Sunday 28 September 2008

Cultural Sunday

The Navy Mechanics' School [ESMA] is no longer a school for marines nor a clandestine centre for torture and death. Yet each corner of the neutral military edifice, even the fragrance of the flowering magnolias, is impregnated with its history.

Musician Liliana Felipe is an Argentine who moved to Mexico in 1976 (Mexico was a popular destination for exiles, people who fled the military dictatorship. It was far enough away to be relatively safe but had the obvious advantages of a shared language, etc). She has returned to Buenos Aires to perform a concert in the ESMA, the former clandestine detention centre now turned "place of memory".

Ganarle a la ESMA a fuerza de memoria (Pagina/12)

An academic symposium and exhibition are commemorating 80 years since the publication of Seven Essays on the Interpretation of Peruvian Reality, Jose Mariategui's classic text (which, i hang my head in shame and admit I have never done more than flick through, but I should try to remedy that). Mariategui was a key inspiration for Abimael Guzman and the Shining Path - whose name is derived from a quote of his about following the shining path to revolution - but I suspect he would have utterly horrified at the interpretation of his works that led to the slaugher of tens of thousands of indigenous Peruvians.

Anyway, the symposium is taking place on the 2 and 3 October at the Universidad Ricardo Palma in Lima, and the exihibition is being run by the Universidad de San Marcos and is in their cultural centre, the Casona de San Marcos, from 2 to 23 October, with free entrance.

Siete ensayos, 80 años después (La Republica)

Finally, there is an application underway to have the Qapaq Ñan, the network of Inca roads which cover the Andean region, declared a UNESCO world heritage site. It would be the only such site to encompass six different countries - Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

Qapaq Ñan, patrimonio de la humanidad (La Republica)

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