Part 1 Research Assignment: The Dirty War in Argentina

In my research assignment I focused on the Dirty War in Argentina. 

Source 1

In his book  “State Terrorism. In The Ideological Origins of the Dirty War: Fascism, Populism, and Dictatorship in Twentieth Century Argentina.” (2018) Frederico Finchelstein provides in-depth insight to the Argentine military regime and its ideology. This book chapter serves as a general source, which we can use in order to better understand the circumstances that existed in Argentina during the military regime. The author highlights that the Dirty War wasn’t actually a war between two opponents, but rather violence perpetrated on its victims. Overall, the book focuses on fascism and anti-semitism in Argentina. The Argentine dirty war began in March 1976, when the President Isabel Perón was overthrown by the military and replaced with the military general, Jorge Videla. The Dirty War lasted until 1983, and during this time, the military junta had killed, tortured and kidnapped between 10,000-30,000 individuals (Finchelstein, 2014). According to Finchelstein, the ideology that propelled the actions of the military was a combination of nationalism, fascism and justified with religion. Furthermore, the military promoted free-market capitalism, which gave the dictatorship support both internationally and internally. However, as the author emphasizes, the dictatorship wasn’t favouring everyone. The state identified their enemy not as terrorists, but rather as an ideology that opposed the homeland and God (Finchelstein, 2014). Therefore, the enemy wasn’t merely an outsider, but often Argentine citizens who simply didn’t share the views of the state. The state believed that the only way of dealing with their perceived enemy was to kill them, since their fundamental humanity had already been lost (Finchelstein, 2014). The author stresses the role that the Church had in the military regime, both facilitating and accepting the action of the state. Many children disappeared during this time, which according to Finchelstein, was a special character of the Argentine dictatorship. The concentration camps served as “factories of invented identities”, since the children born in captivity were clueless about their true identities (Finchelstein, 2014). These kids were then given to families who were in favour of the dictatorship (Finchelstein, 2014). Moreover, the author states that ethnical minorities, especially Jews, were sent to the concentration camps in which they were brutally dehumanized, humiliated and tortured. Finchelstein (2014) notes that the perpretrators of the violence and torture in these camps got inspiration of the Nazis and attempted to recreate Auschwitz in order to keep their victims trauma alive. However, Finchelstein (2014) notes that outside these camps the state ideology was imposed by burning and banning books and authors that were perceived as harmful for the state ideology, and by controlling the universities where counterproductive ideologies could be born. 


To be continued in another post because the formatting gets really weird for some reason..

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