What the Brazilian dictatorship did to my family?

Jair Bolsonaro, an ultra-right wing populist, was elected president on Oct 28. As I processed this new reality, I looked out my window and watched the celebratory fireworks illuminate the night sky. In the distance, I made out one of Bolsonaro’s supporters holding up a sign that said, “Ustra Lives.” It was a chilling reminder of our past.

From 1970 to 1974, Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra was the head of the DOI-CODI, the intelligence agency responsible for stamping out critics during military rule. He oversaw the torture of political dissidents while they were detained by the secret police. Bolsonaro’s rise has been driven by people’s anger and disillusionment, stemming from a huge multiyear corruption probe that has upended the country, a homicide rate that is sky high and a flailing economy.

It didn’t matter to many that his inflammatory rhetoric denigrated women, as well as gay, black and indigenous people, or that he spoke fondly of torture and dictatorships. Indeed, an estimated 43 per cent of the population is in favour of the military intervening in government affairs. I think Brazilians have forgotten what it means to be ruled at gunpoint. My father was a congressman for the State of São Paulo and a socialist.

The military junta revoked his mandate after the 1964 coup d’état, and he went back to work as a civil engineer. I was 11 when he was arrested, along with my mother and my sister. It was a sunny morning in January in Rio de Janeiro in 1971, and we were getting ready to go to Leblon beach, which was across the street from our house. Suddenly, six armed men dressed in plain clothes entered through the back door into the kitchen, pointing machine guns.

Outside, more men surrounded the house. The government had intercepted letters and documents from leftist organisations that were sent to my father from dissidents in Chile. They thought he had a role in organising the distribution of mail and information for exiles in Brazil and out of the country. On that day in 1971, my parents were in their swimsuits when the armed men burst into the kitchen.

They took my father upstairs so he could get dressed while we all sat on the couch in the living room. He was told that the agents waiting outside were going to take him so that he could give his testimony. We never saw him again. The six men stayed with us for the next 24 hours. Then they took my mother, Eunice, and my sister Eliana, who was 15 years old at the time, to the DOI-CODI facility in Rio de Janeiro, inside the Army headquarters on Barão de Mesquita Street. My other sisters, Ana Lucia, 13, and Beatriz, 10, and I were left behind alone.

My sister and my mother were harassed and intimidated. They sat hooded for 24 hours, without food or water. A speaker was blaring “Jesus Cristo,” a song by Roberto Carlos, over the screams of a man being tortured — most likely my father. My sister was released the next day. But my mother spent 12 days in a dark cell, wearing the same clothes she had on the day she was arrested. She was awakened at night by screaming guards, who would force her to look through