Karen Ann Faulk’s In the Wake of Neoliberalism: Citizenship and Rights in Argentina provides a look into how Argentina’s history has shaped the populace’s view of human rights and how human rights has in tern affected public discourse and history in Argentina through groups like Memoria Activa and Hotel BAUEN. This book was valuable to me because I was able to see the effects of neoliberalism in a way I had never seen before, since I have grown up within the culture of neoliberalism my entire life.
Faulk studies the conception of human rights in Argentina, how these conceptions were influenced by the past dictatorships, and how human rights language and work is being employed in response to neoliberalism. Faulk studies how two Human Rights …show more content…
Memoria Activa remembers the deaths of those lost in the AMIA bombing and pushes the government to pursue justice in the case. By doing this, Memoria Activa seeks to improve the lives of all Argentineans, not just those killed or Jewish Argentineans, by strengthening the infrastructure of the justice system. Strengthening of the legal system is a positive right because it entails duties on the state to provide services like emergency response teams. Faulk notes that the ability for the AMIA to be adequately tried was undercut by the rise in neoliberalist, deregulatory policy, justified by the idea of negative rights which made it impossible to have the funding for services that would have ensured the smooth operation of the trials. Hotel BAUEN also exemplifies the frequent opposition of positive and negative rights. Hotel BAUEN and other recuperated businesses argue for economic rights as a human right, particularly the right to work as essential to human dignity and that the state has a responsibility to ensure the existence of work with dignity to the public. (Faulk 114) This is the classic struggle between positive and negative rights. The right to work can mean two completely different things. Some may say that everyone has a right to a source of work and others could say everyone has a right to work meaning no one should be able to …show more content…
After the last dictatorship, the government’s failure to prosecute those culpable for human rights violations and the “leyes de impunidad.” Popularized outrage over impunity. (Faulk 58) Faulk argues that the language of impunity became tied with human rights in Argentina because it shares the pain of disappearance in that there is no public recognition of harm done. Both do not allow for public healing, as the disappeared were not confirmed dead and those responsible for human rights violations were never brought to justice. Corruption is linked to impunity in the public imaginary as “the facilitating mechanism that allows impunity to prevail or the original wrong for which justice is denied.” (Faulk 63) For instance, in the case of Memoria Activa, the states’s botching of the Israeaeli Embassy case both allows for the perpetrators to go forth untouched but also allowed for the AMIA bombing to happen, because the state had demonstrated that they would not pursue
Faulk studies the conception of human rights in Argentina, how these conceptions were influenced by the past dictatorships, and how human rights language and work is being employed in response to neoliberalism. Faulk studies how two Human Rights …show more content…
Memoria Activa remembers the deaths of those lost in the AMIA bombing and pushes the government to pursue justice in the case. By doing this, Memoria Activa seeks to improve the lives of all Argentineans, not just those killed or Jewish Argentineans, by strengthening the infrastructure of the justice system. Strengthening of the legal system is a positive right because it entails duties on the state to provide services like emergency response teams. Faulk notes that the ability for the AMIA to be adequately tried was undercut by the rise in neoliberalist, deregulatory policy, justified by the idea of negative rights which made it impossible to have the funding for services that would have ensured the smooth operation of the trials. Hotel BAUEN also exemplifies the frequent opposition of positive and negative rights. Hotel BAUEN and other recuperated businesses argue for economic rights as a human right, particularly the right to work as essential to human dignity and that the state has a responsibility to ensure the existence of work with dignity to the public. (Faulk 114) This is the classic struggle between positive and negative rights. The right to work can mean two completely different things. Some may say that everyone has a right to a source of work and others could say everyone has a right to work meaning no one should be able to …show more content…
After the last dictatorship, the government’s failure to prosecute those culpable for human rights violations and the “leyes de impunidad.” Popularized outrage over impunity. (Faulk 58) Faulk argues that the language of impunity became tied with human rights in Argentina because it shares the pain of disappearance in that there is no public recognition of harm done. Both do not allow for public healing, as the disappeared were not confirmed dead and those responsible for human rights violations were never brought to justice. Corruption is linked to impunity in the public imaginary as “the facilitating mechanism that allows impunity to prevail or the original wrong for which justice is denied.” (Faulk 63) For instance, in the case of Memoria Activa, the states’s botching of the Israeaeli Embassy case both allows for the perpetrators to go forth untouched but also allowed for the AMIA bombing to happen, because the state had demonstrated that they would not pursue