Memory and Reconciliation: Media and ways of communicating

Search strategies

Searching for the children who disappeared or were born in captivity, and the initial act of restitution and giving back a damaged identity, are in themselves constant exercises of memory. This is because the search itself keeps alive the very existence of people who have disappeared, who are continuously exposed to the designs and subjugation imposed by State terrorism, and the explanation of the reasons for this lasting crime – the disappearance of their parents for being political dissidents.

For some years now, when our grandchildren reached adolescence and took their first ‘independent’ steps, we have been carrying out acts of dissemination and communication that meant directing ourselves towards them, using all kinds of social media, as individuals. The idea was that now our grandchildren would begin looking for us too.

And we were right. National and international efforts, active and committed participation by the expressive arts, actors, political sectors, trade unions, journalists, scientists, etc. multiplied the word we had put out so that our grandchildren would hear it.

To the investigative and legal actions we constantly undertook, we added reconstructing the memory and individual history of each father and mother who had disappeared. This was done by setting up a biographical archive that looked at the family, social and political life of the disappeared, so that when a meeting with our grandchildren took place, they would have the story and words of their parents and family.

Communication media

An important task for the grandmothers was always to reach the largest number of people with our appeal, our story and struggle. Links with the mass media were forged as part of the outcry of our work. From the first solitary appeals in the press aimed at the dictator of the moment and calling for the return of our grandchildren, to mass mobilisations calling for justice and freedom. Later, under democracy, there were claims in the courts, the publicising of our ‘cases’ so that the people knew and could denounce the kidnappings. The people understood the justness of returning the children to their legitimate families. Getting closer to the children through media coverage and understanding the right to identity: all was reflected in the mass media, in the most misunderstood initiatives that were attacked by the spokespersons of dictatorial thinking. Later there was greater understanding; we were listened to more and spoken about more as our society matured in its recognition of the justice of our claim.

We have experienced the extremes of public exposure on TV of kidnapped young people subjugated to a perverse bond with the murderers of their parents, in an attempt to maintain the situation as one of ‘normality’, wanting to make the victims live alongside the killers as an act of love and forgetting. Faced with this, our position was one of protecting the young person, knowing the truth and trusting the swiftness of justice in order to recreate love, memory and freedom within their true family.

Today the mass media are basic tools in disseminating information about the rights of children, the right to identity, the constant exercise of memory, in investigative reconstruction, denouncements and monitoring the course of justice.

Our communication strategy is linked to action. In other words, social and political acts linked to the right to identity in which representative social actors participate are what makes it possible to ‘impose’ our appeal on the mass media. An example of this is the running of rock festivals in which important national groups take part under the organising banner of the search for our grandchildren. They bring thousands of young people together and find a niche in daily reporting but without carrying a speech-making label.

In accordance with the criterion for action, another important initiative under way is the realisation and organisation by actors, dramatists and directors of different artistic trends of what they call ‘identity theatre’. This has led to more than 40 theatrical pieces about our work being put on simultaneously in different theatres in Buenos Aires. This has created a sizeable cultural phenomenon that incorporates the theme of the right to identity into a multiplicity of messages, not just in theatre pieces but also in the mass media. It uses specialised criticism even though readers are not necessarily the same as the political sector.

Public repercussion can be seen in the constant influx of young people to familiarise themselves with our search or who believe themselves to be children of disappeared people. It also shows up in the inclusion of our appeals in scholarly texts and in the reporting of data that make it possible to find our grandchildren, etc.

Reconciliation

We conceive of reconciliation as an act of constriction that, in the case of Argentina, has not only not taken place on the part of those responsible for the genocide, but which reveals – whether from an ideological or factual point of view – a clear vindication of the aberrant deeds committed by State terrorism. This vindication is not just something done in words but is supported by acts of self-protection.

Reconciliation has been deliberately confused with impunity, making it possible to promulgate laws and presidential pardons that interrupted the course of justice, prevented in depth solutions to this drama and allowed murderers and kidnappers who are not subject to any legal condemnation to live alongside the general public.

On the basis of a legal right that cannot be annulled governing the kidnapping of children, together with verification of complicities in the armed forces’ chains of command during the appropriation of our grandchildren, it has been possible to break this circle of impunity and to have some of those most responsible for the genocide as well as those who took away our grandchildren placed in detention.

Of course there is willingness and a sense of conscience on the part of the people and the majority of public opinion that rejects impunity and, for this reason, there is social condemnation of those who are guilty. In this context the former chief of the armed forces hinted at self-criticism, but after he was relieved of his post it was rapidly turned into an act of protection and solidarity with those who had committed the genocide.

Our country finds itself in a state of constant deliberation over the need to let justice takes its course so that those who were directly responsible for crimes are accused and sentenced. In this sense ‘judgements for truth’ are being carried out, legal actions that take place in camera and allow those proven responsible for violations of human rights to be questioned. This creates spaces for public thinking and knowledge about the fate of the disappeared and has a concrete effect on the exercise of memory.

In the case of the children, complicity in hiding and protecting the kidnappers is clear. Doubtless at the time they thought that ‘these children are better off in the hands of those that kidnapped them than in the bosom of their real family.’

During these more than 20 years of unrelenting search and struggle, we have discovered that reconciliation is only possible in the context of truth and justice, in the consolidation of peace, in discovering our grandchildren and the fate of their parents and every one of those who disappeared.

In other words, there is in all of us grandmothers a deep act of reconciliation with our history and with our people every time that we find one of our grandchildren. To reconstruct an interrupted story, to give back freedom and identity to these young people is an act of love, pacification, justice and hope.

Estela Barnes de Carlotto is President of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of May Square) Buenos Aires, Argentina which aims to locate the children who disappeared as a result of the military dictatorship in Argentina and to restore them to their legitimate families. So far, 58 children have been located, of whom 8 had been murdered. Thirty-three are reunited with their families and others are in close contact with them.