O testemunho no processo histórico de construção da dignidade humana brasileira: o trauma e o jurídico em ainda estou aqui, de Marcelo Rubens Paiva

Abstract

The present work aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of testimonial literature in the historical construction of human dignity in Brazil. To do so, we start from the premise, brought by Joaquin Herrera Flores (2009), according to which human dignity is a historical result arising from a set of antagonistic processes to the current hegemonic system, thus, instruments capable of emancipate the conscience of those who do not have access to the material and immaterial goods necessary for a dignified life, as the basic content of human rights is not the right to have rights, but the set of struggles and political fights for dignity, the results of which must be guaranteed by legal norms, by public policies and by an economy opened to the demands of dignity. Firstly, we reflect, in an abstract and conceptual way, on the circumscribed historical framework necessary for the intelligibility of this effort, that is, the Brazilian military dictatorial regime, from 1964 to 1985, to contrast it with the systematic institutionalization of oblivion of national memory. From then on, we approach the book Ainda estou aqui (2015), by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, in the conception of testimony admitted by Márcio Seligmann-Silva (2003), according to which in testimonial literature it is no longer about imitation of reality, but rather of a kind of manifestation of the real, as testimony is not only the voice of a survivor, but also the legal confrontation with reality and the claim of the victims. In this sense, we first analyze the central work from the perspective of testimonial literature, and then we move on to examining the paradigmatic rupture caused by the testimony, recognizing its double character of confrontation: (1) the consciousness emancipation of the human beings that Paulo Freire (2019) defines as oppressed; and (2) the direct refutation that testimony, as an expression existing in the material world, represents in the face of the dominant oppressive narrative.