I am old enough to have memories of 1978, a time that happened 47 years ago; not figments, but scattered fragments, like the pieces of a shattered mirror, and here they are.
I was 4 years ago, and I remember the day of the first World Cup win in the final match against the much feared Clockwork Orange.
That is why I know exactly where I spent the afternoon on Sunday, June 25th, 1978. My parents had divorced four years earlier, and my dad would pick me up for his weekly visit on Sundays. He would, like most always, take me to my grandparent’s house in Condarco 2512, in the neighborhood of Villa del Parque in the city of Buenos Aires. That’s where I was that day; in the same house that appears on Street View at the time of this publication.
(Seeing that house brings so many memories, it’s hard not to tear up a bit.)
I remember the anguished screaming all across the neighborhood when Dick Nanninga scored the equalizing 1-1 goal at the 82nd minute, and then when Resenbrink almost won the match a few moments later. I remember the tension; the old black and white TV set, my father and uncle standing on the living room, and my grandfather sitting on his sofa holding his head. To be honest, I did not fully grasp what was going on, but of course I joined the screaming and dancing after Kempes and Bertoni sealed the match in extra time.
I remember jumping on my dad’s turquoise Fiat 125, affectionately dubbed “La Batatita” (or “The Small Sweet Potato”, in Spanish) right after the match ended, for a long, long ride (the streets flooded with blue and white flags) towards the city center. I remember waving the Argentine flag from the window of the car. I remember the Obelisk surrounded by massive crowds celebrating the World Cup win. The singing, the screaming, the celebrations. It sounds weird to say that, but yes, I was there.
(And I know for a fact that I was there, because a few hours later my mother was screaming at my dad, asking what was wrong with him, how on Earth could he have taken me to the Obelisk, and she would repeat this story to me for years to come. My dad still remembers her reaction, too. She wasn’t happy, no.)
But 1978 was also a time of dictatorship, which of course I had no idea about. I did not know that I lived just a few blocks away from the infamous ESMA, where every day people were being killed for having committed the sin of thinking differently, or being loosely related to someone who had done that.
I do remember, however, being on the same “Batatita” with my dad, a few weeks later, heading back home after another Sunday afternoon with my grandparents. And then I remember a group of soldiers stopping the car, forcing my dad to get out and open the trunk, to search for weapons or whatever, and one of those men was pointing his rifle towards me, for some reason. My dad still remembers that event, obviously, and in particular he remembers that his key got stuck and had a hard time opening that trunk, which was, by the way, completely empty. But the tension of the moment. The tension.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story called “Nathaniel Hawthorne”, published in his 1952 book “Other Inquisitions”, where he said that
The past is indestructible; sooner or later all things return, and one of the things that return is the project to abolish the past.
Sadly, he’s right once again. 47 years later, the current vice president is the daughter of a prominent military with a wonderful résumé. That man joined Operation Independence (a military operation later charged with crimes against humanity), he was later a Falklands War veteran, and then in 1987 he was one of those who actively conspired against democratic president Alfonsín. And of course this new government, in all of its right-wing rhetoric, wants once again to justify the actions of the dirty war as a much needed “cleansing of the motherland”, which includes closing the memorial located where the ESMA once stood.
I don’t think I need to say more.
Andrés Calamaro summarized the anguish of 1978, that dreadful feeling, and quite appropriately I think, in the lyrics of his 1997 song “Crímenes Perfectos”, so I’ll just quote him.
It seems to me that I am one of those who saw the ‘78 World Cup
I had to grow up seeing paranoia and pain all around me
The coin fell on the side of loneliness, again