This essay, originally a conference, has its start point in a historical event: Pinochet’s arrest by England, because of a juridical process moved against him by a Spanish judge, concerning crimes occurred in Chile during the military dictatorship. Then the text analyses the role his judgement plays in the process of working over Chile’s collective trauma, discussing the function of memory-oblivion in working over that kind of collective traumas. It follows a theoretical perspective which moves between psychoanalysis and philosophy (F. Nietzsche).
Memory; oblivion; collective trauma