43823942

Uncomfortable Laughter: Reflections on Violence, Humour and Immorality in Argentina
Author(s): Eva van Roekel

Source: Etnofoor, Vol. 28, No. 1, Humour (2016), pp. 55-74
Published by: Stichting Etnofoor
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Uncomfortable Laughter
Eva van Roekel
Utrecht University
In March 2010 I began researching the particular ways human rights activists, judges, lawyers, journalists, and
victims and indicted military officers experienced psychologists who worked on the trials, and by
emotions regarding state violence, such as pain, remorse,attending courtroom sessions, participating in human
guilt, indifference, revenge and shame, and how these rights rallies and conferences, memorial sites and (mili-
emotions played a crucial role in the trials for crimestary) prisons.
against humanity in Argentina. Although the prose- I encountered numerous methodological difficulties
cuted crimes, such as the thousands of disappeared, thein researching emotions in an unfamiliar setting and as
tortures and killings of illegal detainees, the deatha way of dealing with these obstacles, I used particular
flights and the illegal adoptions of new-born infants, techniques, such as exploring silences, gestures, smoth-
were committed during the last dictatorship (1976-ered voices, and moving bodies, and subsequently
1983), the emotions that concerned these atrocitiesdiscussed these embodied experiences with several
informants which produced interesting insights about
were not part of this past, but were very much a part of
the present. Throughout my fieldwork I focused on the violence. Unexpectedly, humour about violence also
these experienced emotions from the perspective of provided thought-provoking insights. Therefore, during
my fieldwork I began researching humour, which
both the victim and the perpetrator. I did so through
conducting interviews with a wide range of people,allowed me to unlock important everyday immoralities
such as indicted military officers, witness-victims,and social taboos regarding the violence. I read for
Etnofoor, Humour, volume 28, issue 1, 2016, pp. 55-74
instance satirical columns about a tragic new disappear- to the violent past and the prosecutions. Therefore, the
ance of a survivor involved in a trial for crimes against central aim of this article is to understand how humour
humanity, I participated in carnivalesque street demon- is a central factor to the understanding of those aspects
strations with mocking games and ironic banners, and I of state violence and the current trials in Argentina that
observed jokes, funny one-liners, embodied parodies, are often considered uncomfortable.1 Based on my
repressed grins, and bouts of laughter among Argen- fieldwork findings, I will argue that humour in post-
tines belonging to very different social worlds. conflict settings, like in Argentina, is often about
Although Argentines from different backgrounds everyday moral confusion and moral uncertainty, and
may ridicule the same subject matter - the violence of questions the boundaries between 'us' and 'them'. Put
the seventies and early eighties and the current trials - differently, sharing uncomfortable laughter and jokes
what was defined as funny to an accused military officer with victims and accused military officers often
was often offensive to a victim of state violence, and depicted, affectively, internalised ambiguities about the
vice versa. In other words, the so-called 'Janus face' of social boundaries of responsibility and complicity quite
humour was very prominent in this post-conflict field common to societies recovering from collective
setting. At the beginning these moments of wit were violence. By analysing several of these humour prac-
often quite puzzling. What can be funny, for instance, tices and humour products from my fieldwork in
about a new disappearance or a victims testimony at Argentina, this article contributes to the large anthro-
court? To wire up into local humour about violence pological work on violence and (post-)conflict settings.
required profound knowledge of the matters ridiculed, As a result, this article engages with forms of
as I have argued elsewhere (Van Roekel 2013). Over humour that range from slightly inappropriate laughter
time I uncovered that humour acts as an interesting to carnivalesque embodied parodies. I will begin with a
lens to uncover various dynamics of post-conflict laugh about the on-going flow of victims' testimonies
settings, such as pressing social issues regarding in Argentina, which sometimes generates annoyance
accountability and guilt. This humour often surpasses among Argentine professionals working with victims,
analyses of humour in terms of subordination and which is socially condemned due to a dominant social
power; the jokes and parodies in Argentina rather acted value of the victims testimony in Argentina. In the
against everyday moral codes concerning collective second section, I will discuss the moral condemnation
violence and suffering. of social indifference about violence and social injus-
Studies on transitional justice and reconciliation tices by analysing the content of two Argentine satirical
processes have often overlooked humour in the after- magazines: a progressive left-wing and a conservative
math of violence. Yet, the humour I encountered in magazine. I will contextualise the content of these
Argentina revealed to a great extent how victims and magazines within a broader local culture of print
human rights activists, and indicted military officers humour in Argentina. The third section explores
and their kin experienced and currently give meaning humour during a colourful street demonstration outside
56
the federal court that was not merely an act of cultural the victims' testimonies, was able to get up. Laura
resistance belonging to a subaltern group, but revealed reasoned that the pain had simply tied them to their
the incongruities and inconsistencies of an everyday chairs. She explained this pain as a form of re-trauma-
ethos against revenge and hatred. Finally, I reflect on tisation at the courts, which always occurred on two
the dynamics between humour and moral confusion levels - that of the witness's talk about torture and
and the role humour plays in understanding collective disappearance, and the publics listening to victims'
violence and social responsibility in post-conflict testimonies. Surprisingly, during one conversation,
settings. In so doing, I challenge Buckley s (2003) idea Laura suddenly laughed out loud and confessed that
on humour and morality that sharing humour auto- after coming home from a long day's work, she some-
matically cultivates solidarity and harmony. times yelled to her partner, a human rights lawyer
working at the trials, 'Enough, enough, I do not want to
hear anything anymore from a victim-survivor!' With
Catharsis fatigue apologetic tone Laura immediately explained that she
could not work with victims without this dash of
Working as a psychoanalyst for victims for many years, humour.
Laura Figueroa had listened to countless testimonies.2 This overt wit of a psychoanalyst about the fatigue
Laura was always considerate during our conversations she experienced from continuously listening to victims'
about the victims' present problems and traumatic past. traumatic experiences revealed contradictory dualities
She explained that during all these years of counselling between morally accepted opinions of victims' testimo-
she had primarily learned that many survivors could nies, and what some Argentines sometimes actually felt
never forget that they had been in a concentration while listening to the repetitive testimonies on torture,
camp. Laura spoke mostly about survivors of the survival, disappearance and death. During my field-
Argentine illegal detention centres of the seventies, but work at the courts, I often discussed at length the most
she also commented that sometimes children of the recent victims' testimonies with prosecution lawyers,
disappeared and other relatives experienced the samehuman rights activists and relatives of the disappeared,
sort of problems and often came to Laura to discuss and we always agreed on how tough it was for victims
them. to re-experience everything and for the public to listen
She went on to say that she always had to cope as a to their testimonies. Despite our considerate comments,
professional, but she acknowledged that sometimes she I sometimes noticed slight traces of annoyance among
came home thinking that she could not tolerate it any some professionals and myself. However, my probes to
longer. To illustrate these difficulties she reflected on auncover the meanings of these irritations were unsuc-
recent testimony at court. Laura said that after cessful:
a Argentine professionals always denied annoy-
witness-victim had testified literally no one, not even
ance with victims' testimonies. Only once did a foreign
the human rights lawyers who were used to listening tolawyer at court whisper his disapproval about the
57
validity of the on-going stream of disturbing stories of Argentine victims' testimonies and the judge's inter-
survival and disappearance. pretation of the victims' testimony in court as a compul-
This predominant denial puzzled me for quite some sory catharsis should be located in a local everyday
time and generated a certain discomfort: it felt wrong morality based on the Freudian talking cure. This
to be irritated by testimonies of survival and loss. I everyday morality involves the on-going verbalization
asked Judge Bernardo Martinez about his opinion of of anxieties and constitutes a social form of psychoana-
the omnipresence and length of witness' testimonies. lytical therapy.
Martinez replied that he always purposely asked Particularly in the urban areas, many Argentines
testigos-victimas (witness-victims) if they had some- practice psychoanalytical therapy, and its therapeutic
thing else to say. He explained that their testimony language and the on-going practices of catharsis, free
functioned as a form of catharsis. He commented that association and analysis are continuously internalised
although it was not always legally relevant, he always in the everyday life of many porteños (inhabitants of
let the witnesses talk freely, sometimes for hours, Buenos Aires) (Plotkin 2001; Visacovsky 2009). In
because he considered that the act of testifying was an Argentine social life, these counselling sessions between
important part of their justice experience. Judge therapist and patient, and the legal testimonies of a
Martinez understood the victims' testimonies as an witness to a tribunal surpass these formal settings and
inevitable part of the legal ritual. co-exist with everyday forms of free association and
Recent studies have shown that in many legal working through of anxieties and repressed memories
systems there is much more freedom to share stories at ofhome, a memorial site, at a bar, or somewhere else
victimization with the court and that it has been where people meet and share intimate thoughts. In the
globally recognised that victims are relevant partici- field I quickly learned that particularly victims' testi-
pants in retributive justice procedures (Englebert 2011:
monies, at all these different sites, were highly valued
144; Letschert and Van Dijk 2011: 3-5; Pham etbyal.
my informants. Being silent about their traumas or
everyday anxieties was considered unhealthy and a
2011: 284). In my view, the importance of victims'
testimonies at the trials for crimes against humanity in of psychological resistance, as three psychologists
form
Argentina cannot be solely explained by this global
working with victims of the last dictatorship explained
trend of victims' participation in retributive justice. once.
The One sister of a disappeared even reasoned that by
prominence of the victims' testimony at the courts continuously
in talking about her brother's disappearance
Argentina belongs to wider social processes that
kept her head in the right place (Van Roekel 2016:
119-121).
consider the act of articulating suffering as imperative
to the experience of justice. In other words, besides Ita became clear to me that merely listening to human
growing international denunciation of impunityrightsof activists, psychologists and legal professionals'
state violence based on international humanitarian law considerate opinions about the victim's testimony
in many Latin American countries, the importance of would not have disclosed the discomforts of this social
58
rule; how to value victims' testimonies was not always An anthropological study of children of Holocaust
unambiguously experienced. Professionals almost survivors and lived memory has also shown that these
always denied annoyances. It was Lauras laugh about classic humour studies do not sufficiently explain all
her fatigue of listening too often to victims' traumatic kinds of ludic framings of violence (Kidron 2010: 441).
experiences that revealed the contradictory dualities Kidron (ibid.: 432) understands humour concerning
between morally accepted opinions of victims' testimo- genocide as a cultural mechanism that allows exploring
nies, and what some Argentines sometimes actually felt incongruities and ambiguities between hegemonic
while listening to these repetitive testimonies. commemorative narratives of the atrocities among
Anthropologist Kathleen Stewart (2007: 69) argues Holocaust survivors. Their humour mocks mainstream
that ethnographers should always wire directly into testimonial and therapeutic practices for survivors of
jokes and skip the step of content altogether. Although genocide and their relatives and enabled family members
I fully agree with the methodological value of tapping to live with multiple contradictory dualities (ibid.: 443).
into local humour during fieldwork, skipping content Kidron's analysis on humour and the immoral is
in an unfamiliar (post-)conflicting context was unwork- what I find most useful in understanding the humour
able. Learning what was funny about victims' catharsis in listening to victims' traumatic stories in Argentina,
took quite some time. To be able to understand Laura's which was often firmly denied by committed profes-
laugh, I had to grapple with a local taboo of annoyance sionals. The humour that rarely surfaced showed the
about victims' repetitive stories of trauma, which troubling contradictions between what professionals in
belongs to a local psychoanalytical world that highly Argentina thought they were supposed to think and
values the verbalization of trauma. feel about victims' testimonies, and what they some-
Being multi-layered and belonging to a foreign times actually experienced during the repeated stories
context, tapping into Laura's humour about victims' of torture, survival, disappearance and death. Annoy-
testimonies was complicated. I also found it problem- ance about victims' repetitive stories was clearly out of
atic to define and analyse her laugh by referring to place among these progressive professionals. Laura's
classic studies on humour, such as Scott's (1985) notion laugh acted against this everyday moral code concerning
of a weapon of the weak' in which humour acts as a victims' testimonies. There existed many other immo-
form of cultural resistance to contest power relations, ralities related to the violence and the suffering of the
or Freud's (1960 [1905]) idea of humour as a 'subcon- last dictatorship. Besides annoyance, indifference was
scious canalizations' of repressed memories, or Bakhtin's even worse and many committed Argentine profes-
(1986) idea that humour, particularly irony, are 'substi- sionals I spoke with linked it to the social amnesia
tutes for silence'. I rather began to see the humour that concerning the violence in contemporary Argentine
I encountered in Argentina as everyday re-workings of society. After forty years, several local satirical maga-
discomforts, immoralities and ambiguities in a post- zines still mock this social indifference and amnesia, as
conflict setting. the next section will clarify.
59
Argentine black humour morally incorrect and makes fun of official and social
institutions, like the government and the Church, but
In 2010, purely by chance, I noticed a copy of Barce- also of the former repressive regimes, and now even of
lona, , an Argentine progressive satirical magazine, in a the human rights organisations. The magazine saw the
typical kiosk in Buenos Aires. On the back page the light of day in the aftermath of the economic meltdown
headline said: August 2nd: National Son of a Bitch and political crisis at the end of 2001. Since then,
Day'. Underneath were nine black-and-white photo- Barcelona has questioned the conditions of democracy,
graphs of military officers that were active during the the ruling classes, and social justice in Argentina.
last dictatorship, each captioned 'Happy Son of a Bitch Nowadays, their items are part of a growing sphere of
Day' I automatically assumed that this hinted at the criticism of the Kirchner government and their oppor-
commercial excesses of these contrived celebrations, tunistic' human rights politics that paved the way for a
like Secretary's Day and Teachers Day, which both renewed attention for the victims of the last dictator-
happen in September. Seeing the faces of these noto- ship. Barcelona offers interesting alternative readings of
rious military officers after months of researching these contemporary human right politics, yet they are
emotions in the field and trying to understand what not easy to grapple with. One example is the case of the
violence and justice meant for victims and indicted most important disappearance in democracy', Julio
officers made me stifle an almost inaudibly laugh. López. Humour about a new disappearance in a culture
There was no particular news to make these men where thousands of disappeared from the last dictator-
visible in a local daily that week, yet by 'inventing' a ship pose almost a sacred social status asks for some
special celebration day, Argentines were forced to look contextualization.
at these faces and remember what they had done. López was a construction worker who was illegally
Laughing at these faces made me understand that detained during the last dictatorship. He testified in
Argentine humour like Barcelonas about the last dicta- 2006 at the first trial for crimes against humanity in La
torship and the current trials for crimes against Plata. He disappeared one day before the tribunal
humanity was not simply amusing, but rather an announced the verdict of the main defendant, the
former police officer Miguel Etchecolatz. Although
everyday response to tricky moral dilemmas, like the
jeopardy of forgetting or being indifferent about police squads searched for weeks, Julio López never
violence. returned and those responsible for his disappearance
Barcelonas humour is not unique. Research has are still unknown. In 2015, Barcelonas column called
shown that humour has a long track record in Argen- 'Day by Day' still reflects upon this new disappearance.
tine media, particularly humour on the dictatorship The columns have a similar format: detectives are
(Foster 1989; Taylor 1997; Cascioli 2005; Pedrazzini searching for Julio López at unexpected localities or are
2010). Fraticelli (2008: 117-124) points out that Barce- asking well-known people who for various reasons have
lona is representative for Argentine black humour; it is made the headlines in Argentine newspapers during
60
the previous two weeks if they have information about either and instead they start babbling about purses.
Lopez's whereabouts. The [Argentine] minister of economics asks the
For example, one column began with the detectives directors of Club Paris if they know anything. No
having nothing to do, and instead of continuing their one knows.4
investigation they decided to download the award-
winning Argentine fiction movie A Secret for Your Eyes? Analysing Barcelonas columns on López were particu-
When the detectives saw the movies exaggeratedly larly insightful for the understanding of local taboos on
celebrated sequence shot that starts from a dynamic amnesia and indifference regarding the state violence.
aerial view, flying over the entire city, until reaching a Moreover, the magazine Barcelona addressed an explo-
close-up shot of persons at a football stadium in Buenos sive matter on social accountability regarding old and
Aires, they noticed that there were several repressors new versions of official impunity among the ruling
who had abducted people during the last dictatorship. classes in Argentina, like the case of Julio López. Barce-
The detectives reasoned that these men had lots of lonas main criticism was that Argentines, like President
experience with abduction and perhaps had informa-
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who proclaimed that
tion about López. Subsequently, the detectives thought she defended human rights, too often forgot, or were
it wise to visit the stadium; perhaps they could finallyindifferent to the disappearance of López and current
determine an accomplice who knew something about
injustices.
the most famous disappearance in democracy. However, Ridiculing Argentine elites is not something recent.
no one at the stadium knew where López was. The
Such humour already emerged during the mid-nine-
columns always ended like this: López was not there, orteenth century.5 Since then, Argentine print humour
no one knew where he was. offers alternative versions of contradictions, inconsist-
The next passage of a column narrates the former encies and injustices of the time. What many of these
Argentine president s trip to Paris to attend a protest satirical publications in Argentina have in common
march for Ingrid Betancourt, the kidnapped French- was their attempt to demystify and denounce cherished
Colombian politician, who at that point was still in thebeliefs of the ruling classes (Foster 1989: 37). Revista
hands of the Colombian guerrilla farc: Humour is the most well-known satirical magazine
that emerged during the last dictatorship, and Barce-
Sunday, April 6th. President Cristina Fernández de lona has been considered as its offspring (Fraticelli
Kirchner again travels to Paris where the majority of2008). Besides the columns on López, Barcelona quite
her sources dwell. During the protest march foroften devotes cover pages and news items to mock
Ingrid Betancourt, she asks for Julio López. It seemsLópez disappearance, the trials for crimes against
that the farc has nothing to do with his disappear- humanity, but also to ridicule elite members of the
ance. [The former fashion model and French presi-
human rights organisations and the former repressive
dent s wife] Carla Bruni does not know anythingregimes.6
61
When I spoke with Fernando Carrizo, an editor of ship. When I confronted Fernando with their humour
Barcelona , he made it very clear that Barcelona is not a on the disappearances of the last dictatorship, he
lightly amusing magazine. He considered the staff to explained that their mockery only served the purpose
be first of all serious journalists who, with acid under- of questioning the political usage of the figure of the
tones, inform their readers about the hypocrisy and disappeared by the government and eminent members
double discourses of the ruling classes. Fernando of the human rights organisations.
continually reminded me that Barcelona mocked every- The human rights politics of the Kirchner govern-
thing and everyone as long as the mockery had a ments that initiated in 2003 had raised high expecta-
purpose: their main goal was exposing contradictory tions among progressive Argentines like Fernando, but
discourses of the ruling classes. He said that the López after some years under Kirchner rule, Fernando dispir-
column emerged from the critical observation that the itedly said that he had to acknowledge that a non-
disappearance of López quickly ceased to be news. The critical and idealised vision of the human rights
columns were clearly not only meant to amuse the organisations was simply unsustainable. Fernandos
urban middle classes who belonged to progressive arguments against the apathy about the disappearance
groups that support human rights policies. Fernando of López, and the political usage of human rights and
acknowledged that they felt forced to depict the sinister the disappeared represented a far-reaching unease
sides of the current left-wing government and the about social accountability and hypocrisy that, even
human rights movement. after forty years, was still clearly apparent among the
Fernando explained that the overall apathy about urban classes in contemporary Argentine society.
the disappearance was a repugnant circle of silence'. Mainly by making their criticism known through
Instead, Barcelona used any excuse to talk about López. humour, progressive members among the leftist
He considered that the political demand for Lopez's spectrum in Argentina admitted the awkwardness of
appearance should have been widely communicated by the human rights policies of the Kirchner governments
the Argentine human rights organisations. However, and the new forms of social injustices and impunity.
due to their close alignment with the Kirchner govern- Print humour on social indifference and amnesia
ment, for whom López has not been a priority, they did about previous violence and current injustices was
not repeatedly mention this new disappearance during practiced not only by progressive criticasters; amnesia
official events, like they always did by shouting the and indifference were also mocked in conservative
slogan: ¡30,000 desaparecidos , ahora y siempre I (30,000 circles. In 2006 another mocking magazine material-
disappearances, now and forever!). ised: Bl: Vitamina para la memoria de la guerra en los 70
Barcelonas criticism of the silence about, and indif- (Vitamins for Memory about the War of the 1970s).
ference to, López must be understood amid a local This magazine also criticised the general amnesia that
culture that has challenged silence and indifference prevailed around the revolutionary violence. Bl mainly
about the previous disappearances of the last dictator- reclaimed a pro-military and rightist ideology that
62
favoured the military repression of the late 1970s, an BI, and spending more time with Argentine inform-
ideological disposition that had become a small niche ants from different backgrounds, their humour became
in contemporary Argentine public spheres. For instance, more understandable, and sometimes even amusing.
I never saw B1 at the nearby kiosk, like Barcelona . Laughing at jokes in other cultures definitely requires
Luckily, a military wife, loyal to the indicted officers, an internalisation of certain values, practices and beliefs
gave me a big stack of B1 copies. According to her I (Apte 1985: 17), yet this does not mean that you auto-
should definitely read them to understand more of matically share them.
Argentine history and the present. Analysing humour from a moral perspective is often
What was most telling about B1 was its contesta- done from notions of moral positioning or moral
tion of current interpretations of historical events and belonging', as Francis Buckley (2003) has put it. From
responsibility regarding the revolutionary violence and this perspective, laughing at a joke or ridiculing the
state repression. The title of the magazine hinted at a other would increase social cohesion among a particular
risky vitamin B1 deficiency, which is commonly linked group. In other words, the endorsement of humour
to problems in the nervous system, like Alzheimer. The implies complicity and belonging; the approval of a
magazines aim was to 'fortify the memory of Argen- joke is accepting a moral point of view on a certain
tines about the violence of the 1970s, indirectly sati- matter and this constructs solidarity (ibid.: 5). Humour
rising the fact that the Kirchner government and the about collective violence, however, is not always about
human rights organisations had severely diminished, or this social process of inclusion and exclusion. Barcelona
even omitted, the revolutionary violence -like assaults, and B1 divulge humour against clear-cut moral belong-
abductions and bombings - in their historical repre- ings in contexts of previous violence, and it is in fact
sentations. The cover page always depicted four large this uneasiness that is mocked.
white pills with a clear B1 mark that would slow down When openly asking for their opinions about the
this malicious forgetfulness. While flipping through disappearance of López for instance, many Argentines
the pages, I noticed that the conservative humour considered the new disappearance deeply immoral and
magazine also denounced the latest inconsistencies of tried to trace the responsibilities. According to the
the Kirchner governments. Being less layered and editors of the two magazines, the responsibility to
complex, Bis items, graphics and manipulated photo- remember and accountability for these new and old
graphs of the Kirchner governments were more direct crimes involve all Argentines and they particularly pay
denouncements of hypocrisy. This made it somehow attention to these discomforts through humour. This
less funny than Barcelona . humour, then, reveals the internalised ambiguities
Imagining what could be so funny about a current about the social boundaries of responsibility and
disappearance, or previous violence was difficult at the complicity quite common to societies recovering from
beginning of my fieldwork. Over time however, reading collective violence. Instead of making a general state-
the newspapers and local magazines like Barcelona and ment on processes of humour approval and moral
63
belonging, I find it more beneficial to primarily make When in response I confronted him with the accu-
sense out of the underlying cultural mechanisms of sation, existing mostly among right-wing and conserv-
humour within a particular culture to understand how ative groups, that the current trials were a form of
humour about collective violence is often about moral venganza (vengeance), Tomás rejected it firmly. He
confusion and moral uncertainty. explained that venganza implied the infliction of
similar harm to the person who injured you. He added
persuasively that they never tortured anyone, nor
Carnivalisation of justice abducted anyone, nor starved anyone, and they did not
illegally adopt children; they only took the National
One afternoon in July 2010 Tomás Olivera and I met at Constitution and the Criminal Code and judged these
a noisy coffee bar near Tribunales, the citys law district. criminals for what they had done. Being aware of the
Tomás was a committed human rights lawyer belonging inappropriateness of revenge among victims in Argen-
to an important civil party that was pushing the trials. tina, I asked Tomás why he thought there had not been
He was highly appreciated among victims for his work. any acts of vengeance. He promptly said that there had
That afternoon he told me that he never imagined been escraches (ludic street protests) by h.i.j.o.s., and
being a lawyer. His emergent political activism at some spontaneous fistfights between notorious
secondary school during the 1980s led him first to study torturers and victims.7 Other victims and activists
sociology. During this initiation in a social world of always underlined that escraches were not revengeful,
revolutionaries and progressive intellectuals, Tomás but rather a civil grassroots search for justice. One
increasingly gathered with people who had survived online post of h.i.j.o.s. in February 2012 however,
detention during the authoritarian regime. Tomás said reasoned: Genocida (genocidal person) Videla, being
that they had inspired him to join their political struggle happy is our only revenge.8
for justice and against official impunity. At his work at Tomás' denial of venganza and odio was not unique.
a law firm, Tomás filed numerous cases for the financial Victims and human rights activists hardly used the
reparations of the disappearances. During this period words venganza (vengeance) and odio (hatred). If
he learned about many individual stories of loss. He people mentioned venganza and odio , they were firmly
reflected that at that point in his life the intangible idea denied, as by Tomás. They said that these were uncivi-
of the disappeared became a cruel human reality of flesh lised feelings belonging to the military that brutally
and blood. Tomás remembered that he felt really angry, repressed and tortured. Instead, a civilised pursuit of
especially knowing that the criminals were still walking justice with playful contours became the fundamental
the same streets in Buenos Aires as free individuals. representation of moral superiority among victims in
This idea really generated odio (hatred). Tomás hastened Argentina.9 This social denial of revenge took an inter-
to say that it was not the kind of hatred someone feels esting diversion during a ludic street protest outside
that would make him commit criminal offenses. federal court in 2010.
64
One block from the federal court, members of
'h.i.j.o.s Capital' located in Buenos Aires were
unloading speakers from a bright orange school bus
and were hanging dozens of tiny flags and colourful
balloons with juicio (trial) and castigo (punishment) in
the trees and fences. Just a few meters away from the
federal court, several mocking photographs of the main
suspect Luis Patti in a notorious black-and-white
striped prisoner outfit were put in place. There were
also verdad (truth) and justicia (justice) games for
children, like a hopscotch, plastic handcuffs toss -
instead of rings - at different counters figuring the
armed forces, a game of darts with Patti's face in the
bull's eye, and tin tossing for the highest punishments
(see Pictures 1 and 2). The games were also fun for
adults to play and we all laughed when a man's dart hit
Patti's nose. The truth and justice games and our Picture 1 . Dartboard with Luis Patti as bull's eye
laughter engendered quite a jolly atmosphere at the
federal court that afternoon.
Besides the truth and justice games, another group
was more concerned with lunch that day. At the back of
the patch of grass they were grilling choris (sausages)
and toasting pan (bread), for the common treat of
choripan. The mixed smell of greasy sausages and smoke
was penetrating our hair and clothes. A slogan above
the improvised barbecue stated: Si al chori, no al Patti
(Yes to chori, no to Patti), indirectly ridiculing the
suspect's last name with 'Paty', a well-known mass-
produced hamburger brand in Argentina that is often
sold at street events. Widely known among Argentines,
choris are more delicious than the factory-made Patys.
While standing in line for a choripan, we overheard
that the court session had finally begun: being ill, Luis Picture 2. Truth and justice game. 'Trial and punish-
Patti was brought into the courtroom on a stretcher, ment'
65
tucked in a blanket. This news produced a general wave about to enter the territory of the military. It was a clear
of indignation and laughter among the people in the sign of the marginalised position of the armed forces.
queue. An adolescent thought that Patti staged his Instead of the seriousness and solemnity commonly
illness. He said, smilingly, that it was outrageous!' associated with legal procedures, all the entertaining
During the first recess, a group of lawyers joined for circumstances at the Patti trial made us laugh whole-
lunch and Tomás was one of them. Routinely we heartedly on our way back to Buenos Aires.
discussed the formal court session and Patti's pathetic' For Tomás, the justice event at court that day only
entrance. Tomás was more eager to talk about today s represented the demonstrations of the human rights
demonstration. He was delighted and commented that groups in Argentina. Protests of the conservative right-
the demonstrations in Argentina used to be like this, wing and the military were indeed of a very different
with wine and choripanes. Assuming wrongly that I was order. By subsequently attending several public protests
following Tomás' line of thought on the argentinidad of the conservative right and the military at Plaza de
(typical Argentineanness) of street demonstrations, I Armas, Plaza San Martin, and in front of Supreme
announced that I was about to see another demonstra- Court I understood that these demonstrations were
tion of the military officers and their kin, nearby the more solemn and serious, and less colourful than the
Ministry of Defence. Tomás replied immediately that h.i.j.o.s demonstrations like that day outside federal
court.
the military always said that el pueblo (the people) only
came to the demonstrations for the food and drinks. Human rights demonstrations were often festive
His voice revealed that he disapproved their opportun- with music, dance, colourful graffiti, mate (herbal tea),
istic interpretation of popular street gatherings. and asado (barbecue). The demonstrations of the 24th of
By the time our choripanes had been eaten, we were March, celebrating Día Nacional de la Memoria por la
heavily perfumed by the scent of smoke and sausages. Verdad y la Justicia (National Day of Memory for Truth
Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Tomás asked if I and Justice), were archetypal. Twice I witnessed dozens
needed a ride back to Buenos Aires. Accepting his of murga carnival bands (popular street bands) with
offer, I asked him to drop me off at Plaza de Armas just dancing adolescents and deafening blissful beats that
in front of the Ministry of Defence, where a handful of turned Plaza de Mayo, the main square in Buenos
loyal retired officers, military wives and children of Aires, into one big street party. Colourful flags and
indicted officers were protesting. Being quite a bubbly banners covered the blue sky, and street vendors were
man, it was at this point in our conversation that Tomás almost invisible behind their ambulatory barbecues due
hardly repressed a satisfied smile, asking rhetorically: to the thick smoke. Although the human rights demon-
Are you going to see these fachos (fascists) with the strations were often playful and festive, the carnivalisa-
smell of our choris ?'10 Immediately I understood that tion of justice' at the Patti trial, by means of the mocking
Tomás found it extremely funny that a foreigner, truth and punishment games and chori slogans, was
smelling of the sausages of their justice celebration, was quite out of the ordinary, even for Argentine standards,
66
on how to prepare a street demonstration. Seeing such Scott's (1985) notion of the weapons of the weak', but
creative wit outside the courtroom had delighted in an individual realm.
Tomás and many other human rights activists, victims Donna Goldstein (2003: 271-272) has provided a
and relatives of the disappeared. more collective understanding of Scott's notion of
In her study of performative memorial sites in humour as cultural resistance among women in Brazil.
Buenos Aires, like escraches , neighbourhood silhouettes The black-humour storytelling practices of women,
parades of the disappeared, or placing events' of who dwell in a shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, reveal
memorial stones in the sidewalks, Argentine literary how they ambiguously experience violence, poverty,
critic and survivor of detention Nora Strejilevich marginalisation and racism that largely shape the
(2010: 238- 239) sees these 'street parties' as a form of contours of their everyday social life. According to
effective resistance to redefine a way to deal with a Goldstein, humour is an understandable response to a
sinister past and claim social justice. Her analytical moral and legal system that has been incapable of
notion of playful resistance is quite common. Based on addressing the grievances of these women.
Scott's (1985) classical term of 'the weapons of the Victims' grievances of the last dictatorship in
weak', humour and playful wit are often seen as Argentina have also been unaddressed by the legal
symbolic spaces for subordinated persons to voice system for a long time. Their cultural resistance, in the
nonviolent resistance, realign power and affect the form of street parties', has only recently moved to the
hegemonic status quo (Fernandez and Taylor Huber federal courts in Argentina. The legal actions clearly
2001: 17; Sörensen 2008: 167; Kuipers 2011: 76). did not make previous cultural resistance in the form of
Sigmund Freud (1960 [1905]: 102-103) has pointed humour practices of subaltern groups obsolete. Victims
out that when physical aggression is forbidden by law, and human rights activists continued to make 'fun as
or simply impossible or undesirable, it can be replaced they were used to, perhaps even more abundantly than
by making our enemy small, inferior, despicable or before, looking at the great number of truth and
comic, which enables, indirectly, achieving the enjoy- punishment mocking games at the Patti trial.
ment of overpowering the other. In other words, frus- Why then is it that such forms of 'subaltern humour
tration about powerlessness is overcome by ridiculeš are still expressed by victims of state violence and
With this ridicule there is again little effect on the human rights activists of different generations in
balance of actual power (Clifford 2001: 255; Fernandez Argentina, despite the current legal actions imple-
and Taylor Huber 2001: 27; Herzfeld 2001: 75). mented to respond to their injustices? In other words,
Understanding humour as a tool for denigration why do they still turn to street parties, serious parades
(Lewis 2006: 205), or as an act of aggression by showing and escraches when retribution is being made?
a kind of superiority over another person, while Despite the fact that the trials were finally prose-
continuing to live within the social constraints of a cuting notorious figures like Luis Patti, people still had
particular context (Martin 2007: 43-48), again echoes other 'justice' concerns that were not being addressed
67
between the four walls of the tribunals, which in my address the immoral through (spoken or written)
view had more to do with immoral emotions like language; their embodied performances of humour did
too. In other words, the human rights street parties at
revenge. I therefore argue that besides a form of subal-
tern humour, something else was encapsulated within the courts embodied what was also at stake': the truth
the jolly laughter, the ironic games and our mocking
and justice games and bodies smelling like choris was an
pleasures that afternoon outside the federal court.
appropriate diversion for revenge.
Humour in post-conflict settings often surpasses
In any case, whether for pragmatic or ethical reasons,
laughter and the witty games that afternoon outside
common notions of subordination and power and acts
against everyday moral codes about violence the
andfederal court reworked the socially unaccepted into
a morally accepted form. Looking beyond humour as
suffering. Among many victims in Argentina there
cultural resistance, humour about violence also reworks
existed a kind of everyday ethos against vengeance and
immoral emotions into a morally accepted mould. In
hatred. The subaltern street parties clearly interacted
with these dominant everyday emotional taboos. my view, these immoral dimensions of humour have
often been neglected in scholarly analyses on humour
Revenge found itself an appropriate form through the
that primarily focus on power relations and subordina-
humour of the games and funny one-liners that mocked
the main suspect at this trial. tion. Instead, while victims and activists in Argentina
The embodied forms of happiness were besides tried to live the good life, humour allowed them to
cultural resistance a cultural diversion of the immoral. voice their own everyday emotional incongruities and
The moral confusion of experiencing emotions that moral confusions while experiencing revenge and
were considered immoral was reworked into a socially hatred.
accepted form. Bakhtins well-known notion of humour
as a substitute for silence understands irony as commu-
nicating the opposite of what is often meant (Fernandez Humour and moral confusion
and Taylor Huber 2001: 5; Kibler 2005: 464). In a
somewhat similar vein, a classic ethnographic work on According to Buckley (2003: 199) laughing with others
Bedouin feeling culture has shown how immoral involves camaraderie, and particularly black humour
feelings could only be communicated through the engages with prior moral and political beliefs. In his
coded language of poetry (Abu-Lughod 1986). analysis, the approval of a joke, as in shared laughter, is
Building on Bahktins classical notion on irony and a symbolic form of accepting a moral viewpoint on a
Abu-Lughods understanding of coded poetry, the certain matter and consequently constructs a sense of
inoffensive humour at court communicated quite the solidarity (Buckley 2003: 5). Based on the previous
opposite, only in a socially accepted form. This humour field experiences I find Buckley s notion on humour
performance of everyday moral confusion clearly tran- and moral belonging problematic. I rather understand
scended the verbal. Victims and activists did not only the humour that I encountered in Argentina as the
68
practical reworkings of the immoral experiences of The humour and laughter I had experienced with
violence and suffering. His view that sharing humour the indicted officers, in a sense, was a field narrative
automatically cultivates solidarity and harmony in a illustrating a broader thematic discomfort about social
post-conflict setting is beset with everyday moral responsibility and violence in Argentina, yet I realised
confusions, uncertainties and inconsistencies. Because then that there was a limit on the social acceptance of
when one laughs about matters such as doing justice in what was funny, tolerable and what was not concerning
state crimes, does one automatically approve certain state violence among Argentine victims and people
moral viewpoints? Does shared laughter routinely loyal to their cause. Beyond words, the sudden uncom-
construct solidarity? I am rather sceptical about this fortable atmosphere at the conference depicted again
moral simplicity and determinisi view of humour and affectively an internalised ambiguity about ones
harmony. In other words, looking at humour from a responsibility and complicity, quite representative in
moral perspective does not automatically involve moral societies recovering from collective violence.
belonging; laughter and jokes can also be about The question how people actually negotiate the
everyday moral confusion and moral uncertainty. everyday perilous terrain that lies between humour and
To elaborate further on this I have to go back to offensiveness has also concerned Sharon Lockyer and
October 2013, when I assisted an international confer- Michael Pickering (2005: 3-4). They explore the limits
ence in the Netherlands about humour and violence in of humour and question if, against the right of freedom
Latin America. I had just presented the aforementioned of speech, censorship is sometimes warranted. This
field observations made at the Patti trial and the time I scholarly discussion about differing ethics of humour is
had spent with several indicted officers in prison and in still emerging: is it taboo, or simply an act of freedom
court before the verdict on them was given. The pres- of speech to mock the disappeared or survivors of
entations main argument was how seizing humour in torture, like it is with Muslims, women or black people
the field played an important role in understanding (Kuipers 2011: 68)? Taking this argument further, is it,
how people emotionally experience justice after state per definition, wrong to laugh or joke with people who
violence in Argentina, particularly about capturing are considered evil? Of course there is no straightfor-
what people considered uncomfortable and immoral. ward answer to this question, and I agree with Lockyer
Openly mentioning that I had laughed and played and Pickering (2005: 9) that meanings of humour and
along at several occasions was perhaps too direct for laughter depend heavily on context, the identity of the
the mainly literary critics that formed my audience. person making the joke and its recipients. My role as
Particularly the reference to laughter with indicted the foreign researcher who engaged with evil' obviously
officers was a deep insult for two middle-aged Argen- did not favour my entitlement to laughter.
tine scholars with a noticeable alignment with the To unlock these discrepancies in the perception of
victims. They judged my laughter with military officers humour Dutch sociologist Giselinde Kuipers (2011:
as distasteful, offensive and even unethical. 69) has introduced the term 'humour regimes' to define
69
who is entitled to humour, about what and when. These which are the Argentine custom for greeting, and
regimes are the unwritten rules stipulating who can casual conversation with the former head of the Argen-
joke about what, which is bounded by declaring some tine junta, I stuttered, with a slight dash of irony, if he
topics off-limit, and is infused with power relations. had been decorating his new cell, while pointing to the
Kuipers' conceptualisation of humour regimes is cartoons in front of me. Videla laughed in response,
insightful. However, by focusing on only humour in claiming that a previous inmate was responsible for the
political cartoons of Muslims and the prophet, I childish wall decoration. After some more insignificant
consider Kuipers' explanatory model of humour percep- babbling about his new cell, I left them to their weekly
tion too deliberate. Humour can also be unforeseen prison get-together.
and ephemeral, and not premeditated, like political Such teasing moments in prison revealed a great
deal about how easily one can fall victim to military
cartoons, as several of the previous field experiences
avoidance of talking about serious matters, like their
have indicated. At the particular moment of an impul-
sive joke, or during unexpected bouts of laughter, involvement in the prosecuted atrocities, and instead
humour about delicate matters, such as state violence,
make fun of hardship, discomfort and evil. Not
momentarily embody the social condition of moral addressing these issues made me undoubtedly part of
confusion about responsibility and complicity with their circle of silence' and therefore responsible for
deep wrongs. To further exemplify humour as a way social
to neglect on serious matters. This is not to say
rework everyday moral confusions in post-conflict however, that shared laughter and poking fun with
indicted military officers meant immediately moral
settings, one last 'funny' moment in the military prison
is illustrative. belonging and moral positioning on matters like
In 2010 I went many times to prisons to talk with
torture, disappearance and the trials.
indicted military officers from different ranks. Quite
often these afternoons were convivial familial gather-
ings with typical Argentine food, smokes and casual A certain amount of inappropriateness
conversations. Likewise we often laughed and made
jokes about the trials and the violence. At that time,
Analysing humour among victims and indicted mili-
ex-General Jorge Rafael Videla was also incarceratedtary officers in Argentina offered valuable insights into
diversions from everyday immoralities and social
in that prison, and sometimes he joined his subordinate
taboos, and unravelled important underlying local
officers for lunch or for a talk. One time they took me
to Videla's new cell. After exchanging greetings with rationales about violence and suffering. This humour in
the ex-general and his wife, the small corridor-shapeda post-conflict setting particularly reworks everyday
cell turned out to be too small for four adults and I moral confusions and social uncertainties regarding the
found myself pressed against a wall with some funnyviolence and accountability. At first sight this humour
cartoons glued on it. Not being prepared for kisses,might have been incomprehensible and not funny at
70
all. I do hope that after reading this article, all these and laughter. I am therefore hesitant to produce one
different forms of humour are seen rather as an under- explanatory model on the functioning of humour in
standable response to complex everyday moral confu- post-conflict settings. Instead I suggest working with
sions and moral uncertainties people face in Argentina, different humour approaches, but always locating
at times when legal systems were incapable of addressing humour, its practices and products, in its particular
the grievances of victims, but also when official justice culture. Such a multidimensional analysis provides
is being done. Ultimately, it was not the joke or the analytical space for many different forms and motiva-
laugh that mattered, but what these ludic moments tions of humour.
meant for these men and women in particular circum-
stances.
E-mail:
Humour was thus an important dimension of howe.vanroekel@uu.nl
many Argentines reworked their experiences of
violence, particularly those experiences that were
uncomfortable and put ones moral belongingAcknowledgements
in
jeopardy. This article about uncomfortable laughter
mainly analysed how several Argentines dealtI would
with like to thank my former supervisors Ton
Robben
these everyday moral transgressions and how and why and Hans de Kruijf for their on-going advice
on earlier
they experienced them. On a conceptual level, theversions of this article, which has been
humour I encountered in the field mostly showed adapted
thatfrom a chapter of my dissertation Phenomenal
humour about collective violence was often about Justice , and Katrien Klep for her insightful comments
on the final draft.
moral confusion and moral uncertainty about the social
boundaries of responsibility and complicity, instead of
a moral reinforcement of 'us' and 'therrí.
Notes
After reading this article, one might still argue that
all these jokes and laughter did not alter the distressing
situations the victims and the indicted officers encoun-
1 Andreas Huyssen (2001: 39) argues that any deep comprehen-
tered and simply reproduced power relations and local
sion of collective violence requires liberation from official
moral standards. These criticisms however, neglect the memorial culture by looking for alternative narrative strategies,
significance of humour as an important cultural factorincluding irony, shock and black humour.
in the social life of violence. Humour definitely modifies
2 All the names in this article are pseudonyms, only the names of
the way we experience the social world. Nonetheless,
people with widespread public profile, on national and interna-
whatever form or whatever kind of humour, any
tional level, have not been altered.
3 Barcelona , 9 March, 2012, issue 249.
thorough understanding of it requires local knowledge
about the content and context of the particular joke
4 Barcelona , 11 April, 2008, issue 132.
71
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Uncomfortable Laughter: Reflections on Violence, Humour and Immorality in Argentina

Author(s): Eva van Roekel

Eva van Roekel

Etnofoor, Humour, volume 28, issue 1, 2016, pp. 55-74

html, Accessed 6 November, 2015). Englebrecht, Christine M.

Cotidiano y el Lugar del Psicoanálisis en la Argentina.

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