A UNE em tempos de autoritarismo

Abstract

The analysis of the problems that occurred during the period of the military regime regarding its direct and forceful action on the Brazilian student movement cannot be restricted to the Brazilian reality, ignoring the broad continental context in which numerous demonstrations for the democratization of South American societies led by students, workers and progressive intellectuals, whose voices were so often violently silenced. The student movement in favor of university reform, the democratization of society and the broad socialization of knowledge is a peculiarity of a country – Brazil – on the continent. Its most tender roots can be identified in the Letter of Cordoba (Argentina) of June 21, 1918, impelling university reform and the formation of national student federations or national unions between 1920 and 1930 in almost all of Latin America – Chile, Paraguay , Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico –, later extending to Cuba (Portantiero, 1978). All were imbued with the renewing spirit, the possibility of social transformation and an awareness of an American man, distinct from the North American and/or the European. Sometimes, in the midst of apparently xenophobic discourses, what can really be read is not the closing to the culture of other components, but the desire to open up to the understanding of our reality, not only to legally guarantee the equality of rights between men, but to find means or paths through which equal access for all to the cultural heritage of the southern continent can be achieved.