By Frei Betto on March 31, 2023.
Today, the coup that implemented 21 years of military dictatorship in Brazil will be 59 years old. It actually took place on April 1st. But since April Fool’s Day is celebrated on that date, the military moved the commemoration back to March 31.
The Bolsonaro wave promoted mobilizations in favor of the return of the dictatorship. Most of those who oppose democracy have no idea what a dictatorial regime is; the censorship that hid from public opinion the atrocities practiced in the dungeons of the repressive system; the real economic indexes of the country; the corruption that prevailed in the successive military governments; the banned works of art; the murders of those who fought for democracy.
I was imprisoned twice by the dictatorship. The first, in June 1964, for the “crime” of being a national leader of the Catholic Student Youth. Forcibly taken to the Navy barracks in Rio, I was tortured with punches and kicks. They wanted me to confess that I was Betinho (the same one who later led the fight against hunger in Brazil by creating Citizenship Action), the leader of Popular Action, a leftist organization of Christian origin. When they were convinced that I was not the one they were looking for, they wanted me to denounce his whereabouts, which I did not know. I was detained for 15 days between Ilha das Cobras prison and house arrest. There was no trial.
The second one, which lasted four years, in 1969, was for helping politically persecuted people to flee, an attitude sacramentalized by the Bible. I spent two years among political prisoners and two more among common prisoners. The Federal Supreme Court reduced my sentence from four to two years in the month in which I was serving my four years… That is called dictatorship! How can I get back the life of the two years when I was deprived of my freedom?
As Winston Churchill said, “no one pretends that democracy is perfect or flawless. Democracy is said to be the worst form of government, except for all the other forms that have been experienced from time to time”.
A lot of blood was shed to rescue Brazilian democracy after 21 years of military rule. For those who want to be informed, I suggest reading my books Cartas da prisão (Companhia das Letras), Batismo de sangue and Diário de Fernando: nos cárceres da ditadura militar brasileira (both by Rocco).
Today, our fragile democracy is threatened by terrorists who, fanaticized by bolsonarismo, want to impose the law of force over the force of law. And by the military and civilians who still insist on denying that there was a coup in 1964 and use the euphemisms “revolution” and “movement” instead. And, above all, they believe in ghosts, because even in the uniform of the Fire Brigade they see communism?
Lula’s government has come to rescue Brazilian democracy. Over and above party preferences, we are all called upon to work to perfect it and to avoid the historical setback that would only benefit a privileged minority. And that would reinstate terror in our country.
Frei Betto is a writer and liberation theologian