Remembering Pinochet's Chile

Stern Steve J. Stern

Description

During the two years just before the 1998 arrest in London of General Augusto Pinochet, the historian Steve J. Stern had been in Chile collecting oral histories of life under Pinochet as part of an investigation into the form and meaning of memories of state-sponsored atrocities. In this compelling work, Stern shares the recollections of individual Chileans and draws on their stories to provide a framework for understanding memory struggles in history."A thoughtful, nuanced study of how Chileans remember the traumatic 1973 coup by Augusto Pinochet against Salvador Allende and the nearly two decades of military government that followed. . . . In light of the recent revelations of American human rights abuses of Iraqi prisoners, [Stern's] insights into the legacies of torture and abuse in the Chilean prisons of the 1970s certainly have contemporary significance for any society that undergoes a national trauma."-Publishers Weekly"This outstanding work of scholarship sets a benchmark in the history of state terror, trauma, and memory in Latin America."-Thomas Miller Klubock, American Historical Review"This is a book of uncommon depth and introspection. . . . Steve J. Stern has not only advanced the memory of the horrors of the military dictatorship; he has assured the place of Pinochet's legacy of atrocity in our collective conscience."-Peter Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability"Steve J. Stern's book elegantly recounts the conflicted recent history of Chile. He has found a deft solution to the knotty problem of evenhandedness in representing points of view so divergent they defy even the most careful attempts to portray the facts of the Pinochet period. He weaves a tapestry of memory in which narratives of horror and rupture commingle with the sincere perceptions of Chileans who remember Pinochet's rule as salvation. The facts are there, but more important is the understanding we gain by knowing how ordinary Chileans-Pinochet's supporters and his victims-work through their unresolved past."-John Dinges, author of The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents

Sujets

• Histoire
• América del Sur
• Cultural studies
• South America
• History of the Americas
• Chile
• Chili

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 08 septembre 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822386292
• Langue: English

Extrait

remembering pinochet’s chile

9

A book in the series latin america otherwise: languages, empires, nations

Series editors:

Walter D. Mignolo, Duke University

Irene Silverblatt, Duke University Sonia Saldívar-Hull, University of California, Los Angeles

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9

September 11 brought terror to Chile when General Augusto Pinochet, in 1973, led a

coup to overthrow the country’s elected president, Salvador Allende. With the back-

ing of the United States, Pinochet used the machinery of state to intimidate Chile’s

citizenry and unspeakable acts of state violence—torture and murder —became life’s

daily fare. Steve Stern here asks piercing questions of historical memory—how those

who su√ered as well as those who caused such inhuman su√ering recalled those

terrible times.

Steve Stern has written an extraordinary trilogy, ‘‘The Memory Box of Pinochet’s

Chile,’’ devoted to those years and how they were understood by participants in the

horrors. The first book,Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998,

tackles interpretive questions raised by ‘‘memory’’ itself. Stern takes advantage of a

turning point in Chilean history—when Pinochet, sought by a Spanish magistrate

for crimes against humanity, was placed under house arrest outside London for

more than a year and was later indicted by a Chilean court after returning to his

homeland. This was a moment when the complications and competitions of ‘‘mem-

ory’’ surfaced with a vengeance. InRemembering Pinochet’s Chile, Stern presents a

typology of prisms through which historical memories of a chilling, but indelible,

moment were sorted out, conjoined, and opposed to one another. With humanity

and compassion, Stern introduces us to the conflicting and overlapping structures of

meaning through which that history is filtered—along with the sometimes intersect-

ing, sometimes clashing visions they project.Remembering Pinochet’s Chileforces us

to reconsider—to see ‘‘otherwise’’—that tortured history and the memories that, in

the end, give it life.

steve j. stern

9

Remembering Pinochet’s Chile

On the Eve of London 1998

book one of the trilogy: The Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile

Duke University Press

Durham & London 2004

∫2004 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

Typeset in Scala by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data appear on the last printed page of

this book.

9

Para mi tan querida Florencia,

mi chilenita de corazón,

corazón sin fronteras . . .

acknowledgments

maps

xvi

Contents

x

i

Introduction to the Trilogy: The Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile xix

Introduction to Book One: Remembering Pinochet’s Chile 1

Chapter 1 Heroic Memory: Ruin into Salvation 7 afterwordChildhood Holidays, Childhood Salvation

3

Chapter 2 Dissident Memory: Rupture, Persecution, Awakening 39 afterwordThe Lore of Goodness and Remorse 68

Chapter 3 Indi√erent Memory: Closing the Box on the Past 88 afterword102The Accident: Temptations of Silence

Chapter 4 From Loose Memory to Emblematic Memory: Knots on the Social Body 104 afterwordMemory Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

conclusion: Memories and Silences of the Heart

5

134

143

abbreviations used in notes and essay on sources

notes

157

essay on sources

index

237

215

155