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2. Professional Students and Political Polarization: Contested Revolutions, 1956–1967
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 professional students and political polarization Contested Revolutions in Brazil, 1956–1967 When Celia Guevara came to Brazil in late May 1961 to speak at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, she preceded her famous son Ernesto ‘‘Che’’Guevarabyseveralmonths.InAugustChe,theArgentine-bornrevolutionary and Cuban minister of industry, passed through the country en route from a meeting of the Organization of American States (oas) in neighboring Uruguay. He stayed for only a few hours, just long enough for President Jânio Quadros to decorate him with the Order of the Southern Cross, the highest honor Brazil grants to foreigners. Approved by a commission of government ministers who considered the decoration a rea≈rmation of Brazil’s position on Latin American self-determination, the award nonetheless prompted a storm of protest and helped lead to Quadros ’s abrupt resignation just six days later. At first glance Celia Guevara’s earlier sojourn to the northeastern city of Recife seemed a much simpler a√air than her son’s trip to Brasilia. Her invitation had been extended by students rather than by the president, and her arrival lacked the honor guard parade, military band performance, and o≈cial welcome at the new presidential palace that Che’s stopover had entailed.∞ Her visit was no less contentious, however, ultimately leading to a seventeen-day strike by students and, most shockingly, the massive mobilization of troops of the Brazilian army, navy, and air force to break it up—a show of force so tremendous it made national and even international news for several days. One journalist at the time explained its importance by stating, ‘‘It would be incorrect to assert that only the University of 62 chapter two Pernambuco, the Army and the Government are involved in these events, for in fact the whole Nation feels the consequences of these incidents.’’≤ In this dramatic yet little-noted moment one can glimpse the rapidly changing terrain on which those students who welcomed Celia Guevara and those who involved themselves in similar political activities came to tread. In this case the controversy began not when a student organization at the famous law school extended a speaking invitation to Celia Guevara, who was already in Brazil attending the Second Conference of Latin American Women.≥ Rather it started when Soriano Neto, the director of the school and vice rector of the university, infringed on the students’ tacit right to do so by essentially prohibiting her visit. First he refused them the use of the main auditorium to host the talk, and then, when they planned to hold the event at the headquarters of their ca, he denied that too. Students at the school had long complained of Neto’s authoritarian style and possible financial corruption, and they bristled at these latest imperious and arbitrary acts. Undaunted by his proscriptions, they secretly went ahead with the event on May 31, holding it in an unused classroom under the cover of night. The story perhaps would have ended there had Neto not found out about the furtive event and ordered the electricity to be cut, plunging the group into darkness midway through Guevara’s speech. Attending students quickly ran to a nearby store for candles, and Guevara dramatically finished her lecture under the flickering light of dozens of small tapers. Two days later, after Guevara had returned to Argentina, law students were still inflamed by the situation and declared a strike. They refused to attend class, occupied the law school building—surrounding it with large barriers and indignant signs—and demanded the rector’s dismissal. Almost immediately students from other schools within the Federal University of Pernambuco and at the nearby Federal Rural University of Pernambuco began similar occupations, and Minister of Education Brígido Tinoco soon hurried to Recife to assess the situation.∂ Student strikes were nothing new, of course. Neither were the occupations of university buildings, the symbolic burials of figures like Vice Rector Neto that the Recife students performed, or the rush of negotiating that quickly took place among local and national student and government figures. Although the forms of political protest had changed over time, Brazilian university students had long involved themselves in a variety of political activities, and the spectacle of demonstrating students was unex- [3.237.178.126] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:40 GMT) students and political polarization 63 ceptional. What happened next, however, marks the fallout from Guevara ’s visit as much more than a student demonstration typical of its time...