http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5030-2961
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ABSTRACT
In this article we offer a broad historical overview of how the “Malvinas cause” has been taught in Argentine schools over the years. It is divided into four parts: first, we focus on the period prior to the 1982 armed conflict in order to analyse how the issue had traditionally been conceptualised and thus, offer a reflection on the pre-existing ideological “terrain” which permeated the discursive reception of the war in schools. Second, we analyse how the war was experienced in the classroom through the analysis of correspondence between ministerial authorities and the schools, as well as through the analysis of oral testimonies by teachers and pupils. Third, we focus on what is called the process of “demalvinization” during the first decades of the return to democracy and the impact of this process on educational policies. Finally, we analyse the policies adopted by the Argentine Ministry of Education in the transmission of the Malvinas cause as an integral element within a contemporary politics of memory in the context of the 30th anniversary of the 1976 military coup; in particular, we focus on the place assigned to the 1982 Malvinas War in the educational resources produced at the time.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 María Celeste Adamoli and Cecilia Flachsland, “Efemérides en el Bicentenario de la patria: las marcas del pasado reciente y los desafíos educativos,” Novedades Educativas no. 235 (Buenos Aires, July 2010).
2 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), xxx.
3 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso 1991), 6–7.
4 Anne-Marie Thiesse, La creation des identités mationales. L´Europe XVIIIeme – XXeme siecles (Paris: Seuil, 1999), 14–16.
5 Alain Rouquié, Poder Militar y Sociedad Política en la Argentina hasta 1984 (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1984).
6 The bibliography on the Malvinas Cause is abundant, but worthy of particular attention are Roxana Guber, ¿Por qué Malvinas? De la causa nacional a la guerra absurda (Buenos Aires: FCE, 2001) and Federico Lorenz, Unas islas demasiado famosas: Malvinas, historia y política (Buenos Aires: Capital Intelectual, 2013).
7 Mario Carretero, Constructing Patriotism: Teaching History and Memories in Global Worlds (Charlotte, CT: Information Age, 2011).
8 Paul Groussac, a French intellectual, was director of Argentina’s National Library for 44 years. The book mentioned here was originally written in French but was only recently published in France for the first time in 2012.
9 Cristina Marí et al., “Tras su manto de neblina. Las Islas Malvinas como creación escolar,” Revista de Teoría y Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales, Number 5 (January–December 2000) University of Los Andes, Venezuela.
10 Guber, ¿Por qué Malvinas?; Lorenz, Unas islas demasiado famosas.
11 Decreto nacional 8944, Boletín oficial de la República Argentina, Presidencia de la Nación (1946).
12 In http://educacionymemoria.educ.ar/secundaria/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/pensar_malvinas.pdf (accessed August 20, 2018).
13 In ibid.
14 We consulted materials in the Armenia Euredjian Historical Archive, at the Mariano Acosta Teacher Training College, in Buenos Aires. The Archive contains copies of all communications issued by the Ministry of Education since its founding in 1875. The responsible archivists have prioritised the conservation of these copies due to the fact that the great majority of the originals were destroyed on the orders of the dictatorship before they relinquished power in 1983.
15 Pablo Pineau et al., El Principio del fin. Políticas y memorias de la educación en la última dictadura militar (Buenos Aires: Colihue, 2006).
16 The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag is a traditional ceremony which takes place in Argentinian schools when children are in the fourth form (when they are 10 years old, approximately). This pledge is supposed to be based on the original oath sworn by soldiers the day the flag was created, back in 1810.
17 Ministerial Decree 749, 15 June 1982.
18 It should be said that this issue does not appear again in any other official correspondence until the end of the dictatorship.
19 Joachim Scholz and Kathrin Berdelmann, “The Quotidianisation of the War in Everyday Life at German Schools during the First World War,” Paedagogica Historica 52, no. 1–2 (2016): 92–103. doi: 10.1080/00309230.2015.1133678.
20 These interviews were made in the context of a cross-lineof two proyects that research how recently graduatededucators teach recent history (Proyecto UBACyT, Las/os nuevas/os profesores: formaciones, saberes y trayectorias en la escena educativa fragmentada. Proyectos de Investigación Científica, de Innovación Tecnológica e Interdisciplinarios. Programación científica 2011–2014 UBA, Código de identificación del proyecto 20020100100642BA, and Proyecto UBACyT Articulaciones entre la formación de profesores y la educación secundaria en la escena educativa fragmentada. Proyectos de Investigación científica, de Innovación Tecnológica e Interdisciplinarios. Programación científica 2014–2017 UBA-Código de identificación del proyecto 20020130100051BA).They can be found in the library of the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Educación, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
21 Pineau, El Principio del fin.
22 Federico Lorenz, Las guerras por Malvinas. 1982–2012 (Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2012).
23 “An Interview with Alain Rouquié, by Osvaldo Soriano,” Humor Magazine 101 (March 1983).
24 Carlos Menem’s administration (1989–99) proposed a policy of rapprochement with the UK and of engaging the inhabitants of the Malvinas.
25 The first groups of veterans of the war presented compelling arguments in favour of the recognition of their war experience as well as the causes they had fought for, in terms of nationalism and anti-imperialism. At the same time, not only did they demand social recognition for the deaths of so many young men, but they also condemned the State’s indifference both during the military and civilian governments: Lorenz, Las guerras por Malvinas.
26 We especially refer to the Veterans’ Centres, made up of recruits, who differentiated themselves from groups of officers and sub-officers of the Armed Forces.
27 According to the newspaper La Nación of 28 February 2006, the figures are staggering: 32 years after the war, the number of veterans who committed suicide due to post-traumatic stress outnumbers those soldiers actually killed in action (649).
28 María Celeste Adamoli and Cecilia Flachsland, “Efemérides en el Bicentenario de la patria: las marcas del pasado reciente y los desafíos educativos,” Novedades Educativas no. 235 (Buenos Aires, July 2010).
29 Lorenz, Las guerras por Malvinas.
30 Guber, ¿Por qué Malvinas?.
31 Gabriel D’Iorio, “En formación, o la reinvención de la responsabilidad pedagógica,” in Más allá de la capacitación, comp. AlejandraBirgin (Buenos Aires: Ed Paidós, 2012), 49–62.
32 Provincial participation in such initiatives was heterogeneous, that is, at times welcomed by the respective communities and, at times, rejected. This was not only due to the historical and political specificity of each province, but also due to the extent that they had participated in the sending of troops to the Malvinas.
33 MatíasFarias, Cecilia Flachsland, and Violeta Rosemberg, “Las Malvinas en la escuela: enseñar la patria,” Revista de Ciencias Sociales no. 80 (April 2012): 38–49.
34 Both the cultural and state agenda were also part of there-malvinisation process. In fact, there was a sharp increase in the re-publication of old works as well as the release of new fictional works about the war: Adrian Melo and Marcelo Raffin, Obsesiones y fantasmas de la Argentina: el antisemitismo, Evita, los desaparecidos y Malvinas en la ficción literaria (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Puerto, 2005).
35 It was decided that since academic research had been conducted exclusively in large urban centres research also needed to be done into regional experiences of the recent past so that a national “memory map” could be drawn up.
36 Favouring posters over other resources was a means for responding to traditional teaching methods in schools; in this case, in the use of illustrations in the classroom.
37 Manuela Belinche Montequin, “De énfasis y omisiones. Un estudio sobre la cuestión Malvinas en las propuestas pedagógicas argentinas (2003–2013),” Revista Ensemble (e-magazine of The Argentine House in Paris) (Buenos Aires, 2015).
38 Alejandra Birgin and Javier Trimboli, comps., Imágenes de los 90 (Buenos Aires: Libros del Zorzal, 2003); Nelly Richard, Fracturas en la memoria. Arte y pensamiento crítico (Buenos Aires: Ed. Siglo. XXI, 2007).
39 National Ministry of Education, “A 30 años del golpe. Entre el pasado y el futuro. Aportes para un nuevo mapa nacional de la memoria,” Colección Contar Pedagogías. Experiencias de política pública (Buenos Aires: MECyT, 2007).
40 This can be consulted at http://portal.educacion.gov.ar/secundaria/files/2010/12/afiche1.pdf and http://portal.educacion.gov.ar/secundaria/files/2010/12/afichedorso2.pdfaccessed May 5, 2018).
41 Participation in the provinces was heterogeneous in that the proposed policies were both welcomed and also received somewhat begrudgingly. The response of each individual jurisdiction was determined not only by local history and political tendency, but was mostly dependent on whether they had participated directly in the war by sending combat troops or not.
42 Interview with Celeste Adamoli, Project Coordinator. March 10, 2012. Buenos Aires: face to face interview
43 The “Theory of the Two Demons” is the notion that acts of violence and repression perpetrated by the armed forces during the last civic-military dictatorship (1976–83) are partly legitimated as a response to the violence of armed guerrilla organisations.
44 On 5 May 1982, the Argentine Navy Cruiser, the General Belgrano, was sunk when attacked by a British nuclear submarine, leading to the deaths of 323 Argentine servicemen. At the time of the attack, the ship was outside the exclusion zone which had been established.
45 Both quoted by Luzuriaga, 2012 in Escritores del mundo, http://www.escritoresdelmundo.com/2012/03/2-de-abril-de-2012-por-pablo-luzuriaga.htmlaccessed July 10, 2018).
46 Works produced by the teacher-training colleges can be consulted at http://www.me.gov.ar/a30delgolpe/home/index.html.
47 The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo is a civil organisation founded in 1977 to demand that their missing children be returned to them alive. Their distinctive features are their white headscarves, and their weekly strolls around the May Pyramid in Plaza de Mayo – right opposite Government House (the Presidential Palace). They have become national icons in their demands for memory and justice for the victims of the last civic-military dictatorship.
49 Carretero, Constructing Patriotism.
50 Maurice Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de la memoire (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994); Michel-Rolph Troulliot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).
51 To some extent, this debate bears some resemblance to and yet also differs from the debate produced in the UK after the war. In the UK, the legal and historical arguments concerning Argentine sovereignty over the islands have not evaporated and, therefore, a continuation of the dispute is inevitable. Had there not been a conflict in 1982, the legal ambiguities inherent to the issue of sovereignty may have eventually led to political ambivalence in Britain. In this respect, see Christopher J. Hewer, “The Falkland/Malvinas Dispute: A Contemporary Battle between History and Memory,” Global Discourse 3, no. 1 (2013): 144–50. doi: 10.1080/23269995.2013.804766.
52 By “politics of war memory”, we intend “the forms, practices, and the (unequal) struggle to install particular memories at the centre of a cultural world, at the expense of others which are marginalised and forgotten”: T.G. Ashplant, Graham Dawson, and Michael Roper, The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration (London: Routledge, 2001), 12. Also see Jay Winter and E. Sivan, eds., War and Remembrance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
53 Inés Dussel, “A 30 años del golpe: repensar las políticas de transmisión en la escuela,” in La cita secreta. Encuentros y desencuentros entre educación y memoria, ed. Guillermo Ríos (Santa Fe: Amsafe, 2007), 157–78.
54 María Paula González, “Los profesores y la transmisión de la historia reciente: entre el currículum y el contexto,” Trabajos y Comunicaciones, 2ª Época, 30/31 (2005): 34–55.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pablo Pineau
Pablo Pineau holds a PhD in Education (UBA). He is a Permanent Lecturer in History of Argentine Education (FFyL-UBA) and a teacher trainer at Mariano Acosta Teachers’ Training College. He has published a wide variety of books as an author, co-author, and director in both national and international magazines on issues related to history of education, theory of education, and educational politics. He has great expertise in both teachers’ training and postgraduate courses in Argentine and foreign institutions as well as directing and participating in research projects.
He held the presidency of SAHE (History of Education Argentine Society), and the Head of the Department of Education at UBA: Now is the coordinator of “Espacios de Memoria” (Memory Spaces) Project at Mariano Acosta Teachers’ Training College, and Director of the Doctorado en Educación of the Universidad de Tucumán (Argentina).
Alejandra Birgin
Alejandra Birgin holds a Master’s Degree in Education and Society (FLACSO). She is a teacher and researcher at University of Buenos Aires – holding a Chair in Teacher Training – and at UNIPE (Universidad Pedagógica), Argentina. She directs research projects on teacher’s training and work policies from a comparative perspective. She has published several books and articles in national and international magazines on these issues. She also teaches postgraduate seminars in both Argentine and foreign institutions. She has been Undersecretary of Education in Argentina as well as directed the Argentine House at the International University City in Paris, France.