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The "Desaparecidos" and the Moral Indifference of an Argentine Intellectual Elite. The Halperín Donghi Case.
by Eduardo R. Saguier
Senior Researcher (CONICET)
e-mail:[email protected]
In a previous message I stated that Tulio Halperín Donghi, due to his celebrity as a scholar, had the moral obligation of articulating, during the Military Process (1976-1982), “...public accusations and press conferences in Washington, advocating for human rights and for the defense of his own fellow citizen- colleagues and students who were in prison or had disappeared”. Furthermore, I disclosed that “...his prudent silence and self-censorship really obeyed his stingy eagerness to succeed in keeping his passport, regularly visit his family and control ties with institutions such as the Instituto Di Tella and CEDES/CISEA".
Many might ask themselves why Halperín and not some other of the many who, like him, lived abroad and also kept quiet? Simply because, contrary to other colleagues who livened up the fire of an anachronistic and opportunistic adventure, Halperín didn’t show signs of a guilty flank or political reproach whatsoever, neither could anyone, in good faith, doubt that by then Halperín personified the summit of Latin American intellectual elite. But then, if the one who climbs to the summit “is silent and consents”, what can be expected of those who ride on the hillside? Not to mention those who pasture in the deep valleys. How impressive must the Halperinian mirror have been and how many may have thus justified their silence?
Now then, how is it possible for an intellectual so sensitive and aware of the past and of the consequences of an unfortunate recurrence could have kept silent when such an unpromising and gloomy tragedy took place? A tragedy which Halperín himself had predicted in some of his writings, and whose antecedent had premonitorily portrayed it as a "concealed civil war".
We may be told that fear numbs people, constrains the keyboard and paralyzes the most daring of wills, and that its syndrome self-transfers itself, even in the most remote of exiles, and in spite of enjoying guarantees and free press devices. Indeed, there is no doubt that terror has the power of breaking all consciousness and is able to turn a hero into a coward, and even into a traitor, as in fact has historically happened in many instances. Undoubtedly, Halperín’s case is not one of treason, nor can one attribute ignorance of the cruel reality taking place in Argentina. But then, what brought about so much omission and self-censorship, and so much forgetfulness, so much scorn or contempt at others’ defeat and tragedy (politically speaking)? Can you be a man of science, an artist or an internationally renown intellectual, and be blind and deaf to a pervasive secret such as the Argentine holocaust? Is this about a selfish, narcissistic and/or cynical attitude, the result of a psychological, social and/or national identity crisis of someone who no longer cared to go back to his homeland? Or of someone who was unaware of the international weight of his own political opinion? Or, rather, was it not a matter of an ironic pessimism, the same thinking some authors practice to first understand fear and war and then condemn it, a mental strategy that has nevertheless led certain current American intellectuality (Michael Walzer, Bernard Lewis, etc.) to encourage the Iraq War? Or are we simply faced with an emotional distress inflicted upon oneself, a kind of slow and lengthy suicide of someone who was never a keen political activist nor intended to be a moral example or symbol whatsoever?
The case is not simple because Halperín did not remain idle in USA, he would frequently travel to Buenos Aires, he went to Mexico to share academic events with exiled Argentine intellectuals, he had phone contact with the cultural elite of the Di Tella Institute and CEDES/CISEA. We therefore ask ourselves, no one from Di Tella, or from the CEDES/CISEA or those in exile, then demanded he take on a public attitude in the US consistent with his liberal and humanitarian ideas and with his previous dignified resignation from the University of Buenos Aires [UBA] (1966)? No one reproached his silence nor hinted what his mentor José Luis Romero (deceased in January 1976) would have done under such circumstances? For what reason or reasons didn’t these hints or insinuations occur? It could be said, then, that in exile there was no political friendship whatsoever nor did its members know or visit each other but, why did his closest colleagues hide or consent to his moral weaknesses? Why is it that his most notorious critics, among which were Carlos Altamirano and Jorge Myers, haven’t mentioned any of these painful absences?
As far as Halperín’s political behavior, why was he not consistent with the commitment displayed during the struggle against Peronism prior to ‘55, or when the Argentine Revolution (1966) took place, at which time he gave up his chair at the University and opted for exile? Or is it that the tyrannical change of events we suffered during the Military Process was less cruel or bloody than those endured during the times of well known torturers (Lombilla, Amoresano and the Cardozo brothers, 1950-54), or in the time of the Argentine Revolution (1966)? Or is it that the Military Process victims (1976-82) didn’t deserve an advocacy similar to that of those who were tortured and murdered during the first Peronist period (Bravo, Ingalinella)? If, as a result of the Noche de los Bastones Largos (1966), Halperín resigned from his university chair and futilely looked for the protection and shelter of our Nobel Prize and CONICET President Bernardo Houssay, what leading attitude should he have taken ten (10) years later, when in his long exile the Videla Coup (1976) and subsequent “disappearances” of colleagues and former disciples occurred? Was it right for him to have judged these crimes against humanity under the Theory of the Two Demons or with Guariglia’s doctrine (1987)? (Report to Tulio Halperín Donghi by Felipe Pigna, 2002: http://www.elhistoriador.com.ar/php/prueba.php?archivo=57).
We will be told, then, that this Halperín was not the same as he once was, that circumstances have changed, that those twenty (20) years gone by from the fall of Perón (1955); can change anyone, and that Halperín never alleged having been exiled nor did he try to come back or be a moral symbol or paradigm whatsoever, but that he no longer could bear the northern winters or loneliness, and that he was skeptical, unconscious of his own moral power, nostalgic and tired. That same recurrent tiredness that overwhelmed our Asturias Prize Ernesto Sábato when he refused to go into exile and visited Videla instead to beg for the “disappeared” poets. Or our Nobel Prize Houssay when he accepted to continue with the CONICET Presidency during Onganía’s Dictatorship (1966-71), in turn emulating Mariano R. Castex’ “moral fatigue” in giving up when accepting the post of Vice-Chancellor of the UBA in the time of Uriburu dictatorship (1930). The latter emulating the exhaustion of Juvenilia author Senator Miguel Cané and that of the author of "The National Tradition" and Minister of the Interior Joaquín V. González when the Ley de Residencia (Residence Act) or the expulsion of “undesirable” foreigners was imposed (1902). And the latter in turn copied the capitulations practiced in times of Rosas (1836-1852) by the later reputed codifier Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield. But, can moral fatigue reproduce itself in the intellectual elites as just another cultural pattern, and can the spiritual resignation this entails be accepted without demanding any right of inventory at all? Can this reflex mechanism be accepted, that of a “perpetual return”, of someone who paradoxically devoted his life to probe into the behavior and “pathetic miseries” of patrician elites?
What is the responsibility and ethical virtues of a modern intellectual elite in dull and drab times? Aren’t they justice, truth and truthfulness, without which “...the corrupting power of institutions couldn’t be resisted”? What are the roles members of an elite should serve under gruesome circumstances? Aren’t they those same “stable fly or sting” roles, or those of "legislator and guide" which Halperín himself refers to constantly in his work? Wasn’t this the attitude adopted during the Military Process by David Viñas, Osvaldo Bayer and Gregorio Selser? and in times of the Nazi threat, María Rosa Oliver, Victoria Ocampo and Renata Donghi de Halperín (mother of Tulio Halperín Donghi), and even more remotely Echeverría, Mármol and Varela (Generation of 1837), issues Halperín spoke about in depth more than a decade ago (Halperín Donghi, 1987)? Can an intellectual elite relinquish moral responsibilities? Can it stop telling the truth to everyone and at all times? Can it remain indifferent, motionless and disciplined vis-à-vis tragedy, whatever the ideology? Can such intellectual leadership, in case of deserting, pretend to continue setting itself up as an elite and demand acknowledgment as such? Shouldn’t it provide some explanation or self-criticism?
This is the issue we should address now. Those who serve and have served Halperín as a complacent and subservient court, and have even reproduced in its shadow a kind of patron-client network at an international scale, pretend to go on holding the academic power, as if nothing at all had happened in the country, as if the surrenders of the past had been for free, and no one had to pay a price for them, as if all this disciplining were a title of honor to seek when, the truth is, they deserve the harsh treatment of a critique which is lacking till this day, and why not also the treatment of some moral tribunal?
by Eduardo R. Saguier
Senior Researcher (CONICET)
e-mail:[email protected]
In a previous message I stated that Tulio Halperín Donghi, due to his celebrity as a scholar, had the moral obligation of articulating, during the Military Process (1976-1982), “...public accusations and press conferences in Washington, advocating for human rights and for the defense of his own fellow citizen- colleagues and students who were in prison or had disappeared”. Furthermore, I disclosed that “...his prudent silence and self-censorship really obeyed his stingy eagerness to succeed in keeping his passport, regularly visit his family and control ties with institutions such as the Instituto Di Tella and CEDES/CISEA".
Many might ask themselves why Halperín and not some other of the many who, like him, lived abroad and also kept quiet? Simply because, contrary to other colleagues who livened up the fire of an anachronistic and opportunistic adventure, Halperín didn’t show signs of a guilty flank or political reproach whatsoever, neither could anyone, in good faith, doubt that by then Halperín personified the summit of Latin American intellectual elite. But then, if the one who climbs to the summit “is silent and consents”, what can be expected of those who ride on the hillside? Not to mention those who pasture in the deep valleys. How impressive must the Halperinian mirror have been and how many may have thus justified their silence?
Now then, how is it possible for an intellectual so sensitive and aware of the past and of the consequences of an unfortunate recurrence could have kept silent when such an unpromising and gloomy tragedy took place? A tragedy which Halperín himself had predicted in some of his writings, and whose antecedent had premonitorily portrayed it as a "concealed civil war".
We may be told that fear numbs people, constrains the keyboard and paralyzes the most daring of wills, and that its syndrome self-transfers itself, even in the most remote of exiles, and in spite of enjoying guarantees and free press devices. Indeed, there is no doubt that terror has the power of breaking all consciousness and is able to turn a hero into a coward, and even into a traitor, as in fact has historically happened in many instances. Undoubtedly, Halperín’s case is not one of treason, nor can one attribute ignorance of the cruel reality taking place in Argentina. But then, what brought about so much omission and self-censorship, and so much forgetfulness, so much scorn or contempt at others’ defeat and tragedy (politically speaking)? Can you be a man of science, an artist or an internationally renown intellectual, and be blind and deaf to a pervasive secret such as the Argentine holocaust? Is this about a selfish, narcissistic and/or cynical attitude, the result of a psychological, social and/or national identity crisis of someone who no longer cared to go back to his homeland? Or of someone who was unaware of the international weight of his own political opinion? Or, rather, was it not a matter of an ironic pessimism, the same thinking some authors practice to first understand fear and war and then condemn it, a mental strategy that has nevertheless led certain current American intellectuality (Michael Walzer, Bernard Lewis, etc.) to encourage the Iraq War? Or are we simply faced with an emotional distress inflicted upon oneself, a kind of slow and lengthy suicide of someone who was never a keen political activist nor intended to be a moral example or symbol whatsoever?
The case is not simple because Halperín did not remain idle in USA, he would frequently travel to Buenos Aires, he went to Mexico to share academic events with exiled Argentine intellectuals, he had phone contact with the cultural elite of the Di Tella Institute and CEDES/CISEA. We therefore ask ourselves, no one from Di Tella, or from the CEDES/CISEA or those in exile, then demanded he take on a public attitude in the US consistent with his liberal and humanitarian ideas and with his previous dignified resignation from the University of Buenos Aires [UBA] (1966)? No one reproached his silence nor hinted what his mentor José Luis Romero (deceased in January 1976) would have done under such circumstances? For what reason or reasons didn’t these hints or insinuations occur? It could be said, then, that in exile there was no political friendship whatsoever nor did its members know or visit each other but, why did his closest colleagues hide or consent to his moral weaknesses? Why is it that his most notorious critics, among which were Carlos Altamirano and Jorge Myers, haven’t mentioned any of these painful absences?
As far as Halperín’s political behavior, why was he not consistent with the commitment displayed during the struggle against Peronism prior to ‘55, or when the Argentine Revolution (1966) took place, at which time he gave up his chair at the University and opted for exile? Or is it that the tyrannical change of events we suffered during the Military Process was less cruel or bloody than those endured during the times of well known torturers (Lombilla, Amoresano and the Cardozo brothers, 1950-54), or in the time of the Argentine Revolution (1966)? Or is it that the Military Process victims (1976-82) didn’t deserve an advocacy similar to that of those who were tortured and murdered during the first Peronist period (Bravo, Ingalinella)? If, as a result of the Noche de los Bastones Largos (1966), Halperín resigned from his university chair and futilely looked for the protection and shelter of our Nobel Prize and CONICET President Bernardo Houssay, what leading attitude should he have taken ten (10) years later, when in his long exile the Videla Coup (1976) and subsequent “disappearances” of colleagues and former disciples occurred? Was it right for him to have judged these crimes against humanity under the Theory of the Two Demons or with Guariglia’s doctrine (1987)? (Report to Tulio Halperín Donghi by Felipe Pigna, 2002: http://www.elhistoriador.com.ar/php/prueba.php?archivo=57).
We will be told, then, that this Halperín was not the same as he once was, that circumstances have changed, that those twenty (20) years gone by from the fall of Perón (1955); can change anyone, and that Halperín never alleged having been exiled nor did he try to come back or be a moral symbol or paradigm whatsoever, but that he no longer could bear the northern winters or loneliness, and that he was skeptical, unconscious of his own moral power, nostalgic and tired. That same recurrent tiredness that overwhelmed our Asturias Prize Ernesto Sábato when he refused to go into exile and visited Videla instead to beg for the “disappeared” poets. Or our Nobel Prize Houssay when he accepted to continue with the CONICET Presidency during Onganía’s Dictatorship (1966-71), in turn emulating Mariano R. Castex’ “moral fatigue” in giving up when accepting the post of Vice-Chancellor of the UBA in the time of Uriburu dictatorship (1930). The latter emulating the exhaustion of Juvenilia author Senator Miguel Cané and that of the author of "The National Tradition" and Minister of the Interior Joaquín V. González when the Ley de Residencia (Residence Act) or the expulsion of “undesirable” foreigners was imposed (1902). And the latter in turn copied the capitulations practiced in times of Rosas (1836-1852) by the later reputed codifier Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield. But, can moral fatigue reproduce itself in the intellectual elites as just another cultural pattern, and can the spiritual resignation this entails be accepted without demanding any right of inventory at all? Can this reflex mechanism be accepted, that of a “perpetual return”, of someone who paradoxically devoted his life to probe into the behavior and “pathetic miseries” of patrician elites?
What is the responsibility and ethical virtues of a modern intellectual elite in dull and drab times? Aren’t they justice, truth and truthfulness, without which “...the corrupting power of institutions couldn’t be resisted”? What are the roles members of an elite should serve under gruesome circumstances? Aren’t they those same “stable fly or sting” roles, or those of "legislator and guide" which Halperín himself refers to constantly in his work? Wasn’t this the attitude adopted during the Military Process by David Viñas, Osvaldo Bayer and Gregorio Selser? and in times of the Nazi threat, María Rosa Oliver, Victoria Ocampo and Renata Donghi de Halperín (mother of Tulio Halperín Donghi), and even more remotely Echeverría, Mármol and Varela (Generation of 1837), issues Halperín spoke about in depth more than a decade ago (Halperín Donghi, 1987)? Can an intellectual elite relinquish moral responsibilities? Can it stop telling the truth to everyone and at all times? Can it remain indifferent, motionless and disciplined vis-à-vis tragedy, whatever the ideology? Can such intellectual leadership, in case of deserting, pretend to continue setting itself up as an elite and demand acknowledgment as such? Shouldn’t it provide some explanation or self-criticism?
This is the issue we should address now. Those who serve and have served Halperín as a complacent and subservient court, and have even reproduced in its shadow a kind of patron-client network at an international scale, pretend to go on holding the academic power, as if nothing at all had happened in the country, as if the surrenders of the past had been for free, and no one had to pay a price for them, as if all this disciplining were a title of honor to seek when, the truth is, they deserve the harsh treatment of a critique which is lacking till this day, and why not also the treatment of some moral tribunal?
