Argentina: 30th anniversary of El Siluetazo

Nothing to make you feel old in blogging terms like doing a "30th anniversary" post and realising you did a 25th anniversary one as well...

Anyway, 21 September is the 30th anniversary of the public art event known as the Siluetazo ("big silhouette"). This was part of the Marcha de la resistencia of 1983, a huge demonstration in support of human rights and democracy which took place under the military regime. By 1983, the junta was weakening and protest was easier than it had previously been, but still, it was not a risk-free undertaking. Activists cut out life-size silhouettes to draw attention to the issue of disappeared people. The idea was simple but highly effective. The symbol has become one of the lasting icons of the dictatorship and has been referred to and re-used in various contexts (see, for example, here).

It is remembered largely through the work of photographer Eduardo Gil, and an exhibition of his work opens tomorrow at the Centro provincial de la memoria in La Plata.

The image for this post was sourced from this excellent article, published earlier this year, on the origin and impact of the Siluetazo. There are more, larger images there.

Chile: Memoria Rebelde

I had to post this video linked to by Adriana Goñi Godoy on Twitter, from Chilean hip-hop artist Subverso. The version I've found has subtitles in either Spanish or English, but also just visually the clip is amazing...

Street harassment

I am not generally on my soapbox too much on this blog but I think it's time, especially with International Women's Day coming up. This post was inspired by this Guardian article on the Hollaback! initiative. Hollaback! aims to empower women to confront street harassment. The international movement was inspired by a woman who photographed a man masturbating in the train across from her and, as the police were uninterested, posted it on Flickr.

Men who harass, says Gray, are defensive and confused when confronted. May also points to numerous examples of men being surprised when challenged: "They say, 'But I love women – I have a daughter!' They often have no idea that what they're doing hurts women." Hollaback! isn't just about fighting back but about rebuilding the foundations of what people consider appropriate public behaviour.

Let me just recount briefly my experiences of street harrassment, beginning with the least offensive and working up. Apparently I naturally have a rather serious expression when walking along on my own (I think that walking along on your own giggling away to yourself is more unusual, personally, but whatever). Apparently this isn't good enough for some men, who call out variations on "Cheer up, it might never happen" and "Smile!".
Then there's the "compliments" which men in Latin America feel obliged to pay on a daily basis. It happened often in Buenos Aires, more often in Quito, and was absolutely unrelenting in Lima. Day after day, multiple times a day, men would ask to be my friend, tell me I was beautiful, tell me they loved me, whistle at me, ask me where I was going, and on, and on, and on. Was I flattered? No. I longed to be invisible. I covered up more than necessary for the weather, I hunched my shoulders, I looked at the ground, and of course I never, ever, made eye contact with anybody. Not that that stopped it. I've had my way across a footbridge blocked by a man insisting he was just being friendly, and I've been followed by a wealthy-looking male in a flashy SUV.
And I've also experienced the man masturbating in a train carriage late at night. That one was in Europe.

I never confronted any of those men. I just assumed that that would make it worse, and also could be dangerous. Hollaback! has this to say on that:

Question: Confronting street harassers can be dangerous. What about safety issues?

Answer: While everyone is vulnerable to stranger rape and sexual assault, studies show that those who are aware of their surroundings, walk with confidence and, if harassed, respond assertively, are less vulnerable. Nevertheless, direct confrontations with street harassers may prove extremely dangerous, particularly alone or in unpopulated spaces. While it is each individual’s right to decide when, how, and if to Holla Back, do keep issues of safety in mind. Upon deciding to photograph a harasser, you may consider doing so substantially after the initial encounter and from a distance, ensuring the harasser is unaware of your actions. [source]

I am not sure exactly what the answer is. I would still be very wary of confronting a harrasser in a different culture unless I was very sure of what I was saying, where I was going, where there were other people who might help me, and so on. In general, it's worth pointing out that calling on other people for support, middle-aged women in particular, is sometimes helpful. I do know that I would think about the treatment I received differently having read about Hollaback! The campaign has a Buenos Aires branch:

Twenty-nine-year-old Argentinian Inti Maria Tidball-Binz has kickstarted Hollaback! in her home city of Buenos Aires. "Spanish-speaking countries call street harassment piropo, which unhelpfully also means a short poem that compliments the recipient," says Binz. "For this reason, the question I am asked most frequently is why am I so against the 'harmlessly flirtatious' piropo. Street harassment is not a poetic artform but rather on the scale of a kind of systematic violence against women."

It's online here - the group has translated "Hollaback" as "Atrévete!" (Dare!).

So come on ladies and gents, let's keep chipping away for social change and let women walk down the street in peace. Is that so much to ask?

Argentina: Dictatorship documents discovered

The head teacher of the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires (one of the most prestigious secondary schools in Argentina) has discovered files compiled during the military dictatorship. It's a long article so I haven't translated the whole thing, but here are some good chunks of it:

In a dusty, cobweb-filled staircase, in a dark corner of the head teacher's officers of the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, dozens of folders with intelligence documents about students and staff were discovered, gathered by the authorities of the school during the dictatorship. There are blacklists, with details of pupils and their parents, graphs showing the organisation of the UCR* and even a list of wardens and human rights abusers under the amusing title of "National Committee on the Disappearance of Personas". The current headteacher, Virgina González Gass, who found them, plans to create an Archive of Memory with the documents.

The files were piled in several cabinets in the internal staircase of the headteacher's offices in the college - which is four centuries old. The stairs were used by the headteacher to go to what was his private quarters, which was some time ago converted into an IT office. González Gass took the post last May, replacing Horacio Sanguinetti, now director of the Colón [Theatre], appointed by Mauricio Macri. During his long headship at the Buenos Aires [college], Sanguinetti never showed much interest in the documents: they were left to gather dust, although he did allow two pupils to go through them and publish some in a book about the school during the dictatorship**.

[...]

How did the documents get there? They are geological layers of papers left behind by the headteachers. Some of them date back to the headship of Raúl Aragón, who took over in 1973 during the government of Héctor Cámpora. At this time, an aggressive group of class representatives formed, who defended Aragón by taking over the college when the Peronist right threatened the university and its associated secondary schools. During this takeover, the militants kept a wake for a student, Eduardo Bekerman, who had been shot by the Triple A. Shortly afterwards, Aragón was removed and succeeded by two other headteachers who clashed with pupils, imposed mass expulsions and were finally forced to resign: Mario Garda and Antonio Muñoz.

The next head arrived in 1975 and continued during the dictatorship: his name was Eduardo Aníbal Rómulo Maniglia, but the staff called him affectionately[!], "the Beast". He deployed a group of wardens who carried out intelligence work inside the college and enforced a discipline similar to that in a prison: they insisted on martial order and silence at all times, and the blue and grey uniforms of the students. The Buenos Aires college has 106 victims of state terrorism, among pupils and ex-pupils.

Maniglia died in 1978 and was replaced by his deputy, Icas Edgardo Micillo, who continued the constant contact with perpetrators of human rights abuses who requested information, until he left the post in 1982 to take up the job of Education Secretary of the City of Buenos Aires. And he abandoned the documents from the college, which stayed there as evidence of the persecution of pupils and staff and of the contact with the perpetrators. "They didn't let Aragón in anymore. Maniglia died, and Micillo, I don't know why he didn't take them," sums up González Gass.

[...]

A typed memo describes the "particular aspects to bear in mind in relation to the detection of subversive agents". In it, the military advised that "the authorities of educational establishments are obliged to inform military authorities of the detection of agents or presumed subversive activities originating from those under their orders."

Maniglia and Micillo had no problems complying with this instruction. In another document, the names of perpetrators with whom they communicated regularly are recorded, followed by names of the wardens (most often recorded: Tito Gristelli and Eduardo Kember Urquiza). The document is entitled "National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (educational field) CNdeBA". And it includes "Colonel: Hoffman, Amiano, Genovese, Valladares. Lt. Colonel: Guillermo Brizuela. Officer: Navarro (S.I.F.A.). Doctor: Bianchi".

Juan Carlos Amiano was responsible for the clandestine detention centres of Florencio Varela and Berazategui, while Héctor Hoffman directed the naval base at Mar del Plata. But the most significant is the Coronel Agustín Valladares, who led the "Operation Clarity" designed to search for subversives in eduction. His link with the Heads of the Buenos Aires college was the Secretary of University Coordination, Carlos Bianchi.[...]

La patota del Nacional (Pagina/12)

*I assume this acronym stands for Union Civica Radical, a political party, but I'm not 100% sure.
**The book is La otra Juvenilia, by Santiago Garaño and Werner Pertot.

See also this really nice article about class of '73 from the LA Times in 2003:
Revolution was one of their 3Rs