Correndo o risco: Belém do Pará na charge de Biratan Porto no ocaso da ditadura (1978-1985)

Abstract

Under what conditions did the civil-military dictatorship hand Belém do Pará over to the period of redemocratization? How did the civil society react to the violence and exclusion of dictatorial policies? These two questions permeate this study, which aims to decipher the situation of the main capital of the Amazon at the time, in the last seven years of the military government, a so-called period of openness, but which, despite suggesting a political softening, carried on with the signs of authoritarianism that characterized the 21 years of the regime. Based on Biratan Porto's cartoons, this study aims to answer those questions, using the methodological tools of the Social History of Art. Forty years after the events, the artist's critical humor offers an alternative reading to the press, which at the time was committed to the dictatorship. In its analytical framework of that period, Biratan's cartoon projects a unique perspective on popular resistance and suggests replacing an authoritarian clientelism with another, democratic, but still clientelism.