Luis Galíndez, one of the archivists, a few years older than me—a man with a tired look and straight gray hair, with whom I have established a degree of friendship—approaches at break time to give me, surreptitiously, a manila envelope that, he tells me, contains a long list prepared by the Guatemalan Military Police in the eighties and nineties. It contains photos, information, and personal data of individuals who had disappeared (or would disappear) for political reasons. The list, from a secret military file, was “leaked” about a year ago, and although today it is freely accessible (it can be read on a website), Galíndez asks me not to say how I got it. Then he says that next month they will give the workers at the Archive a course on “Violence, Power, and Politics” in Ciudad Vieja. Apparently, if I wish, I can attend. I make the necessary arrangements and register.

Monday. Eight in the morning. Ciudad Vieja.

Dr. Gustavo Novales, who teaches the course, begins by explaining why he decided to study the “sociology of violence.” In the seventies, he had a close call, almost getting kidnapped and tortured because of his “subversive activities.” On that occasion, his parents were captured and tortured to death, just like a neighbor of theirs, who vaguely looked like Dr. Novales, with whom they confused him. Exiled to Mexico, he began studying this subject—he tells us—to “draw some benefit from his experiences as a victim of state violence,” and to find a rationale for the things that happened to him and his family.

Dr. Novales dresses elegantly in an English style (a short coat, a tweed jacket under it, a sober tie) and presents his points clearly and in a mild-mannered way, but at certain times one can see in his eyes a glow of tamed dogmatism. He divides state terrorism into two categories: state terrorism properly speaking, and revolutionary violence, which is its corollary. Regarding the general causes of violence, he says that it has been a constant “since the dawn of humanity”—take, for example, the struggle of Homo sapiens versus the Neanderthal, which ended with the defeat of Neanderthal man and his extinction.

“Only human beings can be violent. The predatory behavior of animals does not imply violence,” he says.

He delivers the following axioms:

—Every act of violence is an act of power.

—Not every act of power is an act of violence.

—Violence implies the use of physical force.

—Force is not necessary in all cases; the threat alone may suffice, such as the white handprints on the homes of alleged communists in Guatemala in the sixties and seventies.*

—A weak state needs to exercise terror.

Afternoon.

Among the examples of violence as an act of resistance, the doctor mentions: