Negationism and Memory Policies in the Brazilian Transitional Justice

Abstract

This article tries to discuss the production of memory and silence about the period of the military dictatorship in Brazil. It is argued that there is a Negationist Paradigm operationalized by the interpretation given by the Amnesty Law of 1979 which promoted a political will to oblivion by limiting the potential of the laws of nationality. However, from the 2000s onwards, a political will of memory was formed, which took the form of several initiatives within the Federal Executive Branch, whose political result was the elaboration of the "right to memory" inscribed in the creation of the Law that created the National Truth Commission. Thus, in Brazil, there was the creation of policies linked to the "Nevermore Paradigm", generating a context of tension between two different paradigms.