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PARTISAN REVIEW
was about to apply for U.N. membership. The High Minister of the
regime: an astrologer with a church of his own and links to Libya. A
new fat dream of power: oil wealth (somewhere in the continental
shelf). An off-shore rig on its way from a distant port (the latest
nationalist fantasy) sinks mysteriously at sea. Meantime Brazil and
Paraguay-old rivals, sudden partners in the energy race-are dam–
ming the upper Parana River (a vital waterway) which, in time, may
run as dryas the Rio Grande in northern Mexico.
~he
British are still
in the Falkland Islands (a name officially banned). The Chileans, who
used to covet Patagonia, are renewing their claims in the Beagle Canal,
south of Tierra del Fuego (as the Uruguayans, relying on changing
tides, once claimed various shifting sand banks in the River Plate). As
the generals step in (1976), it's official: "state of seige." No loudspeak–
ers this time: only a dull silence, fear, paranoid resentment and
xenophobia (the Brazilian cruzeiro is suddenly hard currency against
the crashing peso and the Blacks are coming on a shopping spree),
another turning in and away from a hostile world.
Somehow it all sounds familiar. A three-man Junta, representing
each branch of the armed forces digging in: "Here to stay, " for the
usual, magic, ten years.
It
started in the thirties: an elite of order, men
of destiny, taking turns at the helm. (A faint hope: political ambition
will start them rotating among themselves, as it always has, until they
wear out.) A more or less indifferent population cynically looking on
(from Sunday parks, as the troops march by). Gone (with the frivolous
past) the moments of popular frenzy that traditionally accompanied
the rise and fall of each new hero. Soldiers (like defrocked priests) no
longer wear uniforms in public (medals are targets). The new image:
the faceless technocrat (fighting political corruption, corporate greed).
At around 500% annual inflation in the last Peron days, almost any
promise of stability seems tempting. So an old catchword returns:
"austerity"-of mind, body, soul. A neo-Spartan appeal to national
fiber.
In
fact: a cutting back, closing out, turning off, covering up on a
grand scale, managed from hidden back rooms. "Repression" is a key
word that, strangely enough, far from being pejorative, retains its
military glamour.
It
means nightly Freudian battles with "subversives"
(murderers, kidnapers, blackmailers) who, under the mysterious power
of some secret birthmark, have gone as far as blowing up their own
relatives (at dinner or in bed). The Freudian ghosts, of course, are real
(and armed to the teeth), but also monstrous closet
s~eletons
turning
on their own kind. A full time censor dreams them up (a confused
demonology): Mao, Fidel, hippies, abortion, divorce (one remembers a
divorce law was a major factor in bringing down the first Peron
