The Consecration of Political Suffering: Martyrs, heroes and victims in Argentine Political Culture

CATOGGIO, MARÍA SOLEDAD

JOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

Cambridge University Press

Lugar: London; Año: 2013 vol. 45 p. 695 - 719

0022-216X

This article addresses the various mechanisms by which the religious figure of the Christian martyr became a useful notion in Argentine political discourse. It argues that the process by which the idea of the ?martyr? was secularised and politicised was actually initiated by religious agents themselves. The analysis considers how commemoration initiatives devised by religious agents, social movements and political actors have brought ?Catholic martyrs? into the pantheon of national symbols. It also deals with the various semantic shifts seen in the public discourses of religious agents themselves, shift that extend the boundaries of an eminently religious category by associating it with other figures in a more specifically political imaginary, such as the hero and the victim. The article shows how the political power of the religious figure of the martyr lay in the way various actors could use it to invoke a legitimate and heroic victim of political violence. It thus allowed them to sidestep the vexed public question of whether those being commemorated had had any involvement in armed struggle.