Transcript From argentina to the war on terror

FROM ARGENTINA TO THE
WAR ON TERROR
Friday Forum
Feb. 20, 11-11:50 a.m. HIB 100
Section Leaders will share their
readings of Waiting for the Barbarians
Tamara Beauchamp
Vivian Folkenflik
Lance Langdon
Kurt MacMillan
La Historia Oficial (1985)
 Translated as “The Official Story”
 “Historia”
history
story
tale
Film is concerned with the relationship of
history, story, and memory.
Official History and Memory
 Class on Argentine history.
 Does memory introduce
How does history
consolidate nationhood?
 History as “the memory of
a people” (notion of
collective memory)
 How are institutions
(government, education)
connected to history and
nationhood?
individual perspective,
different stories?
 Is there a counter-memory
to the history?
 How are these conflicting
viewpoints made available
in society?
Confronting the Dirty War
 Military officials on
trial.
 National commission
investigated the
disappeared, published
report.
 Ongoing social
discussion.
 Films and books
Alicia Partnoy
 Detained and held for
more than two years at
various locations
 Testified before various
organizations
 Writes fiction and
poetry
 Went into exile in the
United States; international publishing
Human rights as international
cause
The Official Story wins Oscar.
Bono of U2 visits mothers in Argentina.
Views of History –
The Official Story
Argentina’s 19th Century
Argentina’s Dirty War
 Narrative from
textbooks.
 “Official story” by the
government
 What is left out?
 What is not told? What
 How are major figures
conceived and framed?
happened to the
disappeared?
 What do people ignore
or overlook?
 How to respond w/ an
alternate perspective?
 How to write alternate
history?
Writing History
 Student: “History is
written by
assassins.”
 Role of textual
evidence in writing
history?
 Believing official
stories?
 What is unknown?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
xk8oMyNMsyM
Motherhood?
 Alicia as mother
figure who lost her
own mother
 Mothers of the
disappeared
 Biological parents
and adoption
Role of Memory?
Searching for truth
 Meeting with the priest. “I don’t need
absolution. I need the truth.” (Role of Catholic
church)
 Meeting with the other teacher. Benitez: “It’s
always easier to believe it’s impossible, right?”
(Educational institutions)
 Meeting with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
“It’s important to remember.” (Civic
participation)
 Role of newspapers and photography.
Children of the Disappeared
 “Daughter of ‘Dirty War,’ Raised by Man
Who Killed Her Parents”
New York Times, Oct. 8 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/am
ericas/argentinas-daughter-of-dirty-warraised-by-man-who-killed-herparents.html?pagewanted=all
Missing Memory in the streets
 “What have you done
with our missing
ones?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7LF5II0wIY
Truth about her husband,
class and status
 Works for a high-powered company
 His job allows them to have an upper middle
class lifestyle and the adopted daughter
 Her family structure sets up privilege
 “The foreign debt and the corruption…
Multinational business
 Roberto works in a confusing world of
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business ventures. Travels outside the
country.
Connections to the military government
Questions about corruption
Associate disappears
Co-workers from the United States or Europe
Roberto’s family questions the ethics of his
work
What is the connection
between business and the
disappeared?
 Military rule in Argentina, Chile, and other
countries in the 1970s
 Free-market business policies; in Chile
supported by Milton Friedman
 Crisis created by the coup and subsequent
human rights violations went hand in hand
with crisis necessary for economic shock.
State Terror and Ideology
SHOCK
 Human rights
violations.
 Military attack
 Torture sites
UNFETTERED
MARKET
 Cuts in government
services, including
education
 International
companies
 Decrease in
regulation of
businesses
The Shock Doctrine
 Naomi Klein on the past four decades:
 “Some of the most infamous human rights
violations of this era, which have tended to
be viewed as sadistic acts carried out by
antidemocratic regimes, were in fact
either committed with the deliberate
intent of terrorizing the public or actively
harnessed to prepare the ground for the
introduction of radical free-market
‘reforms.’” (11)
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report
on Torture (United States, 2014)
 Finding #13:
“Two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s
enhanced interrogation techniques and
played a central role in the operation,
assessments, and management of the CIA’s
Detention and Interrogation Program. By
2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly
outsourced operations related to the
program.” (15)
Torture as Metaphor
 “From Chile to China to Iraq, torture has
been a silent partner in the global freemarket crusade. But torture is more than a
tool used to enforce unwanted policies on
rebellious peoples; it is also a metaphor of
the shock doctrine’s underlying logic.”
(19) – Klein, The Shock Doctrine
Treatment of Humans
 Support for economic policies devalue human
well being in favor of profit
 Torture enacts an attitude about humans
 Lack of respect for individual lives and
suffering
Long View of History
 Argentina and the War on Terror not as
isolated acts
 A continuum of war actions tied to global
changes in the late 20th and early 21st
century
 Torture as integral to Dirty Wars, a process
that brings together violence and
signification