History Department

History 307 - Latin America – November 3, 5, 7, 2003

 Modern Latin America – Case Study: ARGENTINA:

 

I.  Argentina – the “Golden Land”

A.     Painful birth

1.       colonial isolation; 1776, Vice-Royalty of La Plata

2.      1816, independence

3.      1825-1850s: Caudillismo - Rosas; Facundo, civil wars; wars with Brazil over Uruguay

B.     Call for Liberty & Progress! D. Sarmiento, Barbarism & Civilization

C.      Argentina 1850s – 1900

1.        “LIBERAL” era =

2.       leadership by middle class/ business elite

3.       intense focus on ECONOMIC GROWTH; encouraging Immigration; developing basic industries, especially agriculture

4.       The Argentine BOOM!

·          Buenos Aires grows into vast, French-inspired city

·          Mass immigration from Italy & Spain

·          Agro-Capitalism in the countryside

·          Industry in Buenos Aires & other cities

·          Rapid growth of “middling classes” – urban, educated, skilled workers, business people, teachers, journalists

 

II.  Polarization & Crisis

A.     The evolution of TWO ARGENTINAS:

5.       GROWTH not DEVELOPMENT

6.       Why? Because Decision-Making Political Process is monopolized by deeply conservative elite; supported by the Military

7.       Result: Fabulous wealth at top – Anger & despair on the bottom

8.       Two radically different agendas: two different worlds, two different cultures

B.     Two Argentinas:

 

Argentina’s Elite	Argentina’s Poor
Wealthy Dominate Political System Ideal economy pumps wealth upwards Values: Tradition, Obedience, Authority	Poor Excluded from the Political System Ideal economy shares wealth widely Values: Change; Democracy; Independence

 C.  Crisis

1.       1919 - “Semana Tragica” - general strike in Buenos Aires; troops fire on strikers; rise of radical left; rise of radical right (“patriotic leagues”)

·          everyone shocked by deep polarization

·          What is to be done?

 III.     What is to be done?

A.       Argentina’s “Boom” had actually deeply POLARIZED Argentina’s society; both RADICAL LEFT AND RADICAL RIGHT are growing rapidly – what is to be done?

 

Radical Left	Democratic Center	Radical Left
Drastically CHANGE system Violent Revolution Inevitable Appeal to poor, workers, outsiders	Rapid but non-violent reform is needed Economic Reform: social investment; wealth must be wide shared Political Reform: free & fair elections; civil rights Some workers & peasants; some middle classes;  even a handful of the elite	The system works fine just as it is Reform is NOT needed and Revolution is out of the question Violence should be used if necessary to keep the system in place Wealthy; corporate leadership; landlords; Army

 

IV.    1916-1922:  H. Yrigoyen (1916-22) & democratic reform

 

V.      1929: GREAT DEPRESSION à Argentine Fascism

A.       1929-30: DEPRESSION throws Argentina into chaos

B.       POLARIZATION: democratic center all but collapses;  RADICAL LEFT confronts RADICAL RIGHT

C.       1930: MILITARY COUP – BUT NOT JUST A RETURN TO “CAUDILLISMO”

D.     FASCISM

1.        1922: Mussolini & Italian Fascists seize power in Italy

2.       FASCISM as wave of the future?

3.       RADICAL CONSERVATISM – radical means (mass protests, street battles à to very conservative ends)

4.       FASCISM:

 

AUTHORITARIANISM	MILITARISM	NATIONALISM/RACISM	IMPERIALISM
Ideal society = ELITE RULE Values: command, obedience, authority Abolition of democracy	Military ideal: command, authority Uniforms, parades, marches Obsession with Violence Violence ought to be used against “subversives” and “troublemakers”	We’re the best! We = distinct ethnic group We’re all united! Group comes before individual Conformity is good! Dissent is bad! Minorities are unwelcome Racism; Antisemitism	Use of violence against neighbors Conquest is essential for national survival War is good

 

VI.  JUAN DOMINGO PERON (1946-55)

A.       Professional soldier; political ambitions; rapid rise within Argentine

B.       Admiration for Mussolini

C.       Active member of 1930 Military coup

D.      Peron wants more than just military dictatorship – demands something like Italian Fascism; arrested by army; freed

E.       1946 – Peron becomes President

F.       1946 – 1955 – PERONISMO

1.        Fascist-like: Authoritarian rule; Militarism; Obsession with Nationalism

2.       Yet: was it really “Fascist”?

·          No “Wars of Conquest”

·          Includes effort to appeal to workers, peasants, urban poor

       G.  EVA PERON

1.        Movie star; marriage to Peron

2.       Juan Domingo as “father”/ “Patron” figure – stirn, distant, violent

3.       Eva as “mother” figure: “Evita” as “feminine” figure - “defender of the poor”; “mother of Argentina”

4.       Shocking death in 1952

H.   The failure of Peronism

5.       Economic stagnation – Economies need large measure of freedom to really prosper;  economies tend to stagnate in dictatorship

6.       Resistance (trade unions, democrats, human rights activists); more repression

7.       1955: military oust Peron

 

VII.      1955 – 1975: 20 years of confusion:

        A.   On-going failure to overcome political & social POLARIZATION – in ability to achieve

              CONSENSUS

        B.   Wild swings:

1955-58        Military rule

              1958-62    Elections, semi-democracy

              1962          Military coup

              1963-6      Elections, semi-democracy

              1966-73    Military coup

              1973         Peron returns from exile! 

  1974                 Peron dies;  2^nd wife, Maria Estela (Isabel) Peron becomes president; political &

                 economic chaos

 VIII.   1976-83          MILITARY RULE & The DIRTY WAR

A.       Argentine military decides to destroy all opposition

B.       A “new technique” – “Dirty War”

·          Use para-military thugs rather than active soldiers

·          “Disappear” selected individuals to terrorize others

·          Use torture, assassination as “weapons of war”

·          Jacobo Timermann, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.

C.       6 – 24,000 ? “Desaparecidos”

D.      Opposition: “Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo”

E.       1982 - DISASTROUS FALKLANDS ISLAND WAR AGAINST UK & collapse of dictatorship

 IX.     Argentina Today: 1983 – 2003

A.       Truth & Reconciliation – how to rebuild national consensus after the Dirty War

B.       Failed Experiment with “Neo-Liberalism” – theory: Remove the state from the economy; let “market forces” alone determine outcomes

·         But: (1) at home, the “market” is still dominated by an elite; (2) abroad, Argentina is at the mercy of more powerful economies (USA; Japan; Europe); (3) regionally, very difficult to get cooperation among other Latin American states (“Mercosur”)

·         International corporations wipe out local Argentine businesses (the “WalMart effect”)

·         As local Argentine economy stalls, currency crashes

·         Crashing currency à deep social unrest

C.       Survival of Democracy?

  

from: Jacobo Timermann,  Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.

Note:  The selection below comes from a book by Jacobo Timermann, entitled Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.  Timermann was born in Russia in 1923.  When he was 5, his parents moved to Argentina.  Timermann grew up to be an Argentine patriot, but in the ‘60s he had three strikes against him.  First, he was a journalist who believed in reporting the truth even if the government didn’t like it; second, he was a political liberal who believed in democracy and civil liberties, including free speech who opposed military dictatorship;  third, he was a Jew, and Argentina’s military had long preached hatred for “foreigners” and “minorities” including Argentina’s small Jewish minority.  Timermann edited La Opinion in the 1970s.  In 1977, the military closed his paper and arrested him.  He was put in prison for two years; tortured; and finally released after international pressure. He emigrated to Israel in 1979, but returned to Argentina after the fall of the dictatorship.

                 At dawn one morning in April 1977, some twenty men in civilian clothes burst into my apartment in midtown Buenos Aires . . . they tore out our telephone line, grabbed our car keys, and handcuffed me from behind.  They covered my head with a blanket, rode down with me to the basement, pulled off the blanket, and demanded that I point out my car.  When I did they threw me down on the floor in the back of the car, covered me with the blanket again, and began to kick me and hit me with the butts of their pistols …

                I was kidnapped by a secret army unit … from my very first interrogation, they started to go on and on about how I was a “key player” in the “international communist-Jewish conspiracy” which was trying to “destroy Argentina” …

                Question:  Are you a Jew?

                Answer: Yes.

                One of my interrogators, called Captain Beto, told me with a smile: “Only god gives and takes life.  But God is busy elsewhere and we’re the ones who decide on life and death in Argentina …”

                It’s so strange.  You’re rushed form one world to another so quickly that you’re dizzy.  You’re completely unprepared for what happens to you. One minute, you’re a middle class professional, getting ready to go to the office; in the next minute, you’re covered with blood, on your knees in a basement somewhere, surrounded by men you’ve never seen who enjoy kicking you and spitting on you. They strikp you naked.  You lose control of your body.  You dirty yourself in front of them.  They laugh.  This is the first phase of torture – you’re totally unprepared, shocked, horrified, hysterical. …  Your hands are tied behind you.  They put a blindfold over your eyes.  Total silence.  No one says anything.  They people you can’t see begin to pound on you, they hit your head, they hit your eyes and ears, they hit your private parts.  You scream and scream.  Then someone says to stop and they stop.  Then you’re dragged off and dropped on a cot, or pulled on a table.  They tear off any clothes you might still have on.  They tie your hands and feet to the table so that you’re spread-eagled, naked, before them.  They toss a bucket full of water on you.  Then they begin with the electric shocks.  To every part of your body.  It’s very odd – you writhe and jerk but you can’t scream, the pain is so intense that you jerk and buck like an animal, but you can’t scream.  They stop and ask questions.  Then they start again . . .

                You become completely passive.  Like a zombie.  You loose all sense of time, all sense of place.  You lose all sense of pride and shame.  You stand before them naked, bloody.  You perform your most private bodily functions with everyone of them watching.  Laughing.  They grab you and lead you away and you go.  Often they’re very quiet and the silence adds to the terror.  You sit when they say sit.  You stand when they say stand.  After a while, you beg, in tears, for a cup of water and you kiss their hand when they give it to you.  You are entirely broken as a human being.  They can break you in 48 hours . . .

                In those days, in Buenos Aires and across the country, whole families “disappeared.”  Sometimes bodies were covered with cement and thrown into rivers.  Sometimes, people would be put on helicopters and flown out over the Atlantic and then pushed out to their deaths.  Some bodies were buried in existing cemeteries in mass graves, some were hacked up and burned … Some of the killed had children.  The military took the children and adopted them, or sent them off to Paraguay or Chile or Brazil … Their mommy and daddy, they were told, had “disappeared” and would never come back again …