ESSAY
page 1 of 5 | next
Rodolfo Walsh: Argentina’s Revolutionary Anti-Zionist
THE MEMORY OF Rodolfo Walsh, journalist, author, political activist and revolutionary, is venerated with notable fervor among broad sectors of progressive opinion in Argentina today. No speech condemning the 1976 military coup is complete without a quote from Walsh's "Open Letter to the Military Junta." He is widely regarded as having provided an example of personal and journalistic heroism by setting up a clandestine news agency to defeat military censorship at the height of the campaign of state terrorism launched by the armed forces when they took power in a coup on March 24th, 1976. His reputation has been further enhanced by information that has come to light in recent years regarding his criticism of the strategy of the leadership of the Montoneros, the principle armed wing of revolutionary left wing Peronism - a force of which he himself was an active member.
A less remarked upon aspect of Walsh's life is his evolution from youthful activism in the ultra rightwing and virulently antisemitic Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista to a radical anti-Zionism which, while it disavowed traditional antisemitism, rejected the exercise of national rights by Jews and thus bears comparison with current ant-Zionist discourses which see Israel as a uniquely illegitimate and evil state. The bulk of this essay is concerned with his writing on these matters; a brief historical and biographical sketch placing Walsh in the context of his country's history is first necessary.
Life and Argentine Context
Walsh was born on January 9th, 1927 in the province of Río Negro. On March 25th, 1977, he was murdered by an armed gang on a street corner in the city of Buenos Aires. His assailants were all members of the national security forces. Their intention was to kidnap torture and kill him, thereby adding him to the list of thousands who suffered a similar fate during the military dictatorship which ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
As a young man, Walsh was an active supporter of the ultra-right wing and virulently antisemitic Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista. In 1955 he celebrated the military coup that brought down the government of Juan Domingo Perón, whose years in power were marked by the extension of a wide range of social benefits to the urban and rural working class and the foundation of a Peronist political identity which has marked Argentine political life to this day. Nevertheless, by the time he died, he had embraced revolutionary left wing Peronism - an interpretation of Peronism which saw it as the only viable path to socialism in Argentina - to the extent of joining the Montoneros, its principle armed wing.
Walsh was an early and brilliant exponent of what later came to be called New Journalism and his Operación Masacre is a classic of that genre. It is the story of the June 1956 slaughter of a group of civilians by the military government of the day. The victims were suspected of plotting to restore the constitutional government of Perón, which had been toppled the year before. The massacre was botched and the identification and interviewing of one of the survivors by Walsh was the first step in the construction of a book that has become a landmark both in the history of Argentine literature and journalism. Over the course of his career he also wrote two other classics of investigative journalism - El Caso Satanowsky and ¿Quién mató a Rosendo? - as well as short stories and plays.
Peronism was proscribed on the downfall of its founder in 1955 and, with the exception of a couple of brief and half-hearted experiments with a limited form of democracy, the country was ruled by the armed forces until 1973. The working class that had supported Perón, and had received an unprecedented level of social and labor rights in return for its loyalty, did not meekly resign itself to his overthrow and exile.“As a young man, Walsh was an active supporter of the ultra-right wing and virulently antisemitic Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista”
There was civil resistance to military rule from the outset. The Cuban Revolution had a galvanizing effect on many on the left in Argentina. As the 1960s wore on the war in Vietnam, anti-colonial struggles in other countries and the atmosphere of revolution on European and North American university campuses led some to see the long proscribed Peronism as a force that had the potential to become a national liberation movement and bring socialism to Argentina. Not a few of those who did so had, like Walsh, cheered the armed forces when they toppled Perón. However, they were sickened by years of military rule and were now joined by younger people who rejected their parents' bitter anti-Peronism. Liberation theology and the radicalization of certain sectors of the Catholic Church also played their part in the growing tide of opinion that favored armed resistance to the succession of obtuse and violent generals that were running the country.
- page 1 of 5
- next
