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A Contracorriente
The Political Effect of Tenderness in Buena Memoria
If “cruelty is the failure of tenderness,” as the Argentine psychoanalyst Fernando Ulloa stated, then the photographic essay Buena memoria (Good Memory) by Marcelo Brodsky fights cruelty. Although the two main protagonists of the book are two political activists (Fernando and Martín), Buena memoria is not the story of an ideological struggle, of the reasons why they died, or of the violence they faced. On the contrary, the book resists violence and that is the political effect of its tenderness.
Many of the testimonies of people who were kidnapped and tortured during the dictatorship talk about the process of dehumanization that they had to suffer. Buena memoria is able to go against that basic mechanism of State terrorism; it is an alternative that combats violence in the emotional dimension. How does one stand against dehumanization but through humanization, by promoting identification with life, with the human condition? What could be more diametrically opposed to an act of violence that an act of tenderness?
This paper argues that Buena memoria works in this sense, purging the acts and images of violence with acts and pictures of affection, attachment, sympathy, friendship. Martín and Fernando presences are relocated, re-signified.
Rappahannock Review
Contributor spotlight: Interview with Mariana Graciano
There’s no possible symbolic reparation without education, without a conscious memory practice. Justice might have many forms but, as we all know, too often the judicial system takes a long time to hold someone accountable. What I find fascinating about symbolic reparations is that anyone can take part in the process of bringing justice.
A mural, a sculpture, a poem, a song, any form of art has the power of bringing back to life past events, and because art lives in the symbolic sphere, it’s timeless.
Adelaide
The domestic side of imperialism: An Argentine Mother
Raising Black Kids during the Presidential Transition
in the US
I was born during the democratic transition in Argentina, the early eighties. My parents and grandparents’ generations grew up experiencing the rise and the fall of many dictatorships. Mi papá –a salesman most of his life– y mi abuelo –a shoemaker, milkman and tram guard– were fervent Peronists. Growing up, the memories of the desaparecidos haunted not only every rally, demonstration or protest that I ever attended but also every high school event, every 24 de marzo. In high school we had to learn how to march safely, how to look after each other, how to make a list of attendees, safe places to meet, emergency contacts and to always have our IDs at hand. We grew up knowing that on September 16th 1976 a group of high school students –looking just like us, all under 18 years old– had been kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered by the military only because they took over the street demanding lower bus fares. Disagreeing with the dictatorial status quo was a crime, gathering in the streets was a crime, expressing an altruistic opinion was punished with torture and death. Silencing their voices was not enough; their bodies also had to be vanished, disappeared.
Latin@ Literatures
Becoming American, volverse americana
Empires
Quiero escribir un texto sobre este proceso de volverme (¿o hacerme?) ciudadana estadounidense.
I want to write a text about this process of becoming (“making me?”) a US citizen.
In Spanish the word for a person born in the US is “estadounidense.” It is an adjective, a demonym, that doesn’t exist in (American) English.
Spanish and español are not the same. I wouldn’t call my native language “español,” as there are multiple languages spoken in España (Gallego, Catalan, Basque and more). I’d rather say it is “castellano rioplatense,” trying to be more specific, trying to push away from the empire, that other empire that was also abusive of the land where I was born.
“Que siempre fue la lengua compañera del imperio,” ya lo dijo Nebrija en 1492.