Against state terror: lessons on memory, counterterrorism and resistance from the Global South

Abstract

Critical theory avows that “where there is power there is always resistance”. However, the practical implications and consequences of particular modes of resistance remain, within World Politics, under-theorised. In critical terrorism studies (CTS), this critical imperative to resist has recently emerged in the proposal to remember state terrorism. With this move, CTS aims to disturb the legitimacy of forms of violence/terror that emerge from the state. In this article, I argue that such an agenda of “resistance through memory” has already been put forth in the Global South (specifically, Latin America). Drawing on this historical experience, I elucidate some problems with the critical imperative to resist. More specifically, I show how in Brazil the Global South counter-memorial narratives of state terror share a common ground with the Global North counterterrorism discourses. I do so by analysing three underlying tropes of Brazilian remembrance that replicate Global North representations of terrorists: bestialism, pathology and dehumanisation.

Keywords:

• resistance
• truth and reconciliation
• Brazil
• terrorism and political violence
• critical terrorism studies
• politics of memory

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Maja Zehfuss, Andreja Zevnik, Silvana Seabra, Emmy Eklundh and Emmanuel-Pierre Guittet who have always inspired me and supported my research, at all levels and by all means. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of this paper, very enlightening feedback and most invaluable comments. I take full responsibility for any remaining mistakes.

Notes

1. See, for instance, two edited volumes: Bell (2006) and Resende and Budryte (2013).

2. In order to avoid the underlying hierarchical tone of Ditrych’s typology, “First World” will be hereafter mentioned as “Global North” and “Third World” will be hereafter mentioned as “Global South”.

3. State terror was witnessed at different levels in the Southern Cone of Latin America. In Argentina, the most gruesome case, the state has officially recognised 8960 forced disappearances (CONADEP 2006), while human right organisations claim a figure of 30,000 (Crenzel 2008, 175). In Chile, the state acknowledge the deaths of 2920 individuals, 2111 victims of the political police (Aylwin 2007) and an estimated figure of 100,000 tortured (Camacho 2008, 96). In Brazil, the National Truth Commission (CNV) has recognised the death and disappearance of 434 individuals, and an estimated number of 20,000 cases of torture (CNV 2014, 350). However, due to the very nature of political repression, none of those figures can actually be taken as exhaustive.

4. Former member of the Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro (Revolutionary Movement 8th of October, MR-8).

5. Brasil: Nunca Mais was named after the report of the Argentine Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (National Commission on the Disappearing of Persons, CONADEP). The CONADEP was instituted by the post-Malvinas/Falklands War democratic administration of Raul Afonsín, being coordinated by the famous writer Ernesto Sábato. In 1984, the CONADEP published the Nunca Más (Never Again) report on the Argentina’s phase of state terror. Nunca Más is considered, regionally and globally, as a landmark for transitional justice and the international right to memory and truth.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES Foundation, an agency under the Ministry of Education of Brazil) [grant number 2673-13-4].

Notes on contributors

Henrique Tavares Furtado

Henrique Tavares Furtado is a PhD researcher at the University of Manchester. His current research explores how terror and political violence are remembered, in post-conflict societies, for the sake of national reconciliation. Most specifically, he deals with the Brazilian case (in particular, the Brazilian National Truth Commission, CNV).