New Critical Spaces

            There are too many things to discuss in the articles I read, and I would like to start talking about some experiences that came into my mind while reading the article “New Critical Spaces in Transitional Justice.”

            Terrorism in Peru in the nineties provoked migration of people from the Andes to the coast cities, especially in Lima, starting a new age of centralization of the powers and corruption. An exciting way to talk about these issues and other political topics was through activist art in recreated spaces to talk about memory. An example I would like to share is a TV show named “Pataclown” that was a family of clowns: husband, wife, and a little daughter, and they were living with three ghosts, clowns as well: a priest that represented the power and the corruption of the church in Peru, a snob fat and racist lady, and a hustler that means the most of the Peruvians. As you talk on page 73 in “the role of youth activism and the use of art,” Peru was living a “covered” dictatorship under Fujimori’s regimen; people disappeared, and several media outlets were silenced, but as you said, “the performing art as a form of protest” (73) This TV show was sending a message with a funny, silly and popular tone used to talk about the issues of this country.

            On the other side, it was the first time I understood the meaning of transition justice; I have heard that word many times but never understood its role and complexity, especially in the Truth Commission. I can talk about many examples in Peru. For instance, in the eighties, during the government of Alan Garcia, a group of students and professors were assassinated in a university, “La Cantuta University,” and the government argued that those people were terrorists from Sendero Luminoso. Many years later, a “Truth Commission” was created to clear this event, and I remember that the students had left and communist ideas, and they were murdered for that. The same that happened “In Argentina, a truth commission was set up to investigate the abuses committed by the military junta during the country’s “dirty war” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive – Transitional Justice)

            And I would love to discuss the idea of the spaces in transitional justice or different transitional matters. Fes years ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a Swiss cooperation SECO project in my city, in the north of Peru; they had the idea to construct a landfill and a recycling plant as a model to implement it in the rest of Latino America. The project had a lifetime of 8 years and was divided into three parts; I was present in the first part that sensitized the population with artistic activities, and one of our biggest successes was the creation of a vast dome, like a circus, where each month we were changing themes like “women, children, bullying,” I didn’t realize at that moment how many people with problems like abuse or exploitation were hidden in my city. So they found the dome to explore their fears and share experiences with other people.

Walther Vera