This week’s lecture titled “The Terror” was quite thought provoking and introduced students to the turmoil within Latin American countries between their military and left leaning guerrillas and parties. Personally for me, I kept going back to the mentions of violence and deaths as a result of what was occurring.  For this blog post, I wanted to focus on discussion question #1 and Document 9.1 (The Massacre).

Forced disappearances are usually not documented accurately when looking at statistics. Families are left in the dark wondering what has happened to their loved ones. I would say this situation is extremely traumatic because there is no information to allow closure or even explain anything. People have questions that are left unanswered and often times try to find something themselves. The victim just vanished without ever being seen again, the body is never returned, it is a complete dead end.

Moving on to Document 9.1, Mario Vargas Llosa was speaking on the massacre of reporters. He mentioned multiple times that the Indians weren’t accustomed to the modern world, had language barriers and may of mistook the reporters as the enemy. I thought he was really trying to take away from what had happened and  pushed a narrative that it was all apart of the guerrillas doing. He states they are”They are born in the cities, among intellectuals and middle-class militants”. The well-off guerrillas were able to influence the peasants with their ideology and it led to immense violence such as the massacre. Near the end of the document, Vargas says Democracy will never thrive in Latin America if it is only applicable and beneficial for one group/demographic. He was able to recognize the flaws and how it effected lower class members.

Throughout this week’s lecture, I could see a lot of grey areas. In the video lecture, Professor Jon had mentioned that we are left with the incomprehensibility of what has happened. I agree that a lot of history can never be accounted for accurately and that leaves people with questions that may not be answered.

Discussion Question:

Would you agree with what Mario Vargas Llosa had said about democracy?

How can those grey area of history be filled in or somewhat make sense?