A story about Argentina

A story from Lawrence Thornton in Imagining Argentina.
We need new stories for our times:
even new storytellers
says our story teller (in the hot afternoon….)
gathering around a tree in Cubbon Park

So let me gather some stars and make a fire for you, and tell you a story:
It is a story of horror and hope; a story of the disappeared; a story so real, yet magical: a story from Lawrence Thornton in Imagining Argentina.

It is a story about Argentina under the dictators. The hero is a gentle person Carlos Rueda, an intense man who directs a children’s theatre and is at home in the world of children.

During the time of the dictators, Carlos discovers that he has an extraordinary gift. He realizes that he is the site, the locus, the vessel for a dream. He can narrate the fate of the missing.

From all over Argentina, men and women come to his home and sitting in his garden, Carlos tells them stories : tales of torture, courage, luck, death, stories about the missing. All around the house are birds, tropical in hope, each a memory of a lost friend.

One day the regime arrests his wife Celia, for a courageous act of reporting. The world of Carlos collapses till he realizes that he must keep her alive in his imagination.

Only the imagination, says Carlos, stands between us and terror; terror makes us behave like sheep when we must dream like poets.

Carlos realizes that for the regime there are only two kinds of people: sheep and terrorists. Terrorists are those who dare to differ or dare to dream differently. Carlos enters the world of the tortured.

As the regime becomes more violent, it is the women who object. It is the women as wives, as mothers, as daughters who congregate in silence at the Plaza de Mayo. Quietly, silently each carries a placard announcing or asking about the missing. Vaclav Haval calls it the power of the powerless. The women walk quietly, sometimes holding hands.

It is not just an act of protest; it is a drama of caring; each listening to the other’s story, each assuring the other through touch, weaving a sense of community.

The community grows as the men join them.

All the while, through the window, the Generals watch them. One General in particular, face like a mask, eyes covered with inscrutable goggles. It is the totalitarianism of the eye encountering the community of the ear. General Guzman is the observer, the eye in search of intelligence. His falcon cars sweep the city, picking people at random.

People realize that they cannot be indifferent observers, spectators, bystanders, even experts. The indifference of the watchers to the spectacles of the regime won’t do.
One must be a witness.
A witness is not a mere spectator.
She looks but she also listens.
She remembers.
She meets the vigilance of the eye through remembering.
Thornton shows that the world of torture is a strange world. It maims the victim, emasculates the body and the self. Carlos writes a children’s play called Names which evokes every man, every woman, every torture. Everything must be recited. Nothing must be forgotten. Every scream must be redeemed with a name.

We must explore the new imaginary not as experts but as witnesses.

Source: The story is part of an essay titled South Wind: Towards A New Political Imaginary by Corinne Kumar
 

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