Education policy and national security in Brazil in the post-1964 context

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse and show in detail the influence of the National Security and Development Doctrine, the main ideological prop of the 1964 civilian–military coup, on the education policy implemented by the regime. Special attention is given to the MEC-USAID agreements, the setting up of the Meira Matos Commission and the reform of elementary, middle and high school education, which was put into effect by the enactment of Law 5692/1971. It purports to show that their overriding purpose was to adapt the education system to the economic and political model in place at that time, so as to transform it into a tool for the promotion of national security and development as perceived by that doctrine. The article concludes that the changes that took place in Brazilian education can only be fully comprehended in the light of their interaction with the processes that fostered the manifestation of the National Security ideology in Latin America as a whole and Brazil in particular.

Keywords:

• 1964 coup d’état
• education policy
• military dictatorship
• national security
• MEC-USAID agreements
• national security doctrine

Notes

¹For a more detailed study on National Security and Development Doctrine see: Basic Manual of the Brazil National War College (Brasil, 1976); Joseph Comblin, A ideologia da Segurança Nacional – O poder militar na América Latina (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1978); Golbery do Couto e Silva, Geopolítica do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: José Olímpio, 1967); José Alfredo Amaral Gurgel, Segurança e democracia (Rio de Janeiro: José Olímpio, 1975); Eliezer Rizzo de Oliveira, As forças armadas: política e ideologia no Brasil (1964-1969) (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1976).

²(Comblin, 1978: 106)

³The term refers to the foreign policy of president Harry S. Truman (1945–1953), which determined a series of a measures designed to curb the advance of socialism in Europe. A forceful speech delivered by the president to Congress in 1947 marked the beginning of that policy, which stressed the need for capitalist countries to defend themselves from the threat of communism.

⁴Of these treaties, McNamara highlights the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947 and known as the Rio Treaty; NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; SEATO – the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, and ANZUS – Australia, New Zealand and the United States. McNamara, A essência da segurança. Tradução de Leônidas Gontijo de Carvalho (São Paulo, IBRASA, 1968): 19.

⁶McNamara, A essência da segurança, 173. This same excerpt is reproduced in the Basic Manual of the Brazil National War College as a way of justifying the thesis of the connection between security and development.

⁵Robert McNamara was the United States Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, in the governments of President John F. Kennedy (1961–1963) and Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969). He went on to become president of the World Bank.

⁷McNamara, A essência da segurança, 143.

⁸Comblin, A ideologia da Segurança Nacional, 134.

⁹Cf. Horacio L. Veneroni, Los Estados Unidos y lãs Fuerzas Armadas de America Latina: 29, apud Comblin, 1978: 140.

¹⁰Comblin, A ideologia da Segurança Nacional, 142.

¹¹McNamara, A essência da segurança, 176,

¹²Brasil, Manual Básico (Rio de Janeiro: ESG, 1976), 109–10.

¹³Comblin, A ideologia da Segurança Nacional, 155–157.

¹⁴Brasil, Lei N°. 785, Creates the Brazil National War College and takes other measures, August 20, 1949. https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Leis/1930-1949/L785.htm (accessed December 07, 2012).

¹⁵(Alves, 1985: 34)

¹⁸Ibid., 93. In another passage, the Basic Manual of the Brazil National War College declares: “in this school, whenever the phrase revolutionary warfare is used textually, it is understood to mean revolutionary communist warfare” (85). For further details of the different types of warfare envisaged by the BNWC, see Ibid., 73–5. The concepts set out in the Basic Manual were later incorporated into Decree N° 898, dated 29 September 1969, thereby becoming the official view of the State.

¹⁶Brasil, Manual Básico, 78.

¹⁷Ibid., 79.

¹⁹Ibid., 100.

²⁰Ibid., 429.

²¹Ibid., 111.

²²Ibid., 290.

²³Ibid., 227.

²⁴Ibid., 288.

²⁵Ibid., 290.

²⁶Ibid., 245.

²⁷Ibid., 222.

²⁸Comblin, A ideologia da Segurança Nacional, 53–4.

²⁹Ibid., 235.

³⁰Brasil, Manual Básico, 279. National Power is the “integrated expression of the means of every kind that the nation effectively has at its disposal to achieve and maintain, internally and externally, the National Objectives” (ibid., 259).

³¹Ibid., 292.

³²Ibid., 418–9.

³³Ibid., 419, 432.

³⁴Ibid., 289.

³⁵Ibid., 431–2.

³⁶Ibid., 289.

³⁷Ibid., 441.

³⁸Ibid., 437.

³⁹Ibid., 442.

⁴⁰Ibid., 418.

⁴¹Ibid.

⁴²The Institutional Acts were nothing more than legislative decrees used by the Executive Branch to alter the Constitution (1946) and to adjust it to the demands of National Security. There were many such decrees issued, addressing a variety of matters. Two important examples were Institutional Acts N°. 1 (1964) and N° 5 (1968), available for consultation at http://www.acervoditadura.rs.gov.br/legislacao_2.htm and http://www6.senado.gov.br/legislacao/ListaNormas.action?numero=5&tipo_norma=AIT&data=19681213&link=s), respectively.

⁴³(Alves, 1985: 56).

⁴⁴Cf.: Comblin, A ideologia da Segurança Nacional, 66.

⁴⁵Brasil, Manual Básico, 423.

⁴⁶Ibid., 423–4.

⁴⁷Comblin, A ideologia da Segurança Nacional, 24.

⁴⁸Brasil, Manual Básico, 308–9.

⁴⁹Ibid., 419.

⁵⁰For Comblin (A ideologia da Segurança Nacional, 228–9), however, “it is an unequal development”, in which a certain few are highly privileged, while “the masses are relegated to a state of sub-nourishment, sub-culture, sub-humanity. This type of development does not create a threat to security. On the other hand, any work of building a country taking into account its population and implying the promotion of the marginalized masses, immediately creates enormous risks. Following the path of an authentic development means entering into insecurity”.

⁵¹Brasil, Manual Básico, 340–1.

⁵²Ibid., 341.

⁵³Otaíza Romanelli, História da educação no Brasil, 7th ed. (Petropólis: Vozes, 1985), 196.

⁵⁴MEC: Ministry of Education and Culture.

⁵⁵Freitag, Escola, estado e sociedade, 4th ed (São Paulo: Cortez, 1980), 86–7.

⁵⁶Romanelli, História da educação no Brasil, 197.

⁵⁷Alves, Beabá dos MEC-USAID (Rio de Janeiro: Edições Gernasa, 1968), 33.

⁵⁸John Hillard, “Vers une Stratégie de l’AID en matière d’éducation,” Perspectives, vol. IV, no. 2, 229–37 (UNESCO, 1974), apud Romanelli, 1985: 210. According to Romanelli (1985: 209), Hillard was the director of the Office of Education and Human Resources at AID from 1966 to 1973.

⁵⁹Rudolph P. Atcon was an American consultant who, at the invitation of the Higher Education Board at the Ministry of Education, elaborated a study of the Brazilian university teaching system in order to guide its structural reform. This study, entitled The Way to Structural Reformulation of the Brazilian University (Atcon, 1966), was widely referred to as the Atcon Plan and eventually established the directives and guidelines for the university reforms undertaken by the State. Otaíza Romanelli (História da educação no Brasil, 209) makes it clear that Atcon was in fact a member of the AID and played a decisive role in the signing of the agreements between the MEC and USAID.

⁶⁰Atcon, Structural Reformation of the Brazilian University, 9–10.

⁶¹Cf.: Cunha & Góes, O golpe na educação, 6th ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1989), 33.

⁶²Romanelli, História da educação no Brasil, 218.

⁶³Ibid.

⁶⁴Atcon, Structural Reformation of the Brazilian University, 9–10.

⁶⁵Mattos, Carlos de Meira; Gomes, Helio de S.; Silva, Jorge B. de S. e; Veiga, Affonso C. A. da; Basconcelos, Waldir de. Relatório Meira Mattos. in: Revista Paz e Terra. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Paz e Terra S.A., Ano IV, No. 9, outubro de 1969, p. 199–241.

⁶⁶According to Márcio Moreira Alves (Beabá dos MEC-USAID, 22), “General Meira Mattos was one of the Brazil National War College officials most closely associated to ‘Castelism’ and executor of the Castelo Branco’s government’s most repugnant actions – intervention in the state of Goiás, heading the troops that occupied São Domingos and shutting down the National Congress”.

⁶⁷Mattos et alli, 209.

⁶⁸Ibid., 211.

⁶⁹Ibid.

⁷⁰Mattos et alli, 213.

⁷¹Ibid.

⁷²Ibid.

⁷³Ibid.

⁷⁴Ibid.

⁷⁵Ibid., 221.

⁷⁶Ibid.

⁷⁷Ibid., 224.

⁷⁸Romanelli, História da educação no Brasil, 197.

⁷⁹Mattos et alli, 228.

⁸⁰Ibid., 234.

⁸¹Ibid. p. 229. Soon after the coup, the National Students Union (UNE) was made illegal by Law No. 4.464 of November 9, 1964 (Law Suplicy de Lacerda). For further details of the role of the student movement in this context, see Sanfelice, Movimento estudantil: a UNE na resistência ao golpe de 64 (São Paulo: Cortez/Autores Associados, 1986).

⁸²Ibid., 229.

⁸³Ibid., 230.

⁸⁴In Romanelli, História da educação no Brasil, 235: my italics)

⁸⁵Alves, Maria Helena Moreira. Estado e oposição no Brasil (1964–1984). 3rd. ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Vozes, 1985), 362.

⁸⁶BRASIL. Lei N°. 5.692, Sets the directives and guidelines for elementary and secondary education, August 11, 1971. http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Leis/L5692.htm (accessed December 10, 2010).

⁸⁷Freitag, Escola, estado e sociedade, 95.

⁸⁸Brasil, Decreto-lei N°. 869, September 12, 1969. http://www6.senado.gov.br/legislacao/ListaPublicacoes.action?id=195811

⁸⁹Cunha & Góes, O golpe na educação, 76.

⁹⁰Cf.: Resolution CFE No. 8/71, Art.3, line b, in Romanelli, História da educação no Brasil, 222; my italics.