The former Trelew airport, current the Cultural Center for Memory, 2014 | Source: Brian Páez, Wikimedia Commons
is identified as a terrorist state, and not merely positions as using “historical contingency” to
a dictatorship. Thinking critically, challenging excuse past violence by the left. Another excluded
top-down views, questioning authority, became part of the debate questioned the view of the left’s
part of the political climate of the time. A period “mistakes.” This view contended that “executions
of democracy in the streets that seemed to have are not errors. They tend to follow a long period of
a contagious effect among the left. Some were planning.” Another excluded commentary was one
willing to reflect on the hierarchies within their own that shamed the left for “hiding in silence” about
movement that had lost touch with the base, the its use of violence, responding not to their moral
rank and file, and the goals of social justice, where duty but their fear of the right’s exploitation of these
ends justified means. truths.
Despite this propitious political moment, there
This brings me to my conclusion. Political
were still efforts at silencing these unsettling truths timing is important, even crucial, to contentious
about the left. Some suggested that del Barco himself coexistence. The other elements of the confessional
had closed off the possibility of dialogue through performance did not vary much between the
his use of “unbridled violent language aimed at all two historical moments. Hilb’s and Leis’s
protagonists” on the left. Because of this, some on confessional scripts resembled the earlier ones by
the left called for censoring del Barco. exposing unsettling aspects of the armed left’s
Another form of silencing occurred with the
past violence. They were similar kinds of actors,
publication of the book No Matar. The book was having been members of the armed left who had
meant to present the full contours of the debate witnessed atrocity. Their confessional stage was
triggered by Jouvé’s and del Barco’s confessions. not significantly different. They too had published
Certain positions in that debate were excluded their texts and were interviewed in the media. The
from the publication, however. In particular, those audience – the right and the left – were similar in
who agreed with Del Barco were left out. One had each set of confessions. The main difference that
criticized del Barco’s critics, referring to their helps us explain the possibility of an opening up
18
Observing Memories
ISSUE 2