Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Coming to Terms with Memory
- 1 The Tragedy of Memory: Antigone, Memory, and the Politics of Possibility
- 2 Remembering to Forget: Democratizing Memory, Nietzschean Forgetting, and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- 3 Introducing Segregated Memory and Segregated Democracy in America
- 4 Remembering What Others Cannot Be Expected to Forget: James Baldwin and Segregated Memory
- 5 Making Silence Speak: Toni Morrison and the Beloved Community of Memory
- 6 In Memory of Democratic Time: Specters of Mexico's Past and Democracy's Future
- 7 The Future of the Past: Unholy Ghosts and Redemptive Possibilities
- 8 Imprisoned by the Past: The Complexion of Mass Incarceration
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
6 - In Memory of Democratic Time: Specters of Mexico's Past and Democracy's Future
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Coming to Terms with Memory
- 1 The Tragedy of Memory: Antigone, Memory, and the Politics of Possibility
- 2 Remembering to Forget: Democratizing Memory, Nietzschean Forgetting, and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- 3 Introducing Segregated Memory and Segregated Democracy in America
- 4 Remembering What Others Cannot Be Expected to Forget: James Baldwin and Segregated Memory
- 5 Making Silence Speak: Toni Morrison and the Beloved Community of Memory
- 6 In Memory of Democratic Time: Specters of Mexico's Past and Democracy's Future
- 7 The Future of the Past: Unholy Ghosts and Redemptive Possibilities
- 8 Imprisoned by the Past: The Complexion of Mass Incarceration
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In Mexico, all times are living, all pasts are present. … The coexistence in Mexico of multiple historical levels is but the external sign of a deep subconscious decision made by the country and its people; all times must be maintained, all times must be kept alive. Why? Because no Mexican time has yet fulfilled itself. We are a horizon of latent, promising or frustrated, never fully achieved potentialities. A country of suspended times.
—Carlos FuentesIn what became known as the Corpus Christi massacre, on June 10, 1971, roughly eight thousand student protesters marched on Mexico City's central square to oppose the government of President Luis Echeverría. A secret police unit called the Falcons (Halcones) attacked the marchers, allegedly killing at least twenty-five people—some that day and others after torture and interrogation. Echeverría ruled the country from 1970 to 1976 during what is often referred to as the “dirty war”—a term used to describe the government's clandestine efforts to crush dissent. Echeverría's government and his party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), allegedly used wiretaps, rape, torture, genocide, and extra-judicial death sentences to silence opponents. The media were coopted to prevent the actions of the government from becoming public. Since then, the Mexican government's human rights commission has uncovered numerous stories of horrific acts perpetrated by the secret police, and there is evidence that children born to imprisoned mothers were stolen and that the Falcons were explicitly trained to kidnap, torture, and rape on behalf of the government.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Power of Memory in Democratic Politics , pp. 104 - 124Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013