Brazil, Hopes; Chile, Apprehensions – Folha de S. Paulo, December 19, 1971

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

The past fifteen days have given Brazilians many reasons to celebrate.

President Médici’s trip to the United States clearly demonstrated how much our country’s progress impresses the world. The smear campaign organized abroad by malicious Brazilians is nearly fading away. The true image of Brazil’s development is becoming permanently established in the world’s leading centers of power, wealth, and culture.

However, that is not all. On its path to progress, Brazil in 1971 demonstrates that it has overcome its previous sluggishness and has begun to fully utilize its vast resources. As a result, our country is gaining everyone’s attention for the future stature it will achieve in a few decades. That stature is that of a giant.

Like all peoples around the world, ours has its faults; however, these do not include arrogance or a desire to rule. Brazil’s rise to the ranks of great powers will pose no threat of exploitation or humiliation to anyone. When we fully recognize the great place that belongs to us among the world’s leading nations, our country’s international influence will reflect the qualities of our people, who are kind, friendly, and peaceful.

We are growing without comparing ourselves to others, without hatred or inferiority complexes toward those ahead of us, and without contempt or provocation toward those behind us. Within the great Latin American family to which we belong, we are motivated by the belief that our development is meaningful but not isolated. Our brothers and sisters are progressing all around us, and we see no signs of rivalry or competition, but rather of exchange and mutual support. We all move forward together toward a more united Latin America.

Our sense of solidarity reaches beyond Latin America. All of Brazil warmly welcomed the recent treaties with Portugal, seeing them as a milestone for future and closer ties with the European mother country and its overseas provinces.

A similar movement is bringing this continent’s Hispanic nations closer to their former metropolis.

The Iberian world is thus drawing closer together in a broad embrace, uniting these many nations—which are inherently independent—into a more unified and tight whole, connected through the same faith, culture, and a language that nearly seems identical.

Brazil looks to the future from this perspective. A future in which we hope to learn not only from the lessons of our tradition-rich past but also from what the present world, filled with conflict and tragedy, teaches us. Indeed, we are witnessing the final moments of progress born in this age of steam and electricity. As soon as it emerged, this progress challenged the past, rushing recklessly into the future. Because of this, it became noticeably flawed, and that is why the entire world groans today.

For the benefit of all peoples, we hope that a different kind of progress, rooted in Christian tradition and the Latin spirit, will bear more mature fruits in the 21st century, which we believe will be the century of the Iberian world.

These hopes are well-founded. Along with today’s accomplishments, they also give us Brazilians reasons to feel proud of our springtime.

Although perhaps somewhat scattered, diffuse, and implicit, this was on everyone’s mind, and President Médici’s trip to the United States helped clarify it, highlight it, and bring it into the spotlight of world attention.

* * *

These words, which reflect our country’s overall view, would sound empty and overly hopeful if we did not acknowledge the darkness impacting us all in the Ibero-American region. Cuba remains oppressed and tortured. Amid upheavals, Chile is heading down a dark path toward full communism. Producers are protesting due to oppressive government control, which stifles individual effort and seizes property. The government finds reasons to expand its intervention and police powers more and more.

The challenge is set. Will the people manage to overthrow the demagogues who are suffocating them? Or will the demagogues prevail?

Brazil strongly experienced this harsh alternative in 1964. Our people selected the correct path.

The comparison between the Brazilian situation back then and the current state in Chile is so obvious that Salvador Allende explicitly mentioned it in his farewell speech to Fidel Castro. He said that Chile is now going through days similar to those Brazil faced in 1964. He quickly added that, unlike Goulart, he, Allende, hopes to succeed.

Contrary to that, we hope he will be defeated so that Christian Chile can succeed. Only then will Castro, seen as a bloody and dishonorable exception in the Ibero-American continent, be pushed by isolation and widespread rejection to give up power. Afterwards, Ibero-America will confidently move forward toward the bright future it promises.

Does Chile have the same chances for victory that Brazil had? The answer needs to be nuanced. While some factors give hope, others create concerns.

Even during Goulart’s era, some prelates were complacent about the Marxist progress, which weighed heavily on many Brazilians. However, none had gone as far or sunk as low as Cardinal Silva Henriquez, Archbishop of Santiago, and the bishops who follow him.

On the other hand, the Chilean armed forces are a concern. Based on their current inertia, they seem to have a unilateral view of their mission. While correctly acknowledging their subordination to civilian authority, they overlook the fact that armed forces are a major national institution in any country, which during times of crisis may need to go beyond their usual role to temporarily assume control of the government and protect the public interest.

Because they understood their mission so well, Brazil’s Armed Forces saved our country from the quagmire in 1964. We can better appreciate the benefit they provided by comparing the successful outcome of the 1964 crisis with the indecision and suffering that modern-day Chile is experiencing due to its military’s inertia.

Actually, the 1964 outcome tested the maturity of Brazilians and especially their Armed Forces. In our view, the comparison with the Chilean experience underscores this maturity, especially as the country’s stature is increasing globally.

* * *

“Let him who stands take heed lest he fall.” The warning comes from St. Paul (1 Cor. 10:12). Progress depends not only on the classic “ora et labora” (pray and work); it also requires vigilance.

It would be wrong to assume that anticommunist vigilance is useless in Brazil today. Our country would show immaturity if, in the current euphoria, it ignored the red danger. The clear and courageous General Souza Mello, commander of the Second Army, reminded us of this in his recent speech honoring the Navy. He emphasized that it is everyone’s duty to stay “alert and vigilant to the cunning penetration of communist propaganda to utilize our media.” According to this distinguished military leader, this red advance is an “invisible communist revolution,” which he rightly described as “as important, or perhaps more important, than that preached by Fidel Castro.”

However, that speech is a topic for another article, which we will cover in the next piece.