Interrupted dreams, political persecution, and a reinvented life: the 1964 coup and its ramifications in the life of the political activist Mery Medeiros da Silva

Abstract

The 1964 coup transformed Brazil, changed the existing political order, stopped the progress of foundational reforms, and aligned the country with U.S. interests by assuming the fight against the so-called “communist threat”, considering the global political context. Beyond macro-level impacts, the coup also brought changes in the more personal daily lives of individuals considered subversive. Many diverse narratives could be chosen to illustrate these transformations, losses, and accumulated prohibitions. Here, we have selected one narrative, the one of the political activist Mery Medeiros da Silva. The main goal is to discuss the impacts of the 1964 coup and its consequences on the dreams and life of a man, potiguar, native of Rio Grande do Norte and a communist, who was persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured due to his activism but reinvented his life and founded an association of political amnesty beneficiaries in the 2000s. To achieve this, we used the theoretical and methodological framework of oral history, perceived through the affectations caused in both parties involved in the interview (Portelli, 2016), approached from a hybrid perspective (Meihy; Holanda, 2017), allowing for the cross-referencing of sources (Thompson, 2002) and bringing into discussion collective memories (Halbwachs, 2017), expressed in narratives, as well as data, information, and adjectives found in periodicals, legislation, and other sources.