Nostalgia for the Military

Requests for a return of the Armed Forces to power in Brazil

Abstract

The article discusses the requests for intervention by the Armed Forces within the context of the right-wing protests in Brazil in 2015. Therefore, data available from surveys conducted with protesters in the state capitals of the Southeast region are mainly used. The considerations in the article are organized around two points. On the one hand, a reflection is made about the construction of a positive memory about the period of dictatorship. From this perspective, the years between 1964-1985 could be seen as a period whose inheritance, lost in the present, could only be reestablished by the same political actors who left such a legacy - in this case, the military. On the other hand, we also consider the salvationist role of the Armed Forces. From this point of view, the military could be considered the only ones capable of solving the problems created or fostered exclusively or almost exclusively by the political elite in power.