The Politics of Memory and Oblivion in Redemocratized Argentina and Uruguay

The failure to implement effectively the "ethical model" of democracy envisioned during the first period of democratic rule paved the way to another model of democracy that was less attentive to the demands of civil society and more concentrated in its decision making, along the lines of what Guillermo O'Donnell calls "delegative democracy."(31) With regard to the legacy of the past, in this model institutional stability prevailed over normative principles. Indeed, [Menem], who had led the pardons and projected a discourse intended to construct forgetfulness, opposed any divisive claim, even one concerned with the demand for justice and equality before the law. He advised Argentineans to remain above partisan considerations and to follow the dictates of national reconciliation, by which he meant refraining from confronting divisive issues and from attributing significance to the issue of past human rights violations. "Argentina will not be possible if we continue tearing apart the old wounds, if we continue fomenting hatred, distrust among conationals, on the basis of the false grounds of discord," he declared in a television broadcast, against a background depicting nineteenth-century liberal President Sarmiento and nationalist Caudillo Rosas joined by a dove of peace.(32) This attempt to consign past human rights violations to oblivion involved not only the retreat of civil institutions before the pressures of the military, but also the decline ("vaciamento") of the democratizing principle of equal justice before the law. As Mariano Grondona commented ironically, "You can imagine the indignation and outrage of those affected [by the violent repression] as they faced the impunity and the double standard of legality.... If a citizen steals a chicken he goes to jail. If a member of the armed forces kills serially he stays home."(33)
1. [Pierre Nora], "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire," Representations, no. 26 (Spring 1989): 7-25. Other important contributions in this domain are: Michael Schudson, "The Present in the Past versus the Past in the Present," Communication 11 (1989): 105-113; Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, 1982); Maurice Halbwachs' work, esp. The Collective Memory (1951; New York, 1980); Barry Schwartz, "The Social Context of Commemoration: A Study in Collective Memory," Social Forces 61 (1982): 374-402; and Jonathan Friedman, "Myth, History, and Political Identity," Cultural Anthropology 7, no. 2 (1992): 194-210. The study of memory touches upon the analysis of collective identities. See Shmuel N. Eisenstadt and Bernhard Giesen, "The Construction of Collective Identity," Archives Européennes de Sociologie 36 (1995): 72-102.
50. The most popular chants in the stadiums were "Hay que saltar, hay que saltar, el que no salta es militar" (Let's jump, let's jump. Whoever doesn't jump is a military man); "Paredón, paredón, a todos los milicos que vendieron la nación" (The [execution] wall, the wall for those military men who sold the nation). Diego Armando Maradona, who organized the minute of silence, declared he would not have pardoned the military: "[Videla] goes to church and the people clap their hands. I can't understand this. What kind of country are we living in? This is not my country." See "El fútbol también lo rechazó," Clarin, 25 Mar. 1996, 4.