A VIOLENT SPECTACLE
Terrorism in Contemporary Peninsular Drama
El historiador y filósofo griego Posidonio (135-51 a.C.) bautizó la Península Ibérica como «La casa de los dioses de la riqueza», intentando expresar plásticamente la diversidad hispánica, su fecunda y matizada geografía, lo amplio de sus productos, las curiosidades de su historia, la variada conducta de sus sociedades, las peculiaridades de su constitución. Sólo desde esta atención al matiz y al rico catálogo de lo español puede, todavía hoy, entenderse una vida cuya creatividad y cuyas prácticas apenas puede abordar la tradicional clasificación de saberes y disciplinas. Si el postestructuralismo y la deconstrucción cuestionaron la parcialidad de sus enfoques, son los estudios culturales los que quisieron subsanarla, generando espacios de mediación y contribuyendo a consolidar un campo interdisciplinario dentro del cual superar las dicotomías clásicas, mientras se difunden discursos críticos con distintas y más oportunas oposiciones: hegemonía frente a subalternidad; lo global frente a lo local; lo autóctono frente a lo migrante. Desde esta perspectiva podrán someterse a mejor análisis los complejos procesos culturales que derivan de los desafíos impuestos por la globalización y los movimientos de migración que se han dado en todos los órdenes a finales del siglo xx y principios del xxi. La colección «La Casa de la Riqueza. Estudios de la Cultura de España» se inscribe en el debate actual en curso para contribuir a la apertura de nuevos espacios críticos en España a través de la publicación de trabajos que den cuenta de los diversos lugares teóricos y geopolíticos desde los cuales se piensa el pasado y el presente español.
CONSEJO EDITORIAL:
DIETER INGENSCHAY (Humboldt Universität, Berlin)
JO LABANYI (New York University)
FERNANDO LARRAZ (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares)
JOSÉ-CARLOS MAINER (Universidad de Zaragoza)
SUSAN MARTIN-MÁRQUEZ (Rutgers University, New Brunswick)
JOSÉ MANUEL DEL PINO (Dartmouth College, Hanover)
JOAN RAMON RESINA (Stanford University)
LIA SCHWARTZ (City University of New York)
ULRICH WINTER (Philipps-Universität Marburg)
A VIOLENT SPECTACLE
TERRORISM IN CONTEMPORARY
PENINSULAR DRAMA
IBEROAMERICANA • VERVUERT • 2019
Cualquier forma de reproducción, distribución, comunicación pública o transformación de esta obra solo puede ser realizada con la autorización de sus titulares, salvo excepción prevista por la ley. Diríjase a CEDRO (Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos) si necesita fotocopiar o escanear algún fragmento de esta obra (www.conlicencia.com; 91 702 19 70 / 93 272 04 47).
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Depósito legal: M-979-2019
Diseño de cubierta: Rubén Salgueiros
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE: BRANCHING OUT: THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE ON THE CONTEMPORARY SPANISH STAGE
Violence and the Everyday
CHAPTER TWO: CASTING SPELLS: THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL
Manipulating Reality: Control and Substance Abuse in Drama
Welcome Home: Social and Cultural Impacts of Patriarchy
Multi-tasking: Individual Actors, Multiple Roles
Playing Rough: The Implications of the Representations of Terrorism and Control
CHAPTER THREE: GETTING SCHOOLED: TERRORISM AND THE USE OF IDEOLOGY
Building Blocks: Ideological State Apparatuses and Identity
Making Believe: The Implications of the Representations of Terrorism and Ideology
CHAPTER FOUR: MIRROR, MIRROR: REFLECTIONS ON ALTERITY
One of These Things is Not like the Other: Difference vs. Sameness in Contemporary Spain
Back to the Future: Time, Space, and Otherness
Playing House: The Implications of the Representations of Terrorism and Alterity
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Despite the increased presence of terrorism in the media after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and later the Madrid train bombings on March 11, 2004, terrorism is not unique to the twenty-first century. Rather, counter-terrorism laws and public safety measures began to appear in Western countries such as the US, UK, and Spain in the 1960s (Jackson 52). The creation of laws coincides with the beginning of youth mobilization movements worldwide, and the founding of terrorist organizations such as ETA (1959) and the IRA (1969). Moreover, the media started framing political violence as “terrorism” as early as the 1970s (Zulaika and Douglass 45). This is evidenced in a study of North American and European newspaper indexes by Ronald Crelinsten, to which Zulaika and Douglass refer in their Terror and Taboo. According to Zulaika and Douglass, Crelinsten notes that prior to 1970 only the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature included “terrorism” as a heading. The New York Times Index incorporated it for the first time in 1970 and had four citations. It was not until 1972 that the heading began to appear with more frequency in more indexes. That year, for example, the New York Times Index had 64 citations (46). As a result of the increasing popularity of the term, the creation of cultural productions such as novels, films, television programs, and theatrical works with terrorism as a subject increased in many Western countries (46).
During the 1970s, Spain did not experience a similar surge in cultural production about the theme of terrorism. This difference is due to the censorship inflicted on the Spanish public by the Franco regime. Censorship affected daily life in Spain in a variety of ways, including the outlawing of the use of regional languages and a restructuring of the educational system. In addition, post-war censorship also affected the reception of information via artistic and media outlets, such as the news, cinema and theatre.1 For example, newspapers and news broadcasts were prohibited from reporting on certain topics of violence, including crimes. Cinematic and theatrical pieces were also banned from discussing various themes, including violence and anything that promoted hatred between different groups. Officials were tasked with ensuring that writers and actors obeyed the rules. For the theatre world, this meant that inspectors would be sent to watch rehearsals and first performances of plays —given that performances change from time to time. The taboo upon the discussion of terrorism in Spanish cultural discourse, such as the media and cultural productions, began to lessen during the end of Spain’s transition to democracy which occurred between 1975-1982. This is evident in the increase in published cultural productions, such as literary and theatrical works, which explicitly deal with the theme of terrorism during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Nevertheless, I argue that despite the eventual decrease in censorship, the aforementioned repression during the post-war years and the rising Basque conflict, caused terrorism to become an everyday experience in Spain.
Even in the absence of terrorist attacks, terrorism becomes everyday because terrorist actions themselves are only part of the problem. The fear and the anticipation of the next violent act are also contributing factors to the ordinariness of violence in Spain.2 The playwrights included in this project allude to this issue throughout their plays. For example, in Belbel’s La sang a woman —the wife of a prominent political figure— is kidnapped by an unnamed terrorist organization. The other characters, including two police officers, as well as the victim’s husband and his mistress, are aware of her kidnapping. They are also aware of the organization’s process of amputating up to four different body parts and distributing them across town, while awaiting the payment of the ransom; however, they do not know when or where the woman’s body parts will appear and this creates a sense of panic. Furthermore, in Koldo Barrena’s Eusk the several groups of characters are aware of being in close proximity to terrorists as they live in the Basque Country, a conflicted region. None of the groups of characters are sure as to which of their neighbours (if any) are terrorists. This is clear, for example, in the case of Ana and Félix who are newcomers to the Basque Country and begin to receive threats and question one another. It is also evident in the case of one father who has to be wary of what he says in front of his daughter for fear that she may denounce him. These are two theatrical instances that I analyze in depth during this project. Barrena details other situations like these as well, all of which put friends and families on edge; nobody knows who they can trust and they have to modify their behaviour for fear of being reported to the authorities or terrorist organizations.
The sense of the ordinariness of public fear and its effects on civilian life are evident in the works of scholars such as Joanna Bourke. Writing about fear during World War II, she notes that “During the air raids it was the surprise elements of the attacks that proved the most frightening. This was why people coped better with the conventional raids of the early years of the war than with the later attacks by V-bombs which did not provide any warning” (229-230). Bourke’s observation demonstrates the value of “security” provided by the habitual practice of the raids. That is, despite the violence of the early raids, their routine nature offered a sense of security or certainty because in the very least they were expected events and people knew how to respond to them. Ben Highmore highlights this idea suggesting that not only can anything become “ordinary” if you get used to it (Ordinary Lives 6), but also that “ordinary life is the arena of fear and threat as much as it is of reassurance and safety” (20). Begoña Aretxaga addresses this sense of the ordinariness of violence in Spain in her book States of Terror. She writes that while growing up in the Basque Country she learned that terror “was not the product of estrangement but of familiarity, not a force but a state of being, one deeply immersed in the everyday order of things” (128). She elaborates her explanation of the notion of terror as part of the everyday by detailing the situation in the Basque Country during the 1990s. Aretxaga observes that both the Basque police and youth involved in kale borroka3 (a form of urban violence by young people with a political motivation which was particularly popular in the 1990s [140]) resorted to diverse “technologies of control.” The police utilized street video surveillance and wore shirts with hoods in order to conceal their identity. The youth, in turn, employed mimetic forms of disguise, including the use of hooded shirts, as well as pirate radios and internet networks. Because both sides used similar strategies —which made it possible for them to manage who was aware of their true identities and who was not— it was impossible to distinguish who was who on the street. This lead to the spread of mirroring stories of violence by both sides through distinct social networks, including informal conversations and the mass media, and the generation of a sense of fear and distrust which “dominated the everyday order of things” (Aretxaga 145).
It is important to note the presence of terror in everyday life in Spain which Aretxaga and other scholars mention.4 In his book Everyday Life Michael Sheringham asserts that “the everyday invokes something that holds […] things together, their continuity and rhythm or lack of it, something that is adverbial, modal, and ultimately therefore ethical because it has to do with individual and collective art de vivre” (361). The everyday serves as an “adverb” in that it describes how individuals and collectives relate to one another. As a result, it is also “ethical” because it serves as a sort of code which determines what is and is not “ordinary.” This code, however, is not concrete. As Highmore indicates, “the ordinary is never set in stone: ordinariness is a process (like habit) where things (practices, feelings, conditions and so on) pass from unusual to usual, from irregular to regular, and can move the other way (what was an ordinary part of my life is no more)” (Ordinary Lives 6). Thus, the everyday is relational. It differs depending on the individuals or groups involved. In addition to its “descriptive” quality, another crucial characteristic inherent in the everyday is its location in the present, which is evident in the adaptability that Highmore observes. The everyday’s existence in the present is significant because it suggests a sense of continuous flow. As a result, the everyday cannot really be history or a stale part of the past because it occurs in a period of time that is ongoing.
Given this refusal of the everyday to become history, terrorism’s transformation into an everyday experience in Spain is of particular significance. For the purposes of this project, I define terrorism as a special type of warfare with both political and psychological aspects that is used to achieve a specific political goal. It places a heavy emphasis on the manipulation of its targets’ psychology, with the explicit intention of inspiring fear. During the occurrence of exceptional events, such as terrorist attacks, fear can cause instability and disrupt the routine of everyday life. However, ongoing, systemized terror, or the ongoing threat of terror, produces a climate of fear in which the experience of fear transforms into habit (Highmore 168; Sloterdijk 28).
In this project, I examine this intersection of terrorism and the everyday in contemporary Spain through its representation in dramatic texts produced during the 1990s-2010s. I chose this historical period as a point of departure because it is a particularly noteworthy stage in the context of terrorism in Spain. For example, despite its foundation in 1959, it is only since 1981 that the Basque nationalist group ETA started announcing a series of truces and ceasefires. Between the years of 1996 and 2011 there were at least nine declarations of such, with the most recent occurring on October 20, 2011.5 The increased amount of treaties demonstrates a decline in the amount of legitimacy and support extended to ETA and the way it manages its affairs. In addition to the anti-state terrorism perpetrated by nationalist groups like ETA, Spain also experienced state terrorism by the GAL (a government-lead antiterrorist organization created to fight ETA) between 1983-1987. Moreover, while the GAL’s activity occurred before the 1990s it was not until early in that decade that their activities truly came to light as a result of a judicial inquiry of the organization in 1994. On top of this mixture between state and anti-state terrorism, Spain suffered international terrorist activity at the beginning of the twenty-first century with the Madrid train bombings by Al-Qaeda on March 11, 2004. The bombings are significant because of their physical and emotional impact on the country; however, the events are also influential because the reactions to the bombings evidenced a changing mindset within the Spanish state regarding the terrorist phenomenon. This change was clear in the election of Zapatero as prime minister over Aznar (the original favourite) in the 2004 elections.6
The late 1980s and early 1990s were also a crucial period in Spain’s history because they symbolise the country’s modernization and emergence as a democratic nation. Spain joined the European Union in 1986 and then, in 1992 held several monumental events, including the Olympic Games in Barcelona, the World Fair in Seville, and the quincentennial commemoration of Columbus’s voyage to the Americas. Additionally, Madrid was also named European Capital of Culture. The numerous celebrations and recognitions were important and popular moments intended to mark Spain’s coming of age as a modern country and signal the end of the period of transition; however, whether or not they achieved these goals remains a point of contention given that some scholars, such as Helen Graham, believe they also “tended to neglect the past and glorify the present” (406). That is, Graham argues that the festivities forgot to take into consideration how the country had achieved its current state. This take on the events contrasts with the tactics of the Franco dictatorship, which glorified the past in the hopes of returning the country to its former Golden Age. Both of these strategies are problematic because they ignore a portion of the country’s history and inhibit the process of the construction of a cultural identity (Graham 418). Regardless of how one views the events in Spain in 1992, though, one thing remains certain: they brought Spain into the spotlight and put an emphasis on the image of Spanish culture while it was still in the process of being redefined.
The dramas studied in this project include Interacciones (2005) by Ignacio Amestoy, Eusk (2002) by Koldo Barrena, La sang7 (1998) by Sergi Belbel, Ello dispara (1990) by Fermín Cabal, Burundanga (2011) by Jordi Galceran, El Tesoro del predicador (2005) by Juan Alberto López and ¡Han matado a Prokopius! (1996) by Alfonso Sastre. Through the representation of the terrorist phenomenon and its intersection with the everyday each of these plays comment upon the construction of cultural identity.8 Some examples of this intersection of violence and the everyday in these plays include the representations of kale borroka attacks, such as the burning of cars in Eusk by the characters Koldo and Txomin, as well as the representation of domestic violence in El Tesoro del predicador, an issue which has affected Spain for decades.9 I argue that other instances of the mixture of terrorism and the everyday are evident in the casual manner in which violence is performed. For example, in Ello dispara the characters discuss the protocol of torture indifferently while watching television or after having sexual relations. The indifference that the characters display in each of these instances of violence demonstrates that terrorism and violence had become a quotidian experience.
In addition to the intersection of terrorism and the everyday, the combination of terrorism with theatre is fundamental to this project because as Frank Furedi suggests, “fear gains its meaning through the mode of interpretation offered by the narrative culture” (20). Fear is situational. The conceptualization of fear —who/what to fear and how to do so— is dependent upon how it is framed in cultural discourse. This is why, for example, cultural productions were severely censored during the Franco dictatorship. By prohibiting criticism or representations of the regime, Franco aimed to demonstrate that there was nothing fearful or negative about his government. This also explains why both opposing armies in the Civil War (the nationalists and the republicans) and terrorist organizations such as ETA have their own publications. Discourse, such as theatre and the media, is used as a tool in order to shape the thoughts and identity of a nation. It is important to note, as Richard Jackson indicates astutely, that the depiction of events in discourse as “fearful” is not a neutral or objective representation, but rather the product of a series of choices (55). Nevertheless, the repetition of dominant narratives encourages audiences to identify with certain characters in a story over others (Jackson 55).
Anthony Kubiak addresses the formative nature of theatrical discourse in conjunction with fear, stating that “theatre is not merely a means by which social behaviour is engineered, it is the site of violence, the locus of terror’s emergence as myth, law, religion, economy, gender, class or race” (4-5). Theatre is not only used as a vehicle in order to contemplate pre-existing ideas of national and cultural identity, but it is also used proleptically to help shape the future conceptualization of identity as well. As a result, theatre does not merely serve as a means of artistically representing violence. It is also a form of violence in itself due to its ability to enforce and negate ideas. This is especially true of dramas, such as those included in this project, which explicitly consider violent and political subject matter. They demonstrate the performance of terror, as well as reactions to it. Jean Baudrillard alludes to this impact of the performance of simulated violence in Simulacra and Simulation. He provides the example of organizing and performing a fake bank hold-up. He observes that no matter how intent the organizer is on maintaining the falsity of the situation something will inevitably go wrong because someone will end up believing it. For example, police will fire real shots or tellers will pay real ransom. He adds that, regarding acts of terror, it is now impossible to distinguish between illusion and the real. He states that “all the holdups, airplane hijackings, etc. are now in some sense simulation holdups in that they are already inscribed in the decoding and orchestration rituals of the media, anticipated in their presentation and their possible consequences” (16). In other words, even real acts of terror have become spectacular as a result of their framing in the media. This in turn creates a cycle of the spectacular with “simulations” modelled after modified real acts and vice versa. Furthermore, because these simulations are so “realistic,” they also continue to inspire a certain degree of fear —despite distancing themselves from the real through their falsity. I employ this notion of the similarity between the “real” and the “spectacular” in my project. However, returning to the staged hold-up as an example, I also argue that because this theatrical violence can have real effects, it is also a form of real violence.
The results of this violence and the relationships between terrorism, theatre, and the everyday in/on contemporary Spain are vital because they show that both terrorism and identity are social constructs through the recurring themes of the relations between terrorism and identity, terrorism and temporality, and the search for “authenticity” (or the juxtaposition between real and imaginary/ “fake”). However, despite the significance of the connections between these phenomena, there are currently no other studies on the subject. What is more, there remains a considerably large lacuna concerning the state of scholarship on individual topics, such as everyday life and terrorism in Spain. Some examples of studies of the quotidian in Spain include Antonio Cazorla Sánchez’s Fear and Progress: Ordinary Lives in Franco’s Spain 1939-1975, and Gavin Smith’s “Formal Culture, Practical Sense and the Structures of Fear in Spain.” Begoña Aretxaga also mentions some aspects of everyday life in her study on violence in the Basque Country. Nevertheless, most of the few works concerning everyday life in Spain pertain to the civil war, the post-war years or earlier historical periods. There is nothing specifically written about the quotidian in Spain during the 1990s-2010s.
The lack of critical scholarship on terrorism in Spain is particularly concerning especially given the surge of theoretical studies on terrorism after the events of September 11, 2001. Most of these investigations focus mainly on the symbolic nature of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the fact that the occurrence of these events in the USA was exceptional. For example, Jean Baudrillard alludes to the extraordinariness of 9/11 by stating that the attacks represented the fantasies of the Western subconscious depicted in countless disaster movies adding that “at a pinch, we can say that they did it, but we wished for it” (5). In contrast with the American experience of terrorism at the time when Baudrillard’s “Spirit of Terrorism” was written, the Spanish experience was not extraordinary. The occurrence of terrorist attacks in Spain was not as “unexpected” as the attacks on the World Trade Center were for the United States; instead, many aspects of the terrorist phenomenon in Spain, such as the formation of organizations like the GAL and ETA, are interrelated. Furthermore, while the Madrid train bombings were similar in their symbolic nature to the events of 9/11, not all instances of terrorism in Spain exist principally in the symbolic sphere. Historians such as Daniele Conversi, Paddy Woodworth, Jan Mansvelt Beck, André Lecours, Fernando Reinares, and José Olmeda address these characteristics of terrorism in Spain in their touchstone works which discuss ETA, the GAL, and the Spanish “War on Terror.” These sources provide detailed and necessary accounts of the state of terrorism in Spain, including information regarding the initial formation of ETA and the GAL and the actions of both organizations; however, they do not recompense the lack of theoretical texts regarding the experience of terrorism in Spain.
In addition to the lack of criticism regarding terrorism in Spain, there is also a limited amount of critical studies concerning terrorism in Spanish theatre. This is principally due to the inclusion of explicit terrorism in Spanish theatre being a relatively recent phenomenon. The most extensive study on it is Manuela Fox’s article “Teatro español y la dramatización del terrorismo: Estado de la cuestión” in which she briefly outlines the history of terrorism in Spain and provides an overview of Spanish plays about terrorism including “acontextual” dramas, as well as works about the Madrid train bombings, 9/11, ETA and the GAL. However, while this article provides an extensive overview, the analysis of the texts and their implications is rather limited. There are also a handful of articles pertaining to the works of specific dramatists such as Fox’s “El terrorismo en el teatro de Ignacio Amestoy: De lo particular a lo universal” and Sharon Feldman’s “Theatre of Pain: Sergi Belbel,” which briefly address Amestoy’s Interacciones and Belbel’s La sang respectively. Laura López Sánchez’s article “La barbarie del 11-M en el teatro español” also comments briefly upon each of the plays from the Once voces contra la barbarie de 11-M anthology, the only collection of plays about the Madrid train bombings. Due to the limited bibliography on terrorism in Spanish theatre, I have also consulted works such as the aforementioned Stages of Terror by Kubiak and Lucy Nevitt’s Theatre and Violence which provide general discussions on the combination of violence and theatre, though often in the contexts of medieval and mythological theatrical works. To further address this disparity, during my initial stages of research, I also studied other contemporary Spanish plays about violence that were written prior to the historical period examined in this project. This extra research aided me in finding resources about the general use of violence in theatre, as well as by providing examples of the specifics regarding violence in Spanish theatre.
More specifically, this project examines a series of dramas in order to explore the effects of terrorism in Spain on the everyday life and cultural identity of the Spanish people. The plays studied in this project include: Interacciones (2005) by Ignacio Amestoy, Eusk (2002) by Koldo Barrena, La sang (1998) by Sergi Belbel, Ello dispara (1990) by Fermín Cabal, Burundanga (2011) by Jordi Galceran, El Tesoro del predicador (2005) by Juan Alberto López and ¡Han matado a Prokopius! (1996) by Alfonso Sastre. I specifically selected these plays because they each explicitly refer to terrorist activity by citing ETA and the GAL, and alluding to the train bombings in Madrid. With the exception of Amestoy’s Interacciones and Sastre’s ¡Han matado a Prokopius! many also depict terrorist acts, such as kidnappings, car bombs, and murders on stage. Furthermore, each of these plays demonstrates the idea of terrorism as a social construction through the discussion of concepts such as power/control, alterity, and ideology. The discussion of these themes occurs in the selected dramas through the filter of the quotidian, which includes personal relationships, language, and individual behaviour.
The three aforementioned themes of power/control, alterity, and ideology are common notions pertaining to each type of terrorism (state, anti-state and Islamist) that Spain experienced during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. I use these themes as the deciding factor in the division of my chapters. This allows me to observe how the mixture of different types of terrorism —and their representations— transforms the quotidian into a site of struggle. Upon analysis of the staging of these different terrorisms, I observe the use of theatre as a form of violence itself, employed as a method to reinforce the struggle of the everyday. My book is divided into four chapters with the first offering a brief history of theatre in Spain. The subsequent three chapters discuss the themes of power/control, alterity and ideology in each of the dramas selected for this project.
Chapter One, “Branching Out: The Roots of Violence on the Spanish Stage,” consists of a detailed account of the history of contemporary theatre in Spain and how it relates to a handful of significant historical incidents of violence. It also contains a brief examination of theories of violence, as well as theories of the everyday by scholars such as Ben Highmore, Michael Sheringham, Anthony Kubiak and others. Finally, I include a section titled “Violence and the Everyday,” which discusses the impact and influence of occurrences such as wars and terrorist attacks through the analysis of sociological and anthropological works, such as memoirs and surveys. Through this study of public experiences and opinions, in conjunction with the description of historical and cultural background, I show that violence and terror had become a quotidian experience in Spain during the 1990s-2010s.
Chapter Two, “Casting Spells: The Illusion of Control,” marks the beginning of my analysis of the contemporary plays chosen for this project —and their representation of themes such as control/power, ideology, and alterity. I commence this chapter with a brief discussion of the theory behind the notions of control, power and legitimacy, alluding to scholars such as Michel Foucault, Patricia Marchak, and Jeffrey Alexander, among others. I note that, for the purposes of this project, I define control as a tool or type of force used on someone in order to achieve a specific outcome, whereas power is the ability to control someone or something, without necessarily actually doing so. I also propose that the representation of control as an illusion in these plays by Amestoy, Barrena, Belbel, Cabal, Galceran, López, and Sastre is primarily evident through the depiction of substance abuse, patriarchal societies and institutions, and experimentation with multiple roles. For example, substance abuse is predominant in Galceran’s Burundanga and Sastre’s ¡Han matado a Prokopius! through the main characters’ use of drugs and alcohol to help them deal with difficult situations, such as unwanted pregnancies and trying to serve a murder case. Commentaries on patriarchal societies and institutions are also prevalent in each of the plays, but some of the more significant examples include the effects of fathers on daughters in Amestoy’s Interacciones and López’s El tesoro del predicador, as well as the consequences of education and certain types of upbringing in Belbel’s La sang and Barrena’s Eusk. Finally, the experimentation with multiple roles is also a common theme in these dramas; however, it is especially clear in Galceran’s Burundanga, as well as Cabal’s Ello dispara through the agents’ varying levels of secrecy and the need to perform in their mission. Through my discussion of these themes, I highlight the play-wrights’ emphasis on the malleability of control as a social construct. This is particularly clear through the idea of narrative framing, which I emphasize in this chapter through examples such as Silvia and Berta taking over Manel and Gorka’s failed kidnapping in Burundanga, the kidnapping of the woman (and the systematic public distribution of her body parts) in Belbel’s La sang, as well as several episodes depicting everyday life in the Basque Country in Barrena’s Eusk. These incidents point to the impact of fear on daily life and how it can be used to mold societies and change the everyday order. The idea of social manipulation is also evident in the playwrights’ treatment of ideology and alterity, which I discuss in chapters three and four respectively.
In Chapter Three, I include a discussion of the theory of ideology and the understanding of the concept which I employ in this project. I explain Althusser’s concepts of RSAs and ISAs, as well as important definitions of ideology by scholars such as Göran Therborn, Guy Debord and Roland Barthes, etc. This chapter, entitled “Getting Schooled: Terrorism and the Use of Ideology” explores representations of the arbitrariness and impact of ideology through the discussion of cultural productions and media, language, religious and educational institutions, political and familial relationships and the influence of society. Some noteworthy episodes that I reference in this chapter include the contrast between present and “myth,” in Amestoy’s Interacciones, the overwhelming amount of references to media and cultural productions such as Almodovar’s Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios in Cabal’s Ello dispara, and the use of language as a weapon/ tool to enforce ideas in schools in Barrena’s Eusk, among others. My analysis of these and other significant moments in the dramas selected for this project proposes that ideology —like the concepts of control and alterity, studied in the other chapters— is not a fixed entity, but rather an ongoing social process as we are, like Althusser suggests (264), both constantly subjected to and agents of it. That is, culture is continuously in a state of flux which serves to both shape us and be shaped by us. Thus, ideology, like other social constructions that help us create our different definitions of culture and identity, must also exhibit a degree of mutability. Therefore, I argue that this also suggests that because ideology cannot be static, the influence of negative and violent ideologies such as those perpetuated during the terrorism phenomenon can be undone.
BurundangaEl tesoro del predicador