Que tipo de silêncio?

 [Alguns comentários: 1) a ditadura brasileira foi muito mais branda que a chilena e argentina; 2) A autora tem o mérito de mostrar como Lula cedeu ante a pressão militar, coisa rara na imprensa (inter)nacional; 3) Esqueceu de dizer que Lula cedeu pois os três comandantes militares falaram em nome das FFAA como INSTITUIÇÃO, ou seja, Lula não tinha a quem substituí-los e receou que o vácuo de poder terminasse em sua destituição; 4) Prática similar foi realizada por Lula durante a "greve" dos controladores de vôo militares. Saiu de Brasília defendendo-os, e na volta de Washington, emparedado pelos Alto Comando, disse que os "grevistas" lhe deram uma facada nas costas. E entregou o caso para o Comandante da Aeronáutica, retirando de cena o então Ministro da Defesa, Waldyr Pires. Este por sinal, encontrava-se no Rio de Janeiro, e solicitou a FAB um avião para retornar à Brasília, mas a FAB informou que não havia aeronave disponível. Um clássico "golpe branco". E ainda dizem que no Brasil existe controle civil democrático sobre os militares!

 

Foreign Affairs

 Breaking the Silence in Brazil

The Playwrights Who Came Before the Protesters

Emma Sokoloff-Rubin

July 1, 2013

The massive protests of the past few weeks have demonstrated how deeply Brazilians feel the right to speak out against their government. But just 30 years ago, the country was ruled by a brutal dictatorship that blocked free expression. A group of young playwrights sought to change that.
EMMA SOKOLOFF-RUBIN is a reporter for GothamSchools and the author of Sustaining Activism: a Brazilian Women’s Movement and a Father-Daughter Collaborator

 

Kathryn Hochstetler

Unless the protesters can find a common cause and articulate it together, the energy of the protests will be hard to maintain and no government response will be necessary.

Most public high schools discuss the period only briefly. “There’s a whole generation that doesn’t know what happened during that period, or only knows the partial story,” says Carlos Pestana, chief of staff to the governor of Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, where Bailei premiered.
Changes in recent years suggest that the tide is slowly turning against silence, though resistance is still fierce. In 2009, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) proposed a new human rights program that included the creation of a truth commission. Three days later, the defense minister and three top army generals threatened to resign. In an emergency meeting, Lula agreed to change the wording of the proposal to win them over. Investigating crimes carried out “in a context of political repression” became “in a context of political conflict.” It was still politically impossible to label as repression the death of nearly 500 people and the torture of 20,000 under military rule.
But Rousseff, Lula’s successor, signed a new freedom of information law in November 2011 and finally inaugurated the truth commission the following year. Many question what a truth commission with a two-year time frame and no judicial power can achieve. Others hope it will lead to the repeal of a 1979 amnesty law, or that people found guilty by the commission are tried by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The fact that an elected leader can follow through with a truth commission and respond to massive protests by attempting to negotiate with protesters marks a significant change in Brazil. But Dona Elvira’s question still hangs in the air: Who is going to listen? Who will be pressed to speak?
As Brazilians continue to take to the streets, and the original cast of Bailei prepares to join a new generation of actors for the play’s 30th anniversary performance in October, a broader question takes center stage: Will a democratic Brazil find a way to sustain a conversation about injustices of the present and violence of the past? Fewer lives hang in the balance than in 1983, but the stakes remain high.