Testimony: Beyond the Language of Truth

Abstract

Tension exists between the ways in which testimonies voice their truth, and the expectations readers or listeners have regarding what truth means and how it should be voiced. Society favors systematizing testimony as a collection of facts whereas testimony after genocide does not abide by the rules established by the scientific/academic/legal apparatus. Rather, it voices the intimate, subjective, deep dimension of horror. Having witnessed the abyss of atrocity, survivors can no longer rely on knowledge or facts as the basis for thinking. It is mostly in the realm of literature where recounting becomes an elaboration of language so that it can invoke the true nature of the "event." Based on authors such as Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Ariel Dorfman, Shoshana Felman, Dominique LaCapra, Dori Laub, and Walter Benjamin, this article underscores the role of testimony as a means for working through traumatic memories and for social and cultural resistance—a must for the ethical recovery of a community after the experience of utmost exclusion.

Ayotzinapa, de Tryno Maldonado: entre realidad y ficción

“…Me interesa particularmente la idea de Beverley de que la manera de contar un testimonio "no [es] independiente de su efecto político" 23 . Por otro lado, la manera en que Ayotzinapa ficcionaliza el testimonio (o los testimonios) resuena con la idea de Nora Strejilevich de que lo intrínsecamente subjetivo de un testimonio y la movilización de la "verdad" del testimoniante se logran de manera más adecuada a través del lenguaje literario 24 .…”

Victims' Stories of Human Rights Abuse: The Ethics of Ownership, Dissemination, and Reception

“…If Andrea Westlund is right that victim storytellers are exercising a moral power and issuing a “call to care,” it makes sense that they would welcome human rights professionals' offers to serve as intermediaries in communicating their stories to wider audiences. Likewise, if Nora Strejilevich is right that “the truth told in testimony … is one of the last reservoirs of dignity left for humanity” (, 706), it is unsurprising that many victims willingly collaborate with human rights professionals who provide opportunities for them to speak out.…”

Picturing peace: murals and memory in Colombia

“…people had expectations about human decency which were obliterated in the camps; such a fundamental shock was difficult, if not impossible, to assimilate. 30 This can have catastrophic consequences in relation to what we regard as memory. Memory requires assimilation before it can be classed as experience; trauma ensures that the person cannot move on to the point of looking back on the experience because he or she is still caught in the middle of the event.…”