Dignity, revenge and promotion of democracy

Abstract

In this paper I set out to expose the basic misconception that, envisaged as they were in Argentina, trials and criminal punishment will improve respect for rights in post dictatorial political systems. In fact, the civic accounting for punishment in this context is fraught with insurmountable obstacles. I will examine this idea as well as the ways in which the 1985 human rights trials in Argentina do not seem to have consolidated democratic institutions but rather the opposite: they eroded the already feeble authority of the judiciary. I also look at the empirical evidence that authoritarian practices still run rampant within that segment of the Argentine community that still favors -or at Ieast justifies- state violence. I tackle the seeming contradiction between the popular support for the trials of human rights violators, on the one hand, and support of brutality on the other. This contradiction may be seen as resulting from a Iack of political authority originated (though probably  not entirely) under a terrorist state. I claim that the very perceived nature of blame and punishment is caused by an authoritarian practice of governance. Further, I show how this distorted practice of blame becomes a Iens through which we observe the Argentine human rights trials. Ultimately, this practice of blame, formalized by the trials, turned into a form of revenge rather than "just punishment".