The military's proto-memory 50 years after the 1976 coup d'état

Abstract

The Argentine Armed Forces that staged a coup d’état on 24 March 1976 were convinced that they would be praised in the future for ending the country’s political violence, restoring democracy, rebuilding the market economy, and fostering a Western culture based on Christian values. They constructed a proto-memory to make the Argentine people remember the dictatorship exclusively for its political accomplishments and military victory over the guerrilla insurgency. The dehumanization and denaturalization of revolutionary combatants and political adversaries as subversives and apátridas aimed to make the Argentine people accept their assassination as justified to achieve peace and prosperity. History proved the military wrong. The secret strategy of forced disappearances made family members search for their loved ones and organize street protests that, together with a failed political project and a lost foreign war, caused the downfall of the military government. Junta commanders and other perpetrators were convicted to long prison sentences, and the human rights movement created sites of memory that reminded the Argentine people of the state terrorism. The military proto-memory was disproven, as is illustrated by the redesignation of the Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada from a secret detention center into a World Heritage Site. Nevertheless, the military proto-memory has continued to influence Argentina’s collective memory through the apologetics of young supporters and the historical revisionism of the government headed by Javier Milei.