The Prospects for Brazil
FOLAND, FRANCES M.
COSTA E SILVA'S MILITARY DICTATORSHIP The Prospects for Brazil Rio de Janeiro One speech prompted Brazil's latest political crisis. One song explains its cause. Addressing Congress in Brasilia...
...Splintered from the outlawed Communist party, one cabal adopted violence as a main tenet of its program...
...Leftist Brazilians are fond of saying that the only government more constipated by a fear of Communism than the United States is their own...
...There was an increasing resort to violence, and terrorist groups began taking matters into their own hands...
...After the December 13 closedown by Costa e Silva, word had it that those most unhappy about the situation were the mistresses left behind in Brasilia...
...and ditadura) into a pure ditadura...
...Except for municipal elections, Brazilians were denied the direct vote...
...What the two governments of the "revolution" created was a formal "democratic" system imposed from above and devoid of democratic substance...
...As proposed by the Costa e Silva government, technological and institutional improvement would proceed under its close tutelage in measured steps slowly encompassing the marginal areas and population...
...The Brazilian does not easily rise in physical protest against a political indignity...
...Humberto Castelo Branco summarily dismissed it in 1966, with hardly a whimper from the people...
...Brazil watchers and lovers are shaking their heads in despair, feeling that the country has backed step by step into a cul-de-sac...
...Main avenues were lined with armed troops to nip street demonstrations...
...The effect was often to throw the leadership of dissenting groups into more radical hands, and the government alleged Cuban, Chinese and Soviet influences in their ranks...
...A much-used shunt was to set up work groups or investigating committees to study a situation...
...to decree a state of seigc for whatever period he considers advisable...
...Between these two extremes lies the possibility of an evolutionary process...
...For three months, the young congressman's defiance chafed the military establishment...
...Mass participation in the country's politics was squelched, but not in one fell swoop which might have roused the populace to defend its rights...
...Actors of an avant-garde play were beaten...
...Despite Costa e Silva's pledge to humanize the so-called "revolution" initiated with the 1964 coup d'etat, "national security" has been the watchword of his government...
...A flurry of arrests, tight censorship, and the outlawing of all street demonstrations have further stymied public expression...
...He thought we wanted to start a revolution...
...have shown little appreciation of the press and little talent in handling it...
...With Brazilian adroitness...
...He suggested that citizens protest the military rule by boycotting the Armed Forces parades on September 7, Brazil's Independence Day...
...society, which can act as intermediaries—articulators and buffers between the people and their government—are embryonic and in many cases ephemeral...
...The Third Institutional Act, decreed on December 13, empowers the President to close the national, state and municipal assemblies and transfer all legislative powers to the executive authority...
...Among the politicians, only Juscelino Kubitschek is in this league of popular idols...
...Sao Paulo is prospering once again due to the easing of certain inflationary controls...
...not the immunity of one congressman, but the independence of the national legislature...
...The next day Congress was closed, and Brazilians lost what few democratic privileges remained to them...
...The situation played into the hands of the military "hard-liners," a minority clique who since 1964 had sought dictatorial powers for an Army-controlled government...
...Allies and arguments accrued to the hard-line position in late 1968, and the vote on Deputy Alves' immunity provided the lever for forcing the Costa e Silva government to move from demodura (a Brazil-ianism combining democratic...
...A nation of almost 90 million has been divested of every normal means of political development by a government which has shown little will or capacity to upgrade the quality of its human resources...
...in Brazil's largest city, profit is palliative for political grievance...
...Congress maximized the delays facilitated by legislative red tape and managed to avoid taking any stand on the request before adjournment in late November...
...What really matters to Brazilians is reflected by their national demigods and goddesses—Pele, Chico Buarque, Roberto Carlos, and Maria Rocha, respectively a soccer player, song composer, ye-ye-ye singer, and beauty queen...
...The middle class is significant, but is largely concentrated in the South and is galvanized only by major threats to its own well-being...
...The temptation, therefore, is to conjure up a vision of an apocalyptic revolution sweeping across the fifth largest nation of the world...
...And that quality is precisely what Castelo Branco and Costa e Silva, not to mention their ministers, have lacked...
...to deny political rights tu any citizen for 10 years...
...Their performance has not lived up to expectations...
...Both Administrations have taken drastic economic and political measures affecting the purses and basic rights of the populace without bothering to explain their acts...
...Social and political manifestations would be tightly controlled, so that demands emanating from the populace do not disturb the stability that the government considers essential for economic advancement...
...In a country desperately in need of basic economic and social reforms, the quest for national security has diverted the government from a confrontation with the Brazilian reality...
...Pessimists see more of the poor becoming poorer and fewer of the rich becoming richer...
...As with the military, they are targets of constant barbs: "Efficiency: "In the United States the results of an election are known six hours later...
...At issue was not one speech, but the pride of the Army...
...The easygoing nature of the Brazilian makes him a charming friend and host, but a poor guardian of individual and social rights...
...Similarly, the country's inadequate educational system promises to hobble the people...
...even worse, creating dissension between superiors and subordinates...
...They note that the legislators are quick to grant themselves tax exemptions and salary raises?largesse for a privileged class...
...Instead of overt turmoil, the present trends are likely to accelerate...
...As for the National Congress, Brazilians are cynical about the low attendance and high travel records (on subsidized fares) of its members...
...the nature of the Brazilian temperament...
...The military does not reflect the true Brazilian character and so has been the brunt of innumerable witticisms since 1964: "Why is the military mind like a loaf of bread...
...There are areas of the Northeast which suffer nearly 100 per cent infant mortality...
...Thus the widening schism: The civilians do not respect the military, the military does not trust the civilians...
...Because it's square, has a hard crust and is all soft inside...
...By forcing the Presidential action, the legislators at least dispersed the smoke screen of democratic trappings which cloaked the authoritarian powers residing in the executive following the First Institutional Act of April 1964...
...These include the power of the military to squelch an outbreak...
...The Costa e Silva government talked a great deal about establishing a "dialogue" with dissenting groups, but nevertheless closed itself inside a soundproof room...
...With lyrics rewritten to salve a sensitive ego, the barracks version insists, "The soldier is of the people —he is brother of the people...
...in order to confront directly and immediately the problems of restoring the internal order and the international prestige of our country...
...Goulart planned to disband Congress toward the end of his three-year rule, but he never got the chance...
...There are soldiers who are armed but not loved," declares a recent ballad by Geraldo Vandre...
...Both chief executives, being military men...
...Former President Goulart's philandering with the international Left and Castro's rise in Cuba instilled a phobia among the country's leaders that causes them to suspect all opposition and all reform proposals as being subversive...
...In Rio de Janeiro, the summer sun is bright and hot, the beaches are many and inviting...
...The defense for the move to the Right, incorporated in the Institutional Act, recalls arguments familiar from other military strong-arm performances...
...Its ability to shape it into a more favorable state of affairs for Brazil has yet to be demonstrated...
...Forces both to the Right and Left of Costa e Silva, exasperated by his flaccid rule, began to radicalize themselves...
...Ela on ele" became the succinct analysis of the crisis—either the Chamber or the Deputy must be sacrificed...
...Both Castelo Branco and Costa e Silva tried to limit their influence in the government, but little by little events strengthened the Right-wing case...
...About half the Brazilian population is illiterate?in some states over 70 per cent—and this mass has never been granted political rights...
...While the country has bumbled through dictatorships and incompetent chief executives before, there is increasing concern that dynamic forces currently at large both within Brazil and the world—urbanization, mass communications, secularization, competing ideologies, etc.?will make the latest setback to the political system and social progress less tolerable to those affected...
...The case of Deputy Alves was merely the climax of a prolonged process of alienation...
...Civic organizations of the type encountered by Alexis de Toqueville in U.S...
...an acid-throwing vendetta among students was staged...
...the shortage of trained and dedicated leadership to execute such an action...
...The fault for this impasse in the Brazilian political system lies on both sides...
...Even worse, there is an increasing tendency among professionals and intellectuals to emigrate as the cultural possibilities in their own country contract...
...On December 12, in a rare show of fortitude, the legislators voted for principle instead of expediency: The Deputy retained his immunity...
...As tension between the government and certain civilian elements increased, President Costa e Silva's response was generally to temporize...
...As the general public was denied normal means of political expression, students and the progressive wing of the Church were drawn into the resulting political vacuum with increasing vigor...
...The military does not think the matter very funny...
...From July through November, however, physical attacks were more often perpetrated by fascistic groups bearing such names as Command for Hunting Communists and Anti-Communist Movement...
...But, uncharacteristically...
...Last October, for example, after the Minister of Labor had come to settle a strike of the sugar cane workers, the peasant president of a rural syndicate in the Northeast said: "He looked at us through red-colored glasses...
...Military police flaunted the sanctity of church and university campus...
...In addition, many are now in forced- or self-exile as a result of the purge following the 1964 "revolution...
...the difficulty of coordinating forces in a large and pluralistic country...
...The multiparty system was restructured artificially, creating a malfunctioning two-party system...
...to suspend the right of habeas corpus, and so on...
...forces to put it down...
...Millions continue illiterate, and less than 1 per cent graduate from a university...
...In 1937, Getiilio Vargas closed Congress' doors, stirring little public protest...
...At first it seemed that this crisis, Frances M. Foland, a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, has spent the last year in BrazilBy Frances M. Foland like many preceding it, would be swept under a very lumpy rug...
...The President himself had been forced upon the country in 1967 as the only candidate, "elected" indirectly by a captive Congress...
...While the Armed Forces have received a proportionately larger part of the national budget over the last four years, allocations for education, health and agriculture have remained the same or diminished...
...a progressive archbishop's home was machine-gunned, as were university buildings frequented by Leftist students...
...Far from becoming a land torn by revolution, Brazil could suffer a grim fate at the opposite extreme: It could become a land in stagnation—a human desert whose thin layer of topsoil is destroyed by exodus and despair...
...more illiterates and fewer professionals...
...to assure the authentic democratic order based on liberty, on respect for the dignity of the human being, on the combat of subversion and ideologies contrary to the traditions of our people, on the fight against corruption...
...the expectation, at least in the case of Brazilian Leftists, that the first hint of a revolutionary outbreak would bring U.S...
...Priests were soon dubbed "Communists," and student activists were jailed...
...In Brazil, six months before...
...Attempting to adhere to the 1967 Constitution, the Costa e Silva government asked the Chamber of Deputies to waive Alves' immunity so that he could be brought to trial for insulting the military and thereby endangering national security...
...The assassination of a young American Army officer was first presumed to be Leftist work, but was later traced to elements of the Command for Hunting Communists...
...One of the highest birth rates in the world will continue in tandem with one of the highest death rates...
...President Artur da Costa e Silva chose to force the issue, reconvening the Chamber in extraordinary session...
...The threat of closure cowed a timid Congress...
...Plays and songs which too vigorously bemoaned the social situation or criticized the Establishment were censored...
...nine years later, they were reopened...
...to interfere at will in state and city governments, substituting his own representatives as he sees fit...
...Predictably, the suspension of constitutional guarantees and the closing of Congress were followed by a document accusing Roman Catholic clergymen, schools and news media of antigovernment activities...
...Addressing Congress in Brasilia last September 4, Deputy Moreira Alves spoke out against "military leaders who are practicing violence and maintaining this country under a regime of oppression...
...those who survive in this human waste of malnutrition are physically and mentally stunted...
...Rather, liberties were abraded in bits, pieces and chunks so that—in a country such as Brazil, where there are several power centers and the population is dispersed HUMBERTO CASTELO BRANCO —no one clear-cut act could weld civilian resistance...
...Institutional Acts were decreed in April 1964, October 1965 and December 1968, each investing the executive with greater authoritarian powers...
...he vents his frustration in humor, the steam valve of his society...
...In 1964 it moved to overthrow the inept Joao Goulart in conjunction with a significant segment of the civilian population...
...all the charges of graft, corruption, and mismanagement fired at the former President cannot dispel his charisma...
...They became epidemic in Brazil every time there was a crisis—but no action was taken to solve the cause...
...An ad for saccharin asks a key question on the mind of the Cariocan woman...
...Unlike many of its neighbors?Argentina, Paraguay, Peru—Brazil has had a military sector that resisted chronic political interference...
...One thing is certain: There will never be a revolution in Rio on the weekend —everyone will be at the beach...
...Cassandras of the region predict it will soon become a fester of starvation rivaling India...
...The body politic is relatively amorphous and can be criticized for failing to fulfill its civic responsibilities...
...The crescendo of chaos and dissent underscored the inability of Costa e Silva to cope effectively with the national malaise...
...Since that time, Army generals thinly disguised by civilian dress have held the key posts, and colonels have supervised secondary operations...
...Brazilians have little regard for the electoral process or politicians...
...This image, the manifesto charged, is being "cultivated skillfully by a subversion which carries on a successful campaign to demoralize authority . . . setting public opinion against the military and...
...more underfed, fewer able-bodied...
...Educated men and women converge upon the metropolises of the South—Rio, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, etc.?where salaries and opportunities are greater, bleeding other regions of qualified personnel...
...an unfavorable terrain for effective guerrilla warfare...
...It feels it is misunderstood and decries a deliberate Leftist plot to defame it...
...But a combination of factors seems to veto the likelihood of that course...
...The present Brazilian government now has all the legal instruments to rule the situation with an iron hand...
...a lack of psychological and physical capabilities among the masses...
...After the December 12 demarche, this description came into vogue: "The Army is full of bombast in peace, cowardly during a revolution, and when there is a war, they send the civilians...
...In November, a class of captains in an elite mid-career training course issued a manifesto lamenting that "the Brazilian Army is today considered a privileged usurper...
...There are lots of chic places to be seen—restaurants, cocktail lounges, nightclubs...
...Had the vote gone the other way, Congress would have proved itself the complete pawn of the military chiefs, and precedent would have been set for a series of impeachments of congressmen bothersome to the Costa e Silva government...
...Worst of all, the populace now suspects that the previously apolitical military has been bitten by "the blue fly"—that is, has become addicted to political power...
...Basic reforms needed to incorporate the majority of Brazilians, who languish on the margin of the society and economy, are not likely to be initiated by men concerned above all in preserving order, tranquility and security...
...more masses and fewer leaders...
...Industrialization is already slowing due to a limited internal market and a shortage of technicians...
...Are you ready to use your bikini this coming summer...
...This, combined with a poor sense of public relations, has estranged them from the public...
...But later he realized that our demands were just and our strike was legal...
Vol. 52 • January 1969 • No. 1
