Brazilian political history

the formation of public opinion and the disputes of memories about march 31, 1964

Abstract

At the beginning of the 21st century, in contemporary Brazil, in the first half of the government of President Jair Messias Bolsonaro (2019-2022), memory disputes about the political rupture of 1964 were reignited. In March 2019, Bolsonaro established an “Order of the Day” for the military and defended the celebration of the date of March 31, 1964. This Bolsonaro policy, the results of the 2022 Elections, when Bolsonaro (PL) was defeated in the second round by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ( PT), hate speeches from the far right and anti-democratic demonstrations with people in front of barracks requesting “military intervention with Bolsonaro” and the return of Institutional Act n. 5 (AI-5), which culminated in the attempted coup d'état on January 8, 2023, at the beginning of the third Lula government, instigated us to analyze the process of formation of public opinion and the memory disputes about the 31 of March 1964, the Military Dictatorship (1964-1985). Considering Brazilian Political History over the last 60 years and the question: “March 31, 1964, civic date and/or coup d'état?”, in this paper for analysis, the audiovisual “March 31, 1964” released by the Bolsonaro government was selected. on social media and available on YouTube in 2019 and the reports published in March of that year.