There is a common element to extreme right-wing leaders and parties, and that is their denial of historical memory. A revisionism at will that erases fascist crimes and various dictatorships. Everyone insists on downplaying importance, looking the other way or, directly, saying that those atrocities did not exist. We have seen it up close, with Vox, which throws the ball away when asked explicitly about the Franco regime, but takes the opportunity to vindicate it in secondary ways. They do not attend the tributes to the victims of Franco’s regime; or their leaders say phrases like Pedro Sánchez is the worst thing that has happened to Spain in 80 years (including the dictatorship).
The Argentinean Javier Milei’s chainsaw has also reached the historical memory of the Latin American country. His Government constantly says that the number of victims of the Videla dictatorship is invented, and calls the claims of those who still seek the remains of their relatives or institutional reparation “the business of the disappeared.” Something that hurts especially in a country that did judge and condemn the dictator at a time that Spain has always looked upon with democratic envy.
Perhaps that is why it is worth reviewing the stories of those who experienced it firsthand. Who were victims of kidnappings and torture. That they had to flee their country. This is the case of Claudio Tamburrini, who in 1978 was illegally detained, held and tortured along with other victims in the Seré Mansion. His case was somewhat more media-friendly, since he was a soccer goalkeeper for the Almagro club, and mainly because after more than 100 days of captivity, on March 24, 1978, he escaped from that prison in an escape that has been told from fiction. in films like Chronicle of a leak and in several documentaries.
His case has the particularity of football. Not only was he a goalkeeper, but that same year Argentina organized (and won) the Soccer World Cup in an attempt to sell an open-minded image to the rest of the world. Society was torn between celebrating their team’s victory or refusing to go out into the streets because there was nothing to celebrate. Tamburrini’s story exemplifies that Argentine period very well, since he not only experienced first-hand the brutality of the dictatorship, but after fleeing to Sweden – where he earned a doctorate in Philosophy – he returned to his country to testify in the trial of the junta. military.
His story was told in the fiction film Chronicle of a fugue, based on his own novel Free pass: the escape from the Seré Mansion and now in the Movistar Plus+ documentary, Tamburrini: Escape of an archer, which can now be seen on the platform. There Tamburrini tells again what he experienced, but he does so from a new context, that of Milei’s presence in the Casa Rosada. From Sweden, Claudio Tamburrini answers the phone and reflects on why it is important again to remember what happened.
“I believe, speculating, that the reason why this story is of interest again is the special moment that Argentina is experiencing,” he says without hesitation. “There is now at least an attempt, I would not say it is a denialist movement, but an attempt to test, to test a little to see what happens if we begin to relativize certain atrocities that were committed by the military regime at that time to see what the reaction of public opinion is. It gives me that impression and, therefore, the discussion on these issues is necessary again,” he points out.
Argentina’s victory in the World Cup made people regain control of public roads. I myself took advantage of the celebrations to go out hidden among the masses and lose my fear.
Claudio Tamburrini
— Philosopher and victim of the Argentine dictatorship
It doesn’t hurt him to talk about what he has experienced. He does not have the feeling of “having been hurt,” and emphasizes that his case had a happy ending on a personal level although there are “many thousands of people still missing.” He defines that as “an experience” that “catapulted him to a new life, to a new destiny that he would not have had if he had not been a victim of the dictatorship.” In fact, by reliving it in documentaries or interviews, he discovers “new aspects, edges and nuances in this story.”
His trip was a round trip to Argentina, as he returned to testify in a trial that he remembers was “the first time in the history of Latin America, in which coup plotters, soldiers and those responsible for human rights violations were convicted.” “It is a historical, legal and political milestone. It is a privilege to be part of that trial of the boards. It was a privilege to have been invited to join the prosecutor’s team, because I worked with them for seven months after giving testimony and that is one of the experiences that I preserve with most pride and that also guided me professionally, because the text that I wrote , the research I did for the Prosecutor’s Office on the moral justification of punishment, was the material I used for my thesis.”
The Movistar+ documentary emphasizes this contrast between a country that was torn between celebrating its team’s victories and the guilt of doing so while people were being tortured just a few meters away. Tamburrini has written several articles about it. He escaped months before the World Cup began, but he had personally suffered what the dictatorship did and, nevertheless, he had “no problem in wishing the triumph of the Argentine team.”
“It didn’t seem contradictory to me. In addition, I also saw how people took over the street again. After spending years without going out to make any type of political demonstration because it was prohibited and even dangerous, they took advantage of the opportunity of the World Cup celebrations to regain control of the street. People once again gained control of the public roads and I myself took advantage of the celebrations to go out hidden among the mass of people and lose my fear. I witnessed when I went out to celebrate the World Cup triumph how in the middle of the celebration people were already singing against the dictatorship, insulting the dictatorship,” he recalls.
He also praises the attitude of the Swedish and Dutch players, who instead of not attending went “to fulfill a mission of international solidarity.” “They went to speak with the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, with the relatives of the disappeared, and the dissemination that these incipient groups had in Europe, through their interviews with those soccer players, made these events begin to be known internationally,” he points out. and underlines the importance of those events even at the end of that era: “The dictatorship, as a consequence of that process, began to break down at that moment.”
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