Memory of the military dictatorship and repression in Brazilian dictatorship was characterized by the sup- Brazil in which we seek to analyse the collective memory pression of constitutional rights, intervention in trade that was built from the process of Brazilian rede- unions - by the strict censorship that imposed obstacles mocratization in order to identify what has remained in to free information and limited cultural events, reaching the memory of generations that came after the politicians, artists, publishers, teachers, students, law- repression period, that is, we seek to understand how yers, trade union leaders, intellectuals and religious repression appears in the collective memory of people representtatives - prohibition to any kind of protest or who participate in trade union movements or community social mobilization and a strong political persecution and organizations, therefore having a political engagement. repression to those who stood against the military It is noteworthy that the military dictatorship in Brazil regime. In Brazil, the dictatorship was based on the included the period from 1964 to 1985 and, unlike other National Security Doctrine (Doutrina de Segurança Latin American dictatorships, the Brazilian dictatorship Nacional, DSN) which was not limited to the defence of was not embodied in the figure of a single dictator, but the country in facing a supposed "communist aggression" had alternating military chiefs in control of State and but, as Alves (1984) points out, referred to the "inside power through indirect elections. Thus, the president enemy", in other words, the intent to ensure National was indicated by an Electoral College – and this gave a Security implied the elimination of internal communist democratic mask to the military regime. This sequence of aggression which meant direct repression of organi- military governments had, according to Sandoval zations and social movements and the constant sur- veillance of all institutions and sectors of society. In the Dra. Soraia Ansara is Professor at the Postgraduate name of National Security, during the military regime, Program in Social Change and Political Participation arrests, torture and death were justified. (PROMUSPP) at the School of Arts, Sciences and While the Brazilian military dictatorship strongly Humanities of the University of São Paulo (EACH-USP) repressed social movements a strong resistance to the and professor at the University Center Estacio Radial regime was established through the underground organi- of São Paulo . Rua Dr. Luis Barreto Filho, 31, CEP zation of many social movements and struggles for 02920-140, São Paulo/ SP. amnesty and human rights, which started in the Email: [email protected] dictatorship period and lasted throughout the demo- cratization period. 50 Journal of Social Science Education ©JSSE 2015 Volume 14, Number 2, Spring 2015 ISSN 1618–5293 In 1985, in the beginning of the redemocratization We understand that history is a representation of the process social movements started to intensify their past, and an intellectual operation that breaks the struggles, bringing back public statements with more memory collective bonds, as it crystallizes on the official freedom after a twenty-one year lapse. This period was history writing. Memory, in turn, is a phenomenon of fundamental importance for our study since our always current that keeps the bonds between what was research participants were born and/or experienced this lived and the present. As stated by Decca, “The memory post-dictatorship period, meaning that their memory was is the life, always saved for the alive groups in their built under the impact of the redemocratization process name, and it is in permanent evolution, open to dialectic and an official speech that blamed the military to work as of the memory and the oblivion” (Decca, 1992: 130), political openness protagonists and the process of especially because it exceeds the limits of historiography "stretching" of the regime. This speech produced a mute and opens a multiplicity of versions about the past. on the resistance of social movements in the crisis of the Differentiating the story that opts for the great events political system of military rule. and the official memory disseminated by the discourse of The discourses analysed in this article were collected the military government this study emphasizes the between the years 2003-2005 in three Brazilian cities underground memories, those silenced and denied by (Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Sao Paulo). The criteria for the official discourse. choosing these cities was not based on the statistical significance of a given "sample" of the population, but on 2 The legacy of dictatorship: police repression, the meanings of political events assigned by some social impunity, authoritarianism categories belonging to a locus that we consider of great Although we live in a democracy, the discourses of our importance to a study in the psychopolitical perspective. interviewees showed that the years of the Brazilian This locus consists of union and community leaders military dictatorship are still present in the Brazilian (adults who have not lived repression and were society, since dictatorship affected all Brazilian people, politically motivated). We chose São Paulo for being one not only the ones who lived at that time but later of the cities that suffered major impact during the generations, and considering that much of what we have repression time in Brazil and for considering it today is the heritage from the military regime. In their emblematic of the pivotal Rio- São Paulo area, where the memories, there are several critical aspects. main political repression centres were located and where there were major political movements at that time; the 2.1 The lack of a democratic political consciousness city of Belo Horizonte, for being considered "the cradle of Community and union leaderships admit that the the military coup", where the civil and military ruling repressive past still remains in authoritarian but staff of the Minas Gerais State articulated the military camouflaged forms in our society, in the political coup; and at least one city of southern Brazil, Curitiba, environment and also in the social movements in which which suffered a smaller impact than the state capitals of they participate, through the attitudes of certain leaders. south eastern Brazil, such as Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo "Much of what we still live today is a heritage of that and Belo Horizonte. In this study, we used semi- period. The very difficulty that we have to create political structured individual interviews i with three community and democratic consciousness was affected a lot due to leaders and three union representatives from each city - the military regime". (Anderson - union leadership) in a total of eighteen