Column:
Law and Literature
March/April 2012
throughout Central and Latin America, while just two countries – Venezuela and Costa Rica – practiced free elections. Aguirre is adept at weaving together the disparate elements of the complicated lives of the family members as they establish themselves in the different “beachheads” for revolution through subterfuge. They know that discovery of their true identity in the police states or quasi-police states they move through by stealth will lead to a handover to the not-so-tender mercies of the Pinochet gang. Despite the considerable danger, there remains time for immersion in local cultural activities and the plugging-in to American pop culture, such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller, John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in Grease and jeans from Carmen’s father. A profusion of love affairs reveal that the heart of the young revolutionary isn’t always primly and puritanically devoted to the cause of social justice. The portraits of Bob, the gringo Canadian willing to come to fight for justice in foreign lands and of his hippy, Aguirre is adept at weaving unconventional feminist mother – Mami – are deeply affecting. together the disparate elements We see Bob descending into helpless rage at the frustrating of the complicated lives of the circumstances he finds himself in, unable to use his energies family members as they establish productively for long stretches. We see Carmen experience what themselves in the different she calls “The Terror”, reliving in her mind the traumatic raid she and her sister endured when she was five, scarring her profoundly “beachheads” for revolution and leaving her guilt-ridden. We are privy to the high personal through subterfuge. cost of the resistance to Pinochet, but also the justifiable pride that standing firm gives the rebels. After a return to Canada, Carmen at 18 decides for herself to recommit to the cause and ventures back to Argentina to continue the struggle with her husband. A particularly poignant moment in the book occurs near the end when the narrator, a slightly disenchanted and older woman, meets up with “Alejandro”, now her exhusband, but still her compañero. The two sum up the gains and the losses of their wondrous time in the resistance. Alejandro suspects that he will never be able to tell the story of his revolutionary past to those close to him in his new life, who might think he went too far. Having completed Aguirre’s very fine memoir, I thought it would be useful to compare her experiences with those of Heraldo Muñoz, who lived through the same time period as the “revolutionary family” from Canada in his memoir: The Dictator’s Shadow. I will discuss that book in the next issue of LawNow.
Robert Normey is a lawyer with the Constitutional and Aboriginal Law Branch of Alberta Justice in Edmonton, Alberta.
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