Brazilian protest songs: “Peace without a voice is no peace but fear”
I was born a year after the military coup in Brazil. The dictatorship that followed lasted from
1964 until 1985 - all my childhood and teenage years. But until I was 13 or 14 years old, I had
no clue of what was going on in my country. I lived in a small town and my parents were not
involved in politics. We listened to the radio, watched the news on TV and had a subscription to
[5] a national newspaper, but all the media were completely censored at that time. The fact that the
newspaper was sometimes printed with a blank space or a cake recipe in the middle of the news
never really caught my attention. It was always like that and I didn’t know any better.
I had my first glimpse of what it really meant to have a military government and what kind
of things were going on through songs. There was a song that I liked a lot, O bêbado e a
[10] equilibrista, although the lyrics didn’t make much sense to me: “My Brazil… / that dreams of the
return / of Henfil’s brother / and so many people that left / on rocket fins”. Henfil was a famous
cartoonist, but who was his brother? Who were the people who left? What were they singing
about? This was in 1979 and I was 13.
Thanks to this song by João Bosco and Aldir Blanc (sung by Elis Regina) and the questions I
[15] started to ask, I heard for the first time about all the artists, journalists and activists that had
been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and exiled. Many had disappeared or been killed by the
military regime. This song became an anthem for the amnesty of political prisoners and activists
in exile, which was announced later in that same year.
In fact, due to the extreme censorship during the period of military dictatorship in Brazil, songs
[20] were one of the few ways to send political messages. Despite the tight surveillance of the censors,
they flourished, giving a voice to the resistance movement. Like Para não dizer que não falei das
flores, by Geraldo Vandré, which was interpreted as a call for armed struggle.
Words and phrases with double meanings were used to escape censorship and persecution. The
greatest master in this art was Chico Buarque de Holanda. His clever lyrics were often approved
[25] by the censors, who would only later realise what the songs were really about. But then, of
course, it was too late. That was the case with Apesar de você, which was censored only after it
had already become an anthem on the streets. At first sight, it appears to be a samba about a
lover’s quarrel. Actually, it was a sharp critique of the authoritarian regime and an act of direct
defiance aimed at the dictators.
[30] With the advent of democracy and the new freedom of expression in the late 1980s, protest
songs played less of a role in Brazil for a while, but in the 1990s they once again became a
powerful channel to voice social discontent. One of bands active in this period was O Rappa, with
the song A paz que eu não quero. The fight against social inequality, urban and police violence
and racial discrimination are the most common themes. Nowadays, the lyrics are explicit and the
messages are clear.
Mariângela Guimarães rnw.nl
Besides describing the effect of the Brazilian political situation on the media, the first paragraph also mentions that the author had no idea of this situation at the time.
The author’s complete lack of knowledge is best established by means of the following sentence:
