Untangling the threads of a rambling dissertation

This year is going to be mainly dominated by my dissertation on the Valech Report- the 2004 report on cases of political detention and torture under Pinochet.

Below is a start on a draft- more a self-blog of how I got here, and where I'm going to go with it.

Valech: Chilean society and an ever present history

Why am I doing this?

Italian reasons
Given the present climate, it is no longer at all controversial to claim that divisions stemming from the fascist past still live on in Italy. As a part Italian, these divisions were implicit in my upbringing. My ‘nonna’, although a ‘giovane fascista’ in her early youth, was an active member of the resistance movement and as such had transmitted onto me her hatred of what the fascists did when their mountainous rocks became the hard place. Now way past the 80 year old mark, there are people from our 900 strong village that she still wouldn't speak to, and the memories and the stories and the facts still divide brothers; in my case to great uncles of mine who, though neighbours and both well over 80, still don't speak to each other- one a decorated army official, the other a partisan whose sacrifices and beliefs have been left to the leftwing historians.
The leftwing historians. Yes, because these divisions aren’t only highlighted by family feuds or more recently, by the election of a fascist mayor. These divisions are part of Italian identity- your clothes, your friendships, your life choices reflect the left or the right. Your writings, your readings, are tinged by black or red. Everyday life- both in and our of congress- is characterised by ‘irruptions of memory’- from realising that the spectators of an ice hockey match are singing fascist hymns to the ‘piazza Fontana’ retrials that merely added to insult to death and serious injury.

Chilean reasons
This awareness that the past was never really put to rest in Italy greatly influenced my take on the Valech Report. In Chile, as in much of South America, there has been a lot of talk in recent years of ‘justice’ and ‘reconciliation’. But this talk happens in the context of a society that would, for the most part prefer to proffer the other cheek and look away.