Payne, Leigh A.: Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence.

Bonner, Michelle D.

Payne, Leigh A. Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008. 374 pp.

Kaiser, Susana. Postmemories of Terror: A New Generation Copes with the Legacy of the "Dirty War." New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. 242 pp.

What role does memory play in democratization? What role does memory play in ensuring that past human rights abuses, those committed under previous authoritarian regimes, never happen again? Is it better to forget? These are the challenging questions posed in the two books reviewed here.

In Unsettling Accounts, Payne analyzes different types of confessions made by perpetrators of human rights abuses in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and South Africa. She argues that while the perpetrators' memories (or, at times, amnesia) are not necessarily the truth nor do they necessarily allow society to heal, they are important for democratization because they invariably incite public debate. Through debate, citizens exercise their rights to free speech and political participation, and can challenge "antidemocratic attitudes, behaviour, and values in society" (p.3). Rather than reconciliation, Payne argues, instead the "contentious coexistence" established through such debate is what will strengthen democracy most.

While the memories of those who witnessed, were victimized, or participated in authoritarian regimes are important, in Postmemories of Terror, Kaiser asks us to reflect on how those who were not there remember what happened. In 1998, Kaiser interviewed 63 young people (between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two) residing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who were not direct victims, human rights activists, or advocates of the military. She argues that these young people's memories, or rather postmemories, are important for understanding the legacy of the authoritarian regime and for understanding "the roles that this new generation of citizens might play in the consolidation of democracy" (p.3). While Kaiser remains optimistic, it is concerning to read that the legacy of silence, fear, and impotence (attributed to impunity) have contributed to many youth turning away from politics.

Together these books make an important contribution to the literature on memory in transitional societies in three key areas: silence, political participation, and the media.

Silence

At first glance, silence appears to be a challenging topic to "talk" about. Yet both authors stress that silence affects memory. Payne focuses on silence in terms of perpetrators not talking about the past. This form of silence has been advocated by many actors in new democracies: by perpetrators in order to avoid prosecution or death; by victims in order to avoid the pain of hearing confessions; by the media in order to protect themselves or their news outlets or show support for the previous regime; and by many others who advocate that silence will allow for society to heal the wounds of the past. However, Payne argues that silences must be total in order to be effective for perpetrator protection and that this is hard to achieve and maintain. Audiences can also interpret silences in ways that challenge the power of those who remain silent. Payne recognizes that debate over confessions can be dangerous, but on balance, she argues, such debate is much more valuable to democracy than silence.

Kaiser explores silence in more detail. Looking at Argentina, where perpetrators have confessed, Kaiser addresses the silences youths experience on the subject of the dictatorship in school and at home. Silences, she argues, stem from individuals' feelings of residual fear, guilt, pain, and/or desire to avoid conflict. Youths speak of teachers who "run out of time" in Argentine history classes before they can cover the period from Juan Domingo Peron to the present day. Youths speak of parents who do not talk to their children about the dictatorship. Similar to Payne, Kaiser notes that silences are not absolute and thus youths learn about the dictatorship through fragmented and decontextualized pieces of information, and with this information they try to fill in the powerful silences. Like Payne, Kaiser finds that discussion is better for democracy than silence.

Political participation

Both books emphasize the importance of political participation for the strengthening of new democracies and argue that memory plays an important role. Payne tackles the relationship between memory and political participation most directly. Her central concept of "contentious coexistence" emphasises the need for public debate over memory in order to strengthen political participation in democracy. However, who should be participating, and how, is not addressed as directly. There are a number of references to the important role of human rights organizations in challenging the authoritarian ideas advocated in many perpetrators' confessions and in using the public reaction to these confessions to push for justice, trials, and investigations. However, less attention is paid to the support needed by these organizations from the media and political parties to have their message heard.

Kaiser allows us to think through why, even in a country where a truth commission report became a best seller and perpetrator confessions have been well-mediatized, does the memory of past human rights abuses and continued impunity not motivate more people to become actively involved in politics and building democracy. While Kaiser raises a number of issues on this point I will highlight two. First, she shows that many youth, in free-riding fashion, feel that while they support claims for justice it is the role of those affected by the previous regime to advocate accountability. Second, the legacy of fear is a reason given by many youth for their lack of activism. Kaiser explains: "Explicitly or implicitly, most parents had told their children to stay away from activities that were repressed in the past ... This translated into a tendency to be apolitical and to avoid public and political participation." (p.62). Many students express fear of being put on a "list", reminiscent of the dictatorship. Perhaps, as Payne suggests, public debate on memory can contribute to decreasing this fear. Of course this assumes not only that people are willing to participate but also that the media is willing to disseminate the debate.

Media

The relationship between the media and memory is central in both these books. In Unsettling Accounts, Payne draws our attention to the fact that perpetrator confessions are seen or heard, or both, by most people through the media. Often the confession occurs through an interview with a journalist. If the confession takes place in court or in an inquiry it is the media that transmit the information. The media thus affect what is seen, heard, or read by choosing, for example, what quotes are taken out, how much of the confession is presented, what camera angles are used, what questions are asked (or not asked) of the confessor, or what type of debate (if any) occurs during or after the confession. In most cases the media coverage "becomes the event" and "obliterate[s] the original" (p.23). Payne critiques the transitional justice literature for focusing on "establishing the right set of institutions, often ignoring the role of the media in generating the political meaning around those institutions." (p.24). Payne does recognize that the media do not always play the role they could in fostering public debate over memory. However, for the most part Payne does not problematize the role of the media. To what degree are human rights organizations, and their side of the debate, covered in the media in relation to perpetrators? Who owns and regulates the media? Can media be structured or regulated in such a way as to foster the type of public debate that will most benefit democracy? These questions are beyond the scope of her book but are left dangling, needing answers.

Kaiser dedicates a whole chapter to how the media affect postmemory. Many of the youth she interviewed identified the media (including not only TV, radio, and newspapers but also film and music) as an important source of information on the dictatorship. Reinforcing the point made by Payne, Kaiser argues that the Argentine media only really began to extensively cover issues of the dictatorship when retired Navy Captain Adolfo Scilingo confessed in 1995 to participating in human rights abuses during the military regime (Postmemories of Terror, p. 150). Since 1995, the dictatorship has been a consistent topic covered in Argentine media. Youths said that some television shows sparked family discussions about the dictatorship. Yet, Kaiser says "participants were, in general, very critical of the content and style of mainstream media reporting, which they categorized as fragmentary, single-issue, sound-bite style, profit-driven sensationalism, lacking in context, and aimed at reinforcing certain agendas" (p. 150). The media affect not only the types of debates on memory that take place but also the content of memory for many in the next generation. While the youths' comments are revealing, Kaiser does not provide a sufficient overview of the literature on the media and memory for the reader to understand what these comments tell us that we do not already know. Indeed, this is a problem with many of the chapters and the book as a whole; throughout, the literature on memory is not explained sufficiently to allow the reader to fully appreciate the contribution of the book.

However, overall these two books offer interesting and important analyses of the role of memory and how memory is addressed in the building of new democracies.

By Michelle D. Bonner *

* Professor Bonner teaches political science at the University of Victoria. She is author of Sustaining Human Rights: Women and Human Rights (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009.).