"Das potências não-alinhadas": o Egito e a política externa independente de Jânio Quadros e João Goulart (1961-1962)

Abstract

The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the limits and possibilities of the relationship between Brazilians and Egyptians during the first steps of the Independent Foreign Policy (IFP). Considering the complex situation involving the existence of initiatives favorable to the expansion of ties between the two countries from the beginning of the Jânio Quadros government and the tensions arising from the confrontation between different perspectives of Foreign Policy and readings on the international scenario in the 1950s and 1960s, we will discuss how brazilian-egyptian relations obeyed the meanings of an uncomfortable approach. In an atmosphere of conflicts around the IFP, different social actors disputed its course based on a confrontation differing perspectives of Brazil's place in the world, producing interesting analyzes about foreign relations. Intellectuals such as Eduardo Portella, diplomats such as Roberto Campos and Adolpho Justo Bezerra de Menezes, former parliamentarians linked to Foreign Policy such as San Tiago Dantas and Afonso Arinos, as well as military personnel such as Admiral Carlos Penna Botto fueled debates about the paths taken by the Jânio Quadros and João Goulart governments (1961-1962). From contemporary or extemporaneous works to the PEI, in addition to articles published in the Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, these individuals pointed to new possibilities for the PEB or called for the maintenance of traditional lines of action, taking into account different domestic demands and existing opportunities in a context of change in the international system and order. Identifying the different perceptions about Egypt, which ranged from the feeling of competition against Brazil in the conquest of a leadership between the countries of the black continent and the underdeveloped world to the questions about the political regime led by Nasser and its relations with other actors on the international scene, we will discuss the main variables that constituted the existence of a complex framework for the rapprochement between brazilian and egyptian diplomacy. In an environment marked by distrust, fear, caution and enthusiasm in the face of IFP’s directions, an Egypt of opportunities was also promoted by Jânio Quadros. Through texts by “O Cruzeiro” and the memoranda sent to Itamaraty during his short government, we will highlight how the then candidate and later president of the Republic was a relevant actor within the possibilities of approximation, waving positively to Egypt due to his admiration for President Gamal Abdel Nasser and for attributing a strategic role to the african country in its conceptions of international politics and Brazil's foreign relations. If the characteristics of the foreign policies of the two countries boosted the strengthening of ties in the bilateral and multilateral spheres, in addition to the engagement of different domestic actors, the intellectual debate about foreign relations from the subjects of the IFP evidenced the existing discomforts in the domestic scenario around the deepening of the relations between the two countries and the brazilian conceptions about the role of the african country in the international architecture.