DEBATE DEBATE

Debate on the paper by Roberto Briceño-León

Debate sobre el artículo de Roberto Briceño-León

Hugo Spinelli

Universidad Nacional de Lanús, Lanús, Argentina. hugospinelli@ciudad.com.ar

In his article, Briceño-León develops the analysis of what he calls "the stage for a silent and undeclared war". The eloquence of the data and their relevance to almost any city in Latin America show the recurrent horror portrayed in the majority of the articles dealing with the issue of violence at the population level. But what should be done with such horror? How can the silence of this undeclared war be broken? By speaking, generating one, two, a thousand, a million conversations to break this tragic muteness, this paralysis resulting from the horror. Such conversations must change the sense and meaning of what is said when talking about violence, proving that things can also be done with words. Violence is not a state, it is a process. Enough of cowardice!

We agree that in our countries the city of law has become the city of fear. That urbanization and television have democratized expectations, but that the result is inequality and exclusion, the connected and the disconnected. That violence and its consequences are reproduced numerically in the statistical reports, and that the subjective level increases the perception of becoming possible victims of violent acts. In his attempt to analyze the "object", Briceño-León develops a structuring proposal that he assumes as a non-universal model. This proposal has been used in the health sector, ranging from the Situational Strategic Planning logic of Carlos Matus ¹ to the work of Pedro Luis Castellanos ², who links Matus' logic to the study of the health-disease process under a structure of the general, the particular, and the unique. These interpretative processes are highly useful to approach the logic of actors and scenarios, so as to avoid crystallizations or simplifications that justify technocratic norms, or on the other hand the kind of inaction that results from economic over-determination.

Models, structures, and classifications, but what purpose do they serve? Yes, fine, if they hierarchically organize the interpretations of citizenship on the problem. No, not if they are to achieve "scientific explanations" that crystallize such a complex and dynamic process as violence. The risks of medicalizing violence are still present. By classifying the problem, to what extent do I accept it as part of my field of knowledge? If I accept it, to what extent do I problematize it at the social level? Or do I include it as an object of investigation in such a way as to ensure my reproduction as investigator? Is this a valid dilemma? Is this always the situation?

We should not simplify the process of violence. To avoid the temptations of graphs and to tackle complexity is part of being honest as researchers. Of course complexity should not be measured merely by speeches, but by acts (which include words) and better still, by their impact. Words and acts are nothing more than actions by subjects. Individual and/or collective subjects. Subjects of language.

It is difficult to take a step back as the discussant of a theme that affects us as deeply as violence, an issue that we have experienced personally and which we fear experiencing again, since we do not know when, where, or with whom we will face another violent situation. We physicians, health workers, who imagine ourselves vanquishing disease, now face an "epidemic" or rather "pandemic" problem, the main cause of death among young adults in the majority of our countries. We find ourselves immersed in a process where we shift from subjects of knowledge to "objects" of violence. We must not be indifferent to this process; may it at least serve for us to review our ways of understanding the problems. We citizens of Latin America, men and women, must understand that we should not take violence for granted. We need to reclaim public space and build social citizenship that turns the city of fear into the city of law, of rights, and of social citizenship. I believe this is Roberto Briceño-León's spirit when he ends his paper by quoting the old German saying "Stad Luft mach frei".

1. Matus C. Política planificación y gobierno. Caracas: Fundación Altadir; 1987.
2. Castellanos P. Sobre el concepto de salud-enfermedad, un punto de vista epidemiológico. Cuad Med Soc 1987; (42):15-24.