Democracy and the memory of the process
by Romero, Luis Alberto
past decade and a half many of us have agreed in advance memory policies relating to the military dictatorship: the Process. It was to expose the repressive action of those years, in order to generate feelings of rejection and horror, which should play an important role in building democracy. Who had some connection with education, agreed that it was a meaningful civic work. To synthesize an example: we agree on the importance of teens read the report never .
There is a tension between the politics of memory and historical knowledge. The past belongs to everyone, and everyone is free to remember what suits you, no need for "truth." Remember, forget, distort, subsume, select, alter, mute, inventing: these are all valid operations for those ultimately are building their identity. Instead growers rigorous knowledge, but do not expect to get at the truth absolute, are committed to approaching it as much as possible, work with rigor and reduce and control the bias for each perspective. An attitude has mostly judge, the other to understand, and between them there is a tense coexistence with different balances.
In 1983 there was a broad consensus: it was a matter of political memory and had to judge. Historians agree, we are a bit careless of rigor and think about everything as citizens. Untroubled by the rigorous demands of knowledge, our politics of memory, we practice since the end of the Falklands War, was intended build a picture of the process that serve to support the new democracy. In essence, it was a successful task: the process came to be hated. "Thereby strengthening democracy on a lasting basis?
The process should be condemned on moral and political. Democracy is beginning to build traditions had almost no recognizable and should be based on an act of collective faith, a claim a priori its values \u200b\u200band its power. The horror of the process provided that conviction, we emerged from the darkness and entered the realm light. Are manifest immediate success of this politics of memory, of the construction of a past horror. The process was, in this version, a genocide practiced by the military, who became his victim to the whole society, people. It was a useful simplification. Many who were trapped in 1981 by the discourse of human rights and the Argentines, or those who cheered in April 1982 the military leaders who had "conquered" the Malvinas, adhered with sincerity and enthusiasm to the ideas was able to synthesize in his campaign Raul Alfonsin. Discursive and political success was resounding, and did not seem appropriate undermine this consensus by bringing up uncomfortable details that are obvious just review the news story of those years.
displayed
Today unwanted effects of a politics of memory that once seemed highly virtuous and still believe, essentially correct. These effects refer to the tension between the perspective of the citizen and historian, for whom reality is not composed of blacks and whites, and also to try to understand. We have accomplished much more in the abhorrence of process in their understanding, and this deficiency has important civic and political consequences. Although there are excellent academic texts, are still rare, and could not influence much on common sense, especially in those formed in the struggle for human rights, including parents and children of victims .
The first result was unwanted conformism of the times of the party associated with a celebration of triumph over oppression society that seemed increasingly ritual: March 24 was on his way to swell the pomp school, as a mobile holiday. Today it is another cause for alarm, the opposite direction: the attitudes, judgments and Manichaean practices that developed in the heat of that image. Manichaeism, to some extent, it is good to feed the belief and faith and constitute collective identity and the new democracy needed a lot of it. But often the source of a new intolerance, manifested in practices and in the ideas.
With the deepening of the crisis in Argentina, practices have been crecreciendo intolerant. For some, the memory of the process has become a weapon of struggle, different organizations are built around the defense of human rights are considered authorized to abandon the principles that once formed his main contribution to the construction of democracy: the idea of \u200b\u200brights, tolerance, respect for the law. One thing is to show the residents of a neighborhood that a normal looking person is irrefutably a torturer, quite another to his lynching. One thing is to apply these methods of public exposure to those who have committed crimes against humanity and other is used against those with whom it disagrees politically. Between one thing and another goes the line between civic action worthy of barbarism. In many of the practices that have become common in recent years this line looks ready to be bred.
Hay otra intolerancia: la del pensamiento. Afecta a quienes no quieren apartarse del camino de la corrección política y se aferran a sus formas exteriores, convertidas en fetiches y tabúes. Es sintomática la facilidad con que en estas exitosas políticas de la memoria se ha asimilado el Proceso con el Holocausto, como si uno explicara automáticamente al otro: fórmulas o símbolos utilizados en nuestra política de la memoria han sido tomados, sin un examen crítico, de la experiencia del nazismo. Con ello se ha ganado en eficacia, pero se ha perdido en comprensión. El repudio al Proceso se apoya en palabras o fórmulas fuertes, colocadas más allá de la comprensión racional. Cualquier esfuerzo de inquiry that challenges some of the names, classifications or formulas is considered a threat to the whole building. Even postulated that part of the experience of horror is inaccessible to reason, reasoning unworthy of those who say they want to build a coexistence based on the rational pursuit of common good.
In the field of our politics of memory, the word "genocide" has been imposed as a way to call the slaughter of political dissidents, brings to the abhorrence of the whole process of harmonic sounds that resonate with the Holocaust: in the end, all leaders are "fascists" another word symbolic. A year ago, in a meeting on the report, Silvia Sigal sparked outrage from one sector of the audience, politically correct, when he noted the low relevance of the word, there was no ethnic criteria in the killings, while its ability to cover the true extent of repression, which was political. Reasoning not only more comprehensive but, at heart, even more correct than the previous one was rejected on behalf of a threatened orthodoxy of the word. At this point, condemning seems more important than understanding.
The main problem, in my opinion, refers to the resulting image of the current democratic experience, built on the hatred of the Process. Faced with a military regime that synthesized all-powerful forces of evil, democracy, equally powerful, was identified with good. Democracy could do anything. It was the panacea, an image that has built up Alfonsin convincingly in his campaign speeches, to which many subscribe enthusiastically. Perhaps we should warn then that the two aspects of the democratic equation, the power and goodness of the system-deserved to be subjected to scrutiny. The truth is that the positions involved with civility, with the consciousness and militancy were imposed on those, necessarily more nuanced and less able to engage, related to knowledge.
In the early part of the democratic building a democracy had "silly", deluded and confident. Not bad: without this illusion there would be no democracy. With that illusion, he overestimated the ability of democracy, which should give everybody a satisfactory solution to all problems. It is obvious that this is not possible in general, particularly given all the circumstances of the Argentina post 1983, some old and some that Process the fruit were recent. Exaggerate its power, regardless of the strength of these constraints. The more was expected of democracy, the harder was the confrontation with reality.
democracies that do exist are all below the ideal of democracy, never realized. The ideal has a formidable ability to mobilize, but any movement towards an ideal is, at some point, a share of disappointment, more or less according to the dose of realism with which it has qualified. With democracy built in 1984 failed in the first place from a critical perspective to bridge the gap between ideal and reality then also failed a comprehensive look, which seek to understand the reasons for this gap. Missed all you usually can provide the know.
is not bad we have written history books. Is that drove things so that we no transition from extreme enthusiasm to disillusionment. The love object happened to be sued and criticisms. It is even possible that, by dint of keeping track of broken promises, finish making democracy an object of hatred, not only did nothing to solve our problems, but the aggravated and even caused. Before academic colleagues have begun to raise the issue, many have gathered this passage of love to criticism, and the halls of hatred in the conversations we have had with students, who however does not falter in his hatred to the Process.
Somehow, the current crisis will help us better understand what happened. It seems clear today that Argentina's problems far exceed the democratic regime and relate to deeper things such as the nature of the state, the country's location in the world and even the very terms of political agreement, perhaps poorly, became in one state and a nation to a group of people settled in different territorial fragments. And is difficult to imagine who could hold the key to the solution, it is also overly simplistic today blamed for everything Process. If we can overcome anger and despair and we can deal again in school and in public discussion areas, a review of our recent history, probably discover that it's time to narrow these apotheosis of memory, which put the process on a scale similar explanatory key to Nazism and the Holocaust. Maybe it's time that historians remember the basic premises of our knowledge.
One is that no society built something from nothing. Neither the process nor democracy. The process was not an event out of time, was linked by many ties to the company's experience in Argentina. The overwhelming evil, who can doubt, "its leaders were creatures of our society, and the context in which they emerged magically disappeared no withdrawal. Democracy, which was in his imagination immediately deny the past, was not born in a cabbage but of the same womb, was built with existing materials, precarious, perhaps waste. Those who had. With politicians in times long militancy above with deeply damaged institutions, in the end, democracy must govern with the Buenos Aires Police, and with values \u200b\u200bonly partially identified with those who usually underlying a democratic system. The democratic credentials were impeccable democratic. I suspect that a review of this type will be less sharp line that separates the wicked from the good.
Another thing that historians must remember: democracy is strictly a system for electing leaders and control them, but says little about the conditions under which the government is exercised. Judgments about what should been made in each situation, often naive, they are much more when they assume that the democratic authorities had full power, a power equivalent to that attributed to the Process. Democratically elected governments since 1983 should have led a state that we know today, was already deeply undermined, something like a car with brake problems, throttle and shifter. Only after the cash count of 1983 can seriously consider the question of responsibility, undoubtedly large, who participated in this democratic experience.
For, ultimately, is not simply to judge, from absolute values, ideals and abstract, it is to know and understand in order to assume the responsibilities: those who understand can only be judged fairly and act accordingly. Are these issues, citizenship and responsibility, which must be properly raised, whether in the classroom or in public discussion, rejecting the temptation, so easy appellant, to assign responsibility only to "them": the Process, the banks, the IMF or the politicians. I think it is necessary to re-promote in the review of our immediate past and mediate a more distanced namely belief, less immediately drenched in civility, with a view to forming a critical citizen. The hope is that eventually a critical conscience defend the values \u200b\u200bof democracy better and more efficiently than naive consciousness.
From: http://www.revistacriterio.com.ar/politica-economia/la-democracia-y-la-memoria-del-proceso/
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