Memories of Argentina s Past over Time: the Memories of Tacuara

MARÍA VALERIA GALVÁN

The Tapestry of Memory: Evidence and Testimony in Life-Story Narratives

Transaction Publishers-Rutgers University

Año: 2013; p. 111 - 129

The main objective of this article is to analyze the memory regimes on one of the most important predecessors of the guerrillas of the seventies in Argentina, namely the nationalist group of the sixties, Tacuara. In the context of the incipient radicalization process, which started in Argentina after the fall of Perón s second government (1955), a new extreme right-wing group was born at the heat of the political street battles of that time: the Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara (MNT). This group of young nationalists would later divide into the Guardia Restauradora Nacionalista (GRN), the Movimiento Nueva Argentina (MNA) and the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario Tacuara (MNRT). All of them would dissolve by the end of the sixties, and many members of these groups would later found Montoneros and other leftist-guerrilla groups. Even though Tacuara is regarded as the first urban guerrilla, it is also considered to be one of the most dangerous anti-Semitic and neo-Fascist organizations of Argentine history of the 20th Century. At the same time, others are of the opinion that Tacuara was a mere delinquent group of upper-class bored teenagers, thus enriching the controversy that surrounds this group. This analysis of the memories on Tacuara is based on the narratives of different social actors of the present day. Consequently, this study considers testimonies of former members of these organizations, audiovisual productions (fictional and non-fictional) and the discourses of the press (analyzed using the oral history, the film analysis and the discourse analysis methodological tools), during the period between 1996-2008. Thirty years after this group was dissolved, the controversy aroused by its guerrilla-like methods, its anti-Semitism and its political violence comes back and can be traced in the contemporary social discourses. The change in the ideological tendency of the national government led to a change in how Argentina s recent history is valued, and to a re-appreciation of the leftist militancy and the guerrillas of the seventies (which Tacuara not only preceded, but for which it was also a known provider of members and warfare knowledge, after it was dissolved). Public s memory of Tacuara profited from this as well.