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Sunday, September 12, 2010

Commentary
Why Orwell is needed here and now
It’s all about democracy
By
Robert Cox

From Where I Stand

Throughout the dictatorship one newspaper published,

almost daily, a scathing denunciation of the strutting
military officers who led Argentina into a long night of
horror.

That newspaper was Clarín. It was a wordless

denunciation because the journalist who bore witness to
the evils and the idiocies of el proceso was the
newspaper’s cartoonist Hemenegildo “Menchi” Sábat. The English word “cartoonist” does not do justice to Sábat’s
work. He is best described as a modern-day Daumier, the French illustrator and social critic, or as this country’s Goya,
although his work is not imbued with the ferocity that characterizes the drawings of the Spanish artist. Day in and day
out, like the artists/cartoonists who preceded him, Sábat reveals the nature of people in power.

It was particularly dangerous work in the decades when Argentina was caught in the grip of terror. General Carlos
Suárez Mason, suitably known as “El Carnicero” (the butcher), sent Sábat a recorded death threat in his own voice
because he did not like the way he was depicted. Yet in a superb twist of irony, the most evil of all the members of the
military junta, Admiral Emilio Massera, was so vain that he failed to see that Sábat had exposed him in a devastating
drawing that captured the admiral’s villainy as well as his narcissism. Massera sent word to Clarín that he wanted the
original.

I was riveted by Sábat’s portrait of the Navy commander-in-chief. It showed him smiling at his own reflection in a hand-
held mirror. When I saw the drawing in Clarín that morning, I remember thinking and fearing that this time Menchi had
gone too far in satirizing a man who was so clearly power mad. Thank God, Massera’s overweening love for himself
prevented him from realizing that Sábat had pinned him to the page, much as a naturalist might pin a poisonous insect
for viewing in a specimen case.

Sábat was fearlessly brave in subjecting to ridicule pompous military rulers who held the power of life or death over all
citizens. That is one way it is possible to sustain human decency in a time of tyranny.
In an exhibition of his paintings in a major gallery in the heart of the city, when the military were at the height of their
power, Sábat included two huge canvases titled, Official Portrait and Army Hero. They are paintings of a grinning
gorilla in a spendid military uniform and of a strange animal that could be a cross between a turkey and orangutan, also
attired in an Army uniform.

When I saw the paintings at the exhibition I mentally held my breath and prayed that “El Carnicero” would not visit the
gallery and that none of the other visitors, most of whom surely enjoyed a quiet chuckle at the expense of the
repressive regime, would inform the authorities about this splendidly subversive defence of civil democracy.

Clarín also had another epic moment of resistance when María Elena Walsh, who spoke out boldly against the
censorship that, in her words, had turned Argentina into a kindergarten, defied the dictatorship. Her cry of pain at the
destruction of Argentine culture was published in the literary section and it was as if a shining light had pierced the
gloom. We democrats, eager to seize on any sign of resistance to what we then knew, or should have known, was
Nazism, blessed her heart.

I mention these two moments of glory in Clarín’s history for personal reasons. Menchi is and has been a very close
friend for nearly half a century. The adorable María Elena is the close friend I have never met, whose songs, stories
and art as a performer have enchanted my wife, our children, our grandchildren and me for more than 50 years.
Menchi and María Elena symnbolize for me, the contribution to Argentina that countless journalists have made and are
making by writing for Clarín, the country’s major newspaper in terms of circulation.

The work of Sábat and the great gesture in defence of freedom made by María Elena Walsh some 33 years ago take

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on new significance today when Clarín is under attack.

I believe it is my duty to defend Clarín, as have other journalists and, most notably Jorge Fontevecchia publisher of
Perfil, a rival publishing house. I do so for the same reason I believed it was necessary to come to the defence of
Jacobo Timerman when he was slandered and defamed, which I have often thought must have hurt him more than the
torture he endured in one of the military’s clandestine prisons.
Timerman was not without blemish. To his own admitted shame, he plotted with the military to overthrow at least one,
maybe two or more civilian governments. La Opinión, the once great newspaper he founded, was funded by David
Graiver, a shady financier who had among his clients, the Montoneros, a guerrilla organization that also carried out
some acts of terrorism against the civilian population.

To his credit, Timerman was an extremely generous person. As an entrepreneur he was a genius who helped bring
Argentine journalism into the mainstream of modern media. He fell foul of the military, probably more for being a Jew
than anything else, and he was treated shamefully. He was unjustly imprisoned, stripped of his citizenship and sent
into exile. He was lucky to escape with his life because the military wanted to silence him.

La Opinión was taken over by the government. The question today is whether Clarín and La Nación face the same
threat. The charge against Clarín is that, in partnership with La Nación, it took advantage of the situation in 1976, when
Graiver died in a plane crash in Mexico, to acquire Papel Prensa, the major, virtually the only, manufacturer of
newsprint in the country.

The acquisition of a majority shareholding in Papel Prensa by Clarín, La Nación and La Razón (whose shares were
later purchased by Clarín) in association with the national government was, in my opinion — then and now — highly
improper.In my opinion, the impropriety was particularly marked in the case of La Nación, which has always taken
pride in its independence.

For more years than I care to remember the partnership of the two newspapers in association with the state was
fiercely criticized by a majority of the members of the Inter American Press Association as totally unprincipled and as
unfair competition with the other newspapers of Argentina. I remember remarking at an IAPA meeting that in the case
of La Nación it was as if the Vatican decided to open an abortion clinic.
You would think that a 33-year-long wrangle over a newsprint company would not be news today. I have often
wondered, as the current Media War has been waged around this issue, what the ordinary man and woman in the
street thinks it’s all about.

What I believe it is all about is whether Argentina will continue to be a democracy. If Clarín, which appears to be in
most danger, is taken over by the government as La Opinión was, it will indicate that the present government does not
respect freedom of expression, which is vital to a healthy democracy.

Because Clarín is part of a media group that owns major television channels and other communication companies the
threat is not confined to the newspaper. Already one Clarín company, Fibertel, which is accused of operating without a
licence following a merger with Cablevisión, has been told by the government regulator to close within 90 days. The
Clarín group is faced with an uncertain future if the government continues to threaten a takeover, which would affect
the country’s top television station, Channel 13, and TN, the leading news channel, as well as many newspapers,
television and radio stations owned or partly owned by the group.

There are serious issue at stake here that go beyond the debate about the newly enacted Media Law that imposes
limits on media ownership and the controversy over the role and ownership of Papel Prensa.
At the time that the military government gave its approval to the acquisition of Papel Prensa I thought it was a bribe to
the three newspaper to secure their cooperation in covering up the military’s plan to exterminate anyone considered to
be a “subversive” by “disappearing” them. In other words, any one opposed to the military risked being kidnapped,
routinely tortured and then murdered. Bodies were to be disposed of by various means, the objective being to leave no
trace of human remains.

The acquisition of Papel Prensa is obviously a matter that the courts should decide. Unfortunately, in her address to
the nation about Papel Prensa, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner suggested that, somehow, Clarín and La
Nación were responsible for the kidnapping and torture of Lidia Papaleo, Graiver’s widow, who was kidnapped by the
military and held in a clandestine prison after she had signed the papers that transferred her Papel Prensa shares to
the newspapers.

Lidia Papaleo has described how she was tortured and raped and told about her suffering in detail for the first time in
more than 30 years. She says that she did not feel safe to do so before now. The kidnapping of Lidia Papaleo, the
Graiver family and their associates was known to me in general terms at the time. But it was not until I returned to
Argentina two months ago that I learnt the full extent of the barbarity inflicted on Lidia Papaleo when she made a
statement at a meeting of the board of directors of Papel Prensa, which was underreported by La Nación and, to my
knowledge, not reported by Clarín. She later released a detailed letter describing what she went through.

I was outraged, as any decent person would be, by the cruelty she suffered at the hands of the military and by the
length of her imprisonment. However, I do not think that Clarín’s CEO Hector Magnetto and La Nación editor

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Bartolomé Mitre can be held in any way responsible for the depraved actions of Lidia Papaleo’s torturers.

Yes, we should be outraged by what we now know about her suffering. But we should be almost equally outraged if the
law is trampled underfoot to take over Clarín or to intimidate La Nación, as was the case when the military seized La
Opinión. Should they be silenced as most of the media were during the military dictatorship, we will be witnessing a
serious loss of freedom. George Orwell should be alive and well and living in Argentina at this time so that he could
warn, once again, of the danger to democracy posed by leftwing authoritarianism.

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