One of Gandsman’s article highlighted the question of, “justice for whom?” It presented a complicated story of justice and reparation. If the children were abused and neglected (as one of the cases mentions) it is easy to feel that justice would be the eventual rescue by Las Abuelas but for those who loved their kidnappers, what is justice for them? Are the grandmothers, chasing an idea of the family which can never be recreated? Did Guillermo feel that it was fair for him to lose his kidnapped parents to incarceration? The group has rejected the idea of being political and more about being right and wrong. So what happened to Guillermo was right?
During our first class Joao introduced himself and said he is adopted and does not know his background (I’m paraphrasing). Not to put him on the spot but I wonder how much of identity origins from a sense of biological belonging? Should have there been an option of “pardoning” for the kidnappers?
Malin’s article mentions that the gathering started in 1977 and by June 1982 Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo had reached 2,500 members. The Mothers represent less than 10% of the 30,000 disappearances. I don’t know what the final number is and neither do I know how they included other mothers who due to location or mobility could not be at the protest every Thursday. It reminds me of Mrs. Konile and how her single testimony was different than the majority of women and added a multitude of complexity to the situation. I wonder what other parents think whose children disappeared but were not part of Las Madres.
Las madres de la plaza de mayo is one of those collective narratives I grew up with. My dad would tell me as a kid about how these old ladies were preparing new generations to take be the next generation of politicians. The plaza was a place for protest, memory and education. It was a reclamation not only of what happened but a firm stand on what will happen. Of course, his stories were not fully accurate but talk about to what degree this narrative permeated the culture in our South. After all, 1 out of every 3 dissapeared people in the continent (due to military regimes) are Argentine.
Mothers Who Won’t Disappear (Some did)
There are a few passages that caught my eye and relate to previous lectures. “It’s normal to be idealistic when you are young” refering to those kidnapped. This is true and as such this could be seen as a disruption of the daily life, as an intromision into social non-movements.
The deliberate dissapearance of people as to avoid the creation of martyrs and the psychological effect on those who stayed resembled a lot the concept of “learned helplessness.” The mothers, however, overcame this while finding others going through the same process and, more importantly, found an avenue to answers as they finally identified the perpetrators of the crime (the State). Being defined by their maternal nature, there was no effective threat and even the most fierce form of repression (their own forced dissappareance) was nothing but the answer they had been seeking all alone. That is, I think, what made their cause so powerful. As illustrated by the case of Sri Lanka, “only silence will protect you” was the perfect excuse to talk even louder.
Retributive Justice, Public Intimacies and the Micropolitics of the Restitution of Kidnapped Children of the Dissapeared in Argentina
“Grandmothers (…) rejected offers from judges to share custody of the children even when faced with children’s pleas to stay with the people they considered their parents”.
Unconfortable question: How much of “You took away our kids now we will take yours away” there is in this? The overall question is whether the victims that do not recognize themselves as such have agency in the process of restitution. I did wonder “Were these kids (some of them already adults) were used as political instruments? Even more considering that two of them (Juan Cabandié and Victoria Donda) work as representatives in Congress and their role, and that of other victims, as “proof” of crime.
The Limits of Kinship Mobilizations and the (A)politics of Human Rights in Argentina
My favorite points. Wrong and right versus right and left. These four dimensions can completely intersect, however the political reality is that one can either use on or the other in the pubilc discourse. Is that right?
Malin depicts how the Mothers of the disappeared in Argentina made their suffering public in order to forge a collective memory, which also rendered human rights a public issue (187-188). Mothers that protested their disappeared children were essentially driven to protest because their traditional role as life giver, nurturer, and protector was challenged when part of their domain, namely family, was destroyed (199). Mothers being perceived as invisible or not political paradoxically allowed them more freedom to express their dissent (203). Lastly, Malin explores how the limited scope of their movement makes broader political ends difficult to achieve at times, but they remain strong in a symbolic way (211).
Gandsman explores how the “privileging biological relationships as a mode of organizations…has led to a performative paradox in which groups need to avoid the perception of engaging in political activities even while they are explicitly engaged in such…” (195). She explores how, more generally, human rights was born out of a depoliticized discourse in the 70s (196). This has become problematic because oftentimes human rights organizations feel that they need to remain apolitical to be legitimate (204). However, Gandsman recognizes that HR organizations in Argentina make links between the dictatorship and neoliberal adjustments in causing the economic crisis (202). Lastly, she shows how some Mothers’ grief has been subsumed into state policy under President Kirchner (212).
In her “Retributive Justice” article, Gandsman looks at the contradictions that emerge when Grandmothers search for retributive justice (429-430). Gandsman explains that “while the Grandmothers prioritize biologized and essentialized conceptions of identity in their arguments for restitution, the process of restitution reveals that identities are actually intersubjective and relational… fluid and constructed” (441-442). In other words the personal family becomes political because they are forced into being a site of a human rights case.
Questions:
1) How do human rights square with individual rights? I would like to discuss this as a class because it seems to me that the emergence of human rights may actually be ignoring the rights of particular individuals in the attempt to make rights “generalizable.” In the case of Guillermo, it seems that his rights were excluded in the name of human rights. Who else may be excluded with the continuing emergence of HR discourse and HR international bodies?
-Do you think the Grandmothers end up further committing violence to the children? In addition to the collective memory of the dictatorship, it seems that another layer of violence may be occurring when the Grandmothers search for restitution since restitution requires that the child recognize their status as a victim of state terrorism before they can accept their new identity.
This week’s readings captures many of themes we have been discussing social non-movements, memory, justice etc… The movement of the Grandmothers and Mothers of Argentina as “women citizen” in Argentina is a powerful story. Transforming grief into political action and challenging the political system for years was described as form of citizenship activism. The mothers and grandmother’s pursuit for justice was in the form of “restitution,” they used the term restitution to describe the process by which their children or grandchildren’s biological identities are recovered.
Restitution, a term used primarily for property, is the act of restoring to a rightful owner what has been taken away. To apply this concept on a human being is strange to me however as the readings unfold and I reflected I came to slowly identify how this was a victim-centered approach. Where the victims all have suffered different forms of trauma. “Restitution is not simply the legal moment when the judge announces it, but a psychological and social process that takes time.” – Personal identity is complex and
the process of identity restitution entails a construction of a new narrative; whereby the victim deconstructs memories, social relationships, and in this case political history.
One of the articles addresses the two contentious issues about restitution justice in the Argentina context.
• Once genetically identified children of the disappeared are issues with new identity papers since their previous papers were falsified. Thus legally altering their identity; this administrative process does not consider the psychological ramifications.
• Confirmation of their biological identity leads to the arrest of people who raised them. Another legal procedure that seems black and white and doesn’t address the complexities – if you committed a crime you must be arrested.
These two contentious issues have social and personal ramifications; it is not a simple process of legal documents but a deconstruction of memory, relationships and history.
Last class we spoke about memory and the idea of as humans or as states we select stories/narratives to make sense of the world. This resonated when I read about the kidnapped children; who each had a different reaction and process on this form of “restitution justice.”
We seem to always go back to this question about what is justice and justice for whom?
As we continue to struggle with defining and understanding justice; whether justice is a fallacy or just legal jargon. I do appreciate the authors simplistic approach to the idea of justice as a reestablishing broken relationships.
Questions:
1) I would like to explore this term “performative paradox” more; in the context of the Grandmothers and mothers.
2) Looking at the different forms of justice – distributive, procedural, retributive, and restorative (transitional) justice – Which one would you argue is more victim-centered?
From ”Mother who won’t disappear”:
“I’m going to keep fighting until I die because there is not enough justice. The military officers was not punished and everything has been buried”
“They are keeping the memory of their children alive. They are committed to preventing them from sliding into the oblivion, the night and fog that the military regimes intended for them”
“Their tell the lies and we never have a chance to tell the truth”
“We are born of our children”
“The collective memory says, and will continue to say: do not forget, do not forgive”
Question:
Do TJ have a size, can it ever be accomplished as it had a final cause? Or is it rather nonlinear, fluid, ongoing and performative?
From: Retributive Justice, Public Intimacies and the Micro-politics of the Restitution of Kidnapped Children of the Disappeared in Argentina
“I cannot accept you with any other name that isn’t the one that our parents gave you. Because if you are not Rodolfo Fernando, I am not Mariana Eva. Because our names relate us to them and relating us to them relates us to each other”
Which role does compromises play in TJ? Can it play a role or is justice absolute as in the case of the Grandmothers?
In general:
So far, we’ve seen several statements emphasizing that a part of TJ and Memory is to ensure that injustice will not repeat itself again. In relation to this, we have only briefly asked or examined what can explain perpetrators actions. How was is it possible that perpetrators killed the children of the grandmothers and thereafter kidnapped their kids and turn them into their own?
Gandsman called the Grandmother’s human rights activism ‘the politics of victims’ that is portrayed through symbolic demonstrations as the Madres De Plaza’s work. One mother said, ‘when the police shouted ‘READY?’ we shouted back ‘SHOOT’ (Malin). The mothers weren’t afraid. Their courage changed the view that it is an image of masculinity to be courageous, and powerful. The mothers utilized this feminine and maternal courage (Malin) to assert power that they didn’t have. They confronted the state with the value of family and motherhood, which the state claims to protect, hence being political victims.
Further, the view that reconciliation is a defense for dictatorship (Gandsman) is arguably incorrect because both victims and perpetrators still end up in the same society. Social repair is only possible if societies are able to confront abuses and bring perpetrators to account whether formally or informally. Without these, revenge and a never-ending hatred and pain will be the face of such a society. I am not saying reconciliation is the best way, but I am disagreeing with the view that any proponent of reconciliation is a defender of a dictator State. Whether or not reconciliation becomes a workable TJ process, depends on a society’s cultural practice of dealing with violence, and victim’s choices. The other problem is when a perpetrator (Argentine State) is the one advocating for reconciliation. Some proponents of reconciliation in other societies like Rwanda and South Africa have been largely victims and civil society, perhaps the reason they succeed to some degree.
The issue of 500 or so kidnapped babies is very complex. This reminds me of the children born of war in Uganda. Even if the two scenarios are different, they have a common problem to deal with-identity of children of the disappeared (Argentina) and children born of war (Uganda, Sierra Leone). What was the intention of adapting babies of the disappeared? What does a state gain from such acts? What is it with children being used in various forms of war? How can TJ address these issues around children’s complex identities? I think adaptive parents of children of the disappeared should have been held accountable for the disappearance of the mothers. Where there such investigations regarding culpability of the adaptive parents? How can TJ process hold perpetrators accountable while at the same time considering the best interest and wellbeing of children that are born (and caught up) in such gross human rights violations?
Gandsman noted that ‘ the Truth Commission (1984) and trial of military leaders (1985) were illustrative of TJ processes that responded to the disappearance problem’ yet the convicted were later pardoned. What then was the point of trials? How can victims be trustful and hopeful in trials if such a decision gets turned around? Where is justice?
What I have found most fascinating with regards to this week’s readings is the great connection one can make to last week’s readings. Moreover, the main idea that both weeks’ readings touch upon is transitional justice. Once it comes to transitional justice, the acts behind the process of transitional justice have been highly emphasized. In other words, the initiatives of victims and those who have witnessed the outcomes of tragedies serve a very vital role.
Whether it has been through the body, the narratives, the community level approach, or the act of organizing into groups that serve the purpose of seeking justice by shaming states and launching campaigns for the purpose of identifying and recovering those who have been taken away under great tragedies; all of these mechanisms drive the process we call transitional justice. This transitional justice process includes trials, monuments, reparations, a truth commission, exhumations and many other aspects.
One element that I believe is important to explore is the idea that we refer to as collective memory. Going beyond the politics of memory and its usage, I believe that this week’s readings explore the use of collective memory to bring about justice to the grandmothers and mothers who are organizing themselves into groups that are shaming the patriarchal state of Argentina for their lost ones, and to those who are launching collective campaigns to help initiate the act of biologically identifying the children that have been taken away from them. The act of transforming tragic stories into narratives that can be heard is one approach that has been emphasized. This emphasis reminds us of the play that we watched with regards to the women who are sharing the stories of their lost ones to restore justice to themselves and their loved ones. Although such collective acts seem to be literal in terms of the approach that is being used, one cant ignore the fact that these acts are symbolic to themselves and others, social in terms of bringing individuals together for one purpose, bringing about transitional justice, and psychological in terms of the personal relief one gains when transmitting a tragedy in the way he/she sees it and working upon the kind of restitutional justice they need and want. I believe that this is one element out of many elements that have been emphasized throughout this week and it deserves further exploration particularly with the following questions,
1) What is the kind of justice that witnesses and victims of tragedy seek?
2) What are the boundaries for seeking transitional justice? In other words, when can it be satisfactory enough for an individual to believe that justice has been finally achieved?
I remember thinking of this during my critical reflection and it seems to reappear: the idea of disappearance denying a human’s existence (the one who is disappeared), their identity and then, in turn, that of their mother’s. The interconnected identity building between a mother and her child, which is enriched with the idea of genetic data collection from Gandsman’s piece, gave the Madres de Plaza de Mayo their legitimacy and their reason to become subversive actors within the political milieu they found themselves in.
There seems to be a number of ironies here. The first is that of these traditional roles of being mothers at home, taking care of their families being used as a weapon on both sides – the mothers used it to obtain the privilege of being virtuous (which is of course problematic because it encloses them in one essentialist identity, refusing other women, whether sisters or daughters, their right to legitimate mourning) and Pinochet in Chile used it against the mothers, deeming their rebelling against a narrower identity of motherhood as “unnatural”. The irony here is that the government took away this identity in the first place which the mothers used as their shield and legitimacy to rebel and protest. But it must be commended, it yet being another irony, where it was powerful because “the Armed Forces did not know how to suppress women who were nothing more than devoted mothers” (Malin 209), their strength, however, coming from a place of immense, even abject pain and loss.
Another irony is that of redefining strength, re-signifying it to something feminine, as Malin mentions, over the masculine maschismo kind. And yet, that too becomes problematic in an essentialist argument (limited to a maternal strength only), but in the present context, it is ironic that their strength again comes from a place of immense loss where they are at a point of so much loss in fact that they have nothing more to lose.
But with such, I would argue, abject loss and pain which then has become these mothers’ new identity, how can they leave “the tragedies of the past behind” when pushed from the new democracy in the country and of moving forward? How can they move forward when it is a matter of identity and existence? How does one go about reconciling loss that even memory cannot repair? Since, as the quote by Bonafini states, “we are born of our children”, and that there is no past for memory to heal nor a future to create new ones, just a cycle of pain endlessly repeating, how do you give them a sense of justice? Or if not that, then an identity or existence in which to live in?
This week’s readings really connected to where we left off last week with Ketty’s presentation of “Finding Dawn.” Dawn’s mother kept on fighting for her daughter’s and that was her form of also making sure Dawn would not be forgotten.
Malin focuses on Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and how they used their children’s disappearance to fuel their protest in order to stand up for their children and demand justice. The role of mothers is very powerful because Malin highlights how they “are the giver of life… the center of the family – emotionally ideologically and psychologically (191) .The mothers used this power to protest against the state’s lack of action.
Grandsman further explores how grandmothers turned their grief into action in Argentina. Grandsman explores how the new narrative identity of grandmothers is part of a larger historical narrative of transitional justice in Argentina. “For family members, the restitution of their disappeared children is the only means of social repair and redress, an attempt to restore familial relationships broken by state terror,” says Grandsman. “Yet, the past cannot be fully redressed without the person assuming the identity of the person they would have been if they had not been taken from their parents and their parents had not been killed.” The grandmothers are searching for “identity restitution” which Grandsman describes as ” a new narrative identity that involves the recontextualization of social relations and life histories. ”
Grandsman highlights the complications that come along with finding this restitution as it involves so many relationships being unwound and then reformed, turning from human rights case to a family drama.
Grandsman continues to explore this concept of kinship and mobilization in “The Limits of Kinship Mobilizations.” She argues, ” Movements emphasizing biological relatedness and embodied identities can have potentially depoliticizing effects for citizenship mobilizations constrained by a widespread perception that the activities of a human rights organization should lie “outside of politics.” She says this activism has led to a “performatice paradox” but I am a little confused when she comes to this point. Maybe this is something we can discuss more in class.
-I am wondering at what point a personal search for justice becomes a political demand for justice. Is it always political?
-While the Grandmothers think they are in the right, are they? Are they making it more about them than the children?
This week’s readings once again brought the importance of remaking and reconstructing the past, of finding answers, of attempting to repair that which was attempted to be destroyed, and of resistance to power.
In Malin’s article, we see the vital importance this carries for the mothers in not only remembering and making sense of the past, but also in playing their part in making sure their voices are heard. What is also inspiring is their courage to break out of their culturally prescribed roles in their quest for justice and reparation. They break the barrier between the private and the public realm – they no longer mourn quietly at home. But they continue to define themselves as just mothers, not as political activists.
Gandsman’s article on kidnapped children is disheartening. As he says, ‘the everyday lives and interpersonal familial relationships of these children have become battlegrounds for transitional justice.’ This new truth revealed to the children shatters their identity to create a new reality. It is difficult for them to accept the crime committed against them. Would they have lived more fulfilling lives if they lived without this awareness? Maybe. But how could the human rights abusers be held accountable if this truth wasn’t revealed? The article also raises questions about victimhood. Before the revelations, the children or ‘victims’ were unaware of their victimhood.
Gandsman’s other article raises an important question about the neutrality in human rights – that human rights organizations or groups must be apolitical, that their demands must be based on universal ethics. But is it possible to separate politics from human rights? In the case of grandmothers, they acted as “helpless mothers who only wanted to know what happened to their children.” This was important culturally, as the “ideal woman” would “inspire pity”.
This week’s readings bring back the discussion around transformative justice and human agency. We get to know women who had their most fundamental right violated — the right to be a mother. Yet, these women learned how to fight back and bring back justice to the memory of their beloved ones. These are not isolated events — many children had “disappeared.” And the cases were so particular that defining “dissapearance” became a challenge for Human Rights organizations. But we also learn about the challenges of connecting abducted children with their biological parents, especially when some of these children offer resistance and neglect that they were victims of a crime. Which points to my questions today:
How can abducted chidren negotiate loss and reparation when they don’t even have enough references (cultural and personal) to allow them to connect them with their past and resignify their existence? How can one negotiate and reconcile with a past which was never part of one’s being? And how do personal and collective memory intertwine/play out in this case?
Malin’s article gave me a good understanding of the process of the formation of the Mothers’ movements. Malin explains how the idea of a sacred Virgin Mother always existed and it is rooted in Catholicism and Protestantism. However, it is also mentioned that this maternal love and power goes beyond any differences and unifies everyone on the society. Malin then explains how the state used the practice of disappearing people to repress the society. This practice was intentionally used to cause the maximum negative psychological effects on families and robed them of closure. This practice affected mothers in particular and brought them together in looking for their children. Mothers of the Plaza were trying to prove the existence of their children by hanging their photos on their bodies. This article reminded me of the concept of memory that was discussed in the last session. These mothers were trying to keep their children’s memory alive. The state was trying to erase their children and their memories. Mothers used the states’ perception of them (as easily deceived) against the state and found a way to get access to more information. Lastly, Malin explains the divide in the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement and their relation to politics.
Gandsman (2012) explores the nature of activism organized by family members and biological ties. He argues that these biological ties could have depoliticizing effects. These ties have led to a performative paradox: they had to pretend that they were not taking part in political movements even when they were participating in political activities. Gandsman further describes the special power of women (mothers and grandmothers) protesting, looking at their bodies as a political battleground. They are empowered by taking care of each other’s children through nursing and using their maternal abilities. The most interesting part of this article for me was to understand the conflicts that Mothers and Grandmothers while voicing their demands from the state. Apolitical movements could lose their legitimacy by associating themselves with a political party.
– How can a grassroots movement save its legitimacy and at the same time collaborate with the state to create change?
Gandsman second article on retributive justice focuses on the practice of transitional justice in Argentina. This article is looking at how transitional justice has worked itself in everyday lives of people. The case of Guillermo and his dual identity explains how human right’s cases can affect individuals’ lives directly. This article highlighted how “children become microcosms of post dictatorship Argentina, which is still struggling to come to terms with its past”.
One question that came to mind while reading this article is: how has this discourse around children and the dual identities affected the identity of the nation as a whole? Have there been any efforts to undo this particular “dual identity” challenge as people are going through the process of healing?
My reading of this week’s material brought about a similar concern to the material for the Privilege and Responsibility class. A universal notion of personhood is present in the discourse of human rights because of the discourse of a duty to participate in a shared human experience. This week, this concept was replaced with a similar notion of motherhood. Where all mothers are supposed to love and protect their children eternally. It is their duty to do so.
This initially seems familiar and beautiful because everyone has a mother. But do they? In the complex family dynamics of the 21st century identifying the mother as the person who will love and miss someone who is gone the most is limiting. This was echoed in Gandsman’s discussion of those excluded from the rhetoric of loss in Argentina because they are not the mothers of the disappeared. The most mind boggling thing included in that material was that those people who had miraculously survived the ordeal of being disappeared by the dictatorship were not included in the discourse of an experience only they can speak to the detail of. This kind of exclusion points to the greatest critique I had of Las Madres. Their relevance is so temporally contingent. Their power comes from the special place they had in the where and the when of Argentina in the 1970s. Today, they bring that power with them still and their primacy hordes that power of victimhood and relevance so others cannot share in it. They disappear the pain of the disappeared who returned.
In class I would like to talk about two things:
(1) From a feminist perspective, what critiques can we argue about Las Madres. This movement seems in a sense very first wave. Would Las Madres have been as effective if there had been feminist movements in Argentina before their protests in the 1970s and 1980s.
(2) Grandsman speaks about who in a human rights discourse dead bodies are agents but agents who have no agency because they cannot speak for themselves. How does this complicate the discourse on the disappeared within South and Central America?
One of Gandsman’s article highlighted the question of, “justice for whom?” It presented a complicated story of justice and reparation. If the children were abused and neglected (as one of the cases mentions) it is easy to feel that justice would be the eventual rescue by Las Abuelas but for those who loved their kidnappers, what is justice for them? Are the grandmothers, chasing an idea of the family which can never be recreated? Did Guillermo feel that it was fair for him to lose his kidnapped parents to incarceration? The group has rejected the idea of being political and more about being right and wrong. So what happened to Guillermo was right?
During our first class Joao introduced himself and said he is adopted and does not know his background (I’m paraphrasing). Not to put him on the spot but I wonder how much of identity origins from a sense of biological belonging? Should have there been an option of “pardoning” for the kidnappers?
Malin’s article mentions that the gathering started in 1977 and by June 1982 Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo had reached 2,500 members. The Mothers represent less than 10% of the 30,000 disappearances. I don’t know what the final number is and neither do I know how they included other mothers who due to location or mobility could not be at the protest every Thursday. It reminds me of Mrs. Konile and how her single testimony was different than the majority of women and added a multitude of complexity to the situation. I wonder what other parents think whose children disappeared but were not part of Las Madres.
Las madres de la plaza de mayo is one of those collective narratives I grew up with. My dad would tell me as a kid about how these old ladies were preparing new generations to take be the next generation of politicians. The plaza was a place for protest, memory and education. It was a reclamation not only of what happened but a firm stand on what will happen. Of course, his stories were not fully accurate but talk about to what degree this narrative permeated the culture in our South. After all, 1 out of every 3 dissapeared people in the continent (due to military regimes) are Argentine.
Mothers Who Won’t Disappear (Some did)
There are a few passages that caught my eye and relate to previous lectures. “It’s normal to be idealistic when you are young” refering to those kidnapped. This is true and as such this could be seen as a disruption of the daily life, as an intromision into social non-movements.
The deliberate dissapearance of people as to avoid the creation of martyrs and the psychological effect on those who stayed resembled a lot the concept of “learned helplessness.” The mothers, however, overcame this while finding others going through the same process and, more importantly, found an avenue to answers as they finally identified the perpetrators of the crime (the State). Being defined by their maternal nature, there was no effective threat and even the most fierce form of repression (their own forced dissappareance) was nothing but the answer they had been seeking all alone. That is, I think, what made their cause so powerful. As illustrated by the case of Sri Lanka, “only silence will protect you” was the perfect excuse to talk even louder.
Retributive Justice, Public Intimacies and the Micropolitics of the Restitution of Kidnapped Children of the Dissapeared in Argentina
Unconfortable question: How much of “You took away our kids now we will take yours away” there is in this? The overall question is whether the victims that do not recognize themselves as such have agency in the process of restitution. I did wonder “Were these kids (some of them already adults) were used as political instruments? Even more considering that two of them (Juan Cabandié and Victoria Donda) work as representatives in Congress and their role, and that of other victims, as “proof” of crime.
The Limits of Kinship Mobilizations and the (A)politics of Human Rights in Argentina
My favorite points. Wrong and right versus right and left. These four dimensions can completely intersect, however the political reality is that one can either use on or the other in the pubilc discourse. Is that right?
Malin depicts how the Mothers of the disappeared in Argentina made their suffering public in order to forge a collective memory, which also rendered human rights a public issue (187-188). Mothers that protested their disappeared children were essentially driven to protest because their traditional role as life giver, nurturer, and protector was challenged when part of their domain, namely family, was destroyed (199). Mothers being perceived as invisible or not political paradoxically allowed them more freedom to express their dissent (203). Lastly, Malin explores how the limited scope of their movement makes broader political ends difficult to achieve at times, but they remain strong in a symbolic way (211).
Gandsman explores how the “privileging biological relationships as a mode of organizations…has led to a performative paradox in which groups need to avoid the perception of engaging in political activities even while they are explicitly engaged in such…” (195). She explores how, more generally, human rights was born out of a depoliticized discourse in the 70s (196). This has become problematic because oftentimes human rights organizations feel that they need to remain apolitical to be legitimate (204). However, Gandsman recognizes that HR organizations in Argentina make links between the dictatorship and neoliberal adjustments in causing the economic crisis (202). Lastly, she shows how some Mothers’ grief has been subsumed into state policy under President Kirchner (212).
In her “Retributive Justice” article, Gandsman looks at the contradictions that emerge when Grandmothers search for retributive justice (429-430). Gandsman explains that “while the Grandmothers prioritize biologized and essentialized conceptions of identity in their arguments for restitution, the process of restitution reveals that identities are actually intersubjective and relational… fluid and constructed” (441-442). In other words the personal family becomes political because they are forced into being a site of a human rights case.
Questions:
1) How do human rights square with individual rights? I would like to discuss this as a class because it seems to me that the emergence of human rights may actually be ignoring the rights of particular individuals in the attempt to make rights “generalizable.” In the case of Guillermo, it seems that his rights were excluded in the name of human rights. Who else may be excluded with the continuing emergence of HR discourse and HR international bodies?
-Do you think the Grandmothers end up further committing violence to the children? In addition to the collective memory of the dictatorship, it seems that another layer of violence may be occurring when the Grandmothers search for restitution since restitution requires that the child recognize their status as a victim of state terrorism before they can accept their new identity.
This week’s readings captures many of themes we have been discussing social non-movements, memory, justice etc… The movement of the Grandmothers and Mothers of Argentina as “women citizen” in Argentina is a powerful story. Transforming grief into political action and challenging the political system for years was described as form of citizenship activism. The mothers and grandmother’s pursuit for justice was in the form of “restitution,” they used the term restitution to describe the process by which their children or grandchildren’s biological identities are recovered.
Restitution, a term used primarily for property, is the act of restoring to a rightful owner what has been taken away. To apply this concept on a human being is strange to me however as the readings unfold and I reflected I came to slowly identify how this was a victim-centered approach. Where the victims all have suffered different forms of trauma. “Restitution is not simply the legal moment when the judge announces it, but a psychological and social process that takes time.” – Personal identity is complex and
the process of identity restitution entails a construction of a new narrative; whereby the victim deconstructs memories, social relationships, and in this case political history.
One of the articles addresses the two contentious issues about restitution justice in the Argentina context.
• Once genetically identified children of the disappeared are issues with new identity papers since their previous papers were falsified. Thus legally altering their identity; this administrative process does not consider the psychological ramifications.
• Confirmation of their biological identity leads to the arrest of people who raised them. Another legal procedure that seems black and white and doesn’t address the complexities – if you committed a crime you must be arrested.
These two contentious issues have social and personal ramifications; it is not a simple process of legal documents but a deconstruction of memory, relationships and history.
Last class we spoke about memory and the idea of as humans or as states we select stories/narratives to make sense of the world. This resonated when I read about the kidnapped children; who each had a different reaction and process on this form of “restitution justice.”
We seem to always go back to this question about what is justice and justice for whom?
As we continue to struggle with defining and understanding justice; whether justice is a fallacy or just legal jargon. I do appreciate the authors simplistic approach to the idea of justice as a reestablishing broken relationships.
Questions:
1) I would like to explore this term “performative paradox” more; in the context of the Grandmothers and mothers.
2) Looking at the different forms of justice – distributive, procedural, retributive, and restorative (transitional) justice – Which one would you argue is more victim-centered?
From ”Mother who won’t disappear”:
“I’m going to keep fighting until I die because there is not enough justice. The military officers was not punished and everything has been buried”
“They are keeping the memory of their children alive. They are committed to preventing them from sliding into the oblivion, the night and fog that the military regimes intended for them”
“Their tell the lies and we never have a chance to tell the truth”
“We are born of our children”
“The collective memory says, and will continue to say: do not forget, do not forgive”
Question:
Do TJ have a size, can it ever be accomplished as it had a final cause? Or is it rather nonlinear, fluid, ongoing and performative?
From: Retributive Justice, Public Intimacies and the Micro-politics of the Restitution of Kidnapped Children of the Disappeared in Argentina
“I cannot accept you with any other name that isn’t the one that our parents gave you. Because if you are not Rodolfo Fernando, I am not Mariana Eva. Because our names relate us to them and relating us to them relates us to each other”
Which role does compromises play in TJ? Can it play a role or is justice absolute as in the case of the Grandmothers?
In general:
So far, we’ve seen several statements emphasizing that a part of TJ and Memory is to ensure that injustice will not repeat itself again. In relation to this, we have only briefly asked or examined what can explain perpetrators actions. How was is it possible that perpetrators killed the children of the grandmothers and thereafter kidnapped their kids and turn them into their own?
Gandsman called the Grandmother’s human rights activism ‘the politics of victims’ that is portrayed through symbolic demonstrations as the Madres De Plaza’s work. One mother said, ‘when the police shouted ‘READY?’ we shouted back ‘SHOOT’ (Malin). The mothers weren’t afraid. Their courage changed the view that it is an image of masculinity to be courageous, and powerful. The mothers utilized this feminine and maternal courage (Malin) to assert power that they didn’t have. They confronted the state with the value of family and motherhood, which the state claims to protect, hence being political victims.
Further, the view that reconciliation is a defense for dictatorship (Gandsman) is arguably incorrect because both victims and perpetrators still end up in the same society. Social repair is only possible if societies are able to confront abuses and bring perpetrators to account whether formally or informally. Without these, revenge and a never-ending hatred and pain will be the face of such a society. I am not saying reconciliation is the best way, but I am disagreeing with the view that any proponent of reconciliation is a defender of a dictator State. Whether or not reconciliation becomes a workable TJ process, depends on a society’s cultural practice of dealing with violence, and victim’s choices. The other problem is when a perpetrator (Argentine State) is the one advocating for reconciliation. Some proponents of reconciliation in other societies like Rwanda and South Africa have been largely victims and civil society, perhaps the reason they succeed to some degree.
The issue of 500 or so kidnapped babies is very complex. This reminds me of the children born of war in Uganda. Even if the two scenarios are different, they have a common problem to deal with-identity of children of the disappeared (Argentina) and children born of war (Uganda, Sierra Leone). What was the intention of adapting babies of the disappeared? What does a state gain from such acts? What is it with children being used in various forms of war? How can TJ address these issues around children’s complex identities? I think adaptive parents of children of the disappeared should have been held accountable for the disappearance of the mothers. Where there such investigations regarding culpability of the adaptive parents? How can TJ process hold perpetrators accountable while at the same time considering the best interest and wellbeing of children that are born (and caught up) in such gross human rights violations?
Gandsman noted that ‘ the Truth Commission (1984) and trial of military leaders (1985) were illustrative of TJ processes that responded to the disappearance problem’ yet the convicted were later pardoned. What then was the point of trials? How can victims be trustful and hopeful in trials if such a decision gets turned around? Where is justice?
What I have found most fascinating with regards to this week’s readings is the great connection one can make to last week’s readings. Moreover, the main idea that both weeks’ readings touch upon is transitional justice. Once it comes to transitional justice, the acts behind the process of transitional justice have been highly emphasized. In other words, the initiatives of victims and those who have witnessed the outcomes of tragedies serve a very vital role.
Whether it has been through the body, the narratives, the community level approach, or the act of organizing into groups that serve the purpose of seeking justice by shaming states and launching campaigns for the purpose of identifying and recovering those who have been taken away under great tragedies; all of these mechanisms drive the process we call transitional justice. This transitional justice process includes trials, monuments, reparations, a truth commission, exhumations and many other aspects.
One element that I believe is important to explore is the idea that we refer to as collective memory. Going beyond the politics of memory and its usage, I believe that this week’s readings explore the use of collective memory to bring about justice to the grandmothers and mothers who are organizing themselves into groups that are shaming the patriarchal state of Argentina for their lost ones, and to those who are launching collective campaigns to help initiate the act of biologically identifying the children that have been taken away from them. The act of transforming tragic stories into narratives that can be heard is one approach that has been emphasized. This emphasis reminds us of the play that we watched with regards to the women who are sharing the stories of their lost ones to restore justice to themselves and their loved ones. Although such collective acts seem to be literal in terms of the approach that is being used, one cant ignore the fact that these acts are symbolic to themselves and others, social in terms of bringing individuals together for one purpose, bringing about transitional justice, and psychological in terms of the personal relief one gains when transmitting a tragedy in the way he/she sees it and working upon the kind of restitutional justice they need and want. I believe that this is one element out of many elements that have been emphasized throughout this week and it deserves further exploration particularly with the following questions,
1) What is the kind of justice that witnesses and victims of tragedy seek?
2) What are the boundaries for seeking transitional justice? In other words, when can it be satisfactory enough for an individual to believe that justice has been finally achieved?
I remember thinking of this during my critical reflection and it seems to reappear: the idea of disappearance denying a human’s existence (the one who is disappeared), their identity and then, in turn, that of their mother’s. The interconnected identity building between a mother and her child, which is enriched with the idea of genetic data collection from Gandsman’s piece, gave the Madres de Plaza de Mayo their legitimacy and their reason to become subversive actors within the political milieu they found themselves in.
There seems to be a number of ironies here. The first is that of these traditional roles of being mothers at home, taking care of their families being used as a weapon on both sides – the mothers used it to obtain the privilege of being virtuous (which is of course problematic because it encloses them in one essentialist identity, refusing other women, whether sisters or daughters, their right to legitimate mourning) and Pinochet in Chile used it against the mothers, deeming their rebelling against a narrower identity of motherhood as “unnatural”. The irony here is that the government took away this identity in the first place which the mothers used as their shield and legitimacy to rebel and protest. But it must be commended, it yet being another irony, where it was powerful because “the Armed Forces did not know how to suppress women who were nothing more than devoted mothers” (Malin 209), their strength, however, coming from a place of immense, even abject pain and loss.
Another irony is that of redefining strength, re-signifying it to something feminine, as Malin mentions, over the masculine maschismo kind. And yet, that too becomes problematic in an essentialist argument (limited to a maternal strength only), but in the present context, it is ironic that their strength again comes from a place of immense loss where they are at a point of so much loss in fact that they have nothing more to lose.
But with such, I would argue, abject loss and pain which then has become these mothers’ new identity, how can they leave “the tragedies of the past behind” when pushed from the new democracy in the country and of moving forward? How can they move forward when it is a matter of identity and existence? How does one go about reconciling loss that even memory cannot repair? Since, as the quote by Bonafini states, “we are born of our children”, and that there is no past for memory to heal nor a future to create new ones, just a cycle of pain endlessly repeating, how do you give them a sense of justice? Or if not that, then an identity or existence in which to live in?
This week’s readings really connected to where we left off last week with Ketty’s presentation of “Finding Dawn.” Dawn’s mother kept on fighting for her daughter’s and that was her form of also making sure Dawn would not be forgotten.
Malin focuses on Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and how they used their children’s disappearance to fuel their protest in order to stand up for their children and demand justice. The role of mothers is very powerful because Malin highlights how they “are the giver of life… the center of the family – emotionally ideologically and psychologically (191) .The mothers used this power to protest against the state’s lack of action.
Grandsman further explores how grandmothers turned their grief into action in Argentina. Grandsman explores how the new narrative identity of grandmothers is part of a larger historical narrative of transitional justice in Argentina. “For family members, the restitution of their disappeared children is the only means of social repair and redress, an attempt to restore familial relationships broken by state terror,” says Grandsman. “Yet, the past cannot be fully redressed without the person assuming the identity of the person they would have been if they had not been taken from their parents and their parents had not been killed.” The grandmothers are searching for “identity restitution” which Grandsman describes as ” a new narrative identity that involves the recontextualization of social relations and life histories. ”
Grandsman highlights the complications that come along with finding this restitution as it involves so many relationships being unwound and then reformed, turning from human rights case to a family drama.
Grandsman continues to explore this concept of kinship and mobilization in “The Limits of Kinship Mobilizations.” She argues, ” Movements emphasizing biological relatedness and embodied identities can have potentially depoliticizing effects for citizenship mobilizations constrained by a widespread perception that the activities of a human rights organization should lie “outside of politics.” She says this activism has led to a “performatice paradox” but I am a little confused when she comes to this point. Maybe this is something we can discuss more in class.
-I am wondering at what point a personal search for justice becomes a political demand for justice. Is it always political?
-While the Grandmothers think they are in the right, are they? Are they making it more about them than the children?
This week’s readings once again brought the importance of remaking and reconstructing the past, of finding answers, of attempting to repair that which was attempted to be destroyed, and of resistance to power.
In Malin’s article, we see the vital importance this carries for the mothers in not only remembering and making sense of the past, but also in playing their part in making sure their voices are heard. What is also inspiring is their courage to break out of their culturally prescribed roles in their quest for justice and reparation. They break the barrier between the private and the public realm – they no longer mourn quietly at home. But they continue to define themselves as just mothers, not as political activists.
Gandsman’s article on kidnapped children is disheartening. As he says, ‘the everyday lives and interpersonal familial relationships of these children have become battlegrounds for transitional justice.’ This new truth revealed to the children shatters their identity to create a new reality. It is difficult for them to accept the crime committed against them. Would they have lived more fulfilling lives if they lived without this awareness? Maybe. But how could the human rights abusers be held accountable if this truth wasn’t revealed? The article also raises questions about victimhood. Before the revelations, the children or ‘victims’ were unaware of their victimhood.
Gandsman’s other article raises an important question about the neutrality in human rights – that human rights organizations or groups must be apolitical, that their demands must be based on universal ethics. But is it possible to separate politics from human rights? In the case of grandmothers, they acted as “helpless mothers who only wanted to know what happened to their children.” This was important culturally, as the “ideal woman” would “inspire pity”.
This week’s readings bring back the discussion around transformative justice and human agency. We get to know women who had their most fundamental right violated — the right to be a mother. Yet, these women learned how to fight back and bring back justice to the memory of their beloved ones. These are not isolated events — many children had “disappeared.” And the cases were so particular that defining “dissapearance” became a challenge for Human Rights organizations. But we also learn about the challenges of connecting abducted children with their biological parents, especially when some of these children offer resistance and neglect that they were victims of a crime. Which points to my questions today:
How can abducted chidren negotiate loss and reparation when they don’t even have enough references (cultural and personal) to allow them to connect them with their past and resignify their existence? How can one negotiate and reconcile with a past which was never part of one’s being? And how do personal and collective memory intertwine/play out in this case?
Malin’s article gave me a good understanding of the process of the formation of the Mothers’ movements. Malin explains how the idea of a sacred Virgin Mother always existed and it is rooted in Catholicism and Protestantism. However, it is also mentioned that this maternal love and power goes beyond any differences and unifies everyone on the society. Malin then explains how the state used the practice of disappearing people to repress the society. This practice was intentionally used to cause the maximum negative psychological effects on families and robed them of closure. This practice affected mothers in particular and brought them together in looking for their children. Mothers of the Plaza were trying to prove the existence of their children by hanging their photos on their bodies. This article reminded me of the concept of memory that was discussed in the last session. These mothers were trying to keep their children’s memory alive. The state was trying to erase their children and their memories. Mothers used the states’ perception of them (as easily deceived) against the state and found a way to get access to more information. Lastly, Malin explains the divide in the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement and their relation to politics.
Gandsman (2012) explores the nature of activism organized by family members and biological ties. He argues that these biological ties could have depoliticizing effects. These ties have led to a performative paradox: they had to pretend that they were not taking part in political movements even when they were participating in political activities. Gandsman further describes the special power of women (mothers and grandmothers) protesting, looking at their bodies as a political battleground. They are empowered by taking care of each other’s children through nursing and using their maternal abilities. The most interesting part of this article for me was to understand the conflicts that Mothers and Grandmothers while voicing their demands from the state. Apolitical movements could lose their legitimacy by associating themselves with a political party.
– How can a grassroots movement save its legitimacy and at the same time collaborate with the state to create change?
Gandsman second article on retributive justice focuses on the practice of transitional justice in Argentina. This article is looking at how transitional justice has worked itself in everyday lives of people. The case of Guillermo and his dual identity explains how human right’s cases can affect individuals’ lives directly. This article highlighted how “children become microcosms of post dictatorship Argentina, which is still struggling to come to terms with its past”.
One question that came to mind while reading this article is: how has this discourse around children and the dual identities affected the identity of the nation as a whole? Have there been any efforts to undo this particular “dual identity” challenge as people are going through the process of healing?
My reading of this week’s material brought about a similar concern to the material for the Privilege and Responsibility class. A universal notion of personhood is present in the discourse of human rights because of the discourse of a duty to participate in a shared human experience. This week, this concept was replaced with a similar notion of motherhood. Where all mothers are supposed to love and protect their children eternally. It is their duty to do so.
This initially seems familiar and beautiful because everyone has a mother. But do they? In the complex family dynamics of the 21st century identifying the mother as the person who will love and miss someone who is gone the most is limiting. This was echoed in Gandsman’s discussion of those excluded from the rhetoric of loss in Argentina because they are not the mothers of the disappeared. The most mind boggling thing included in that material was that those people who had miraculously survived the ordeal of being disappeared by the dictatorship were not included in the discourse of an experience only they can speak to the detail of. This kind of exclusion points to the greatest critique I had of Las Madres. Their relevance is so temporally contingent. Their power comes from the special place they had in the where and the when of Argentina in the 1970s. Today, they bring that power with them still and their primacy hordes that power of victimhood and relevance so others cannot share in it. They disappear the pain of the disappeared who returned.
In class I would like to talk about two things:
(1) From a feminist perspective, what critiques can we argue about Las Madres. This movement seems in a sense very first wave. Would Las Madres have been as effective if there had been feminist movements in Argentina before their protests in the 1970s and 1980s.
(2) Grandsman speaks about who in a human rights discourse dead bodies are agents but agents who have no agency because they cannot speak for themselves. How does this complicate the discourse on the disappeared within South and Central America?