Showing 1 - 4 of 4 Items

Date: 2019-05-01

Creator: Duncan Gans

Access: Open access

Date: 2021-01-01

Creator: Marcus Helble

Access: Open access

Throughout the 20th century, Argentine leaders and social actors attempted to shape distinct national identities and a sense of nationalism that corresponded to their respective political ideologies. Beginning in the first couple decades of the 20th century, the formation of a Jewish “other” would be central to the construction of both Argentine national identity and nationalism. This thesis argues that the military dictatorship that led the country from 1976 to 1983 built on this othering of the Jewish community as military leaders sought to forge a national identity linked to Catholicism. It focuses first on three separate periods of the early and mid-20th centuries and how governments in that period built, maintained, and altered the view of the Jewish community as a not fully Argentine “other” living in the country. Using several editions of a far-right antisemitic periodical, declassified State Department documents, and testimonies of Jewish political prisoners and soldiers, the thesis transitions to focus on the military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s. It examines two separate periods of the dictatorship, highlighting first the role antisemitic beliefs, and opposing such views, had in an internal power struggle within the military government. In the second period of the dictatorship, during the Malvinas (Falklands) War, the thesis examines how antisemitism became a central part of the military’s efforts to consolidate a sense of national unity during the conflict, even as Jews participated largely for the first time within Argentine nationalism and the military.

Date: 2014-05-01

Creator: Georgia C Whitaker

Access: Open access

In this study of the roots of Operation Condor, I track the development of this unusual military alliance forged by six Southern Cone governments (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay) during the 1970s, as well as the push-and-pull relationship between the transnational migration of political militants and the military’s impetus for collaboration. While most accounts of Condor focus on the United States as the operation’s primary orchestrator, I contend that initial motivation for the type of cooperation that Condor would later formalize was driven not by the U.S., but by the Southern Cone militaries’ perception that Marxism had to be excised from the entire region. In addition, while Condor scholars have either ignored or minimized the role of the left as political actors and placed the blame for violence exclusively on the militaries and the United States, I draw from unpublished Argentine police records, Argentine Embassy documents, and Chilean-Argentine solidarity group publications to argue that it is essential to broaden our understanding of what both sides in this ideological confrontation were attempting to accomplish. The transnational left, never a homogenous group, evolved to meet a variety of objectives. Many militants continued to be politically active while they were in exile, and many acted in solidarity with like-minded leftists in their midst.

Date: 2022-01-01

Creator: Julia Elisabeth Perillo

Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community