configurations of space. time. and subjectivity in a coontext of terror. colombian example

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of Politics, Culture, andSociety.

http://www.jstor.org

Configurations of Space, Time, and Subjectivity in a Context of Terror: The Colombian Example Author(s): Daniel Pcaut Source: International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 14, No. 1, Colombia: A

Nation and Its Crisis (Fall, 2000), pp. 129-150Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20020068Accessed: 18-08-2015 11:48 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 128.240.225.57 on Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:48:55 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2000

Configurations of Space, Time, and Subjectivity in a Context of Terror: The Colombian Example Daniel P?caut

Endemic violence in Colombia appears ever more difficult to bring under control. The disrepute brought upon the former presidential adminis tration of Ernesto Samper and the weakness of that administration, the surge in corruption, the defeats suffered by the Colombian Armed Forces at the hands of the guerrillas along with the general paralysis that seems to have overtaken the military, and the expansion of drug cultivation despite campaigns of eradication, are among the factors that have contributed to the worsening of the violence. On the other hand, the armed organizations involved in the violence have increasingly resorted to terror as a normal

ingredient of their local strategies. Where paramilitaries and guerrillas dispute the same territories, terror against the civil population has become the principal means to isolate the enemy, cutting him off from a base of support. Entire regions have become the scene of terror, including the

Nordeste de Antioquia, Putamayo, Meta, Magdalena Medio, Urab? and C?rdoba, and the city of Barrancabermeja.

In recent fighting, a new and important factor has been the spread of terror to areas that have not previously been categorized as theaters of confrontation between the armed groups. These groups now launch opera tions further and further from their home bases, making use of swift incur sions or selective assassinations. In some instances, the mere spread of rumors and threats can serve to throw a population into disarray. Local inhabitants soon discover that when armed intruders arrive, there is no form of

"protection" they may have been offered that is of any use: there is little the guerrillas can do against the onslaught of the paramilitaries.

Neither are the cities places of refuge for those who flee rural violence,

*A longer Spanish version of this article was published as a chapter in Alfonso Monsalve and Eduardo Dom?nguez, eds., Democracia y paz en Colombia, Vol. 2 (Medellin: Universidad Pontifica Bolivariana, 1999).

129

? 2000 Human Sciences Press, Inc.


130 P?caut

even when the major contending armed groups have not openly established themselves in the urban zones where the refugees settle. These areas are often divided into zones of influence and control by networks of collabora tors who maintain contacts with the armed organizations.

It would be an illusion to believe that the terror will soon subside. The negotiations that began between the federal government and the FARC

(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in 1999 are likely to continue for a long time, or on the other hand, could be broken off at any moment.

The political opening these talks provide may actually induce the FARC, which wants the government to officially recognize it as a legitimate "bellig erent," to attempt to take even more territory under its control. The resis tance that the other major guerrilla group, the ELN (National Liberation

Army) has met in its efforts to become part of the talks has led it to resort to mass kidnappings to dramatize its presence. The paramilitaries who have been denied political status by the government have also attempted to force their entry into the negotiations by any means possible. In other words, even if the negotiations continue, one cannot underestimate the fresh obstacles to

peace that may emerge at any moment. Even if the talks do not result in

failure, terror will not disappear. The purpose of this article is to examine some of the most important

characteristics and consequences of the current forms of terror in Colombia in respect to its victims, its perpetrators, and the political culture and social

psychological climate of the country as a whole.

Analyses of the violence in Colombia have tended to focus on three of its aspects. The first is territorialization, where violence is seen as associ ated with control of specific geographic areas by armed groups. Second, a focus on strategic time sees the ebb and flow of the violence as resulting from the interactions between the measures taken by the government and the strategies adopted by the armed groups. Finally, there has been an

emphasis placed on the ways in which the violence leads to the construction of new frameworks of subjectivity, how the existence and activities of armed networks of protagonists create new identities, whether through coercion or choice.

These analyses have been useful, and still are. Nevertheless, the ques tion I raise is whether they should be reconsidered in light of the fact that terror has now spread to a major portion of the country. It seems to me that terror has progressively fragmented inhabited spaces, blown apart temporal frames of reference, and weakened the possibilities for individuals to realize themselves as continuous subjects, living as they do amidst a range of contradictory, superimposed levels of experience. In contradistinction to the aforementioned analyses, then, I will investigate the configurations of deterritorialization, detemporalization, and desubjectivation within the


Configurations of Space, Time, and Subjectivity in a Context of Terror 131

context of terror. Through these formulations, we may discover an alterna

tive, illuminating perspective on the logic of terror in Colombia.

DETERRITORIALIZATION

Traditional Forms of Territorialization

The perception of space is inseparable from social experience rooted in memory. The space of the peasant in Boyac?, as Orlando Fais Borda

described it decades ago,1 is different than that of the colono who is today settled in Amazonia. Even in the case of the colonos, the relationship to

space differs according to the motivations that have led an individual to

try his luck in another part of the country, the degree of poverty in which he is immersed, and whether he has migrated along with family or with other members of the community he has left. To an even greater degree, perception of space may vary in urban areas, depending on the location of the place of residence, the conditions under which an inhabited zone was

originally occupied, and the characteristics of the neighborhood. In the

city, the micro-barrio often defines the limits of spacial orientation much more than the city as a whole.

Although the social reference points of space may be convulsed by the intrusion of violence and terror, they never completely disappear.

Rather, they persist within new forms of space, imposed by the agents of violence. With considerable justification, a great deal of attention has been given to the processes of territorial differentiation that have accompanied the consolidation of the armed organizations. This perspective, however, needs to be made more precise in respect to the differences in respect to the actors, time periods, and means of control that have been implicated in the armed conflict. Not every armed group has had as a primary goal the occupation of a specific territory. Most notably, the army, which has

only on rare occasions attempted to establish itself permanently near centers of population, has usually engaged in rapid territorial incursions that neither offer protection to the inhabitants nor allow for the gathering of reliable

intelligence, a strategy that has cost the military dearly in political terms.

Likewise, the guerrilla group M-19, imbued with a strategic vision that was

essentially militaristic, did not attempt to establish networks of control over

specific populations. It abandoned Caqueta to operate in other departments and organized campamentos populares (people's encampments) in Medellin and Cali during the 1984 cease-fire, only then to leave their occupants to survive on their own. M-19 also involved itself with various social move

ments at different times, but was careful not to establish permanent links


132 P?caut

with them. It is also questionable whether the idea of territorialization should be applied to the operations of the drug traffickers. They did at different times exercise considerable local influence through their "connec tions" with municipal officials (in Cali, for instance), the operations of their own armed networks (as was the case for a time with groups organized by Gonzalo Rodr?guez Gacha in Putamayo and those organized by Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar in the Magdalena Medio), or the support given to the larger paramilitary groups. But it was not usually in their interest to permanently defend a specific territory?especially when they entered into open conflict with governmental authorities?if they wanted to safe

guard the pursuit of what was their primary goal, the efficient conduct of their businesses.

On the other hand, guerrilla groups such as the FARC, the ELN, and until their demobilization, the EPL (Popular Liberation Army), as well as

more recently the paramilitaries and militias, have aimed at the control of

specific territories. But it is necessary to make a distinction between those for whom territorial control is the very basis of their existence and those for whom it is only one of several options within their overall operational strategies. For the urban militias, control over a barrio is the irreducible

prerequisite to being recognized as an armed protagonist and to secure an effective base of power. This is not the case with the guerrillas. To be sure, the FARC in its early phases commanded essentially secure zones of settlement in the departments of Tolima, Huila, and Caqueta by means of what came to be known as "armed colonization."2 But guerrillas and

paramilitaries have many other means of exercising power. Over time, the areas of settlement in which the guerrilla groups have established their presence have changed their significance from a strategic point of view. In its first years, the FARC attempted to locate in areas where serious agrarian conflict was underway in order to channel such conflict in line with its

political and military goals. During this period, as Alejandro Reyes3 has pointed out, territorial control was simply a means to organize specific populations. But the multiplication of "fronts" (mobile combat units op erating with considerable autonomy), a strategy decided upon by the FARC and ELN at the beginning of the 1980s, worked against the previous strategy of establishing continuous control over specific areas. But territorialization took on new life when the guerrillas shifted priorities to locating themselves in areas of major primary production (most notably, drug cultivation and

petroleum) in order to secure sizeable financial resources by means of extortion and other transactions. Control over the population continued to be important, but often as simply a means to establish a position of

strength in relation to business enterprises and corporations. More recently, territorial control has assumed another aspect, as the guerrillas have sought



to oversee the actions of local elected officials, exercising what they call the "co-administration of the municipalities." In the case of the paramilitaries, although their close ties with large landowners have precluded any move toward solidarity with the peasants, they have made ample recourse to the other methods of establishing territorial control.

The methods of territorial control vary from region to region. The

drug-cultivation zones, which have been frequently described, are a special case. It is beyond dispute that for a number of years the FARC has been able to successively represent itself as the protector of the colonos in these areas and thereby justify the taxes it collects from them. In place of the anomie that characterized these settlements before their arrival, the guerril las established local order, supported by clear rules of justice, while at the same time defending the colonos against extortion on the part of the drug traffickers or the army. From this perspective, the submission of the colonos to guerrilla control can be justified on the basis of rational calculation. It is especially plausible to believe that the numerous colonos who came from the cities or from non-agricultural occupations in other areas, expecting only to accumulate money and to do so rapidly, and who do not share the

mythic memory of the heroic deeds of the guerrillas in the past, are essen

tially motivated by this type of calculation. Nevertheless, it is important not to underestimate the coercive dimensions and the risks of deterioration of the authority of the guerrillas. The huge peasant marches orchestrated

by the FARC in 1996 to protest the government's fumigation campaigns in the drug-cultivation zones were undoubtedly a manifestation of the effectiveness of guerrilla control. But it is unlikely that similar events can be organized with any frequency by the guerrillas.

The same model of territorialization on the part of the guerrillas can be found elsewhere, but in attenuated form. Where the guerrillas control over a population is not related to derived individual or collective economic benefits, it is difficult for them to obtain recognition of their power and their rules, and their taxation is correspondingly resented. The case of

Puerto Boyac? is notorious in this respect. At the end of the 1980s, the

revolutionary left held municipal power and the guerrillas were firmly established. But the abuses committed by one of the FARC fronts contrib uted to the takeover of the municipality by paramilitary groups. But even in Bel?n de Bajir?, a jurisdiction of the municipality of Mutata, long under the control of the FARC, the colonos suffered the consequences of coercion as much or more than they realized the benefits of protection.

This model of territorialization through control exercised by a network of partisans who rule through coercion is, however, nothing new in Colom bia. It has its antecedents in earlier practices of the traditional political parties. For example, in the municipality of Trujillo4 in Valle del Cauca,


134 P?caut

since its legal foundation in the 1930s, the inhabitants were continuously subjected to the control of the gamonales (local political bosses). This control was exercised with ample doses of violence, while at the same time, it assured the gamonales the resources to effectively negotiate with regional and even national authorities. In Meta, Liberal Party leaders also relied on former bandoleros (bandits) to control the population. In Arauca, the continuity of the methods utilized by the traditional political clans and those of armed clientalism used by the guerrillas has been well documented.5 It is not surprising, then, that especially in the areas of colonization, the inhabitants consider the coercion inherent in territorialization by today's armed groups as the "normal" order of things.

Ultimately, however, territorialization through coercion can be seen as a mode of transition that inescapably contributes to the spacial integra tion of the nation. In reality, as we have seen in the case of Trujillo, it generates resources for political actions that demand the attention of

governmental authorities. The installation of the guerrillas in the Amazo nian region and in some parts of Urab? has, in many ways, lent momentum to the formation of mediating political mechanisms through which contacts between the center and the periphery have been advanced.

The Process of Deterritorialization

The terror of recent years has served to undermine the forms of territo rialization described above. Competition between armed groups for control of the same areas has contributed to this trend. The paramilitaries have

largely expelled the guerrillas from areas such as C?rdoba and Urab?, while the confrontation between guerrillas and paramilitaries continues in the

Magdalena Medio and other regions. Armed face-offs can take place almost

anywhere in the city of Barrancabermeja and are commonplace in the peripheries of metropolitan areas like Medellin, where urban militias often alternate between "cruces" (collaborations) with the guerrillas and the paramilitaries.

One might think that these developments only represent the replace ment of networks of control affiliated with certain armed groups by those

linked to other groups and that, therefore, the familiar patterns of territori alization continue. To view what is happening in this light, however, is to

ignore the unique features of the new situation. Under present circum stances, the factor of unpredictability has risen to ascendency. This is clearly evident in the areas that are in open dispute between contending parties. For instance, in southern Cesar, it is not possible to discern who is in control, the guerrillas or the paramilitaries. In the urban peripheries, it is



often difficult to identify who is in charge in what areas. Juvenile gangs are

constantly changing their identities, and displaced persons cannot easily recognize the clandestine forces that infiltrate their settlements. By the same

token, in the areas "conquistadas" by one or another armed organization, nothing can be taken for granted. Driven out one day by the paramilitaries, the guerrillas may return tomorrow. At the time of writing, guerrilla forces

were attempting to do this even in the areas where they have suffered their most severe setbacks, such as Urab? and C?rdoba. Everywhere, boundaries between zones of control are becoming increasingly ill-defined and fluid.

At the same time, the armed groups demonstrate every day that they can launch attacks further and further distant from their home bases, even in the very heart of their adversaries strongholds. The paramilitaries have increased their operations in the "historic" domains of the guerrillas, and the guerrillas have carried out attacks in areas that have been taken over

by the paramilitaries. Hence, the classic processes of territorialization con tinue to weaken.

There are fewer and fewer spaces that can now escape the influence of the armed groups. Universities, for example, are often threatened as

targets by one or another group. The same is true of those who collectively seek to withdraw from the scourge of conflict, such as the "communities of peace" and populations who declare their "neutrality" in respect to the

combatants, as witnessed by the armed intrusions into the settlements of San Jos? de Apartado, Riosucio, and Aguachica. There are no more secure places of refuge, and those who flee the most imperiled areas may well find themselves facing the threats of the same agents of violence on their arrival in a new place.

In these circumstances, we may speak of an effective homogenization of space, since its points of reference come to be oriented around the actions of the armed groups. Most importantly, space begins to "dematerial ize." Every location is defined by its position, real or virtual, in the networks

of control exercised by the armed organizations. Space, then, becomes a

"non-place." Mark Auge has used this term to designate spaces of circula tion linked to

"supermodernity."61 adapt it for my own purposes to refer to spaces that, divested of material attributes, are defined by interactions

among networks of coercion. Even where a tangible territoriality still exists, it is becoming increas

ingly permeable. Residents have learned that there are no protections that

provide guarantees against the invasion of their enemies, that their present "protectors" may quickly abandon their territory to these enemies. They also know that the guerrilla fighters may from time to time exchange their uniforms for those of the paramilitaries?a significant portion of the para

militaries are recruited from former guerrillas?and a neighbor can at any


136 P?caut

time become an "informer," that shadowy figure who helps to single out victims when a massacre takes place. The non-place is the domain of gener alized distrust. Not only is it unwise to trust in the armed group that is

currently in control, the same may be the case in respect to one's neighbors or even members of one's family, who at any point may become informants or have children in the opposite camp.

The non-place is definitively characterized by its ubiquity. There is no

private space where social ties can be constructed or maintained. Everyone knows that he is under surveillance, perhaps by all the armed groups at once, and that establishing contacts with one of them, even against one's will, will turn him into a sospechoso (suspect) in the eyes of the others. Selling a piece of merchandise, providing aid to someone, or moving to a site near a particular person or group are actions that may draw condemnation. Evidence has established that several persons from the municipality of Riosucio in Urab? were executed by the guerrillas in 1997 for having gone to the market in the town of Turbo. To dare to travel to Turbo was seen

by the guerrillas as sufficient evidence that these persons were in complicity with the paramilitaries who had established themselves in the town. At the same time, there is an abundance of cases where the paramilitaries have also carried out summary executions under similar circumstances. The "lists" that the paramilitaries post at the sites of massacres are a concrete

manifestation of the ubiquity of the non-place: there is no place to hide. Another aspect of the non-place is the uncertainty as to how anyone's

relative position within the networks of control might be evaluated by the armed actors. These networks are comprised of a number of concentric circles of participants. Alongside the full-time members of the armed orga nization are occasional collaborators, militias, and other supporters. There are also those who perform small favors for the group. Finally, there is the

mass of the population who are obliged to attend meetings or to participate in marches or other demonstrations. Even if the inhabitants might be able to negotiate their relationship with the armed organization that has installed itself in their territory, the same will not be true in respect to the groups

who want to invade the same space. When the paramilitaries took over various localities in Urab?, the guerrillas retreated from these areas; but it was the local militias and supposed collaborators who paid the price for their retreat. The murders of so many common participants, not just the leaders, of the 1996 protest march in Caqueta also demonstrate that no form of connection to partisan activity is immune from violent retaliation.

As a final case in point, we should recall the kidnapping by the guerrillas of local girls and young women who were romantically involved with soldiers stationed nearby.

In such circumstances of fear and terror, there is no need to resort to



sophisticated theories of rational calculation to understand that it is in the interest of any individual to adapt, if at all possible, to these circumstances in individualistic terms, avoiding any involvement in collective action. In the colonization zones controlled by the guerrillas, autonomous organiza tions such as the juntas de colonizadores and juntas comunales, who carry out projects of collective interest, are frequently intimidated or taken over by the guerrillas. And to even participate in such organizations is to run the risk of being labeled a militant or to be recruited to perform other

compromising tasks. Not surprisingly, there are also a great many among the forcibly displaced who do all they can to mix with the general population to escape the label that is attached to their condition.

Three additional observations need to be made in respect to the non

place. Mobility is certainly a physical translation of the condition of the

non-place, and it is not by chance that I have made several references to the displaced. But this point can be amplified to larger considerations under

present conditions, the inhabitants of the regions dominated by violence often perceive themselves as emigrants-in-waiting. In my interviews with coca-leaf growers in Putumayo, the majority of my respondents said that they had come for a limited period of time in order to accumulate some small capital. They would not use their initial cash surpluses to improve their housing situation, since they considered their residences as only a

temporary stopping place. In other areas, including those where permanent crops were grown, residents dreamed of leaving, giving little thought

whether this would come about as an individual move or by being dragged away as part of collective displacement, forced or voluntary. But this is not an entirely new phenomenon. The history of Colombia is a history of

migration, and the memory of La Violencia in the 1950s is one of massive population movements, as evidenced by the common answer that many Colombians give to the question: "How did you come to live here?" "Be cause of La Violencia." Certainly the displaced are capable of giving a detailed account of their dramatic situation, but they often seem to consider the fact of their displacement itself as a matter of fate.

The non-place also results from the dislocation of institutional refer ences. There is no institutional protection against the violence. The army is viewed as one of its major protagonists, to be feared as much or even

more than the other combatants. The system of justice is paralyzed and can be conceived only as an abstraction. The traditional parties are falling apart. The local mayors, favorite targets of the armed actors, are cast into the same situation as their constituents. Of course, there is nothing new in skepticism toward the state in Colombia. It is anchored in a long historical tradition that has always made highly unlikely the possibility of the nation

being experienced as a compelling symbolic reality. Nevertheless, the level


138 P?caut

of the state's disrepute has never been higher than it is now, and the

mounting of corruption in recent years has heightened the sense of its

irresponsibility. There is, then, nothing that can restrain the flow of violence or that will allow individuals to seal themselves off from it.

It must not be forgotten that the non-place is also expanding within a space that is larger than the national territory. Colombia, which has often seemed to ignore the existence of the world outside, has suddenly discovered that it is part of that world. The neoliberal opening of the

economy has had disastrous results for agriculture. The drug trade sustains the daily intervention of the United States into the internal affairs of the nation. The violations of human rights within the country provokes over and over again censure and exposure from outside its borders. Globalization is no longer a distant reality: while the national territory unravels, it creates a virtual space in which rules and policies are externally imposed. The non

place also consists in a short circuit between the local and the global: the

global, rather than the national, generates a frame of reference, an integrat ing perspective, as to the meaning of the movement of events within the

country.

DETEMPORALIZATION

The Multiplicity of the Times of the Violence

The violence in Colombia has set in motion a variety of temporal orientations. They juxtapose and combine with one another in unstable arrangements. As I drew attention to the social differences in the apprehen sion of space in my analysis of deterritorialization, it is important to empha size the multiplicities of social time. The temporal orientation of the peasant

who has inherited his parcel of land is not the same as that of the individual who has taken up the work of colonization. For the latter, the realities of risk are at the center of his perception of time, as Alfredo Molano has

suggested with such clarity in his descriptions of the perilous trajectories of colonos who lose track of their families then find them again, work their land only to suddenly lose it, and see their labors destroyed by floods and

other natural disasters. The apprehension of time by youths living in the cities displays its own distinctiveness and varies from one period to another.

Alonso Salazar7 and Fernando Vallejo8 have described the time orientations of the young hired killers, the sicarios, a time of brevity without a future,

marked by a succession of acts, acquisition, and squander. This is not the same as the time of today's juvenile gangs who, at the very least, attempt to secure the survival of their barrios. On the other hand, the experience



of the displaced is accompanied by an alteration of temporal referents, issuing in a kind of waiting with no end in view. All of these temporalities trace their influence on the violence, which does not operate in a social

vacuum.

The various temporalities, which are by definition collective in nature, impose their imprints on collective social action. Thus, we can discern

how during their participation in particularly striking events, such as land invasions or protest marches, whole populations feel as though their defin

ing characteristics as a people are being played out on a stage. But social times also leave their imprint on particular social actors, including armed actors. The FARC of the 1960s was well integrated into the space and time of the peasants. The locality or the region often constituted its spacial horizon, and the tempo of the harvests and the improvement of lands, its

temporal horizon. The capacity to deal with duration without yielding to

impatience is rooted in the fifty-year history of this guerrilla group. On the other hand, recently published accounts of the histories of the ELN and the EPL reveal how the time orientation of these urban cadres, inspired by political theory and ideology, was difficult to harmonize with peasant time.

These differences also have their effects on strategic time, the times that inform the planning of confrontation and negotiation. Governments only

have four years in which to act, or even less, since they generally lose their

capacity for initiative within two or three years. The knowledge accumulated

by one administration is not passed on to its successor, since the spoils system prevails in the filling of government posts, in addition to the desire of each

incoming government to create the appearance of initiating something new. The guerrillas and other armed actors do not face these limitations. Simply to continue to exist is for them a victory. Because of this difference in strategic time, a notable asymmetry in orientation emerges, both in respect to armed

operations and around the negotiating table. What these considerations underscore is the relationships between the

temporal orientations of those who are active participants in the violence and the character of the interactions that actually take place within the violence. Although there may be disjunctions between these levels, they

may nevertheless converge when the organized groups succeed in establish

ing the belief that they are indeed attempting to achieve a specific goal, whether it be immediate or long-term.

The Time of the Event and Mythical Time

Things appear quite differently from the standpoint of those who are victims of the violence. Certainly they too are conditioned by social orienta


140 P?caut

tions of time. But for them, time does not necessarily have a direction. It is much more likely to be experienced simultaneously as a succession of events and a mythical representation of eternal recurrence.

"That day, they burst in." This declaration, made so often by the

forcibly displaced, illustrates well the emphasis placed on the event. The event may be expected and feared in anticipation, and there may have been previous murders or threats, but they were seen as simply routine occurrences affecting other people. Nevertheless, the event occurs?and it is always a surprise. The same thing occurs at a more general level. Every day, the newspapers carry routine accounts of murders that have taken

place in different parts of the country. But then a massacre of an exception ally large number of people takes place somewhere, or a major public figure, such as Jaime Pardo Leal, Carlos Pizarro, Luis Carlos Gal?n, or Alvaro G?mez Hurtado, is assassinated, and irrepressible emotion explodes

in the press and public opinion, as if a strong tabu had suddenly been

broken, as if the horror of it all has suddenly burst into light, and reality has been shattered. Nevertheless, these exceptional events are soon absorbed by the reassertion of the routine, the one taking the place of the other. The

memory of the extraordinary events soon fades. None of them serves to

decisively reorient experience, all of them eventually blend with one another as they accumulate. Each one leaves only a trace, like the tail of a comet, but that trace does not detail a history that can be expressed. The banal and extraordinary manifestations of the violence quickly confound with one another in an indistinct texture of experience. In the uninterrupted passage of events, all reference points are erased and obliviousness of the

past determines ones relationship to the present. "Immediatism"9 prevails, enfolded in a time deprived of a "horizon of expectation" as well as stable

points of reference rooted in the past. Opposed to immediatism is a longer duration, that of recurrence, to

which the new always seems to be assimilated. Today's violence is seen as the return of the violence that was there before, its forms of expression the same as they were before. Many Colombians are convinced that present events are nothing more than the continuation of those of La Violencia and that those of La Violencia were themselves but a continuation of the civil wars of the nineteenth century. Recurrence suggests that a mythic temporality is also present as a frame of reference, within which the same violence has been here "forever" and reproduces itself without end.

In fact, the mythic reality of the violence is but one aspect of a larger mythical representation. Violence often appears as the visible surface of a subterranean reality that is a flux of antagonistic forces comparable to those that produce natural disasters and which govern the affairs of men and

women in spite of their efforts. It has often been noted that during the



1950s, the violence was depicted in the testimonies of victims as a kind of

demiurge, which, beyond the actual armed actors, was responsible for the

calamity. It was "La Violencia" that had caused this or that particular horror or outrage. It is no different today. Part of the mythical overview is the attribution to individuals of characteristics that drive them to violence in ways beyond their control. "Scientific" discourse often comes to replace

popular discourse in this respect, as the origins of violent behavior are ascribed to the

"psychology" of the Colombian, or to an elusive "culture of intolerance." It is as though one could not comprehend the violence

except by "naturalizing" it. There are certain episodes that simultaneously partake strongly of

both dramatic event and mythical recurrence. These are events that seem to be a decisive break in the order of things, but at the same time reveal the essence of that which reoccurs without end. Of course, we are thinking

most notably of the 9th of April, 1948, the day of the assassination of Jorge Eli?cer Gait?n and the Bogotazo, which, to the majority of Colombians, marked the beginning of La Violencia and, therefore, the violence of today. If we consider this a

"founding moment," it is one in which a catastrophe gave new impulse to the formulation of mythic awareness.

The populations caught up in the present violence endlessly swing back and forth between the event and the myth, the past of the present and the present of the past. What is denied them is the possibility of being participants in a history oriented towards the future. In this sense, their

relationship to time contrasts sharply with that found in Brazil, where the uncertain present never stands in the way of the assured future.

From the Violence Without History to Its Kaleidoscopic Representation

According to Freud's famous formulation, the unconscious has no

history. This observation could be applied to the violence. Between the event and the myth, there is a missing link: an instituted and institutionaliz ing history. If the memories of Colombians are fixated on catastrophes, it is because these events are not integrated in a collective memory that confers on them a meaning that locates them as steps toward the advent of a more modern society. Every national history has had its share of

catastrophic events and episodes that, at the time, shook the foundations of collective orientation and interpretation within society. Politicians and historians have no need to become Hegelians to realize that their task is to construct a national story in which the "negative moment" finds its natural place in the overall narrative.

This has not happened in Colombia. Politicians believe that the only


142 P?caut

possible course is to throw a veil of forgetfulness over the disturbing epi sodes and to dismiss the attempts of historians to interpret them. Hence, catastrophe remains ever with us, a terrifying curse devoted to the endless torment of future generations.

I have recalled the 9th of April, 1948, and the Bogotazo. Its commemo ration in 1998, on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, demonstrated that the events of that day are as if still alive. The points of view displayed in the press were the same as those fifty years before, and in some cases, revealed a surprising adherence to partisan views that have long since ceased to have any meaning, or a resort to commonplace shibboleths, such as "on that day," Colombia discovered to what lengths the "barbarity" of the ignorant masses could extend. The 9th of April remains among Colombians like an unburied corpse.

The same politics of obscurantism are applied even more strongly to the years of La Violencia. In once-and-for-all fashion, with the installation of the National Front, a wall of silence was erected. No attempt has been

made to scrutinize the actors and the interests that were involved in the

conflagration, not to speak of installing a tribunal to judge, even symboli cally, its principal political authors. Neither has there been an attempt to

weigh the actions of the church during this period, even though its participa tion was strategic in stabilizing the position of the regime in power. The

first historical study that appeared on La Violencia, a book by German Guzman, Orlando Fais Borda, and Eduardo Uma?a Luna, was labeled as a sacrilege. Although several valuable regional monographs on La Violencia are now available, there is still no comprehensive historical synthesis of the period.

Since La Violencia has been deprived of a history, both in the strict and symbolic sense of the term, it nurtures a memory that is unfettered, because it does not have to take into account an authoritative narrative of what has actually taken place and why. Two generations later, many Colombians see La Violencia as the cause of all their problems, of their

precarious removal to the cities, of their personal failures. Even the young engaged in criminal activities have no difficulty in justifying their behavior by asserting that they are only trying to put right the humiliation that was inflicted on their forbears, to produce a different outcome for a course of events that has continued without change.

The present violence is even more removed than La Violencia from

meaningful incorporation into a constructed history. This is not only be cause of the lack of temporal distance: it also has to do with the fact that it has no discernible beginning in time. It is not surprising that so many

people try to link its causes to the origins of La Violencia. The absence of an identifiable point of its beginning inhibits the elaboration of a framework



of interpretation that would make sense of the phenomena of the violence. The undeniable complexity of these phenomena does the rest: it overwhelm

ingly affirms the experience of a temporal orientation based only on the succession of events.

At the national level, every important event transforms the perception of the whole. This process is what I have elsewhere called a kaleidoscopic apprehension of the configurations of the violence. As major events succeed one another?assassinations of prominent public figures, arrests of kingpins in the drug trade, massacres by the paramilitary, dramatic incursions by the guerrillas, declarations by the United States, paramilitary defeats, the announcements of peace plans, revelations of corruption?the public per ception of the configurations of the violence undergo constant metamorpho ses. It is not only that hope gives way to disillusion or the willingness to

negotiate to the hardening of positions, the prevailing views of the major factors at work in the violence also change?drug trafficking as the major culprit yields to an emphasis on political causes, the centrality of guerrilla expansion to that of the consolidation of the paramilitaries. Kaleidoscopic temporality dominates popular and academic accounts of the violence alike.

The elision of memory is inherent in kaleidoscopic temporality. Unlike what happened during La Violencia, in the current violence, events take

place with such rapidity that they are soon forgotten. A spectacular assassi nation, such as that of Luis Carlos Gal?n, fades hazily into the background.

Within this temporal orientation, the formation of stable public opinion becomes extremely problematic.

To speak of kaleidoscopic configurations of time is to draw attention to the absence of any reasonably consistent framework of temporal orientation

whatsoever. The conception with which we began this analysis, the diversity of social times, proves to be insufficient to describe the phenomena at hand. Both myth and brute fact reveal to us a lack of historical awareness that we may call detemporalization.

DESUBJECTIVATION

I make use of the term "desubjectivation" in order to establish a

homology with the titles of the two previous analyses. I am aware, of course, that it is a term whose utility may be questioned. It is certainly possible that an individual faced with terror may feel himself torn away from every thing that defines who he is, deprived of the enduring traits of personality that give him a sense of duration as a self. Nevertheless, even under such circumstances, the individual may continue to affirm the self by giving accounts of his experiences, thereby maintaining a narrative identity.10 Nev


144 P?caut

ertheless, I want to suggest that under terror, the succession of experiences may create discontinuities in this narrative identity to the point of threaten

ing any possibility of integrating the individual's accounts into a collective narrative. I will also attempt to show that under conditions of terror, the individual tends to orient himself simultaneously to contradictory norms and values to which he is exposed, without being able to commit to any of them. What I want to depict is the image of an individual whose subjectivity is essentially split. But again, it is instructive to begin at the opposite pole

of analysis, to affirm the argument that in certain cases, participation in the violence may also be a way of constructing the self. It is only in the second instance that the image of the exploded self appears.

The Subject Within the Violent Organization

I have argued that the power of the violent networks is not something new and that in certain areas the population could view the presence of the armed actors as offering them protection, even a form of "law," instilling a sense of community. Coercion, from this standpoint, is a basis for collec tive identity.

This argument is particularly applicable to the youth who join the armed organizations. Research on urban gangs as well as the guerrillas indicate that in joining these organizations, young people are seeking a status they cannot hope to attain in ordinary life. The "prestige of the uniform" and that associated with the possession of weapons is important, but the most essential factor is becoming part of an organization and its

system of authority. It may well be that the weakness or absence of paternal authority among these youth leads them to seek its equivalent from the

major or subordinate leaders of the organization. Moreover, any particular path a youth might follow in terms of his

involvements in the organizations is unpredictable. The proliferation of armed groups means that there is always a diversity of options. Even in the same family, different children may move in different directions. Neither are the particular affiliations very durable. Joining one group may only be a step towards enlisting in a more powerful one, and as I have noted, not a few militiamen and guerrillas have switched to the side of the paramilitaries.

Moreover, the need to return to a former life may present itself at any time. There is an obvious limit to the age at which an individual can join an urban gang, and undoubtedly such limitations exist among the guerrillas and paramilitaries also. Unfortunately, we know little about the mechanisms

by which individuals effect their exit from the armed organizations. It must be pointed out, however, that affiliation to an armed organiza



tion is far from guaranteeing the stability and continuity of personal identity. This is particularly the case because the significance of the violence to those who engage in it is essentially defined by the actual practices associated with it. The time has long passed when ideology was of major importance, and today even the guerrillas spend little time in ideological work other than that necessary to give young recruits a few slogans, which often became the sum total of their political formation. In my interviews with young people demobilized from the EPL in 1992,1 discovered that, in telling their stories, they rarely referred to any Utopian construct, revolutionary hero, or particular episode of Colombian history. Their focus was on the engage

ments they had participated in, or more precisely, those they considered to have been of particular significance. But even the horrific forms of these actions had become routinized for them. They described acts of extortion and murder as though they were simply instances of ordinary behavior. It is no coincidence that to enact their dramas of horror, these guerrillas found it necessary to resort to the practices of ritualized mutilation of the bodies of the slain that were codified by armed groups during La Violencia, as if the past alone could provide a symbolic framework to give meaning to the violence. The violence has become progressively aphasie. The formula of the linguistic philosopher John Austin has been turned on its head. Instead of "to speak is to act," it is now "to act is to speak." Action is its own justification; no elaborate argumentation is needed. It seems evident that the ascendency of practice over language is not the normal path by

which personal identity is established: it leads to an identity that only appears and is affirmed in the pursuit of action itself.

The Personal Journey As a Story Without History

The stories told by the victims of terror often take the form of a journey through space: leaving one place, the individual establishes himself in an

other, only to be dislodged from there by the terror, to settle once again wherever he can. Between each recounted episode, there are often gaps, and the nature of the subject implicated within any particular episode is not necessarily the same as the subject in another. At one point, he is an individual participating in a stable social structure; at another, he is a brave colono who is working his land with little concern for what is happening around him; then he is a terrified individual trying to survive amidst the coercive forces arrayed against him; finally, he is a "displaced" person, one

who has control over nothing. The narration of the journey becomes the only means available for an individual constantly confronted by unpredict able circumstances and courses of events to affirm his identity.


146 P?caut

Such narratives generally find no place in a larger "grand narrative" of collective history. Even less is it possible to read the present as part of a history that is unfolding. Although the non-place generated by terror

may be shared by many others, it is experienced as the travail of the individual. Trapped in the midst of visible and invisible coercive networks and immersed in an environment of unrelieved distrust, the individual has no social frame of reference to assist him in incorporating what is happening to him into a unifying group perspective.

The very characteristics of the violence in Colombia are an obstacle to developing such a perspective. The multiplicity of manifestations of the

violence, the bewildering clashes among its protagonists, and the crisis of the country's formal institutions are among the many factors that make it difficult to perceive a central axis of conflict that would make sense out of the succession of events. To be sure, in the areas of confrontation between

paramilitaries and guerrillas, the armed actors attempt to polarize the popu lation in partisan terms. But the inhabitants of these areas pay little attention to these efforts. They see themselves as "caught in the crossfire" and think

only of how to escape the situation. Few fully identify with one side or the other. If those that escape find themselves in the midst of the city as

displaced persons, they have to contend with yet another frame of reference constructed by a diversity of coercive protagonists.

The narrative structure of the personal journey is inconclusive. Often it consists of a mere sequencing of successive fragments of experience.

These stories resist articulation within the framework of a global construct, because only rarely do the exigencies that determine the actions of the victims of the violence coincide with those that determine the strategies of the armed actors. On the other hand, the kaleidoscopic discontinuities among the configurations of the violence challenge the plausibility of any global narrative that might be applied to it. Both the structural limitations of the personal narratives of those caught up in the violence and the inability to incorporate these stories into a collective narrative make it extremely difficult for individuals to consolidate personal identities within the bound aries of terror: identity is at the mercy of circumstances.

The Contradictory Orientations of the Subject

The difficulty that the individual has in weaving his discrete experiences together in a single fabric of subjectivity reveals itself in another way. When he assumes an attitude of self-reflection and attempts to justify his actions or the actions of those caught up in similar circumstances, he simultaneously employs the most contradictory standards of legitimation, as though all



were equally valid. This was amply illustrated in my interviews with the

displaced and members of youth gangs in Medellin. Nostalgic allusions to the

"morality of earlier times" were combined with admiration for those

who, like the drug traffickers, "have been successful in life." The condemna tion of the injustice of existing laws, seen as constructed essentially for the

powerful, goes hand in hand with the demand for the rule of law. Contempt for politics is combined with admiration of those politicians who have "done

something for the people." Rank conformism in respect to institutions such as the church accompanies the total rejection of authority. The call for solidarity with one's peers coexists with the proclamation of "every man for himself." The claim of commitment to honesty and hard work does not exclude praise of being sharp, of being able to profit from one's little

"rebusque" (hustling, scrabbling, racket). These juxtaposed legitimations are, however, only contradictory to the

outside observer. They are deeply compatible from the point of view of those who enunciate them, as though, simultaneously or in turn, their

proclamation is required by the nature of the distinctive problems they face. In a recent work, sociologist Francisco Guti?rrez San?n11 describes

well how a "gregarious morality" based on the imperative to share what

one has with others does not prevent the constant breaking of the rules of the community.

We can take this argument a step further: the most appallingly brutal actions are by no means necessarily perceived by those who engage in them as contradictory to everyday morality. The young people who describe such actions do not seem to consider them as a threat to the foundations of social solidarity. They do not even refer to codes of honor to justify their behavior. They often assert that, although such actions are certainly punishable from the standpoint of the formal institutions of justice, this is not necessarily the case from the point of

view of a "higher" justice. In his study of the sicarios, Alonso Salazar

has shown that when they commit their crimes, they have assured themselves beforehand that they have the forgiveness of their mothers and the Virgin. When the EPL combatants turned in their arms, many of them had no compunction in reciting the horrors in which they had been involved. Different moralities correspond to different levels of behavior: at any moment, one might find himself thrust from one level to another. The violence is certainly rationalized and instrumentalized, but it is also a world of excess that questions the meaning of life. Its rituals resemble those of intoxication, which is part of ordinary life, but

which creates situations where one is not oneself?and may, therefore, engage in behavior for which one cannot be held responsible. The world of extreme violence is seen both as anchored in ordinary life and


148 P?caut

characterized by conditions that call for norms of behavior that are

beyond ordinary values and standards of judgement. "Desubjectivation?" Perhaps, in the strict sense, this might occur at

extreme moments when the subject does not experience in the first person what he is doing or what is happening to him. But the phenomena discussed here are more accurately described as split subjectivity. The division that occurs in the subject torn between contradictory frames of reference or levels of life experience superimposed on one another is hardly surprising.

Alongside deterritorialization and the shattering of temporal orientations, this is another manifestation of terror, one that reveals itself in the narratives of the displaced when they recall that moment when they realized that they had no possibility of adapting to the circumstances of which they have become the

"toy," to use an expression commonly voiced in their accounts.

CONCLUSION

Throughout this article, I have attempted to describe and analyze the forms taken by the violence in Colombia. These forms are simultaneously objective and subjective. Even territory and the "non-place" exist at both levels. They delineate the boundaries of present-day life; but these bound aries are highly immaterial, especially when they are defined by the conflu ence of threats. Time does not cease being anchored in social experience, even as it fragments at the level of actual events or assumes the essence of myth. And in respect to the subject, the individual at least maintains sufficient continuity of self to be able to narrate his experiences, even when confronted by the superimposition of multiple and contradictory social frames of reference. In reality, the terror implies a peculiar synthesis of the objective and the subjective. Every situation is evaluated on the basis of "what might happen," every event seems, despite all appearances, "to have been foretold," every locality is destined to perish. Hence, representa tions permeate the "life world." In this sense, it might be argued that terror also creates a world of imagination.

In fact, however?and this is of utmost importance?the terror de

stroys all imaginaries, if by this term we mean the capacity to refer to

something that would secure a unity of perception of the phenomena of the violence, that this unity could be grasped as a discernible axis of conflict, a revolution, an order of things, or simply a reality that has meaning. The terror is experienced as an entanglement of events, of prosaic short-term

calculations, as a parade of sufferings. Neither the protagonists nor the victims have principles of identity, much less Utopian commitments at stake in the midst of the terror. This absence of an imaginary determines even



the perception of politics, which is reduced to relations of force or to utilitarian transactions. The institutionalizing potential of the political has

disappeared, especially in the areas of the violence. I have raised the question whether it is possible that the guerrillas and

the paramilitaries might succeed in effectively polarizing Colombian society. There are indeed factors at work that might lead in that direction, including the spread of armed confrontation and the deterioration of the economy.

But even then, the presence of an effective imaginary would be necessary. Polarization assumes that the population is convinced of the existence of a friend-enemy division that overdetermines all aspects of social life. We are far from such a situation. From this perspective, the present violence could not be more different than La Violencia of the 1950s. At that time, the subcultures of the traditional political parties embraced the entire popu lation, and it was not difficult under those circumstances to sustain an

image of a decisive conflict between two principles of political organization. Nothing of the sort exists at present. The armed protagonists cannot appeal to any principles of identification. Those who make up the ranks of the

guerrillas and those in the ranks of the paramilitaries are no different in this respect. The armed actors resort to terror because, lacking an exploitable division, they seek to create fragmentation. But this is a long way from

being able to justify the terror, especially in a manner that would command the allegiance of ordinary people. As I have pointed out, the guerrillas do not attempt to generate collective aspirations, not to speak of dreams of a

shining future. Neither do the groups that oppose them. The same can be said of other organized political agents in the society: they have had no success in creating an imaginary. The government and the organizations of "civil society" are as bereft in this respect as are the armed actors outside the

"legitimate" play of politics. But perhaps this should not be the immediate goal of those seeking

to end the violence. It may be that the appropriate priority is to reestablish some mechanisms of trust and accountability. I have described the experi ence of terror from the perspective of the process of deincorporealization in relation to the frames of reference of ordinary life. Such a process cannot

be brought to an end without the restoration of stable formal institutional spaces as well as noninstitutional spaces, where words might regain their value. This is the primary condition of trust. How might this be achieved? That is another story.

ENDNOTES

1. Orlando Fais Borda, El Hombre y la tierra en Boyac?: Desarrollo hist?rica de una sociedad minifundista, 2nd ed. (Bogot?: Editorial Antares, 1957).


150 P?caut

2. The expression is taken from William Ram?rez Tab?n, "Violencia y democracia en

Colombia," An?lisis Pol?tico, no. 3 (January-April, 1988), pp. 64-79. 3. Alejandro Reyes, "Territorios de la violencia en Colombia," in Renan Silva, ed., Territor

ios, regiones, socidades (Bogot?: CERC, 1994), pp. 111-122; and Andr?s P?nate. "Oil and Politics," (Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford, 1992).

4. See the beautiful book by Adolfo Atehort?a, El poder y la sangre: Las historias de

Trujillo, Valle (Cali: Gobernaci?n del Valle, 1996). 5. Andr?s P?nate, "El sendero estrat?gico del ELN: Del idealismo guevarista al clientelismo

armado," in Malcom Deas and Maria Victoria Ll?rente, eds., Reconocer la guerra para construir la paz (Bogot?: Cerec-Norma-Edciones UniAndes, 1999), pp. 237-258.

6. Mark Auge, Non-lieux, Introduction a une Antropologie de la Surmodernite (Paris: Seuil, 1992).

7. Alonso Salazar, No nacimos pa' semilla (Bogot?: CINEP, 1993). 8. Fernando Vallejo, La virgen de los sicarios (Bogot?: Alafaguara, 1994). 9. Cf. Zaki Laidi, "L'urgence ou la d?valorisation de l'avenir," Espirit (February 1998),

pp. 19-35. 10. On narrative identity, see Paul Ricoeur, Soi-m?me comme un auture (Paris: Seuil-Points,

1990). In discussing personal identity, Ricoeur makes the distinction between /Jem identity, which is the reference to permanence in the time of the individual as substance, and /pse-identity, the persistent characteristics by which an individual is recognized.

11. Francisco Guti?rrez San?n, La ciudad representada (Bogot?: Tercer Mundo/IEPRI, 1998).


Article Contentsp. 129p. 130p. 131p. 132p. 133p. 134p. 135p. 136p. 137p. 138p. 139p. 140p. 141p. 142p. 143p. 144p. 145p. 146p. 147p. 148p. 149p. 150

Issue Table of ContentsInternational Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 14, No. 1, Colombia: A Nation and Its Crisis (Fall, 2000), pp. 1-260Front MatterEditors' Note [pp. 3-4]Chronology, 1509-2000 [pp. 5-14]Geographical Note [pp. 15-17]Politics and Violence in Colombian Society: History and PresenceWar and Politics in Colombian Society [pp. 19-49]Changing Identities and Contested Settings: Regional Elites and the Paramilitaries in Colombia [pp. 51-69]Politicians and Criminals: Two Decades of Turbulence, 1978-1998 [pp. 71-87]

The Fruits of Violence: Internal DisplacementThe Loss of Rights, the Meaning of Experience, and Social Connection: A Consideration of the Internally Displaced in Colombia [pp. 89-105]Colombia: A New Century, an Old War, and More Internal Displacement [pp. 107-127]Configurations of Space, Time, and Subjectivity in a Context of Terror: The Colombian Example [pp. 129-150]

The Political Economy of the Drug TradePerspectives on Narcotics Trafficking in Colombia [pp. 151-182]The Economy of Narco-Dollars: From Production to Recycling of Earnings [pp. 183-203]

Economic Perspectives: Agriculture and Institutions"Dutch Disease", Macroeconomic Policies, and Rural Poverty in Colombia [pp. 205-233]Colombian Institutions in the Twentieth Century [pp. 235-255]

Back Matter

configurations of space. time. and subjectivity in a coontext of terror. colombian example

Documents