We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States(Radical Perspectives)

In 1964, Brazil’s democratically elected, left-wing government was ousted in a coup and replaced by a military junta. The Johnson administration quickly recognized the new government. The U.S. press and members of Congress were nearly unanimous in their support of the “revolution” and the coup leaders’ anticommunist agenda. Few Americans were aware of the human rights abuses perpetrated by Brazil’s new regime. By 1969, a small group of academics, clergy, Brazilian exiles, and political activists had begun to educate the American public about the violent repression in Brazil and mobilize opposition to the dictatorship. By 1974, most informed political activists in the United States associated the Brazilian government with its torture chambers. In We Cannot Remain Silent, James N. Green analyzes the U.S. grassroots activities against torture in Brazil, and the ways those efforts helped to create a new discourse about human-rights violations in Latin America. He explains how the campaign against Brazil’s dictatorship laid the groundwork for subsequent U.S. movements against human rights abuses in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Central America.Green interviewed many of the activists who educated journalists, government officials, and the public about the abuses taking place under the Brazilian dictatorship. Drawing on those interviews and archival research from Brazil and the United States, he describes the creation of a network of activists with international connections, the documentation of systematic torture and repression, and the cultivation of Congressional allies and the press. Those efforts helped to expose the terror of the dictatorship and undermine U.S. support for the regime. Against the background of the political and social changes of the 1960s and 1970s, Green tells the story of a decentralized, international grassroots movement that effectively challenged U.S. foreign policy.

Table of Contents:
About the Series ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Tropical Delights and Torture Chambers, or Imagining Brazil in the United States PrÓlogo "Era um paÍs subdesenvolvido" 13 1. Revolution and Counterrevolution in Brazil 19 CapÍtulo I "A gente quer ter voz ativa" 49 2. The Birth of a Movement 55 CapÍtulo II "Caminhando e cantando e seguindo a canÇÃo" 77 3. The World Turned Upside Down 85 CapÍtulo III "Agora falando sÉrio" 107 4. Defending Artistic and Academic Freedom 115 CapÍtulo IV "Acorda amor" 137 5. The Campaign against Torture 143 CapÍtulo V "Vai meu irmÃo" 167 6. Latin Americanists Take a Stand 177 CapÍtulo VI "Pode me prender, pode me bater" 197 7. Human Rights and the Organization of American States 201 CapÍtulo VII "Fado tropical" 225 8. Congressional Questioning 233 CapÍtulo VIII "While my eyes go looking for flying saucers in the sky" 255 9. Denouncing the Dictatorship 259 CapÍtulo IX "Navegar É preciso" 291 10. Performing Opposition 293 CapÍtulo X "Quem É essa mulhar" 315 11. The Slow-Motion Return to Democracy 321 CapÍtulo XI "Amanhà hÁ de ser outro dia" 355 Conclusions: Making a Difference 359 Notes 367 Bibliography 411 Index 431

About the Author :
James N. Green is Professor of Brazilian History and Culture at Brown University and past president of the Brazilian Studies Association. He is the editor of Lina Penna Sattamini’s A Mother’s Cry: A Memoir of Politics, Prison, and Torture under the Brazilian Military Dictatorship, also published by Duke University Press, and the author of Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil.

Review :
"We Cannot Remain Silent is the most complete and comprehensive analysis ever made of the multiple paths and confluences among the political and cultural resistance in Brazil and the United States after the military coup d'etat in Brazil in 1964. Based on new sources and a broad range of interviews, James N. Green reveals unexpected coalitions, introduces new actors, and tells fascinating human stories. His book is obligatory reading and a tool for reaching the truth about the background of torture and political killings carried out during twenty-one years of military dictatorship. It is essential for understanding the struggle for human rights in Brazil then and now."oPaulo Sergio Pinheiro, Commissioner, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States "We Cannot Remain Silent is an exemplary piece of historical research that simultaneously performs an act of recuperation and interpretation. James N. Green's gripping study not only discloses an aspect of (U.S.-based) opposition to the Brazilian military regime that had previously gone largely unacknowledged, but also demonstrates how a transnational approach to this history can reveal and reconstitute a series of narratives that are crucial for understanding the politics of this era."oBarbara Weinstein, author of For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in Sao Paulo, 1920-1964