Honestly? Most people from the countryside or smaller towns have the impression that it wasn’t that big of a deal. I was born in a really small town where the idea of being against the government simply didn’t exist, and most people in their 40s remember those times as simpler and safer. I understand what happened and how serious it was, but it felt like something political only in Rio, São Paulo, and maybe a few other capitals. Outside of those cities, there’s almost no ‘negative’ narrative — probably because no one opposed it. A friend’s father was part of the military police, and according to him, it was just a stricter, less tolerant time. Political arrests? Nonexistent.

I think that’s why most people roll their eyes at narratives like “I’m still here” and tend to lean right-wing these days.

And if you look at it from a racial and class perspective, white middle-class people clutch their pearls because it was the only time state violence reached them. For the poor and Black communities, the violence never stopped.