Memory and silence: The spoliation of memories

Abstract

From the surprising finding that some victims of torture during the Brazilian military dictatorship agree with their torturers on the meaning of the Amnesty Law, the article analyses two important social movements appeared at the end of the military regime in search of answers to the understanding of this reality. The Movement for the Amnesty and the Campaign for the Direct Election of the presidency, as well as the trajectories that followed some of its protagonists, allow us to say that the manner in which is handled the suffering represented by torture can be related to the opinion about the truth commission. In reviewing the debates that accompanied the struggles of these two social movements, the gender issue has proved an interesting approach to understand both what was at stake at the time, as well as the trajectory of its main protagonists since then.