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Films for Social Justice: Romero and the Three Faces of Violence
Dec 10th, 2013 by oroscoj
Reviewed by Tiffany Williams
The film Romero, based on actual historical events, features the role of Archbishop Oscar Romero in the class-war of El Salvador in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This violent class conflict played out between the impoverished masses and the privileged elites of El Salvador, the latter group also backed by the country’s military. At the beginning of film, still a bishop in the Catholic Church of El Salvador, Romero is still somewhat aligned with the oligarchy, fearing being labeled a “subversive” or “agitator”, but as he takes on his new role as Archbishop he can no longer ignore their abuses. Soon after his appointment the violence culminates in a military massacre of peaceful citizens in the town square, as well as the capture, torture and killings of several priests who had the misfortune of being branded leftists. Death squads are organized by both sides in the conflict and kidnappings and disappearances become commonplace. Although encouraged by advisors to stay out of politics, before this brutality, Romero feels an increasingly stronger pull to be a voice for the oppressed as. For several years then, from the pulpit he preaches passionate sermons condemning the human rights abuses as well as the entrenched social structures that repress the people of El Salvador. For these sermons he is eventually labeled a traitor and communist subversive by the members of the oligarchy. He must be silenced, and as portrayed in the film, Romero is assassinated with a single bullet as he performs a mass, after completing only three years as archbishop.
romero-foto
This film and the history behind the events it depicts offer a strong vehicle for understanding all three concepts of the “vicious violence triangle” suggested by Peace Studies founder Johan Galtung, in which the three types of violence—cultural, structural and direct—influence and legitimize one another. Galtung describes cultural violence as an “invariant” or “permanence” and we see this in the culture of entrenched privilege in El Salvadoran society among the small number of families that make up the ruling elite of the country. For centuries they had been forming their own culture in which they believed that they were entitled to their land, riches and other privileges on the basis that they were “nation builders” and should therefore owed the country’s wealth. This cultural belief, perpetuated from generation to generation among the members of the oligarchy, led to a process of deeply rooted structural violence, creating a country that at the time of these events boasted the most unequal land distribution south of the U.S. border. They had created a virtually “feudal” society, forcing the majority of the population into a state of insurmountable poverty. We see scenes in the film where the rich live in the carefree world of dinner parties where the masses live in squalor.
Perhaps the film depicts most clearly the third point of the triangle; that is the direct violence. After endless years of exploitation, the people of El Salvador have grown tired and feel they must resort to direct violence to change their livelihoods. This rebellion threatens the enduring cultural and structural standard and the film depicts how direct violence is used by the ruling class in response to maintain this standard; people are massacred in the streets, kidnapped, tortured and murdered, or simply suppressed through fear.