La contrarreloj de la venganza. Regular la muerte en Colombia, 1899-1902

Abstract

Objective/Context: The aim of this article is to discuss, in historical terms, the emotional tension between the desire for revenge and death, and the different ways in which the affective universe is interpreted. To this end, we study a threat of execution of political prisoners —known at the time as the prevención (prevention)— made by the Minister of War Aristides Fernández during the War of a Thousand Days (1899-1902) in Colombia. Methodology: The above is done from primary sources, with a micro view and from a regressive narrative, in which details reveal structural aspects. Originality: It is an episode named by historiography, but whose complexity has yet to be reconstructed, making the dense interpretation of the case epistemologically useful. More so, when emotions evidence how the emotional logics of violence permeate the State’s institutional framework, transform anomie, and law into governmental techniques and end up integrated into the interpretation of the law and State activity. Conclusions: The study of events surrounding the prevención reveals that state policy rationalized the feelings and emotional demand for revenge and the death of the enemy under cover of the legal rhetoric of a state of siege. With blood and passion being regulators of political interests; and that, under the cloak of exception, the State was able to promote and harness feelings of retaliation with yearnings for justice, co-opt public opinion through censorship, monopolize the interpretation of the law, regulate death, and shoot and execute the enemy. Thanks to the prevención, we thus learn of multiple ways of codifying a sensory world —hatred, lust for power, and fear— under the rhetoric of law and justice.

Keywords

• aristides fernández
• emotions
• law
• police
• state
• violence
• war