We have lived for years—decades—trapped in a vicious circle from which we cannot escape: we are increasingly fed up with the deep sociopolitical divisions that practically define us and at the same time we are more and more entangled in them. Increasing polarization is not a local phenomenon but as good Argentines we believe that “ours” is different. It even has its own name: the crack. Perhaps it has to do with a certain “Argentine exceptionality”, the same one that we refer to when we remember certain milestones of which we are proud and feel that they differentiate us from other countries and societies. The easiest thing is to think about sport, Maradona to Messibut if we make a little cognitive effort, other circumstances and characters begin to come to mind that feed our longing and ambition to believe that we are ready for more.
One of those moments is born from one of the darkest events in our history, so buried in our collective memory until suddenly it shines in all its splendor thanks to a film that makes us remember a moment of glory that is ours: the Trial of the Military Juntas. Without going into the fine detail of what the historical context was, nor in film criticism regarding the virtues or not of “Argentina, 1985”the Trial to the Boards it marked a before and after in the short life of our Nation that deserves the renewed popular interest in understanding what really happened in those turbulent moments and how those events continue to mark our democratic life today.
Unlike today, in those days our democracy was truly fragile. Armed Forces they retained their firepower and the atrocities committed during the civil-military dictatorship were not common knowledge to large parts of society. Whether due to the fear or disbelief of the people, their political capital allowed them to imagine a future of impunity and even the remote possibility of returning to power. With the support of President Raúl Alfonsín, judges, prosecutors, witnesses and others had the courage to confront the might of the Armed Forces and they managed to use democratic institutions to begin a process of Justice that managed to put a stop to half a century of military coups and abuses of power. Today, when trust in those same institutions seems to be in the basement and anomy grows, remembering the historical value of that feat can help us recover some self-esteem and risk it for a better future.
Editorial Perfil was one of the few media outlets that also risked publishing “El Diario del Juicio” which in its 36 editions narrated the judicial process in detail. While in most of the media there were concise chronicles of what happened, and on television images without sound appeared, “The Judgment Diary” provided journalistic material along with shorthand transcripts of testimony and hearings. Over time, the historical value of that audacity gained greater significance.
Driven and inspired by Luis Moreno Ocampo, we decided to digitize the entirety of “El Diario del Juicio”, complementing it with a series of exclusive interviews by the journalist Nieves Zuberbuhler to several of the protagonists to open all the material to the public in a digital format that can be found at www.eldiariodeljuicio. com. In addition, we produced a mini-documentary with the Perfil.com multimedia team aimed at the younger generations.
In those pre-digital times it was precisely in the photographic laboratory of Publisher Profile dwhere the photos of the photography pools that were crowded in the court were revealed. This allowed us to put together a series of galleries of never-before-seen photos from the trial that we also uploaded to the website.
We seek to contribute our grain of sand to revitalize the memory of the Judgment of the Boards through a virtual library open to the public that we hope will be very useful, both for scholars of the subject and for boys and girls who want to delve into the extensive material that we have collected It was an arduous task for Perfil’s digital team, which will have been well worth it if it helps us take another step on the path of generating common spaces for non-ideologized thought and progress towards a society with greater degrees of empathy. We hope you enjoy it.
