Political Violence Essay, Research Paper
Denial as a Method of Covering With Political Violence
Allyson Runfola
Latin American Civilization
April 11, 2000
Peoples chose every twenty-four hours, in a myriad of ways, between denial and self-knowledge. Most of the clip this pick is innocuous. A parent may believe their evidently lying kid instead than accept the emotional hurt that comes with be lied to. The organic structure politic may believe an unscrupulous politician instead than to acquire out and work for existent alteration. Many times, nevertheless, denial may hold far-reaching and black effects. In the instance of the violent political turbulence that occurred in Latin American from 1964 until the 1990s, the citizens of the affected states remained divided between those who wanted to cognize and those who didn? T. Work force With Guns, a fictional movie by John Sayles, Four Days in September, a fact-based movie by Bruno Barreto and A Matter of Fear & # 8211 ; Portrait of an Argentine Exile, the memoirs of journalist Andrew Graham-Yooll, offer a alone position into the psychological science of denial in the face of force.
Work force With Guns, a authoritative picaresque, Tells of one adult male? s enlightenment towards the true nature of the political and military atrociousnesss in his state. The chief character, Dr. Fuentes ( played by Federico Luppi ) has one major defect ; he naively believes in the goodness of work forces, and despite his evident intelligence, transportations this belief onto the complexnesss of his state? s political system. Although his portraiture in the film is personalized and profoundly impacting, Dr. Fuentes is the prototype of an educated, urban middle class who has no existent construct of what is go oning in his ain state. As a adult male with a societal witting, Dr. Fuentes had implemented a medical plan to help the autochthonal population of his state. It is during the journey he takes to look into up on his trainees? advancement that causes true enlightenment to organize. Measure by measure, the flooring world of the ferociousness towards the autochthonal people becomes distressingly evident to Dr. Fuentes yet he continually reassures himself that his authorities treats all citizens of his state with an equal step of regard and compassion. The spectator wants to cognize: is it the comfort of his well-ordered life that inhibits his credence of the truth? Challenging the established political powers could, and most likely would, take to major break in his life. Or could it be the built-in feature of worlds to defy alteration? The latter is the more likely scenario ; Dr Fuentes did non wish to admit the inhuman treatment in the universe around him merely because it was non comfy to him psychologically. And what was the cost to Dr. Fuentes? Not merely did he experience a enormous emptiness at his decease, but besides his dream of a go forthing behind a bequest? the constitution of medical attention for the autochthonal population? was no longer tangent.
Four Days in September, a movie based on the snatch of the United States Ambassador Charles Elbrick in Brazil of 1969, offers a dramatized relation of the event. The mov? ? 7? ? ? & # 8221 ;
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Denial as a Method of Covering With Political Violence
Allyson Runfola
Latin American Ci
vilization
April 11, 2000
Peoples chose every twenty-four hours, in a myriad of ways, between denial and self-knowledge. Most of the clip this pick is innocuous. A parent may believe their evidently lying kid instead than accept the emotional hurt that comes with be lied to. The organic structure politic may believe an unscrupulous politician instead than to acquire out and work for existent alteration. Many times, nevertheless, denial may hold far-reaching and black effects. In the instance of the violent political turbulence that occurred in Latin American from 1964 until the 1990s, the citizens of the affected states remained divided between those who wanted to cognize and those who didn? T. Work force With Guns, a fictional movie by John Sayles, Four Days in September, a fact-based movie by Bruno Barreto and A Matter of Fear & # 8211 ; Portrait of an Argentine Exile, the memoirs of journalist Andrew Graham-Yooll, offer a alone position inthe clip, he did nil to protect himself. Elbrick was exposing a authoritative signifier of American denial: the apparently indomitability of the United States would screen him from force practiced by others.
A Matter of Fear, by Andrew Graham-Yooll, is a hauntingly existent memoir of the farces that occurred in Argentina between 1976 and 1981. Graham-Yooll, a well-respected journalist, diagrammatically describes the events that he has witnessed during this period. As are the characters in the movies mentioned above, Graham-Yooll is a solidly middle-class, educated individual caught up in a battle non of his ain choosing. The similarity ends at that place. This is non an aged adult male afraid of alteration, nor is this a vernal dreamer. Graham-Yooll has the added benefit of information garnered through his function as a journalist, the certainty of in-between age to assist stabilise his sentiments and the intelligence to see his states struggles without icterus. Yet, he excessively is in denial.
? It was a Friday afternoon and I was be aftering to take an early cut from the paper, to acquire to a garden cocktail near place. The expression was one of comfort, spring, Friday and a garden cocktail and it made the very thought of 90 political slayings unreal and something that I could non, I would non hold go oning around me. ? ( p.52 )
Graham-Yooll intellectually understands the hideous state of affairs that he is caught up in, yet emotionally the world of it all is merely excessively much for him. Like Dr. Fuentes and the huge bulk of people around the universe, Graham-Yooll was non comfy psychologically with his states violent state of affairs. It was much simpler for him pretend that life was normal? ? I went to the cocktail and enjoyed it. ? ( p.54 ) It is merely after Graham-Yooll? s expatriate to Britain that adequate physical distance has been placed between himself and the events that he could look back and experience the demand, the duty, to record said events for prosperity.
Are there truly topographic points that still exist that anguish persons for political beliefs, kidnap guiltless administrative officials and slaughter autochthonal people for the interest of a secret plan of Earth? Are at that place truly people within these topographic points that turn a blind oculus to the contention environing them, go violent themselves or go on to travel to cocktail parties? Of class there are. Without maliciousness we should inquire ourselves to weigh the monetary value between non cognizing and cognizing and between silence and recognition. All the characters we have looked at, whether existent or fictional, hold had to face these picks. The picks made differed from character to character, yet the common human trait of denial was of all time present. Would we act any otherwise?
