Coming to terms with past injustices working through its traumatic inheritances: about the public policies of reparation in Brazil

Abstract

This article explores the discussions about moral/symbolic politics of reparation, paying special attention to the circumstances in which such public politics are contemplated by the Amnesty Commission from the Brazilian Ministry of Justice when dealing with past injustices committed by the Brazilian military dictatorship. Therefore, by developing the discussions about the Brazilian Amnesty Commission's role and the pace established by the controlled political opening concerning amnesty meanings and extensions fostering politics of reparation, it is aimed to understand which measures of transitional justice are being adopted by the Brazilian State, emphasizing the importance of justice and history memory as tools for moral compensation and for the promotion of social mourning. The dynamics of coming to terms with certain traumatic events, which will then lead to the process of working through the past by the collective mourning, and the realization of concepts of institutionalized morality that inform historical knowledge will be under consideration. Accordingly, the emergence and the paths of commitment to and social use of history, aligned with the consolidation of a society marked by the enduring and permanent effects of traumatic injustices perpetrated in the past, are also purposes of this article. (AU)