Bolsonaro and the Memory of Dictatorship in Brazil

Realms of Memory

The military regime, which ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, murdered hundreds and tortured thousands more perceived enemies of the state. How is it possible that this period of political repression, censorship, and state sponsored terror is now remembered nostalgically by many Brazilians? How did Jair Bolsonaro harness this nostalgia to win the 2018 presidential elections? Once in power, how did Bolsonaro frame the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of the memory of dictatorship with catastrophic consequences for Brazil? Leda Balbino, researcher, journalist, and deputy editor at the foreign desk of O Globo, one of Brazil’s leading newspapers, examines these and other questions in her recent book, Digital Memory in Brazil: A Fragmented and Elastic Negationist Remembrance of the Dictatorship.