ipl-logo

Confessions Of An Argentine Dirty Warrior By Horacio Verbitsky

1154 Words5 Pages

Simone Fernandez
HIST 460: History of State Terror in Latin America
Prof. Geoffery Spurling
FEB 15, 2023
Dying a Christian Death; Examining the Distortion of Religion in Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior by Horacio Verbitsky
In the book Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior, renowned journalist Horacio Verbitsky interviews Aldolfo Scilingo, the first Argentinian naval officer to come forward and admit to executing alleged ‘subversives’ during the Dirty War. This comprehensive interview gives Verbitsky the opportunity to challenge Scilingo’s, and in part the military’s, perspective regarding the morality of their decisions. To the Argentine military, the dirty war was considered a ‘holy war,’ in which they had been tasked to weed …show more content…

Scilingo offers insight into the complex warping of ethics, religion, and morality by the Proceso to justify the torture and murder of alleged subversives; moreover, his accounts of visceral reactions and his weak justifications disprove the Proceso’s attempts at bastardizing religion. This tactic of religious and ethical distortion not only allowed the Proceso to violate human rights during the Dirty War but would also contribute to the military’s attempted warping of history after Argentina transitioned to a civilian government. Crucial to understand this, is the framework of a holy war. The Argentine military regime was ultra-conservative Catholic, as described by Pierre-Louis Le Groff . As a holy war, the regime believed that they had been entrusted to protect the state in the name of God. However, this holy war concept will lose its meaning and become one of the many reliable scapegoats for the regime’s …show more content…

Here, Verbitsky and Scilingo discuss the flights. Verbitsky pushes Scilingo to further explain the morality behind the flights, beyond the functionality. Scilingo admits that this method of disposal was a “Christian death,” since the subversives were blissfully unaware of their fate during transfer. The flights are described as a communion for the men orchestrating the flights , as they were all required to take part, as a sort of initiation. Moreover, sedation during death meant their passing was peaceful and painless. Scilingo’s discussion of the flights has various religious themes, further contributing to their ‘holy war’ beliefs. That the executions they participated in were not only justified, but since the method of killing was human, they as executioners were pardoned by God. Chaplains altered doctrine and gave them justification for their actions. When Verbitsky questions Scilingo on the alleged ‘Christian explanation’ for the flights, he responds; “I don’t remember very well, but he was telling me that it was a Christian death, because they didn’t suffer, because it wasn’t traumatic. They had to be eliminated, that war was war and even the Bible provided for eliminating the weeds from the wheatfield. He gave me some support.” . This story Scilingo refers to is the parable of Tares, or the parable of Weeds from Matthew 13: 36-43. In this passage,

Show More
Related

Summary Of The Massacre At El Mozote By Mark Danner

698 Words | 3 Pages

The Massacre at El Mozote by Mark Danner summarizes one out of numerous mass executions that occurred during the Salvadoran Civil War. This particular book discusses the Massacre at El Mozote in 1981 led by the Atlacatl Battalion. This rapid response counter insurgency battalion was trained at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas once located in Panama. Danner’s book highlights the Reagan administration’s response when photographs of the multitude of victims killed in this massacre were published in the United States. The Regan administration determined that the pictures were propaganda and decided to overlook the major massacre going on around them.

Read More

Summary Of Elizabeth Salas Soldaderas In The Mexican Military

867 Words | 4 Pages

Elizabeth Salas’s piece Soldaderas in the Mexican Military is a historical nonfiction work which addresses the role of the soldadera in Mexican warfare. Written from a modern perspective, the piece intends to expose the true lives of the soldaderas and dispel preconceived notions that many incorrectly hold regarding these women. Thus, Salas writes in an argumentative and persuasive manner in order to propagate her claim that the soldaderas played a more imperative role than what history gives them credit for. Her writing is intended for those who have no background knowledge on the soldaderas or those who hold incorrect preconceived notions about them. Myths that surround the soldaderas stem largely from an era in which the only people who

Read More

The Return Of Martin Guerre By Zemon Davis

709 Words | 3 Pages

“The Return of Martin Guerre” is a reform of the renowned case of Martin Guerre’s journey back to Artigat, a small town located in Southern France, after his absence of approximately eight years. Though, the so-called “Martin” is really a fraud by the name of Arnaud du Tilh. His family, friends, and wife accept him for more than three years, and during that time his wife, Bertrande, becomes pregnant twice. However, after “Martin Guerre” has a quarrel over family finances and family land sales, his father in law and uncle accuse him of being an imposter. During one trial in the regional city of Rieux, Witnesses who attend are able to describe Arnaud de Tilh, including his own uncle.

Read More

The Return Of Martin Guerre By Natalie Zemon Davis

921 Words | 4 Pages

The trail on the true identity of Martin Guerre has drawn the interests of scholars and historians for centuries, allowing for details of the case to be preserved right up to the present. Popular interest was rekindled in the tale of Martin Guerre through the work of historian Natalie Zemon Davis’ book The Return of Martin Guerre, which interpreted the primary source literature in a new and original light. This interpretation has drawn sharp criticism from fellow historians such as Robert Finlay, who sees Davis’s work as misinterpreting and manipulating the evidence to allow for her original interpretation of the events. It is my opinion that Davis’s account of the case of Martin Guerre is unfounded and fabricated, and that Finlay’s criticism

Read More

Squatter And The Don By Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton

571 Words | 3 Pages

Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton work entitled the “The Squatter and the Don” captures the essence of Michel Foucault’s proposition on discourse and power by drawing from the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. She illustrates the racism and deprived rights the Mexican-American faced after being falsely promised to be given citizenship. The discourse of Burton’s work is the written laws that any citizen living within the state is supposed to abide by. Don Mariano is a man of the Alamar family who resided in San Deigo with his wife Dona Josefa and their children.

Read More

The Return Of Martin Guerre By Natalie Zemon Davis

1538 Words | 7 Pages

During the course of the semester in my History 395 class we have read three historical monographs that covers a wide range of ordinary people in history. The first monograph we read was The Return of Martin Guerre by social and cultural historian Natalie Zemon Davis. The book covers a historical event about a 16th century French man named Martin Guerre who had his identity stolen by Arnaud du Tilh, and the reactions of the village and “his” family. The second monograph we read was Neighbors by political historian Jan T. Gross. The book is about a massacre in the small Jewish town of Jedwabne, Poland during World War II.

Read More

The Fight By Adam Bagdasarian Summary

507 Words | 3 Pages

Everyone will get consequences for some of their bad actions. What did you do to get your consequence? You probably didn't get one as bad as the boy in “The Fight” a story about a boy and a bully named Mike, get into a fight,. Adam Bagdasarian is the one who wrote this short story he shows us that you will get consequences for your actions. The boy who got into the fight got a lot of consequences for what he decided to do and lost things that were important to him.

Read More

Teens Who Fought Hitler By Lauren Tarshis

463 Words | 2 Pages

The article,“Teens Who Fought Hitler”, by Lauren Tarshis describes the tragedies that happened during the Holocaust to Ben a Jewish boy, and Ben’s family and all the other Jews which millions perished at the hands of the Nazis including his parents. Ben Kamm lived during one of the most horrific and traumatizing events in world history, the Holocaust. Him and his family lived a normal life but in 1918 was when he would no longer live that life when Hitler and the Nazis invaded Warsaw and sent all Jews to the ghetto then to bring them to concentration camps killing them with gas. However, some of the kids went through holes in the walls joining partisan camps to sabotage the Nazis. Thankfully he survived though the unspeakable and unimaginable challenges

Read More

Inga Clendinnen In Fierce And Unnatural Cruelty

1376 Words | 6 Pages

Unlike DBC Pierre, Clendinnen has a more rigid contextual application to her history, having studied Anthropology and therefore approaching the Aztecs through the intensely human aspect, in the manner of history from below. In dealing with the reasons for defeat of the Aztec Empire, Clendinnen focuses on the intensely intimate and brutal cultural practices of battle and further war. She focuses intensely on the cultural forces, as defined by humans, in losing the war - and she raises the question of the adaptability of the Aztec Empire to the Spanish terms of engagement. She provides interesting insight into the inability for both the Spanish or the Aztecs to understand one another; clearly influenced by her background in Anthropology. Undoubtedly, her contextualisation of the downfall through the insuperable cultural clash and demands of ritual, that is hand to hand combat only and the criminal death system in battle is reflective of her familiarity with Anthropology - certainly her character dissection of Cortes is done in an intense, anthropological detail.

Read More

The Return Of Martin Guerre By Natalie Zemon Davis

1189 Words | 5 Pages

In The Return of Martin Guerre, Natalie Zemon Davis uses her sources through Jean de Coras to recreate and analyze the trials of Arnaud du Tilh, Martin Guerre, and his wife, Bertrande as a microhistory to gain a perspective and a glimpse of life for the average peasant during this time period. Natalie Zemon Davis’ sources are of diverse bases. Her main source, however is from Jean de Coras. Coras was a judge in part of the case in Toulouse. He was present, and his credibility enables him.

Read More

Villism In The Underdogs By Mariano Azuela

534 Words | 3 Pages

In his work “The Underdogs”, Mariano Azuela is able to master the spirit of villismo regarding both its theoretic, underlying principles as well as the movement’s subsequent physical manifestations. Though significant characters conduct themselves in a manner consistent with the humble agrarian spirit central to villismo’s origin, characters in this text also exhibit the disruptive, callous behavior that is more characteristic of the federalist forces and dictatorships they aimed to unseat. Moreover, Demetrio’s degenerating understanding of the reason he’s fighting, coupled with his few instances of immorality, symbolizes the collapse of villismo morality into its culminating bandit-ridden reality. Cowboys, farmers, and other agrarian people suffering from land and labor oppression united together as the diverse “pieces of a great social movement [to] exalt their motherland” . Demetrio and Solis embody this original character of villismo revolution, as they maintain a moral, humanitarian compass throughout the novel.

Read More

The Devil's Highway By Luis Alberto Urrea

1177 Words | 5 Pages

Literary Analysis Research Paper The Devil’s Highway is a small section of the Sonoran Desert that must be crossed to make it into America. The Devil’s Highway, written by Luis Alberto Urrea is about a group of men crossing through one of the deadliest regions in Arizona’s deserts. Through this crossing, they had to face the hardships and conditions of this highly harsh desert. Many of these men died for the opportunity of freedom and a new life for their families.

Read More

Conquistadors And How Has This Affect The Enduring Legacy Of The Aztecs

1465 Words | 6 Pages

Since the release of the Spanish Conquistador’s misinforming documents, the public has consistently villainised the Mexica, disrespecting their culture and failing to properly acknowledge their genuine history, often being compared to the Nazis. This view of the Mexicas provided by the public supplies key insight into the misinterpretation of the Mexica culture, though Richard A. Koenigsberg would disagree otherwise arguing that in comparison to the Western world who “frames war to establish that its ideas and beliefs are “real and true”” , the Mexicas acknowledged that sacrifice was for the “purpose of war” endorsing the humanity behind the Mexica’s rituals in contrast to the Western war. The Western perspective in regarding the Mexicas as mass murders is ironic as the Mexica’s are moreover commonly acknowledged as victims of genocide caused by nonother than their colonisers, the Spanish Conquistadors themselves. Additionally, another piece of evidence in the misrepresentation of the Mexica’s span from the name change from ‘Aztec’s’ as well. In the period of 1780, Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray published his work, La Historia Antigua de México, evidentially altering the Mexica’s name to the ‘Aztecan’s’, spurring the name ‘Aztec’ to spread throughout Western culture.

Read More

Was Peron A Populist

1452 Words | 6 Pages

Though at first his ideals were populist, he soon discovered that he had the ability to become authoritarian and violent towards opposition as he held the dominant power. In August 1945, Peron says a speech referring to his newly made peronism. He says that the peronists have “won the right to repress them violently” (Peron 1), which clearly was not the case. Peron’s power grew and so did his governing style. He believed that because of his power, he had the ability and responsibility to “help” Argentina through whatever mean necessary.

Read More

The Inquisition Trial Of Jucan Luis

880 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout history, diverse cultures have unveiled fascinating, distinct, and at times astonishing facets of life. By carefully examining the Inquisition trial of Jucan Luis, we can gain profound insights into the surprising, strange, and odd practices prevalent during that period and contrast them with our present-day perspectives. On the night of August 28th, Jucan Luis was found engaging in scandalous acts such as conjuring spells and summoning demons. By unraveling the enigmatic nature of Luis and the sequence of events leading to his arrest, we aim to explore the underlying reasons behind these occurrences. Don Pedro Flores de Acebedo, the magistrate of Xochimilco, reports discovering pictures of devils painted on Luis's left arm.

Read More

More about Confessions Of An Argentine Dirty Warrior By Horacio Verbitsky

Related Topics

Open Document