Brazil Today

Brasília, 5 October 1988. An old man in a dark suit lifts a book above his head with both hands, and the chamber rises.

The bound cover of the 1988 Constitution: dark green leather, the word CONSTITUIÇÃO tooled in gold, the year below it. The book was promulgated in Brasília on 5 October 1988 and runs to 250 articles, written by 559 members of Congress from 72,719 suggestions sent in by members of the public. Nearly four decades later Brazil is still being measured against what is printed inside that cover. Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

← Day 5

Contents — 9 sections

OPENING SCENE
A CONSTITUTION WITHOUT A CURRENCY
THE MONEY STARTS TO HOLD ITS VALUE
THE STATE BEGINS TO COUNT, AND TO TRANSFER
THE SEVENTH EXPORT CYCLE, AND WHAT IT CLEARED
QUOTAS, PROTESTS AND AN INVESTIGATION
A PRESIDENT REMOVED, A PRESIDENT JAILED
A PANDEMIC, AN ELECTION AND A BROKEN CLOCK
THE ARGUMENT THAT IS NOT FINISHED

OPENING SCENE

Ulysses Guimarães lifts a bound volume of the 1988 Constitution above his head at a microphone, 5 October 1988. — Ulysses Guimarães holds the new Constitution above his head in the Chamber of Deputies in Brasília on 5 October 1988. He had run against the military regime's chosen candidate for president in 1973 as a declared anticandidato, campaigning across the country for a vote he knew the regime's electoral college would never give him. He died on 12 October 1992, when a helicopter fell into the sea off Angra dos Reis; his body was never found.Arquivo ABr / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 br

Brasília, 5 October 1988. An old man in a dark suit lifts a book above his head with both hands, and the chamber rises.

He is Ulysses Guimarães. He has presided over the Constituent Assembly since 1 February 1987.

The book is the new constitution. It has 250 articles. Five hundred and fifty-nine members wrote it, 26 of them women, working from 72,719 suggestions sent in by citizens. The assembly sat through the whole centenary year of abolition.

Then he says the two sentences the date is remembered for. The official transcript records them as "temos ódio à ditadura. Ódio e nojo."

In English: we have hatred for the dictatorship, hatred and disgust. The record marks prolonged applause.

Sheets of paper fall around applauding members at a long table in the Chamber of Deputies, 5 October 1988. — Paper thrown from the galleries drifts over the secretaries' table of the Constituent Assembly during the promulgation session of 5 October 1988. The book being celebrated is Brazil's seventh constitution. The six before it were dated 1824, 1891, 1934, 1937, 1946 and 1967, and three of those six were imposed ready-written by a government rather than drafted by an elected assembly.Agência Brasil / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 br

In the same speech he gives the book its name. He calls it "a Constituição cidadã", the citizens' constitution, and presents the phrase as one already in the air rather than his own.

What is printed inside is what five hundred years never produced. Health is a right of everyone. Racism is a crime that carries no bail and no time limit.

The book recognises Indigenous land rights, and it gives land title to the descendants of runaway communities. It puts the state under a duty to take rural property that fails its social function. Thirty-eight years later the country is still being measured against it.

Today's Core Question: If a country finally writes the dismantling into its constitution, what does it take for the ownership underneath to move?

LOCKED AFTER THE PREVIEW

What's in the rest of Day 6

A CONSTITUTION WITHOUT A CURRENCY
THE MONEY STARTS TO HOLD ITS VALUE
THE STATE BEGINS TO COUNT, AND TO TRANSFER
THE SEVENTH EXPORT CYCLE, AND WHAT IT CLEARED
QUOTAS, PROTESTS AND AN INVESTIGATION
A PRESIDENT REMOVED, A PRESIDENT JAILED
A PANDEMIC, AN ELECTION AND A BROKEN CLOCK
THE ARGUMENT THAT IS NOT FINISHED

This is the last session of the Brazil Deep Dive. Over six days you have followed one machine: an export economy worked first by enslaved people and later by the propertyless. It ran through a colony, a monarchy, two republics, an industrial push and a constitutional democracy.

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OPENING SCENE

Ulysses Guimarães holds the new Constitution above his head in the Chamber of Deputies in Brasília on 5 October 1988. He had run against the military regime's chosen candidate for president in 1973 as a declared anticandidato, campaigning across the country for a vote he knew the regime's electoral college would never give him. He died on 12 October 1992, when a helicopter fell into the sea off Angra dos Reis; his body was never found.Arquivo ABr / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 br

Brasília, 5 October 1988. An old man in a dark suit lifts a book above his head with both hands, and the chamber rises.

He is Ulysses Guimarães. He has presided over the Constituent Assembly since 1 February 1987.

Then he says the two sentences the date is remembered for. The official transcript records them as "temos ódio à ditadura. Ódio e nojo."

In English: we have hatred for the dictatorship, hatred and disgust. The record marks prolonged applause.

Paper thrown from the galleries drifts over the secretaries' table of the Constituent Assembly during the promulgation session of 5 October 1988. The book being celebrated is Brazil's seventh constitution. The six before it were dated 1824, 1891, 1934, 1937, 1946 and 1967, and three of those six were imposed ready-written by a government rather than drafted by an elected assembly.Agência Brasil / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 br

In the same speech he gives the book its name. He calls it "a Constituição cidadã", the citizens' constitution, and presents the phrase as one already in the air rather than his own.

What is printed inside is what five hundred years never produced. Health is a right of everyone. Racism is a crime that carries no bail and no time limit.

Today's Core Question: If a country finally writes the dismantling into its constitution, what does it take for the ownership underneath to move?

What's in the rest of Day 6

A CONSTITUTION WITHOUT A CURRENCY

THE MONEY STARTS TO HOLD ITS VALUE

THE STATE BEGINS TO COUNT, AND TO TRANSFER

THE SEVENTH EXPORT CYCLE, AND WHAT IT CLEARED

QUOTAS, PROTESTS AND AN INVESTIGATION

A PRESIDENT REMOVED, A PRESIDENT JAILED

A PANDEMIC, AN ELECTION AND A BROKEN CLOCK

THE ARGUMENT THAT IS NOT FINISHED