Cuando Vienen Matando: On Prepositional Shifts and the Struggle of Testimonial Subjects for Agency

Extract

As i write these lines, back in Argentina a myriad of commemorative events mark the thirtieth anniversary of the genocidal military coup that destroyed our movement for social change in the 1970s. An outpour of testimonial texts is reaching the presses. The words of public intellectuals pepper interviews and newspaper articles dealing with the currency of the testimonial first person. Beatriz Sarlo's new book Tiempo pasado. Cultura de la memoria y giro subjetivo. Una discusion contributes to this debate. Sarlo recognizes the value of the testimonial first person for legal purposes, to set records straight while other documentation is not available (24) and to secure justice. She admits that personal narratives can be a source for historians (25). Sarlo argues, however, that excessive trust is placed on victims and survivors as producers of historical truth (62, 63). Her intervention has been called polemical by journalists in the country and abroad. Arturo Jiménez, from the Mexican newspaper La jornada, has seen it as a call to “go beyond the overwhelming predominance of the testimonial account of the repression by the military dictatorship and to engage with more strength in theoretical reflections to be able to understand what has happened” (my trans.). What concerns me about these words and Sarlo's statements is the belief that survivors are unfit for theoretical reflection unless they undergo traditional academic training and do not refer directly to their experience.