Between two demons and three violences: Alfonsín’s administration and the senses of the state terrorism memory in contemporary Argentina

Abstract

Particularly held during Raul Alfonsín’s presidency (1983 – 1989), “the theory of the two demons” is considered the dominant-hegemonic memory referred to the last Argentine civic-military dictatorship (1976 – 1983). In turn, the report of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP)- “Nunca Más” (Never Again) is usually considered an expression of the aforesaid memory. According to our hypothesis, “Nunca Más” does not subscribe to the “theory of the two demons” but to a different memory – though not antithetical. The aim of the current paper consists of characterizing both groups of representations in order to point out the differences between them. Our corpus of analysis includes as main sources Alfonsín’s documents and statements concerned with the issue, as well as the “Nunca Más” prologue, presented in 1984. Some statements of Ernesto Sabato, CONADEP’s president, are also considered due to the fact that the authorship of the latter work mentioned has been attributed to him. Such primary sources are historically contextualized from the use of secondary sources, which within we include the state of the art relative to “the theory of the two demons”. We conclude that even though Alfonsín’s proposal and the original “Nunca Más” prologue coincide in the rejection of violence as a means of political expression, Alfonsín places in an equal position two actors – the left-wing guerrilla and the coup – while the prologue criticizes 3 violence modalities: the guerrilla, the right-wing semi-official terrorism – actor not mentioned by Alfonsín – and the dictatorial terrorism.

Keywords

• dominant-hegemonic memory
• violence
• theory of the two demons.
• memory
• theory of the two demons