Argentina would seem to offer little justification for tribal sentiment. Like most countries, rind particularly New World countries, Argentina is in no sense an extended biological family united by common ancestry. The area’s first inhabitants were warring native tribes who became “Indians” only after Europeans refused to see them as they saw themselves: as distinct religious and linguistic groups holding little in common with each other. The Spanish conquest and subsequent capitalist expansion brought Europeans and Africans to the Southern Cone who liberally crossed genes and cultures with the natives and with each other, so much so that both natives and immigrants lost much of their ethnic distinctiveness. In the late niiieteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Argentine niix master continued its work of amalgamation with newcomers from Europe and from Argentina’s interior, the latter being the mixed-blood cnbecitas negras (little black-heads) who filled Argentina’s cities in search of employment. Cultural interpenetration founil its political reflection in a nation seemingly in the modernist mold, complete with a liberal constitution, pluralist democracy, and mechanisms for naturalizing and assimilating immigrants. Yet, as we will see below, for some Argentines the liberal nation was not enough, for eventually Argentina would produce its own tribalist mythology which in turn would provide essential ingredients for Argentine nationalism—a nationalism quite at variance with the liberal sense of nationhood.
One of the chief architects of this tribalist enterprise was Rail Scslabrini Ortiz (1898—195S), a populist intellectual, revisionist historian, and defender of Peronism. 2 Scalabrini is best known outside of Argentin B fOr works I do not ex- amine here: his watershed historical studies on the Argentine economy, f'ofi/icc britdnica en el R No âe la Plata and Historia de los ferrocnrrile,s nrgentinos both of 1940.* Largely because of Scalabrini’s furious anti-British sentiment, his su¡iport of Perón, and liis refusal to take sides in World War 11, these booKs were immediately coiitroversial, althougli they later gained widespread credence ainong anti-imperialists of eveiy political stripe.^ In addition to being a historian, however, Scalnbrini sas an imaginative student and inventor of the Argentine soul. This aspect of his thought has received little critical attention, despite the fact that El hombre que està solo y espera, mis major essay on argeniiriidad and tire one to which I devote most of my oitention here, has reinained in print since it first appeared in 1931.
My goal in this article is tlucefold. In the section iininediately follo wing I outline what inight be called ri paradigm of tribal identity, drawing cliiefly from tire Biblical story of the House of Israel—the most long-Iived and successful tribal story of Western Civilization. After this soinewhat distuptive but neces- sari digression, I compare the Biblical story with Scalabrini’s descri¡ition of Argentina's true identity and show how he seeks to invent a neo-tribal identity for moilern Argentina, a myth of “natural” nationhood that, however enduring and iiuaginative, inost certainly lias no einpiricel or rational support. I conclude with a brief look at how Scalabrini’s politically successful imaginings might contiibute to our understanding of n»tiona1ism generally, particularly within the framework createil by influential scholars like E. J. Hobsbawin and Benedict Anderson.
The Tribcf Pai adigm.- A Lessoii fram Genesis
Virtually every tribal history begins with a super1u.nnan explanation, be its name God, Spirit, or metaphysics. Not untypical is the Biblical rendition of God’s first call to Abram:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Oo from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land thnt I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you yilI be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you oil ttie families of the earth shell be blessed.” (Gen. l2:1—3)
Prom this short passage we can identify five crucial elements of the tribal paradigm, elements I will refer to, if the reader will forgive a neologisin, as “tribalemes.” F-irst, the genesis of a tribe is metaphysical, abstract, beyond the senses. In Abram’s case, that cause was Yahweh, the tribnl ileity who would eventually metamorphose into the God of judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This metaphysical princi¡ile, however, need not be a deity. As Auguste Comte pointed out in his condemnation of rnetaphysics, concepts no less abstiact—the social contract or man’s inalienable riglits for exemple—often serve the same tunction. A second tribaleme proclaimed in the above passage is the tribe’s lirik to a particular land, a ¡ii-oinised land, that will not only be the 5pace where the tribe enacts its history, but also a supernatiual element in the tribe’s collective identity, a place of origin, iniracles, and dreams of eventual retum. Tliird, the Biblical story liriks collective identity to a patriarch yho in turn gives his posterity lineage and iiiterrelatedness. The tribe is tlius a family, and childi'en of the family are born, not made. Moreover, the patriarch becoines patriarchy as his desceiidants assuine tribal leadership. Fourtli, the tribe is given a promise that places it above other peoples (“the one who curses you I will curse”) making it a covenant people favored by God. And finally, the ttibe is given a holy mf66fon (“in you ull the families of the earth will be blessed”), a gtand, collective destiny.
Later passages in Grnesis add naines and sigtis to the tribal paradigm. God clianges Abram’s name to Abraham, seying, “No longer shall your name be Abrain, but your ritme s1iaI1 be Abraham, for I llave made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations” (Generis 17:5). "the new name tlius invokcs the promise of patriarcliy and chosenness. Abraham’s descendents also receive a new name when God changes the name of lacob, Abraham’s grandson, to Israel, the root of the tribal name of Israelites and the House of Israel by which all of Jacob’s descendants will be known (Genesis à5: 9—10). Accompanying the new name is a sign, that of circumcision, a iiiark placed on men of the covenant.* Names and signs abound throughout the history of collective identity, be they families, tribes, or modern nations. For exemple, in our tinaes, tlirougli convcrsion or naturalization, citizens in modern nations take on new names to show ncw allegiances. In a similar fiishion, the physical sign of identity inarked by circumcision is not unlike national símbols of flags, seals, and uniforms. All inark a special relationship by which the individual surrenders identity to the collective.
Another factor in the tribul paradigm as it einerges from the Gcnesis story is the need to excliide, to identify enemics and lesser mortals. Sai ai, being barren, urgcd her husbanil to have a child with the slave woinan Hagar. But once the child, Isliinael, was born, Sarai becaine jealous of Hagsr with a fury that exploded several years later on seeing Ishmael playing with Sarai’s newborn cliild, Isaac. “So slae said to Abraham, ‘Cast out tliis slave woinan with her son; íor the son of this slave woman sliall not inlierit along wïtli my son Isaac' ” (C;enesis 11-11). No family, tribe, or uation hss ever functioned without restricting membership and its privileges—which is another way of defining outsiders and enemies. However harsh Sarai’s action, she established the need of a collectivity to include as well as exclude. Isaac end his pos- terity would be the children of the covenant, the bearers of the sign, and the recipients of the promise. Their specialness has meaning only if others are excluded.
The capstone of the tribal paradigm is the right to demand sacrifice, by the voice of God, the voice of kings who rule through divine right, or the collective voice of an idealized people whose elected leaders speak for tltem. Abraham and Sarah have only one son, Isaac, the one destined by God to carry the birthright to all Abraham’s posterity. As their only son, he is the special bearcr of promise and privilege and an essential link in tribal continuity. Yet, God chooses to test Abraham’s devotion to the covenant by commanding him to offer Isaac as a burnt sacrifice. Abraham dutifully builds the nltar, binds the boy on top of a wood pyre, and stretches forth his knife to kill him. At the last moment, an angel stops Abraham, but only afrer a crucial point has heen made: the individual who is allied to the collective must be prepared to give back to the collective even if the collective requires his life.
The Genesis story then offers a concise list of “tribaternes.” These would include the supernatural cause, the sacretl land, the founding of a family and a patriarchy, the favored status of the collective over other peoples, the holy mission or collective destiny of the collective, the special names and signs of group identity, the capacity to identify end exclude enemies, and the right to demand sacrifice.
"£he Neo-Tribalisni of Arq enlina ’s Raúl Scalnbritii Ortiz
Little in Scalabrini’s eiirly year.s indicated that he woulil eventually author a book like El llonibre que està solo y esyera, inuch less becon e s searing critic of British impeiialisin and a major nationalist thiuker. Although trained as a surveyor and engineer, young Raúl showed literary talent of a belletrist sort (a.s well as prowess as o boxer). Barely twenty-five years old, he published in 1923, la Jrtringa, a collection of short stories that occupies a ininor place iii Argentina’s literary canon. By the late 1920s he wi• ' •8 ula rly contributing cultural commentary to lluenos Aires’s leading inagazines and newspa¡iers, including the patrician daily M Nación.
Politics and economics, liowever, drcw Scalabrini away from iinaginative literature. On September 6, 1930, Argentina, facing a plunging export market brouglit on by the world economic depression, experienced an event that would prove decisive in the country’s history aittl also cliange the course of Scalabrini’s life: General José Félix Uriburu led armed troops against the second presideney of Hipólito Yrigoyen in the country’s first coup of this centur y, The coup ended nearly eiglsty years of institutional goverroneiit and revealed the fragility of Argentina’s democratic institutions. A fascist sympathizer 8nd devout Catholic, Uriburu proved too naive and inflexible to be president, and after less than a year in power, he was replaced by General Augusto P. Justo, a wily arid ebullient politician with grand ideas and few simples. Justo's versatility in fraud and general disregard for democratic procedure led many Argentines to refer to the 1930s as fu ilécyda infante, the infainous decade. The coincidence of economic decline and political failure also inspired (and disillusioned) a reinarkable generation of writers, intellectuals, end historians who cante of Age in the 1930s, Scalabrini ainong them. A year after the coup, he r iblished El hombre que estn solo y esperar.
Scalabrini begins El hombre que está solo y espera with two striking images whosc force extends beyond liistory to myths of creation und first causes laighly reminiscent of the tribal paradigin outlined earlier. In the prologue, Scalabrini •'6° es that Argentiiin, oí better said, the authcntic Argentina, inust be rriede in the image of the “spirit of the land [which is] like a giant irían [who] because of his measureless size is as invisible to us as we bre to microbes. [That gi• t1 i an enormous archetype that fed on antl grew from the immigrant infiitx, devouring and assiinilating inillions of Spaniards without ever ceasing to be idcntical to itself. Destiny shrinks before [the spirit's) g'andeur.
The spirit of the land implicity denies nation-iraking as a rational enterprise, or ii consensual activity involving Renan's daily plebiscite. Rather, it suggests a nostalgia for a supernatursl cause not unlike the God of the Hebrew J3ible. Scalabrini seeks an cxplanation beyond history at d science. In his scheine of things, Argentina’s true foundation is a spirit, a supernatural cause, an echo of the Biblical phrase, “Nos the Lord said to Abram” (Genesis 12:1).
By linking that spirit to the land, Scalabrini invokes a secoiail powerful image, the land itself—and to some degree conflatcs metapliysics with place, God with land. Yaliweli’s proinise to Abruin begins with the proinise of a new land: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you ”(Gencsis 12:1). In Scalabrini's imagery, Argentina’s rlcstiny is also linked to a land that woiild give the country its special cliaracter as well as determine its destiny. The land becomes a primer y and mctaphysical cause that preceiles and supersedes the prilitical nation. Like Abraham’s God, the spirit of the land does not heed the wishes of individuals, but appoints them to its own purposes.
The authentic Argentine, the one moved by the spirit of the land, needs a name, an outward sign of his ture identity. Scalabrini gives him several names, “The Man Who Is Alone and Uniting” or more commonly, If fiombre de Cori-ieiites y Esnierctlda, The Man of Corrientes and Esmei'altla Streets. The corner of Corrieutes and Esineralda is a fairly insignificant point in downtown Buenos Aires, the intersection of a busy thorougli1’sre and relatively short side street. That this point does not reflect grandeur is precisely Scalabrini’s intention. Ttie man of such a coriwi' would be a typical Argentine, n porteño, a product of the real Buenos Aires. What distinguishes this individual, lio wever, is his sensitivity to the motions of the spirit of the land. Scalabrini 's terminology here blends notions of typical Argentine with a somewhat contradictory notion of the typical por-teno. The ti ue porteño thus has more in common with the provincial Argentine than with the foreignized and foreignizing enemy; both are defined by their submission to the spirit of the land. Or said differently, Scalabrini distinguishes true Argentines from lheireneinies—not porteños from provincials. This i‹lentity, however, hoes not come without cost:
The porieiio man [he oould jtlst as easily say "lie Man of Con-ientes ilnrl Esmeralda4 is held back, us time itself is held back, by hue sensation of his powerlessness before the purposes of the spis4t of the lnnd, to which his destiny is emotionally and unchangingly werl. To free himself of that responsibility, of which he is moth author and agent, the man amputates a fi-action of himself, and cedes to the collectivity some ofi time rights unit ‹luties conferred on him. (64)
Scalabrini’s true Argentine thus surrenders his individuality to the group, to the tribe. This siniender of self may be t›ainful, a kin‹l of amputation as Scalabrini puts it, yet one necessary for the spirit to realize its destiny as well as the individual to realize his. Liber a1 individualism must yield to the collective or tribal man who in his collectivity responds only to the mysterious impulses of the spirit of the laiiil.
As in other ciises, Scalabrini’s imagery of ltte spirit that overrides the will of the individual bears comparison with the tribal identity given to the House of Israel. The God of Israel was a jealous god, a god who commandeil his people to disavow all other gods and render homage only to Yahweh. As Knren Armstrong shows in her remarkable book A ffis/ory of God, the early peoples of Palestine were a polytheistic society for whom Yahweh was merely one god among many, s god who first proved his efficacy as the Lord of Sabbaoth, or god of the armies. Other gods and goddesses—Baal, Murdtik, and Islitar for example- lived alongside Yahweh in the popular imagination. To some degree, ii«lividuals could manipulate their world by invoking the help of different gods for different purposes. Like Scalabrini's spirit of the land, however, Yahweh had his own goals, the first of which WRs his deiiiand for exclusive allegiance, an allegiance thar in tarn superseded individual will and allowed for the collective obedience that would provicle the foundation for tribal associations. Inlerestingly, the early Hebrew writers do not appear to see the other gods as unreal; rather, Yahweh‘s Remand for allegiance is portrayed as a struggle between real gods, with Yahwoh being the one who would eliminate the others.
ScolabrirH's notion that the individual Argentine must submit to the spirit of the land and even amputate a part of himself to join the collectivity invokes nearly identical imagery. In a word, the true Argentine must sacrifice something, however dear, to show his submission to the spirit of the land and his desire to be one with the collectivity. The capstone of the tribal paradigm is the right to demand sacrifice, by the voice of God, the voice of kings who rule through divine right, or the collective voice of an idealized people whose elected leaders speak for them. In the myth of Israel, Abraham and Sarah have only one son,%. Isaac, the one destined by God to carry the birthright to all A bralian4's posterity. Yet, Abraham’s willingness to kill his son to preserve the covenant makes on essential point: the individual who is allied to the collective must be prepared to give back to the collective even if it means the life of his only heir. Scalabrini’s image of the need to amputate part of oneself is no less striking.*3 failure to abandon foreign gods and submit only to Yahweh also biought hardship. Indeed, Israel's travails are repeatedly attributed to the people’s refusal to forsake foreign gods and worship only Yahweh. Scalabrini also condemns those Argentines who do not hear- and obey the spirit of the land. Moreover, his unrightcous, like those of ancient Israel, showed their sinfulness by submitting to foreign gods. Argentina’s repeated crises, and particularly the crisis of 1930, was in Scalabrini’s description brought on by the failure of Argentine liberals to submit to the spirit of the land:
[The liberals] had ideals, outlines of idenls that seemed within easy reach. They naively' believed in science. The biologists, the physiologists, the chemists, ihe asti'onoiners find the mechanics were iill lay priests of [the liberal] religion. In few years, they perverted the dynamic of the country. They allied themselves to foreign capital, and together they foun‹led towns, laid railroads, constructed ports, dragged canals and dikes, imported machinery, distributed the land arid colonized it. In such tasks, they diligently occupied themselves, arid they failed to attend to the spirit of the country. (Scalabrini Ortiz, 55)
Failure in sucli tasks was inevitable because they were not autl entre, and the Man of Coiyientes and Esmeralda “is immitrie to everything not boni in himself” (40). The projects of liberalism could not succeed because the real Argentine mistrusts “all the conventional lies of European culture” (92). The mystical encounter they souglit had to spring from their own land and could not be iinported. As with the children of Israel, their salvation fay in abandoning foreign gods arrl obeying Oie spirit of the land, flic true god of the Argentine expanse. Underlying Scalabrini's indictment of Argentine liberals is a sense that Argentina’s true and grand destiné had been frustrated, that the Argentine equivalent of “in you all the fümilies of the earth shall be blessed” had not been rcalized because the children of the promise had worsliipped othcr gods.
lt is not enough, however, to reject the lay priests of foreign doctrines—the biologists, chemists, and techniciens listed above; the true Argentine must also accept a new epistemology by which knowledge is conferred and reject the empirical and rational procèsses that justified forei@T1 dogmas. To define this new episteinolos , Scalabrini tells us that the porteño doesn’t think and in the final analysis he doesn’t need to think. Rather, he must intuit; tte must trust in his feelings fiâlpitos). Scalabrini inaintains that “the porteiio doesn’t think; he feels. I feel, therefore I am, is a more appropriate aphorism than the Cartesian one.” Later he affirms that “the porteño docs not plan. Rather than rely on planning, he waits for sudden intuiûoiis” (75). And in those intuitioiis the true Argentine hcars the voice of tire land. Moreover, anyone who fails to hear the land, bctrays his destiné as an Argentine. Por Scalabrini, improvisation rather than rational planning is the method of choice, for improvisation will not betray intuition the way planning does. Or ag he puts it:
The Manof Corrientes aiidflsmeralcia does not challenge, nor does he aspire to challenge, the European's defense of European culture. The Man of Contented and Esmeralda iiuuitively under.stands that compared to a European Argentina's most cultured men are but vulgar apprentices. On such men, the real Argentine confers an honorariuin of deep disdain as those intellectuals improvise shallow arguments against improvisation. Ann thot is one of the reasons behind the unbreachable divorce that separates the intellectual realm from that of the poneilo. (77-78). For Scnlabrini, feeling, rather than knowing, is the way the spirit of the land com- municates to its acolytes. One’s encounter with Argentina’s authentic destiny is possible only when the voice of reason is superseded. The Man of Conientes and Esmeralda “intuits fialpitu) judiciously, that in no book will he find help for his uncei tainties” (77).
Who will lead in such a system? Scnlabrini argues that a true Argentine leader must first anal foremost hear the spirit of the land and in that hearing also discern the inchoate will of authentic Argentines:
To decipher [the Man of Cotrientes end Eslneralda] one must be identical to him. Discerning his will is flie despair of politicians, functionaries, heads of newspapers, and all others who in some way depend on him. Men who are merely intelligent fail in public affairs. The Mnn of Corrienles and Esmeralda, above all else. demands that public figures have not only book knowledge, but also powerful instincts an‹l ready intuition; that is, they must be men of {eeling ijiéilpito), F'or this reason, [the Man of Corrientes and fisineralda] is little interested in p•°B *It $, Plat forms, and the verbiage of political parties. When faced with the complex reality of Argentina, programs are false posturings compared to the reality of men arid right conduct. Intuition fiâlpito) is the only effective pilot in the chaos of portefio life, 8nd the only virtue the possession of which the porteño will respect. (79—80)
In other words, the entire civic apparatus, its institutions, laws, procedures and methods, meim little to Scalabrini Ortiz. The only possible government is tl4Rt of a person who understands the inarticulate, and perhaps inotticulsble, voice of the authentic people. In short, what is needed is a single leader on thorn the spirit of the land has conferred its mysticRI priesthood, the universal priesthood of the voiceless believers. That leader is the incaniatiun of Scalabnni’s nostalgia for Yahweh’s prophet, for the patriarch Abraham, for the Moses who liearcl God in the buniing bush. Intuition in Scalabririi’s cpisieinology, repiaces the authori- tative “Now the Lord said,” and it constitutes the new grounil by which prophets are chosen: tte who intuits best sliotild lead the rest. Consequently, Scalabrini docs not stoy at tienouncing subscrvience to European models; he also argttes that Argentine history, if properly read with an ear to the spirit of the land, offers lessons on how Argentine should govern itself. The Man of Corrientes and Esmeralda in Scalabrini’s view needs a strong leadcr; inoreover, Scalabrini finds such leadership in the exemple of the ninefeenth-century fcdernlists who, unversed in foreign ways, heard the spirit of the land and thus knew the will of the authentic people.
The name populist Argentine confei'i-ed on that man WHO ttltUifiS flHd afticulates the authentic people’s will, is the inedieval term “caudillo.” Along with other revisionist historians, Scalabrini helped popularize the notion that only a caudillo could govern Argentina and that in this centuiy the name of the caudillo had been manifest in two persona: I4ipólito Yrigoyen and Juan Domingo Perón.*° In one of liis most telling lectures, titled “Yrigoyen y Perón,” Scalabrini argues that what inight have seved Yrigoyen were the “invisible links of corrununication and understanding” between the people and their “conductor.” He writes:
The Oligarchy IauiJclJed against [Yrigoyen] their entire store of political attillery. It surrounded nim with a flexible but unbreaLabIe belt of espionage and calumny. The newspapers attaeked llÍlJi with their steeliest satirical ttarts, they called hom names, and besinirched liim with vulgar accusotions. But the intuition of the people followed him with its accurate instinct, and Yrigoyen's poyulaiity grew to the some degree that his enemies tried to discredit liim, as though between the people and their potential conductor tliere had grown invisible links of cominunication and understanding. (YriB• yen y Perón, ' 16—17)
In the some lecture, Scalabrini goes on to say that Yrigoyen did not fully under- stand that he was the people's choice, that his will was what truly represented the people end the spirit of the land, that he was their caudillo. As Scalabrini puts it:
Yrigoyen coiiiinitted two political errors. The first was that of stopping his revolutionary work at Parliament’a doorsill and allowing a senate that came from the worst sector of Oligarchic rule to impede the work of liis government in its quest for national re-vindication. The seconà was leaving iniact the Oligarchy’s power base of land, newspapers, and privilege. These political errors engendered [the coup] of September 6, 1930. ( <^*88I*8 I Rrñit, 22-23)
In suiri, according to Scalabrini, Yrigoyen’s error was in bet.ieving thnt he coiJld reform Argentina through the mechanisms of political and economic liberalism. While Scalabrini does not spcll out whnt he hod in mind, it would seem that Yrigoyen, in Scalabrini’s view, should have abolished congress and confiscated the property and newspapers of his wealthy enemies. Or said ditlereiitly, Scalabrini thought that Yrigoyen should hRve behaved more like a God-chosen patriarch whoso righteousness in defense of the people did not need institutional consensus. The Argentine tribe needed its Moses, someone who would defend the authentic people and liberate the promised land from the wicked and the powerful, someone whose authority caine from the land itself rather than the niceties of bourgeois democracy.
Since the caudillo exists only as he intuits the spirit of the land which in turn coheres with the unspoken intuition and will of the people, Scalabrini at some point has to define his autlaentic people, those who are not anti- Argentiiles and extrnnjerizaiites devoted to foreign models and cultures. In tliis endenvor he again refiects a central concern of tribalisin as well as a problem concretely arldressed in the Hebrew Bible. What distinguishes the People of God is their covenant with God, which in turn gives the people specific rigbts and responsibilities.
Like the anonymous compilers of Hebrew scripture, Scalabrini also arques for the existence of a covenant people—a people in covenant with tEe spirit of the land. In liis Scheme of things, Argentina's autlientic people hfld their first iitcarnation with the Revolucióii de Mayo of 1810, when the “Argentine inultitudes armed by a powerful instinct of political und historical orientation” first deposited their faitli “in the conductor who guided them,” in tliis csse Mariano Moreno yliose Jacobean“Plan revolucionario”Sealabrini approvingly quotes at considerable length (l’rigoyen y Perón, 29—20; 11a-11). The covenant people appeared again at several key points in Argentina histoiy, often in support of particular cnudillos among whom Scalabrini places Mariano Moreiio, Manuel Dorrego, Juan Manuel de Rosas, and sevcral federalist caudillos. In Scalabrini's reconstruqtion of Argentine history, the liberal constitution of 1853 was ati act of popular betrayal, a surrender to foreign gods, nnd its primari inspiration, the nineteenth-century tliinker luaii Bautista Alberdi, represents for Scalabrini “a terrible indicator of the degree of submission to which a distinguished intellect cau lower itself when it does not feed on iiiibending adhesion to the feelings of the people of his naüve land” (Yrigo yen y Perón, 113).
For Scalabiini, however, the “foreigniziiag” impulses of Argentine liberalism caine to naught because the immigrants drawn to Argentine sliores between 1860 and 1930 may have been foreigners, but they were more nttuned to the spirit of their new land than their adopted country’s “foreignized” liberals. As Scalabrini puts it:
The intruders formed hordes of the worst rtuality, of the vilest substance, were i'efugees frotn races that ran over themselves iii their unchecked ambition, mobs s¡›urred by the illusion of fortune, who carried, in exaggerated form, all the defects of their society, and none of its virtues. They were beings of wretclie‹l interests, tenacious because of theit' uusatisfierl appetites. Sensual and tenipestuoiis beings who liked noise, music, dance and ieyeLi . (El liomlire que estd solo, 45)
With perverse delight Scalabrini in the foregoing quotation repeats all the prejudices of Argentina’s elite who, while needing the cheap labor of migrants and immigrants, saw them as intruilers who would weaken and besinirch the Europeanizcd, cultured Argentina that was their dream.** Scalabrini soon drops his ironic pose and concludes that the despised newcomers became the repository of the spirit of the land and thereby the true covenant people and the snlvation of the country. With their arrival, “Büenos Aires survived the danger of remaining segregated from the couotryside, of formiiig a government without relationsliip to the painpas that nurtured leer and of which she was syinbol, depository and fervent idea Q erisamiento ndicto)” (45). Argentina load been in danger of Europeanization. But with the arrival of the migrants and immigrants, the spirit of the land imposed its will, and the Man of Esmeralda and Corrientes again reflected the cliaracteristics of the panipa: “He is laz.y, taciturn, long- suffering and haughty. Buenos Aires is agarro the capital of the painpa” (51). While Scalabrini did not advocate laziness or arrogance, at this juncture he sees in those qualities an admirable resistance to the liberal “anti-Argentine” project.
Sealabrini's most einotional epiphany ol the true Argeritine people carne to liim on October 17, 1945, when a multitude soinetitnes estimated at one niillion invaded Buenos Aires’.s Plaza de Mayo in support of Juan Domingo Perón wlio had been arrested and detained by political enemies on the island of Martín García, u srrial1 island in the River Plate estuary. Ot that multitude Sculabrini writes:
The fieldworker from Canuelas, the rivetei; the steelworker, the automobile iiieclienic, the weaver; the peon—all matched togetlier, united in the seme voiee ann the same faith. ’l’lley were the bedrock of the aroused patria. They were Ilie foundation od the nation fliat was e nerging, just as bcdrock rose in prehistoiic times in the commotion of an eartliquake. They were the substratum of our idiosyiicrasies and our collective possibilities, olt of them pre.sent without fears or pretende. They were the no-ones and rlde h;ve-notliings. manifest in a near infinite multiplicity o£ huma e varieties sull color,s, glued togetlier by the saine emotion and impulse, sustaine‹l by a common truth that only one word could translate: Perón. What 1 had dreamerl of and intuited for inany years wiis present there, einbodied, intense, multifaceted, yet all in one spirit. They were the men l'ho were alone and mailing for their moment of re-vindication. The spirit of the land was present as I had never beJieved I would sce it . . . [T]1ie spirit of the land stood proud and vibrant over the plaza of our liberties, filled with the confirrnation of the spirit’s existence. (FrigoJen Perón, 27—2fl)
He later concludes Chat “tliose multitudes who saved Perón from captivity and who in one day ¡iar‹i1yzed tlio country in his name, were the same multitudes wlio had congregated in grief at the burial of Hipólito Yrigoyen. They were the same multitudes armed with a powerful instiiict of political and liistorical orienlation who since 1810 had entrusteil tlieir noble ideals to the leader wlio guiiled them” (¥rigoyen y Perón, 29—30).* Thus, Scnlabrini constructs his tribe, his covenant people: the spirit of the land, the people who intttit its purposes, and the caudillo who articulates those purposes and makes them renlity, Moreover, it is the covenant people set apart from the eneinies of the spirit, the foreignizing liberals, the cepoy bourgeoisie that has sold its birthriglit as H-ue Argentines and worships alien gods.
:núl Scnlobrini Ortiz aCid 111c Ti ibnl /maginaii'on
At this juncture, it should be clear that the tribal paradigm outlined above, using the Genesis story as a point of departure, does indeed delimit a series of “tribelemes” applicable to much of Scalabrini's construction of Argentine identity, history, and destiny. I would also point out that, although I chose the Genesis story for its fafailiarity, the “tribalemes” found therein are not unliLe those found in founding myths of most human collectives, however “primitiie” a particular collcctive might seem. Moreover that same paradigm can serve to describe many manifestations of modern nationalism, beginning wirh Johann Herder’s sense of the German Volksgeist and ending with ... well, unfortunately, it hasn’t ended at all. Tribnlisrri of the most virulent sort underlies much of tire nationalism dismembering what used to be Yugoslavia and the Soviet block, not to mention the ravages wrought by lJutus versus Tutsis in Rwanda. And in Argentina, one can hear echoes of Scalabrini’s tribalism in the right-ying ravings of recent commentators like the frustrated coup-maker, Colonel Aldo Rico.*° These f:icts raise several interesting questions. How, for example, are we to uiailerstand the success of Scalabrini’s doctrine? But even more important, what are we to raake of Scalabrini as a representative maker of tribalemes, particularly in comparison to the vision of nationalism popularized by Eric Hobsbawm, Denedict Anderson, and friends? I conclude with some premature musings on tlaese issues.
First, there can be little doubt concerning the fact that Scnlabrini’s spiritual Argentina was a major ingredient of the Peronist mytla. Under Perón, the balcony of the Casa Rosadn becoine Argentina’s most powerful lectern. Proin it, Perón’s descamisados leariied that they were the tnie Argentines, heirs to a grantl destiny that had been frustrated by upper-class traitors, liberals, sellers of the Fatherland (loc yendepatrin), and cepoy agents of British impcrialists. Said differently, Perón inculcated in the masses that they werc the true covenant people, the meu who were alone and waiting, and that tlaeir time had come. No one can fully explain the popular success of 1°eronism; pnrt of it inight be liistorical accident, and no iloubt inuch of it has to do with Perón’s extroordinary chiirisina and political genius. But to tliis equation I would add aiiother factor: that by using Scalabrini’s neo-tribalism us an emotional base, Peronism gave the Argentine masses what liberalism I ad denied them, namely a sense of plRcfl in history and collective identity, complete with a supernatural origin and destiny, a rationale for seeing the upper classes as anti-Argentine enemics, atid a justification for patriarchy. In sum, Perón, using ScalabrÍiti’s thinking as a point of reference, established a sense of tribe. lndeed, witliout Scalabririi’s tribal iinagination, Peronisin would have lacked one of its chief ingredients.
Scalabrini’s success, liowever, poses a larger question about neo-tribalism in general and its importancc in naüonalist mythology. And tliis brings me to B. J. Hobsbawm and Benedict Anderson, the two thiilkers who have in recent years most influenced our understanding of iiationalism. Hobsbawin and Anderson are careful scholars who, while idenüfying ideas essential to nationalist mytliologies (what I call tiibelemes), seem particularly intent on showing that such ideas liave no empirical ground, thnt such ideas are in fact “iinagined.” No serious student of nationalism would dispute tliis point; to do so would eventually lead one to argue that God, or some construction thereoí, created nations—which of course is absurd. Nor would I dispute the contention that libernlisin has indeed created successful nations in which the tribalist yeariiings of natioiialisin are held at bay.
Where HobsbàWlTl Rnd Anderson go yrong is in their insistence üiat nations (and by extension tribalemes) me a recent plienomenon, that prior to the modern period nations did not exist because the meclianisms for irnagining therri did not exist. Anderson, for exemple, arques at some lengtli thnt print capitalism allowed nntions to emerge, that withoüt the sense of broad-scale collectivity and parallel time, modern nations would not havc appeared.°° What we find iv this argument is an extended confusion of vehicle with substnnce, scale with essence. While it is most certainly true that print capitalism showed for larger collectivities, it is not at all clear that print capitalísm did much to change the essential ingredients of collective spuit and yeoplehood. Print capitalism may have allowed tribalism to occur on a broader scale, btit it did not change its basic structure. In short, however easily debnnked tribal constructs may be in any objective sense, they repeatedly occur in the history of htiman communities, be that collectivity the desert tribe of enrly Israel or a modern nation like Argentina. I would further suggest that tribalism (al tl that brand of nationalism that seeks a tribnl identification) is the exact opposite and chief nemesis of the liberal state. Just as Scalabrini’s notions of real versus traitorous Argentines exacerbated divisioiis already apparent in the country, tribalisin will always threaten societies dedicated to pluralism and consensus.
Such are the lessons of Scalabrini’s tribal imagination. Based on palpable evidence, his tribnl construct for Argentina has no defense. Yet, when we compare hi8 construct to tribalconstructs much older than Argentina, we find re- markable parallels. Moreover, however flimsy the evidence for his imaginin8s, his tribalisin formed the mythological base for the most powerful nationalist movement in Argentine history—and one that could agoin become a powerful political force when and if the current experiments with neo-liberalism come to naught. I would suggest that part of Scalabrini’s success lies in his ability to recast ancient human sentiments in a modem framework. I w ould further argue that such tribal sentiments often contribute to nationalist movements, a fact that might suggest a kind of collective imagination by which human collectives identify themselves for reasons that may have more to do with anthropology and psychology then economics and politics. In sum, we can admire Scalabrini’s imaginative genius in forging a tribalist for such an unlikely area as the liodge- podge of culture, history, and ethnicity known as Argentina; but we can also speculate that, if he hadn't done it, someone else would have.
The University of Texas at Austin
As is often pointed or+t, the term, “nation” is not particularly useful for- delimiting any particular sort of community. Applied to countries as old as China and us new as Zlnibnbwe, as large as the United States and as small as Kuwait—as well as to peoples as scattered ss Diaspora lews and as stateless as Kurtls—the term seems to include so mony different types of social groups as to be virtually useless in sny definiti›'e sense. As early as I 8b2, Ftet cL philosopher and historian Ernest Renan in 9u’est-ce gu’une nut ion argued convincingly that Romantic motions of nationhood based on supposed racial or cultural homogeneity had no factual basis. father, he saw them as human constructions, the result of a”daily pléhiscite” (Oeuvres Coiiipléles Peris, lS4'7—6l, vol. I, pp. 887—907). Monern historians like fi. J. £Iobsbawm and Benedict Anderson insist that nations as we know them did not exist until the beginning of the modern period, i.e., the mid-eigliteenth century. They suppon iliis po.sition by arguing that the erosion of ecclesiastical po wer, the decline of the nobility, mid the rise of ihe bourgeoisie demanded a key sort of collective i‹leiitity that became the modcrn nation. Anderson also argues that the rise of print capitalism allowed ever ldrger communities to become linguistically atid ideOlOg'ically cohesive, to imagine themselves on a larger scale and in parallel time, thereby becoiiiing “nations.” (See B. I. Hobshawm, Nalionc erms Natioiialicni cince 1'780.’ Pi’ogi-unime, M yili, Reality. 2nd ed. [Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1S92j, pp. 8m5; and llenedict Anderson, Imagined Coiiiinuniiies.- Reflections on llie Origin and Spi’ead of Nationalism. Revised edition. [London: Verso, l991J, pp. 5-7.) These arguments do indeed offer considerable insight into how 1-Iobsbawm and Anderson use the term, but ultimately their argument is tautofogicat—i.e., nations are what they call nationswna to some degree sidesteps the fact that the term was in use long before the 1700s, and is still applied to human collectives that do not meet Anderson and Hobsbawm’s stringent requirements. While appreciating their attempts to define the word, or ct least tell us how they use it, in this Article I define “tri1›nlism” in fairly specific ways, but avoid using the term “nation” in any particular fashion. Further, while I argue that trihalism (us I define it here) often contributes to nationalist movements, 1 recognize that the term “nationalism” is not necessarily limited to the tribal paradigm used here
Without question the most complete study of Scalabrini’.s life and works is Norberto Gatesso's highly sympathetic biography, 0‹fa de Scyln5rini Orfi¿ (Buenos Aires: Hdi- ciones del Mar Dulce, 1970). A]so useful is Galasso’s less detailed biogrnphy Scalabrini Or-fig (Buenos lres; Cuadernos de Crisis, 1975).
Both bouks consider the effect of British lodns, ownership, ancl general ilif{ue»ce on Argentine economic developincntwn effeci that in Scalabrini’s view impoverished Argentina aii‹I left it iii 8 DUU Of neo-colonial dependejlce. Çca}abrini't; ecopomic g9p9$ are well described and analyze‹l in Mark Falcoff, “Raú1 8caIabrin i Ortiz: The Making of an Argentine Nationalist,” Hi.sj ayic fÏmerican Hictoi’icyl Review 52, no. 1 (February 1972), 74—101. bec also Mark Falcoff, “Argentine Nationalisin on the Eve of Perón: Porce or Radjcnl Oricntatioii of Young Argentina and Its RivtHs,” Ph.D. diss. Princeton, H. J.' Princeton University, 1970.
Auother reason for 8caIabrini's importante was hit infltience ori Argentina’s inost iiiiportaiH political figure of this century, JualiDomingo Perón, the teacher of masecs, un Doiv Jtinn Foro mccxci.” (The phrase ’eri Dpn Juan ¡mra iiiacúoi” ctHnes froJn Suban novelist Anejo Carpentier's descriytioii of Guadelou p e's niiieteenth-century dictador Victor Hugues, and in my view apily describen Perón's ability tO chürn men who sltould have known bettei: (See Alejo Carpentier, El ciglo de tus luces, 1962; Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1992, p. lO7.) Perón invenied little and borrowed much. lrideed, a chief element of lris political genitis was hig abiliiy to bring diversa, often contraüictory, £crCe0 and ideas info the saine political movemeiit. Isis understanding of Argentina !'**'°' , patticularly its economic hisrory, was mvcii iiifiiieiicetl by the Cuadrryo ye FORJA, wliose cliief author was ficalabrini Ortie (lee Galasso, día de Scalabrini, pp. 373—378). Siinilarly, the historicaJ analysis in Peróii'8 most iHfluential book, los vrn‹fepniii«,-p -celia.r de ifnc traición, first publislied in Venezuela in 1957 can be u'aced directly to Scalabrini—a dcbt Pelón actua@y acknowledges at sevmeraI orirás in the text (Los vendefiati’ia, passim). Yet, 8ca1abrir*i had little contact with Perón and J£•sented not receiving more attention, or for tIiat in;itter a government post, during Perón's first two presidències (1946-1955 ) (see Norbcrto Galasso, $ca/uúriiii Orti pp. 64—65). Nonetlieless, wljen Perón fell in 1955, Scatabrini returned to the political fray, aigoiiig until his deatl in 1959 that l•eronisin was the only alternative to colonial domination.
Altn* 8 ' ! !"'* 8*" que "ctñ solo ›' e.srera may be Scalabrini's most popular wo k, and one lie repeate If y refers to in his later years, it is a book giv en short shrift by his biographers. Mark Palcoff, a usually perceptive analyst of Argentine affairs, makes the remarkable claim that the book is rich in lyn/ordo, Buenos Aires's lower-class dielect, and basically dismisses it as “disjointed and prolix” olbeit, “amusing.” I suppose that “amusing” is a matter of tnsfe; it is less clear how anyone could confuse Scalabrini’s elegant, often baroque, prose with luifnrdo (see Mark Falcoff, “Raiil Scalabrini Ortiz: The Making of an Argentine Nationalist,” p. 89). NorbeiJo Galasso sees the book primarily as a poetic endeavor that laid the ideological ground for Scalabrini’s his- torical revisiouism anal anti-imperialist militancy, but what lie says on the book is more descriptive than analytical (see like de Scolobriiii, p}›. 122-133),
The extent to which the tribalist paradigm outlined below can be applied to thin*›•B beyond Scalabi ini’s lies beyond the scope of this Article. I do not, for example, trace elements of Scalabrini's thought to the pro to-nation.tlisin of thinkers like Johann Herder ot Charles Maurres, although such connections could be made. In a longer strJdy soon to be completed, however, I examine other naHona1ist movements in Spanish America as they .show a nostalgia for g-ibaI identity similar to Scalabrini's. Several good studics are available on Argentine nationalism. Among the best are Maiysa Gerassi Navarro, Los nocionalistas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Joy-ge Alvalez, 1968) and David Rock’s Auiltorirr rieit ñigeziti« (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
Name changes in the Bible often indicate new relationships. Sarai bccoiiies Sai-ali to symbolise that she ceases lier ordinary existence and is called to “give rise to nations; kings of peoples shaft come from her” (Generis 17: lS—1C). lu the Christian testament, Sirnon becoines Peter, a name ihat marks fiis ti'ansition from mere disciple io “the rock” on which Christ will 1›uild mis church (16: l 7—18). Siinilarly, after fiis conversion, S au1, the persecutor of Cñristiüns, becomes Paul, the Christian evangelist and npostle to the Get tiles.
In a forthcoming book, also bearing in its title the term frit at iiiingiiiaiioii, I inclucle information on how the trib‹ilemes identified iii this section occur in other cultures. While the Genesis story provitle.s a useful frame for this article, tribalemes of this sort can be found throughout human cultures and certainly not just in Genesis.
Other important meditatious on Argentine's.apparent failtue inclurte works by na- tionaliste Juliö n0‹1 Rodolfo Irazustn (W orge i/iiio j e/ ii y7eriofisnio biritäiiico of 1934), benjamin Villafafie (Lu traged''• • 8eniinu or 1934), and José Luis Torres (Alguoas »aneini fe vender fo patrie of 1940). A particularly pcs.sinistre work is Ezequiel Martfnez Estrada's P•oJiogyalin Ile ly]yymya (1933) in which lie argues that AJ-gentina’s failui'e was organic anjt thereby iiiescapable, the result of öefects iii Creole cliaracter, Argentine gcograpliy, nnd Hispaiiic iraüiiion. In //i'sioria ne una enrima (1937), Eduardo Mallen laments that national purpose has given woy to materialism; he f ntlier outlines an uiifocussed ‹Iefer*se of Criollismo, not entirely unlike Scalabrini's in LV fiorr6ic yue estâ 5'alo, although the two ineii were far from political allies. Also important is Carlos Ibargurcii whose syinpathetic biography of nineteeutli-century strongman, Juan Manuel de Roses, published in 1930, ii4augurate‹l a school of historical revisionisin of which Scalafirini would fonn pan. I-or a brief overview of intellectual cements of the lime, sec Mail Palcoff, “Intellectual Cui rents” in Prologue to Perdit (l3erkeley: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 110—135. A useful, though highly tendeiitious intellectual history of Scalabrini’s times is Juan losé I3ernfindez Arregui’s m/ormriciñn de la concienci« bacteria/ fir,st published in 1960 and available in several editions. See also Joseph R. Barger’s study on Argentine historiography, “Tlte Historiography of the Rfo ‹ie la Plata Area Since 1830.” The Hisfyanic Amer icaii Ilistoi ical Review 39 (November 1959): 38fl—642.
RaGI Sca1a1›rini Ortiz, El hoitibre gue estâ solo y ecj:ier i (193 I: Dilenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1976), 19. Future references to this book are included in the text
The connection between scripture end El hombre que ectâ solo was not lost on its first critics, some of whom ca1le‹l it the Biblia gorteiia. See Galasso, Villa de $tylabriiii, pp, 122—128. tt is olso noteworthy that Scalabrini subtitled his book, Sierra be nodie, iierra de yrofetas os a devotionary for Argentiiies. Although too abstract for easy descrjption, the poems in Der 'o de nadie frequently make reference to the mystical Argentine lund and the neeil of individuals to submerge themselves in a collective identity, in “inciting oneself into something larger than oneself” (16).
Karen Armstrong, A history m4: rt‹ ‹ore-rear Quest of Judaism, Cliriytianiry arid /sfeni (New York: Alfred A. IRopf, 1994), pp. ?—27. I" The need for th individuel to suppress his ego to bong with the collectivité is also a frequeut tlieiiie in Scfllabrini's book of poetry, Tieiya Jin nadci, J"ieri-a de p deuocionario para el Nombre •^8 eniino. 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1973),
Yrigoyen became president of Argentina in 1916 after some twenty-live years of struggle against what lie called “the regime,” his name for the oligarchic, ostensibly liberal governments that had ruled Argentina since Baiaoloiné Mitre hecnme president in 18G2, one of Yrigoyen's iiiajor achievements was seeing the passage of the Sñenz Peñe Law which in 1912 brought universal suffrage to Argentine (men only) and thus pavetl the way for Yrigoyen's presidential triumph four years later. Despite vicioue opposition from Argentine traditionalists, Yrigoyen served a full term. Forbidden by the constitution to seek reelection, he yielded power to Mercelo T. de Alvear in 1922, but returned again to the presidency in 1928. On September 6, 1930, he was ousted from power by a fascist-led military coup, the first in this century. Carlos Menem recently became the first Arb entiiie president since 1928 to complete a full six-year term.
In November of 1939, Scalabrini fountled a daily newspaper titled Reconquista or “recoiiquest.” The name is a powerful allusion to the wars fought by Spanish Christians during the late Middle Ages to liberate Christian Spain (which the reconquistadorec thought iiicludeil the entire Iberian Peninsula) from Moorish (i.e„ foreign) doininetiol . Since the Spanish reconquista was essentially a holy war against a foreign occupation, the connection betyeen the Spanish reconguisin end 8calnbiini’s struggle to reclaim Argentina for true Argentines was surely not lost on him. The name thus makes a stung emotional connection between the struggles of two covenilnt peoples to reclaim their promised lantl firm foreign occupation. Oddly, f'a1coff claims iliat the newspaper's name alliides to Bueiios Aires's victoiy over a Brftfsh illY88ion force in 1806. W liile the creole inilitia that defeeted the British may linve seen theinselves as pam of a i econquista, the true mytt ological resonance of the term goes back to the struggle of Spaiiish Christians egainst the Moors.
Scalabiini's tascinatiori yith strong leader s end his disillusionmeiit with bourgeois democracy led to freqBent accuse tions of fascism. Scalebrini himselÎ claimed that he was ri “Leniiiist” and a matgrialist (Rock, Authorilai’icni digeitfio«, 123), altliough it is not clear what precisioi4 or scope lie might have given thèse terme. His connection with fascism and pro-Axis syinpatliizers is a irluch debaietl topic. While there is little évidence tt„t 5t oct¡„ty st,ppuried ihe Axis war effort, he dit collaborate with Axis supporters in then- cainpaign agein8t Briti8h interests in Argentine (see Davi‹l Rock, Auilioritai’inii Argentiiia, gg. 23—24 and 198, and Mark Falcoff, “Raü1 SCalabrini OrtiZ . . . " pp. 95— 97). His most sympatlietic biographer, Norherto Galasso, claires that altliough tempted by an of£er of money from the Germau embassy to help subsiélize Scalabrini's short- liyeft peiiodical, Iteconguisto, Scalabrini refused the ofiei and time accepted bankruptcy
The anti-immigrant sentiment is cosy to document. In leer ground-breaking Study of Spanish American autobiography, Sylvia Molloy shows how ivtigueI Cané's seemingly innocent rrlemoirs, Jai rnific of 1882, is in fact an exercise in “class bon‹ling” to shore up defenses against the iiiimigrfit intruders. See also German Garcfa’s if inrnigrciife en Hi novela a 8enlina (Buenos Aires: Idachettp, 1970).
Scalabrini retells the same incident using virtually the same words ili the foreword to his book of poetry and poet -like meditations, Tierra tin nadie, fieri a de pro[etas, p. 35.
Aldo Rico, Conye rsacioiiec con cl teniente Al'1o ico (B enos Aires: E"litorial Portalesa, 1989). See p‹lrticu1srly An‹lerson, Chapters Two ring Three, pp. 9—46. In fairness to Anderson, I should note that he certainly allows for the mythical, tribalist aspect of nationalism 1 support here. Lideed, his title finoginerf Communities elm ‹les precisely to this issue. What is peculiar iii his book, however, is a repeate‹l tendency to debunk imagined constructions Ir erely because they are imagined ontl to seek firmer ground in material explanations. It aLiiost seenJs thai at times he seeks to rtistance himself from one of the most interesting insights of his book. Hobsbawin, in contrast, not only consi‹Iers nations, artificial constructions hn t joins a long tist of thinkers, Karl Marx and Adam Smith among them, who argue that nations will eventually become obsolete and disappear altogether.