Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and the Making and Remembering of 1968 in Military Brazil

1. Constructing the ‘‘House of Democratic Resistance’’: Authority and Authenticity in University Student Politics, 1808–1955

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 constructing the ‘‘house of democratic resistance’’ Authority and Authenticity in University Student Politics, 1808–1955 As university student activists gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a National Congress of Students in August 1951 they received a booklet to help guide their stay: ‘‘O Rio para o Universitário: Roteiro Turístico, Cultural e Informativo ’’ (Rio for university students: a touristic, cultural, and informative itinerary) (figure 1.1).∞ Containing helpful advice about navigating the city during the multiday event and suggestions for excursions to museums and other locales, the publication reflected the fact that, for many of the several hundred students expected to attend, it would be their first trip to the seaside capital and a significant event in their young lives. Further suggesting the momentousness of the occasion, the cover design centered around a photograph of a stately three-story building bedecked on either side with elegant palm trees and distinguished by the columns and caryatids on its second- and third-floor balconies. Below the picture was the caption, ‘‘A Casa da Resistência Democrática’’ (The house of democratic resistance), an uno≈cial moniker that would have done visiting students little good in locating the building at 132 Praia de Flamengo Street. But the attendees who carried this guidebook around doubtless needed no such clarification to recognize the site as the well-known headquarters of the União Nacional dos Estudantes (une, National Union of Students) and the reason for their meeting. For this was the fourteenth year in which students convened to elect une o≈cers and debate their forthcoming agenda, and by now the prominence of the national union finally seemed secure. Meanwhile 20 chapter one figure 1.1. The une building at 132 Praia de Flamengo Street graced the cover of this une booklet from 1951. United States National Student Association Collection, Hoover Institution Archives une’s permanence and prestige found no better symbol than the solidity of its elegant headquarters. As both the showcase for and a symbol of students’ political authority the stately une building played an important role in the history of student activism in Brazil. Indeed, the building was quite extraordinary. A symmetrical , Palladian structure that faced Guanabara Bay in the historically aristocratic neighborhood of Flamengo, it boasted an elegant dining room for over sixty guests, a polished marble and wood bar, and a stately library with glass-doored bookcases. The house also possessed a game room replete with poker and snooker tables, a ninepin bowling alley, and, perhaps most breathtaking, an enormous rooftop veranda with unobstructed views of Flamengo Beach and the famous Sugarloaf Mountain jutting into Guanabara Bay. Built in 1929 for the Sociedade Germânia (German society ), a typical immigrant association of the early twentieth century that sought to cultivate private social spaces for its members, the building was in fact the club’s second, more luxurious domicile, constructed to replace an earlier building (1900–1929) located a few doors down. With Brazil’s authority in student politics 21 declaration of war against Germany in August 1942, however, all property belonging to the supposed enemy became part of the national patrimony, including the Sociedade Germânia structure. Almost immediately President Getúlio Vargas granted the building to une and to two other student associations, and students enthusiastically took over the well-outfitted space to make it their headquarters. In the nine years since then une members had hosted innumerable meetings, congresses, and debates at 132 Praia de Flamengo Street as well as formal dinners, dances, receptions, and cocktail parties. They also came to run a subsidized student restaurant out of the dining room and a student theater from the ground floor. And to the immense organizational advantage of the union, the building literally came to house the une leadership, as the elected student o≈cers not only managed une from the o≈ce space, but also lived in the modest top-floor apartment for the oneyear term of their leadership. In this way the students who made up une directorates could hail from all over the country yet still reside in the nation’s capital, close to one another and to the center of national politics. Although, as noted, two other student organizations shared the space—a local student association and a collegiate sports group—the structure on Praia de Flamengo Street soon became known as the une building (a sede da...