The joy of the militancy: happiness and the pursuit of revolutionary struggle

Abstract

Pleasure as an element of revolutionary struggle has been overlooked in scholarly accounts about women’s participation in guerrilla and politico-military organizations. In contexts of ongoing armed confrontation and transition from war to peace, it is also a taboo because it contravenes official accounts that expect narratives of repentance and the search for forgiveness from the ex-combatants. Furthermore, women’s joy in revolutionary struggle brings into question traditional views about women’s violence. In this article, I look at how happiness and joy are narrated in the stories of being members of guerrilla organizations built by Colombian female ex-combatants. I argue that in women’s narrations images of poverty, scarcity, pain and the death of comrades, are accompanied by statements about the happiness of pursuing the revolutionary dream, and the joy of being a female insurgent. Women’s narratives about the joy of the militancy are built around three main elements: the group as a place of affection; the guerrilla experience as a place for learning new skills and where they were recognized and valued, and the pleasure of pursuing a just cause. I discuss the narratives of women who joined guerrilla organizations in the 1970s and 1980s and laid down weapons between 1989 and 1994 in the framework of bilateral peace agreements.

Keyword:

• Happiness
• Women ex-combatants
• Colombia
• revolutionary movements in Latin America

Acknowledgement

Thanks to the Collective and the Network of Women Ex-combatants and to all the women ex-combatants who participated in my research and whose interviews, focus groups and photo-diaries are quoted in this article.

Notes

1. My research does not look at the experiences of male combatants. However, several authors have explored the experiences of guerrilla and paramilitary male (ex)combatants in Colombia, see: Dietrich (2015, 2012a, 2012b), Medina (2009), Nussio (2012), Theidom (2009) and Theidom and Betancourt (2006).

2. These are just some examples. The literature produced on the topic is wide and belongs to different genres: autobiography, testimony, monographs and journalism.

3. Clisby and Holdsworth (2014, pp. 5, 6). draw on Bourdieu to define symbolic violence as the kind of violence that is imperceptible and almost invisible even to its victims and is exercised through symbolic channels of communication, cognition, recognition or even feeling. Structural violence is characterized by poverty, social inequality, racism and gender inequality. Visceral gender-based violence is physical harm.

4. According to the Gender Issues Monitory Board – OAG by 2011 only 12% of the members of both parliamentary houses were women, a number that has not changed for the last 13 years. This placed Colombia among the Latin American countries with the lowest female representation in its National parliaments (Observatorio de Asuntos de Género [OAG], 2011, p. 12).

5. Carlos Pizarro (1951–1990) founder member and commander of the M-19 guerrilla organisation.

6. In Freudian psychology, Eros and Thanatos are part of a dual system in which Eros is linked to the life drive (love and creativity) and Thanatos to the death drive (destruction).

7. The Mira was an M-19 military operation carried out in 1981. After a military siege, the surviving M-19 guerrillas were captured, and then sent to different prisons (Vásquez, 2000/2011, pp. 122–135).

8. In Colombia, Latin América and Africa. I am only referencing authors working in Colombia.

9. Among peers (women with similar experiences), and with other women who had experienced the conflict from different sides, both spaces offer different possibilities.

10. Clara is member of the Network of Women Ex-combatants. She designed and conducted the memory workshops used to gather material and information to write the Collective’s book.