H.I.J.O.S. and the Spectacular Denunciation of Impunity: The Struggle for Memory, Truth, and Justice and the (Re-)Construction of Democracy in Argentina

From Blanket Impunity to Judicial Opening(s)

“…It acknowledges that the judiciary, executive, and penal system still have a long way to go and demands juicio y castigo (trial and punishment) for perpetrators and accomplices as on the mock street signs that accompanied the escrache, designed and placed throughout Buenos Aires by the art collective the Grupo Arte Callejero (Street Art Group—GAC) from 1998 on. 3 This demonstrates H.I.J.O.S.’s bottom-up understanding of justice, and it is also a realistic assessment of the vulnerable state of justice in Argentina—in H.I.J.O.S.’s own words (quoted in Druliolle, 2013: 270) “a justice founded on the conviction that genuine justice will not fall from the heights of power like a rotten fruit, a justice that understands that when crime is organized from the state, it falls on society to identify the criminals, judge them, punish them, chasing them even in their dreams.”…”

“…was set up because we demanded trial and punishment; given that those objectives were out of reach for a long time, we had to resort to escraches.” Francisco went on to say that “escraches were simply an instrument of social condemnation to expose dominant impunity owing to the existence of the amnesty laws”—“something necessary, that we had to do, but never the ideal. It was like a sort tool of ‘last resort.’” In H.I.J.O.S.’s own words: “The escrache has been and is a step toward justice” (quoted in Druliolle, 2013: 270). Simón (interview, Buenos Aires, August 14, 2009) stressed that escraches were not an end in themselves and never a form of revenge or vengeance (see also H.I.J.O.S.…”

“…Furthermore, they break with traditional types of protests and marches (H.I.J.O.S. member, quoted in Druliolle, 2013: 266): The escrache is a new form of doing politics and it goes hand in hand with a new aesthetic form, a new form of political participation. .…”

Ephemeral and Ludic Strategies of Remembering in the Streets: A Springboard for Public Memory in Chile

“…These ephemeral performances, as Diana Taylor (:70) notes, have been “strategically positioned outside of history, rendered invalid as a form of cultural transmission.” I contend that these strategies of remembering constitute an expansion of the available forms to talk about the past and a potential form of activating the political engagement of the youth. In this sense, I also draw upon some interesting works that have advanced in this overlooked terrain that connects memory and protests, which analyze similar experiences led by the youth in Argentina, such as HIJOS (Children for Identity and Justice and Against Forgetting and Silence) and its carnivalesque demonstrations, the escraches (Druliolle ; Lessa and Druliolle ; Levey ; Strejilevich ).…”

Le Rôle Politique De La Mémoire en Colombie Et Au Chili : Imaginaires, Mobilisations, Institutions

“…En outre, les perspectives insistant sur la centralité de la mémoire au coeur des enjeux de différents mouvements sociaux, par exemple celle proposée par LeGrand et ses collaborateurs (2017) et celle de Kuri Pineda (2017), se distinguent aussi d'autres travaux sur la mémoire qui sont centrés, en tout ou en partie, sur l'activisme des organisations spécialisées de familles de victimes (Druliolle, 2013;Collins, 2010;Jean, 2018). Éléments essentiels à la compréhension de la persistance et à l'appropriation sociale des questions de justice et de mémoire, des études ne portant que sur le travail des organisations spécialisées de victimes ou de leurs proches ne permettent pas nécessairement de comprendre l'ampleur qu'ont prise ces enjeux au sein de la société au Chili ou en Colombie.…”