I’ve been reading Children of Cain, by Tina Rosenberg. Published in 1991, it is an exploration of violence and its roots in Latin America, particularly as manifested during the Carter, Regan and Bush Sr administrations in the U.S. Her analysis and anecdotes have left me chilled, particularly those dealing with Argentina and Colombia. One of her assertions in particular has made me realise that a part of me is still dead: the part that can still deal with murder dispassionately.
In her Quijote chapter, she says that people in Colombia become desensitised to the murders around them because they are so common. They no longer see them as violence. Interestingly enough, this has become the case too in Central America, after decades of crime and war related violence.
This all got me thinking about my own experience and whether it would be valuable to exercise the brain cells by telling you about my memories, which contradict some of her statements of fact.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, Ms Rosenberg has spent the time, she’s walked the walk, she’s met all the right people and she’s done her homework. But I wouldn’t give her an A plus. Not on your life. A B Plus or an A minus is all she would get from me.
As a member of the class that she speaks about in her chapter The Laboratory, I know the real spelling of the names of people she mentions there. I also know what actually happened. I was there too, at an impressionable age, and with full command of my mother tongue, Spanish. At the risk of coming across pedantic and anal retentive about details, I will tell my side of the story.
It is not often that a member of the oligarchy who grows up surrounded by privilege and blindness can actually turn around and look objectively at a situation. But 19 years is a very long time. And 19 years in Australia is doubly as long. They didn’t call it “transportation” in the 1800s for nothing. It is so far away from Latin America it might as well not exist.
In a funny kind of way, in Australia I got to see how people from all the different social strata in El Salvador were able to rebuild a life in a new country. Thanks to the Hawke government, they received English lessons, grants to enter university and assistance in resettling. They became examples of the Aussie term “fair go”. They were poster kids for a level playing field. As a result, my view of the poor in El Salvador changed. I saw that opportunity, education and the rule of law give the poor a chance to make something of their lives. And they did.
Today, I am proud to count among my friends a 30 year old Salvadoran woman from the peasant class. She would never have met me back in El Salvador, nor I her. We would definitely never have socialised. In Australia, we are equals. In fact, she lives better than I do. She has a car, an apartment in Chapel Hill and expensive clothes. All without the extreme lengths of communism.
It is for her and the parents she will never see again that I will write my stories. They are all based on memory. I can only carry out basic research to ascertain the facts. Search my mother’s filing cabinet of a memory and my aunt’s notes.
It is for her and her parents, who were disappeared or killed that I will try to explain the context of what happened.
I was one of the lucky ones. I was untouchable for two reasons: an aristocratic last name and a penniless father. We were no longer important enough to kidnap or kill. But we still got invited to all of the social events that the bigwigs went to.
I can’t say I met Roberto D’Aubuisson Arrieta. No, I didn’t, but my mother did. She went to countless wakes where he sat down with the relatives of the dead and drank scotch while he told dirty jokes.
I can’t say I met Freddy Cristiani. No, I didn’t, but my mother did. She used to walk to school as a teenager with him.
I can’t say I met Calderon Sol. No, I didn’t, but my mother used to dance at functions with him.
And the Llovera Pinel brothers, no I didn’t meet them. I met their half-brother who was my uncle by marriage.
But that little country is so small and our circles so tiny, that without having met them, I knew their stories, the colour of their bedlinen and the names of their illegtimate children.
So, for my friend whose parents fought on the poor side of the fence, I will write my stories.
