[Marxism] Rewriting the past in Argentina

[Pat Costello <pt_costello@xxxxxxxxx>]

Rewriting the past in Argentina

Argentina: Let Yourself be Crossed by Reality.  On Censors and Memories of the 
Dictatorship

By RubÃn Kotler

Translated by Laura BouÃ, edited by Machetera

In recent days a variety of national and international media have published a 
list of songs censured during the last Argentinian military dictatorship, 
recovered in memory of those years of prohibition. The press has repeated the 
news and finds itself surprised to see some of the themes included in the list. 
However, this publication by COMFER (Federal Committee of Broadcasting) has 
made more noise than it deserves.  In first place, it is not news that the last 
military dictatorship prohibited hundred of musical themes in the darkest years 
of Argentinian contemporary history. Anyway, the curious thing is that in the 
middle of the political failure of the Kirchner administration, thereâs a 
forceful resurgence toward revision of the past in themes that have already 
been revised and that in any case, are not to be âdisappearedâ from the 
agenda of the ânever againâ media.

It is unusual to see how the state establishes the agenda of memory. From the 
long institutional transition up until now, different administrations have 
defined their policy of memory as it has suited them, more or less freely, but 
with the singular particularity of limiting the agenda to a cost-benefit 
calculation.  While the late RaÃl AlfonsÃn flirted with the subject of human 
rights, he installed the nefarious theory of the âtwo demonsâ through the 
head intellectual, Ernesto SÃbato, who became a defender of fundamental 
rights, âforgettingâ that the well known author had meetings with the 
dictators in 1977, when the culmination of repression made thousands of 
Argentinian citizens disappear. Hopelessly, the radical administration 
approved, with the involvement of the Congress, two evil laws that sealed the 
first pact of impunity in the country of ârecovered democracy:â the Laws of 
Proper Obedience and Final Point.

The Menem administration in the â90s didnât leave any doubt about the 
official necessity of turning the page and imposed collective amnesia. The 
exonerations that let free the few killers judged in 1985 were not only the 
symptom of a national disease but the nearest way to guarantee amnesia while, 
at the same time, balancing the stories of the recent dictatorial past. In the 
country of âI donât remember,â everything was possible, from the death of 
the son of the president in strange circumstances to the most brutal attempts 
which remain unpunished until today: the council of Israel and AMIA, attempts 
that today, more than 15 years since they were committed, are not known with 
certainty by anyone.

full:

http://machetera.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/rewriting-the-past-in-argentina/


      

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