The other day I was listening to Ivan Lins singing the song "O amor é o meu país” (loosely translating: "Love is my country") and it brought me some fond childhood memories …
It was surrounded by this and many other songs that I grew up.
And years later I left my country ... and adopted and/or was adopted by another ... but I never forgot my roots. And almost two decades after the heyday of the military dictatorship I left the Country... and not for political reasons.
But I belong to the "Brasil ame-o ou deixe-o / Brazil Love it or Leave it" generation.
It was then the 1960’s and the military dictatorship was reigning sovereignly while the country was experiencing one of its most turbulent moments in history. The "Brazilian Independence Day - September 7th - Parade" was presented to us as the ultimate celebration of citizenship, when in fact thousands of real and legitimate citizens were persecuted, tortured and killed by that same dictatorship.
"I love you; I love my Brazil," said the chorus of a song commissioned by the Government as a Youth "quasi-anthem". My brothers and I even got for free (in the supermarket) disks with that song. It was a real brainwashing.
But I belonged to an atypical family and my father was a man who was a politicized man and ideologically opposed the political regime of then.
In our house we read assiduously the newspaper "O Pasquim" that was a kind of ‘’voice of opposition” to what was going on then (very often they had the paper recalled from newsstands due to censorship) ...
We listened to music records that came with manually scratched tracks - due to censorship - so they could not be played.
But I grew up knowing what some songs - that eschewed censorship - really meant such as "Pra não dizer que não falei das flores" sung by Gerard Vandré ...
Or what the composers such as Chico Buarque or Caetano Veloso really wanted to say / said ...
The same Chico Buarque that gave us "Cálice – that translates as ‘’Chalice" ....
But I knew that he really meant "Cale-se – that translates as ‘’Shut up" ... They sound phonetically similar in Portuguese, but have very discrepant meaning.
And he did it so brilliantly ... circumventing the rules with only minor modifications in the lyrics required by that ridiculous censorship of then.
I lived later on the Country’s political transition ... but I moved out of my country before having the chance to see the people’s right to vote restored.
But I am proud to be a Brazilian Citizen - in spite of everything - and I only regret the Country having this ‘’stain’’ in our history ...
I regret that we have to live with all the reports of all atrocities experienced by some of our fellow brothers who rebelled against the regime … while a part of the population, involuntarily divested, waved their flags and sang the hymns commissioned by the Dictatorship."
For some - at the time - idols were Castelo Branco, Costa e Silva, Garrastazu Medici (all of them military rulers assigned every four years as Presidents of Brazil) ... as for me, idols were Chico, Caetano, Ziraldo, Henfil, Millor Fernandes, Zuzu Angel ...
I thank my father for - even though he never imposed or even suggested – politicizing me. I thank him for teaching me how to see beyond the propaganda imposed by the military dictatorship.
Today, times are tough ... and we live in times where a true democracy is being more and more solidified ...
Today I can say: "I love you, my Brazil" ... but in a different way ... and for different reasons ... !
