The Brazilian dictatorship and the battle of images

摘要

In contrast to other South American countries, in Brazil, where a military dictatorship (1964-1985) incarcerated, tortured and disappeared' countless opponents, there have been very few initiatives to construct a public memory in the form of memorials and museums. Only recently, when the National Truth Commission was set up in 2012, debates on the importance of memory re-emerged, including a significant increase in the number of proposals to construct memorials of national importance, taking as their point of reference the coup in which the military seized power 50 years ago. This text offers a study of news sections dealing with memories of the Brazilian dictatorship and the activities of the National Truth Commission as they were reported in the daily press between 2012 and 2014 as well as visits to some of the monuments and memorials erected or planned after the end of the dictatorship in various parts of the country. Cases studied are divided into two groups: first, monuments stemming from the transition to democracy and the political pact that underwrote it, and second, cases that reflect the fragility of this pact and the efforts to undertake a revision of its terms. Rather than one succeeding the other, these two versions of memory are interdependent and have contested the hegemony of public initiatives to shape our memory of the period.