Dangerous parallels?
On September 27, 1983, the military junta governing Argentina passed the “Law for the Defense of Democracy.” This law, number 22,928, allowed the government to tap phone conversations and the monitor correspondence from people and organizations the state “believed to be connected with subversion.”
The people were not pleased. By that time the junta was growing weaker by the hour, and newspaper columnists were brave enough to openly mock the law’s ironic name. They asked what was democratic about the government this law was supposedly defending. But even more forcefully, they questioned how allowing the government to snoop on anyone they saw as linked to subversion could possibly promote democracy. Democracy, they thought, came with personal freedoms.
Vicente Saadi, then a Peronist senatorial candidate readying for long-awaited elections, called it “a Nazi system… placing the lives, liberty and property of Argentines at the mercy of the Gestapo.” Others called it “a joke” or “nonsense.”
Columnists Horacio Méndez Carreras Jr. and Martín Villagrán San Millán discussed the law in an October 1, 1983 column entitled “so consistently perverse”:
I can’t help but think this sounds exactly like things that could be said about the so-called Patriot Act.
What strikes me is how a people who had lived under a military dictatorship for over 7 years were so horrified by these measures, but people in the US seem quite willing to swallow substantially stricter ones: the military government called for arrests to last for up to 48 hours, whereas under the “Patriot Act” there is no such limit. As a speaker at Tuesday’s anti-Ashcroft rally in Boston said, “there are desaparecidos in this country, too!”
To be fair, I don’t want to exaggerate the parallel between the US and the Argentine military dictatorship. On the other hand, I’m not sure US citizens realize the extent to which the rhetoric (if not the actions) in today’s US parallels rhetoric from 70s-era Argentina and other such regimes. It’s eerie. It’s not just a few choice phrases that seem to resemble each other, it’s the fundamental arguments behind domestic policy. The Argentine military government’s “Dirty War” against its people was justified entirely on the grounds that it was necessary to combat terrorism, which everybody agreed was out of control. The junta told Argentines that they were fighting the “Third World War” against “global terrorism,” which was so powerful it justified drastic measures. And many people ate it right up (in 1976), even rejoicing in the fight.
It’s the 11th of September. This is an anniversary of a terrible, sick event. It is a day to remember, and to think. I hope we’re creative enough to see it as more than an opportunity to muster anger. Argentina has shown us where that road leads.
Oh - one last, gratuitous photo…
The people were not pleased. By that time the junta was growing weaker by the hour, and newspaper columnists were brave enough to openly mock the law’s ironic name. They asked what was democratic about the government this law was supposedly defending. But even more forcefully, they questioned how allowing the government to snoop on anyone they saw as linked to subversion could possibly promote democracy. Democracy, they thought, came with personal freedoms.
Vicente Saadi, then a Peronist senatorial candidate readying for long-awaited elections, called it “a Nazi system… placing the lives, liberty and property of Argentines at the mercy of the Gestapo.” Others called it “a joke” or “nonsense.”
Columnists Horacio Méndez Carreras Jr. and Martín Villagrán San Millán discussed the law in an October 1, 1983 column entitled “so consistently perverse”:
…This is utterly intolerable and represents arbitrary intrusion by the state and its forces in the privacy of the citizen, as well as the legalization of fear and insecurity.
These measures are to be communicated to the judge within 48 hours. Will the communication ever take place? And even if it does, will this not leave the judges in the same position as wronged husbands who are the last to find out?
This obscene law we are discussing also empowers the police and security forces (which are they?) to carry out searches, raids, etc., at the address of persons charged or of third parties who could be suspect of instigation or who could be accomplices after or before the fact. These searches or raids may be carried out by day or by night, whenever the urgency of investigation requires it, to prevent the suspected delinquents from escaping or the destruction of clues… There is no need for a search warrant by the federal judge, although this dignitary must be advised within 24 hours.
The National Constitution (Article 18) says that no inhabitant of Argentina may be arrested without an order issued by a competent authority. But this new legal device enables the security organisms to arrest whomever they like for 48 hours, advising the judge of this fact at once. Frankly, if advice must be give to the judge immediately, why not immediately before?
I can’t help but think this sounds exactly like things that could be said about the so-called Patriot Act.
What strikes me is how a people who had lived under a military dictatorship for over 7 years were so horrified by these measures, but people in the US seem quite willing to swallow substantially stricter ones: the military government called for arrests to last for up to 48 hours, whereas under the “Patriot Act” there is no such limit. As a speaker at Tuesday’s anti-Ashcroft rally in Boston said, “there are desaparecidos in this country, too!”
To be fair, I don’t want to exaggerate the parallel between the US and the Argentine military dictatorship. On the other hand, I’m not sure US citizens realize the extent to which the rhetoric (if not the actions) in today’s US parallels rhetoric from 70s-era Argentina and other such regimes. It’s eerie. It’s not just a few choice phrases that seem to resemble each other, it’s the fundamental arguments behind domestic policy. The Argentine military government’s “Dirty War” against its people was justified entirely on the grounds that it was necessary to combat terrorism, which everybody agreed was out of control. The junta told Argentines that they were fighting the “Third World War” against “global terrorism,” which was so powerful it justified drastic measures. And many people ate it right up (in 1976), even rejoicing in the fight.
It’s the 11th of September. This is an anniversary of a terrible, sick event. It is a day to remember, and to think. I hope we’re creative enough to see it as more than an opportunity to muster anger. Argentina has shown us where that road leads.
Oh - one last, gratuitous photo…
previously there was Underground nerd
afterwards you have running alone
My name's Andrew McLeod — I worked at the Herald for many years before moving to Scotland, where I was foreign editor for 12 years at The Scotsman. I left because of disagreemnts over the Iraq war — the paper had taken a very pro-war stance on the assumption that Saddam was planning to bomb us. I knew he wasn't but there was a political agenda — the publishers were in cahoots with Blair and co (hence their knighthoods — it all becomes clear in the end). They now own the Telegraph; I am a freelance for the Glasgow Sunday Herald.
Wonderful website, but it has kept me up very late and as some of you correspondents have said, it is hard to go over such painful territory.
Still, you have inspired me to keep on warning Britons about the dangers of falling into the Patriot Act trap, as Britain is about to do, incredibly, in the 21st century.
No one trusts the government here anymore. The Scottish National Party may even win next year's Scottish elections — now that will be a story, and Iraq and all that has happened since will have something to do with it. [submitted on 14 Aug 06]