Liberalism at Its Limits: Crime and Terror in the Latin American Cultural Text

Chapter 7: The Perverse Heterosexual

The Perverse Heterosexual THE NUMBER OF articles, books, films, pictures, paintings, and theatrical productions concerning the women assassinated in Ciudad Juárez grows steadily.₁ This is due not only to the bemusing and menacing nature of this massive event that bewilders scholars but also to the intuition that it constitutes a symptom of overriding importance of events to come and constitutes one of the patterns of governmentality in the postmodern world. Without packing everything into a convenient catchall explanation, it can be said that evidence of this menace can be found in the murders of women in other areas of Mexico, such as Baja California , Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Tamaulipas, Oaxaca, Sonora, and Guerrero, as well as in other countries, including Guatemala. I want to call attention to the massive production of literature on the subject so as to highlight the place of culture and its function, and to focus on one particular text, El silencio que la voz de todas quiebra: Mujeres y víctimas de Ciudad Juárez, which has been the singular object of praise in Ciudad Juárez (Huesos en el desierto, by Sergio González, being the undisputed authority on the subject in the view of most national scholars).² 175 Rodriguez CH7:Layout 1 12/26/08 5:45 PM Page 175 Among all the texts written on feminicidio, El silencio is particularly praiseworthy on a local level. I do not know quite how to explain this local impulse, but I assume it is due to several factors. For one, the text underscores the intellectual commitment of the local intelligentsia in Juárez. The presumption is that those who live in the area know more about it or have better access to information on the subject matter than do researchers elsewhere. Another reason is that the local intellectual encounters more risks by writing about this subject than researchers in other places, like myself, who are relatively outside the direct sphere of influence of the drug lords. There is a threat hanging over all those who investigate feminicidio in Juárez. A case in point is that of González himself and of all the individuals he mentions in his book. Silence also means silencing, and vulnerability is not only a sign of commitment but also of authenticity and authority. Many researchers of violence have paid with their own lives for diving headfirst into these murky waters. As part of the public debate, El silencio constitutes a piece of evidence of the empathy that a group of women writers manifests for the murdered and enters a plea to intervene and document this matter of public interest that exposes the unprotected lives of some social sectors under the governmental regimes of maquila-style “democracies.” Thus, the text lays bare the close-knit relationship between public, private, and intimate. The intent of the text is to retrieve, for the heteropathic postcollective memory—that is, the indirect cultural memory—small bits and pieces of the lives of the young and unprotected women who have been murdered, alongside the testimonials of their mothers’ affect.³ The text reveals sufficient evidence of the fissure between the family and the state that is produced by the powerful mediation of money and private property expressed by the maquilas. I want to underscore the gratuitous forms of death, together with social defenselessness and the improbability of finding the culprits, as reasons that trigger cultural action. The women writers’ collective is not invested in finding the offenders but in providing the documentation that places the burden for finding them on the state. The social impact of this text resides in its enactment of knowledge that directly impinges on state affairs and interpellates the state regarding the butchery of young women at the hands of invisible and yet unpunished agents.⁴ Thus, El silencio is a text The Perverse Heterosexual 176 Rodriguez CH7:Layout 1 12/26/08 5:45 PM Page 176 tenaciously invested in unraveling the garbled state speech marring the investigation on feminicidio. The women of the writing collective unabatedly work towards breaking the silence. In this very word, silence, we find an indictment that connects directly with certain aspects of the investigation: namely, to expose and defy the stark operational mode of state institutions and their procedures. The discourse of the law shows itself to be bankrupt and worn out by its turning a blind eye...