A dark cloud that refuses to disperse

When the 20th century was approaching its end, most Europeans – with the notable exception of the British – seemed determined to forget about World War II. Their desire to deposit it in the memory hole and keep it there was understandable: reconciliation between the combatant countries was very much a priority so – 50 years after an uneasy peace had finally been achieved – few people in Germany, France or Italy wanted to reopen old wounds. This was why, on the continent, the frantic advice given to himself by the character played by John Cleese in the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers – “Don’t mention the war!” – continued to be taken very seriously.   

Unlike that generation of Europeans and their successors, large numbers of present-day Argentines have no intention of consigning to the past events that took place well before most of them had been born. They may not feel any nostalgia for the days when you could get gunned down, tortured or made to “disappear” for thinking dangerous thoughts aloud, but they have convinced themselves that, in a shadowy fashion, the conflict rages on, with leftists or progressives doing their best to persuade people that those in favour of free-market capitalism and their allies, men like President Javier Milei and his predecessor-but-one, Mauricio Macri, are the spiritual heirs of Jorge Rafael Videla. They are also more than willing to accuse anyone who questions their version of events, let alone pointing out that Montoneros and other terrorist organisations did much to bring about the “dirty war” and had no interest at all in human rights, let alone “bourgeois democracy,” of trying to whitewash the crimes that were committed by the military dictatorship.   

As luck would have it, efforts to make out that Argentina has fallen into the hands of an extreme right-wing clique, which in the minds of some would be more than enough to justify an armed uprising, seem most unlikely to lead to a repeat of the horrors of the 1970s. In the public imagination, what happened then has been reshaped into a battle between democracy and tyranny and – despite all the setbacks the country has experienced since Raúl Alfonsín optimistically assured the population that democracy was a panacea that would cure the problems that most troubled people – today a majority still prefers constitutional rule to any alternative. What is more, most men and women of a certain age have managed to persuade themselves that they always thought this way and that, when the military was in power, they resisted it in a quiet, low-key fashion.

This version of Plato’s “noble lie” – the shared belief that one has always been democratic at heart and would never tolerate brutal abuses of basic human rights – has served Argentina well. It has allowed almost everyone – including those who, until defeat in the South Atlantic War discredited the regime, gave it their full backing and even collaborated with it – righteously to condemn its handling of the very real problems that were caused by terrorists whose moral standards were virtually identical to those of the military hardliners though, needless to say, unlike them they did not operate on behalf of the State.

Cohesive societies are held together by collective illusions. This is why too much self-knowledge can be a dangerous thing.  Without a certain degree of hypocrisy – “the homage vice pays to virtue,” according to François de la Rochefoucauld – they quickly fall prey to warring factions and tear themselves apart. The unhappy events of half a century ago came about because too many people managed to convince themselves that, having history, or even God, on their side, they were entitled to go to any lengths, no matter how inhuman, to reach their goals.

It would appear that, as time went by, most of them learned that by demanding everything now, as bright adolescents and immature adults often do, they were inviting disaster, but there are still some out there who cling to the ideas that, for a thankfully brief period, turned Argentina into a charnel house, just as, on a far larger scale, fairly similar ones had done in Europe a bit more than three decades earlier.  

The coup d’état of 1976, and its aftermath, continue to weigh heavily on the collective Argentine mind. Every time an anniversary comes round, accusations related to the dictatorship are levelled against public figures. Most assume guilt by alleged association: the “Process” regime wanted to open up the Argentine economy, so anyone seeking to do the same today is an enemy of democracy. Seen through this particular prism, any government that does not cleave to a blend of ultra-nationalistic and Trotskyite principles can be regarded as a successor to the military dictatorship. This greatly suits elements that apparently would like Argentina to return to being the country it was before the coup put an abrupt end to Isabel Perón’s term in office but, fortunately, only a tiny minority would want to see such a dreadful past return in triumph.

As Milei, who was born in 1970, takes delight in needling his opponents, his government has taken to criticising the distorted version of events that was produced by Kirchnerite propagandists. The ruling couple cannily decided to cosplay as left-wing militants because, as Néstor Kirchner cheerfully reminded people, it would guarantee them the support of “progressive” opinion which, here as elsewhere, dominates the public conversation.

However, while Milei’s call for a less partisan approach to the Process is reasonable enough, there are too many personal emotions and interests involved for anything like a rather more balanced “narrative” to gain much traction here, while abroad, the ideological assumptions of academics and others who delve into Argentine matters interfere with their efforts to separate verifiable truth from fiction and analyse what happened in a rigorous manner. If nothing else, the 50th anniversary of the coup has reminded us that the country has still not recovered from the shock that was administered to its nervous system by the deadly turmoil that, not that long ago, affected not just the body politic but the personal lives of a great many individuals. Until it does, the Process will continue to resemble a high-tech mirror programmed to reflect whatever people who look at it want to see.