scholarly journals Images of Suspicion: Surveillance Photos in the Brazilian Political Police Archives

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-82
Author(s):  
Mauricio Lissovsky ◽  
Teresa Bastos

Between its foundation under President Vargas in the 1930s until its closure with the end of the Military Dictatorship in 1983, the Brazilian Political Police Archive accumulated more than one hundred thousand photographs, These pictures, now held in the collections of the State Archive of Rio de Janeiro are almost entirely unknown. Despite the big differences between the various governments and regimes of its fifty years of existence, the common objects of surveillance by the police remained remarkably constant: trade unions, political parties, cultural associations, women’s movements, student movements, anarchists, communists and terrorists. Foreigners, including diplomats, whose activities raised suspicion of espionage or subversion were also kept a watchful eye on. The contemporary surveillance camera has its signature in the wide-angle plongée machinic abstract style, but in the files of the political police, the watchers are always finding ways to leave traces of their own performances as spies. Agamben’s ideas help us to create, in this exploratory essay, a dialogic link between the booking photographs taken of the political prisoners and the spy photographs of the usual suspects. In this sense, these images of suspicion testify not only to the “facts” or “feats” of those men and women under observation. In the trail left by these old photographs we can still hear the steps that once choreographed the ballet of surveillance, a strange pas-de-deux that found, in the interstice of the photographic act, a place for authorship.

2019 ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Vladilen Gusarov

During more than six dozen years after the achievement of the independence in 1956 Sudan has suffered a very complicated political evolution. The forms of rule in the country have many times changed from the parliamentary democracy to the military dictatorship; and the political life has developed not as a stable progressive movement, but practically as a spiral, with its turns going both up and down. At the same time, the essence of the forms of government remained the same: the domination of the representatives of the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie, their various coalitions represented by different political parties. In 2018, as a result of the sharply aggravated economic crisis, anti-government protests began across the country, caused by rising prices for bread and other essential products. The protests turned into demands for President Bashir’s resignation. On 11 April, he and his Deputy Ahmed Haroon were removed from power and arrested. The country was to be governed for two years by the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which was headed by defense Minister Awad Mohammed Ahmed Ibn Auf. However, due to contradictions between the army command and the opposition, Auf resigned on 13 April, and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan took his place. New attempts of coups continue to the present time. On the 17 of August the negotiations between the TMC and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) were finished by signing several agreements. Among them was the Constitutional Declaration and the Agreement of the transitional period. The Constitutional Declaration is fixing the main terms of so called transitional period in Sudan and will be the main legislative base for gradual transmission of the power from the militaries to the civil forces. The document has the principles on which the main organs the power would coordinate their actions. The sides also accepted the final version of the project of the political agreement of the transitional period. The main principles of the political structure of Sudan are fixed in it. The article is devoted to the description and understanding of the various coalitions represented by different political parties.


2018 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Paulo Fontes ◽  
Larissa R. Corrêa

AbstractThis article analyzes recent Brazilian scholarship on workers and trade unions during the military dictatorship (1964–1985), emphasizing the relative absence of studies and the neglect of worker organization. By focusing on working-class agency and the dilemmas the labor movement faced due to the regime's economic policies and fierce repression, this essay offers a better understanding of the political scenario after 1964. The second part of the article examines the themes of the most recent studies about workers and the labor movement during the military regime, emphasizing existing blind spots and future challenges for scholarship.


Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi

Chapter 1 introduces the long and difficult process of the theoretical legitimation of the political party as such. The analysis of the meaning and acceptance of ‘parties’ as tools of expressing contrasting visions moves forward from ancient Greece and Rome where (democratic) politics had first become a matter of speculation and practice, and ends up with the first cautious acceptance of parties by eighteenth-century British thinkers. The chapter explores how parties or factions have been constantly considered tools of division of the ‘common wealth’ and the ‘good society’. The holist and monist vision of a harmonious and compounded society, stigmatized parties and factions as an ultimate danger for the political community. Only when a new way of thinking, that is liberalism, emerged, was room for the acceptance of parties set.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 09-22
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Pinto de Andrade ◽  
Rogerio De Almeida Souza

Este texto tem como objetivo analisar a vida e a obra de Jaime Nelson Wright (1927-1999), pastor presbiteriano, opositor do regime militar no Brasil e intelectual engajado na luta pela defesa dos direitos humanos. Foi uma das vozes que mais combateu a ditadura militar no interior do protestantismo brasileiro. Desde a deflagração do golpe em 1964, fez a opção político/religiosa de não aderir ao regime autoritário. Wright se vinculou ao movimento estudantil e dedicou-se ao amparo religioso/pastoral dos perseguidos políticos. Sua contribuição como intelectual, perpassa o campo religioso. Ele atuou junto aos organismos internacionais voltados para a defesa dos direitos humanos e fundamentais à vida e denunciou as atrocidades do regime militar no Brasil. Para a efetivação da pesquisa foram utilizadas as seguintes fontes: documentos e imagens disponibilizados pelo projeto Brasil: Nunca Mais; jornais da época: entrevistas e matérias; decretos e leis. Os dados revelados pelas fontes indicam que a vida e obra de Jaime Wright contribuíram decisivamente para o processo de redemocratização do Brasil. This text analyzes the life and work of Jaime Nelson Wright (1927-1999), a Presbyterian pastor, a fierce opponent of the military regime in Brazil, and intellectually engaged in the struggle for the defense of human rights. He was one of the voices that most fought the military dictatorship in the Brazilian Protestant movement. Since the outbreak of the coup in 1964, he made the political and religious choice of not joining the authoritarian regime. Wright joined the student movement and dedicated himself to the religious support of the politically persecuted. His contribution as a committed intellectual goes beyond the clerical field. He was involved with international organizations dedicated to the defense of human rights and the fundamental rights to life. He also exposed the military regime's atrocities. For the realization of the research were used the following sources: documents and images made available by the Project Brazil: Never Again; newspapers of the time: interviews and stories; decrees and laws. The data revealed by the sources, indicate the life and work of Jaime Wright contributed in a decisive way to the re-democratization process in the Brazilian society.


Author(s):  
Luís Guilherme Nascimento de Araujo ◽  
Claudio Everaldo Dos Santos ◽  
Elizabeth Fontoura Dorneles ◽  
Ionathan Junges ◽  
Nariel Diotto ◽  
...  

The political and economic crises faced today, evidenced by the manifestos of political parties and the texts published in social networks and in the press, point to Brazilian society the possibility of different directions, including that of an autocratic regime, with the return of the military to the public sphere. This article discusses the movements of acceptance and resistance to the military regime that was implemented in Brazil with the coup of 1964. It is observed that the military uprising received at that time the support of a large part of the Brazilian population, which sought ways to maintain its socioeconomic status to the detriment of a majority that perceived itself vulnerable in view of the forms of maintenance and expansion of power used by the regime. In this context, Tropicalism emerges as an example of a contesting movement. This text approaches the song "Culture and civilization" by Gilberto Gil, performed by Gal Costa, relating the ideas present in this composition with the understandings of politics and culture, in a multidisciplinary proposal, seeking to understand the resistance and counter-resistance movements that emerged in Brazil at the time.


2000 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Da Costa Marques

A oferta ao mercado de produtos tecnicamente defasados com preços altos e a pressão norte-americana são explicações insatisfatórias para que a reserva de mercado no setor da informática praticada no Brasil, nos anos 70 e 80, seja hoje uma experiência ainda mais intensamente rejeitada do que considerada fracassada. A situação requer explicações mais complexas. Este artigo oferece uma nova explicação para o fracasso e a rejeição e também para um pouco conhecido sucesso da reserva de mercado, colocando em cena três fatores sociotécnicos específicos: o caráter especial da comunidade de profissionais brasileiros de informática, a intervenção do SNI (a polícia política da ditadura) e o advento dos microcomputadores. A imbricação desses fatores problematiza de uma nova forma os vínculos entre a reserva de mercado, o caráter autoritário do regime militar e os ideais do liberalismo democrático. A abordagem de inclinação sociotécnica aqui adotada divide o período em duas fases em que esses vínculos diferem radicalmente. Com surpresa, a primeira fase da reserva do mercado dos computadores no Brasil mostra uma afinidade não explorada entre as formas democráticas e a possibilidade de sucesso de políticas industriais para o desenvolvimento das ciências e das tecnologias nos países em desenvolvimento. Abstract Supplying the computer market with technically obsolete and high priced products plus the American pressure do not provide a satisfactory explanation for the fact that the market reserve practiced in Brazil in the 1980-90 is today even more intensely rejected than just taken as a failure. The situation requires more complex explanations. This paper offers a new explanation for the rejection and failure of the market reserve, and for its little known success as well, by means of three specific sociotechnical factors: the special character of the community of Brazilian computer professionals, the intervention of the political police of the military dictatorship (SNI), and the appearance of the microcomputer. This paper runs against the mainstream opinion that does not sufficiently problematizes the links between the market reserve, the authoritarian character of the military regime, and liberal democratic ideals. The sociotechnically inspired approach here adopted performs a division of the period into two phases where these links differ radically. Surprisingly, the first phase of the computer market reserve presents a frequently denied affinity between the democratic forms and the possibility of successful implementation of industrial and scientific policies seeking the development of sciences and technologies in developing countries.


Author(s):  
Ozan O. Varol

Nature, Aristotle said, abhors a vacuum. He argued that a vacuum, once formed, would be immediately filled by the dense material surrounding it. Aristotle’s insights into vacuums in the physical world also apply to civil-military relations. Where a vacuum exists in domestic politics because the political parties are weak, unstable, or underdeveloped, the dense material that is the military may fill the void by staging an intervention into domestic politics. But when, as in the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, the civilian leaders themselves hold densely concentrated authority—in other words, are powerful, popular, and credible—their attempts to keep the military at bay are far more likely to succeed. Without a vacuum there is no void for the military to fill.


1994 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Brown

Comparatively little of a scholarly nature has been written about Indonesian trade unions, particularly on the two decades from 1945 to 1965 when, like the political parties to which so many of them were affiliated, the unions had their heyday. This paper focuses on the development of trade unions in one specific industry: refined sugar production. The period to be examined—1945 to 1949—runs from the proclamation of Indonesian independence by Sukarno and Hatta, through the revolution fought against the returning Dutch, to December 1949 when the Netherlands finally acknowledged Indonesian independence. It was during this period that the major post-war sugar industry unions were established. The circumstances surrounding the establishment of these unions will be examined, along with their leaders and members, ideological leanings and political and industrial objectives.


1972 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Kossok

At the beginning of this study of military dictatorship and the political role of the intellectuals in Latin America, Florestan Fernandes (1970: 1) makes the following statement: “The idea that Latin America is a region in which the coups d'état are a political routine has become a commonplace.” Without doubt, such an opinion is justified and also explains—at least to a certain extent—the wealth of “routine” verdicts on the function of the military in Latin America. A contradiction, however, seems evident at this point: while the number of publications on the political and social position of the armed forces is rapidly increasing (McAlister, 1966; Rouquié, 1969), there is an evident lack of comprehensive analyses that go beyond detailed description, and which explain in a reliable and sound manner the phenomenon of the cyclically increasing militarization of politics. It cannot be overlooked that research on the role of the military in Latin America is in a really critical situation which calls for a reexamination of the facts according to new criteria.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (16) ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTA PHILP

Resumen: En el trabajo se analizan las intervenciones de los militares que gobernaron la Argentina  durante la dictadura cá­vico-militar en Argentina en el perá­odo 1976-1983, destinadas a lograr una  tarea central de todo régimen polá­tico: la justificación del poder. A partir de la exclusión de la  polá­tica, declamada pero no practicada, se apropiaron de distintos escenarios para construir maneras  de definir el orden polá­tico, nombrado como democracia sustancial, democracia de los mejores en  oposición a la demagogia, causa de su nueva irrupción en la historia polá­tica argentina el 24 de  marzo de 1976. La imperiosa necesidad de concluir con esta democracia desvirtuada era presentada  como eje de su tarea central: reorganizar la nación, tarea que originó su autodenominación como  ”Proceso de Reorganización Nacional”. Esta reconstrucción de los esfuerzos de los militares en el  poder para legitimar su accionar pretende aportar a la comprensión y explicación de las rupturas  institucionales en América Latina, seguidas de la instauración de gobiernos autoritarios.Palabras clave: Dictadura cá­vico-militar, Justificación del poder, Orden polá­tico.  THE POLITICAL ORDER ACCORDING TO THE ARGENTINE CIVIC-MILITARY DICTATORSHIP 1976-1983Abstract: The paper discusses the interventions by the military which ruled the Argentina during  the military dictatorship in Argentina during the 1976-1983, aimed at achieving a central task of any  political regime: the justification of power. From the exclusion of the policy, recited but not  practiced, they appropriated various scenarios to build ways to define the political order, named as  substantial democracy, democracy of the best as opposed to demagoguery, cause of the new  outbreak in Argentine political history on March 24, 1976. The urgent need to conclude with this  democracy undermined was presented as the core of its central task: reorganizing the nation, task  which originated its self-designation as "Proceso de Reorganización Nacional". This reconstruction  of the efforts of the military power to legitimize their actions intended to contribute to the  understanding and explanation of institutional ruptures in Latin America, followed by the  establishment of authoritarian governments.Keyswords: Civic-military dictatorship, Justification of the power, Political order.


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