Susana Kaiser

Department of Media Studies, University of San Francisco
Paper presented at the Our Media Not Theirs II Pre-conference on Alternative Media at IAMCR

Barcelona, July 2002

Abstract

For over two decades, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (mothers of disappeared people in Argentina) developed a slew of imaginative, low to-no-cost communication strategies to challenge the military dictatorship and pressure for accountability throughout the democratisation process. This paper focuses on one of their most fascinating campaigns: a rock concert at a soccer stadium celebrating their 20th anniversary. I discuss the Mothers' rationale for this 'memory keeping' strategy, comment on the musical groups that participated, analyse opinions from young people who attended the concert, and theorise on its effectiveness to create a forum for human rights activism.

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Introduction

This presentation is about rock concerts, political memory, and human rights in post-dictatorial Argentina. My interest is to explore the role that popular music, rock in particular, plays in the construction, transmission, and reconstruction of memories of a military dictatorship(1976-83) that eliminated political dissidents through kidnappings, torture, killings, and the disappearance of an estimated 30,000 persons. I focus here on one of the most fascinating communication experiences of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (mothers of disappeared people): a rock concert at a soccer stadium celebrating the 20th anniversary of their struggle, as part of their campaign to reach young people and create a forum for memory and human rights activism.

Some major questions guide my inquiry: What is the relevance of popular music in the process by which young people reconstruct their representations of a dictatorship they did notlive through, their 'post memories' (Hirsch, 1999)? How do the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayocapitalize on the popularity and potential for convocation of rock to develop a communication strategy to build links with the post-dictatorship generation? Can human rights rock concerts be considered lieux de mémoire (Nora, 1989) that codify and simbolize the dictatorship? I have only partial answers to these questions, rather see this as a first draft of a new research project. But I am convinced that we cannot understand how young Argentineans are remembering the dictatorship without incorporating popular music in the research agenda. As I will show, music 'brings back' the dictatorship; it is an important communication medium, a [hi]story teller, andan information source by which young people were learning about this past...

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