Reflections on Violence

The reflections that follow in these pages share the common thread of having been written from within the experience itself. They were not constructed as a dynamic exercise, although without a doubt they carry that level of erudition and analysis. But the apparatus is grounded in daily life, sharing space with the fears of the author, his patients, his family, or friends. From other realities one might think comparatively and say with confidence (and truthfully) that equal or worse situations were or continue to be lived in other countries. The certainty that this is so does not diminish the horror of thirteen years elapsed since the beginning of the internal war in Peru, or of the parallel experiences in Uruguay or Argentina. Consequently, the vicissitudes of reasoning and writing about violence begin when, once we have decided to pick up the pen, a first resistance arises in thinking that complaints or protests will add nothing to what has already been said in all these years. Having overcome this barrier, the flood of information and sensations that comes to mind is so vast that it does not seem possible to organize a coherent discourse. The works we present here give an account of these difficulties confronted from the very heart of a suffering society. The writings on the Peruvian case were composed immediately before or after the capture of the supreme subversive leader and are pervaded by the anguish of a still uncertain resolution. (Excerpt from Introduction).