Tropical ginsberg

CHAPTER V
Tropicália, or Panis et Circensis
5.1. 1960s Brazil: Love it or Hate it
55
O Terceiro mundo vai explodir! Quem tiver
sapato não sobra. 109
Brazil was a country of promises, hopes, marvels, dreams, and
exotic untouched exuberances at the beginning of the 1960s. The
country had just been governed (1956-1961) by Juscelino Kubistchek,
who transferred the capital to the heart of the country. His successor,
weird looking Jânio Quadros, stayed less than a year in office–January
31 to August 25–and was allegedly forced out of power by “hidden
forces.” 110 The next presidency, the one of João Goulart, or Jango,
would sadly add a full stop to the democratic government of Brazil; a
full stop which lasted for 21 years. After a rally at Central do Brasil –
Rio’s Central train station – on March 13, 1964, in which Jango told
field workers that their struggle for a land they could call theirs was to
be finally heard, and a land reform would happen in Brazil, the military
decided that that was the last straw; corrections were needed. March
31 st , 1964 marked the beginning of one of the most cruel, and inhumane
dictatorships of the twentieth century. A series of coward acts, scoundrel
manipulations, and tyranical alterations of our constitution, were to
exponentially change our socio-cultural-economic day-to-day life, in
ways we still today fail to understand.
The country was entirely torn apart into two distinct political
spheres – that of rich right conservative reactionaries in charge, and left
politically engageé bourgeois intellectuals forced to the underground. If
the republic – and here the Latin origin really means a lot – undergoes
tumultuous days of extremes, it is only natural that people’s social lives
trail the same path. A strong fundamentalist nationalism, which would
109 “The third world is going to explode! Those who have shoes won’t last” author’s
translation. Phrase repeated throughout the 1968 movie O Bandido da Luz Vermelha by
Rogério Sganzerla.
110 During his brief mandate he also condemned the ‘bay of pigs’, and condecorated Ernesto
“Che” Guevara with a Ordem Nacional do Cruzeiro do Sul, a commendam that the president of
Brazil may give to foreigners.