Paulo Freire before and after the coup : a personal essay

Abstract

This paper provides a first person account of a personal relationship between the author and Paulo Freire which culminated in a ‘talking book’, as Freire calls such books, between the two. It captures Freire’s feelings about the unleashing of the state’s repressive forces to stem the groundswell of activism, which includes education, and critical literacy, for which Paulo Freire was a catalyst. In so doing, the military intervention was intended to halt the momentum in a country roused for social transformation. This, for Freire and others, is a crime against democracy and humanity, for which the perpetrators should be brought to justice, as he imagined would be the case when the totalitarian and murderous military regime in Argentina, under the command of General Galtieri, collapsed in the aftermath of the defeat in the war concerning the Falkands/Malvinas in 1982.