Peronism as a Big Tent: The Political Inclusion of Arab Immigrants in Argentina 9780228010111

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peronism as a big tent

mcgill-queen’s studies in ethnic history s e r i e s o ne: don ald harm an aken s on, editor

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19 Ethnic Relations in Canada Institutional Dynamics Raymond Breton Edited by Jeffrey G. Reitz 20 A Kingdom of the Mind The Scots’ Impact on the Development of Canada Edited by Peter Rider and Heather McNabb 21 Vikings to U-Boats The German Experience in Newfoundland and Labrador Gerhard P. Bassler 22 Being Arab Ethnic and Religious Identity Building among Second Generation Youth in Montreal Paul Eid 23 From Peasants to Labourers Ukrainian and Belarusan Immigration from the Russian Empire to Canada Vadim Kukushkin 24 Emigrant Worlds and Transatlantic Communities Migration to Upper Canada in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Elizabeth Jane Errington 25 Jerusalem on the Amur Birobidzhan and the Canadian Jewish Communist Movement, 1924–1951 Henry Felix Srebrnik 26 Irish Nationalism in Canada Edited by David A. Wilson 27 Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime Shaping Citizenship Policy, 1939–1945 Ivana Caccia 28 Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil Yiddish Culture in Montreal, 1905–1945 Rebecca Margolis 29 Imposing Their Will An Organizational History of Jewish Toronto, 1933–1948 Jack Lipinsky

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42 Twenty-First-Century Immigration to North America Newcomers in Turbulent Times Edited by Victoria M. Esses and Donald E. Abelson 43 Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing An Historical and Ethnographic Perspective John G. Gibson 44 Witness to Loss Race, Culpability, and Memory in the Dispossession of Japanese Canadians Edited by Jordan Stanger-Ross and Pamela Sugiman 45 Mad Flight? The Quebec Emigration to the Coffee Plantations of Brazil John Zucchi 46 A Land of Dreams Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880–1923 Patrick Mannion 47 Strategic Friends Canada-Ukraine Relations from Independence to the Euromaidan Bohdan S. Kordan

48 From Righteousness to Far Right An Anthropological Rethinking of Critical Security Studies Emma Mc Cluskey 49 North American Gaels Speech, Story, and Song in the Diaspora Edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle 50 The Invisible Community Being South Asian in Quebec Edited by Mahsa Bakhshaei, Marie Mc Andrew, Ratna Ghosh, and Priti Singh 51 With Your Words in My Hands The Letters of Antonietta Petris and Loris Palma Edited and translated by Sonia Cancian 52 The Least Possible Fuss and Publicity The Politics of Immigration in Postwar Canada, 1945–1967 Paul A. Evans 53 Peronism as a Big Tent The Political Inclusion of Arab Immigrants in Argentina Raanan Rein and Ariel Noyjovich Translated by Isis Sadek

Peronism as a Big Tent The Political Inclusion of Arab Immigrants in Argentina raanan rein and ariel noyjovich Translated by Isis Sadek

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022 ISB N 978-0-2280-0882-8 (cloth) ISB N 978-0-2280-1011-1 (eP df) ISB N 978-0-2280-1012-8 (eP UB) Legal deposit first quarter 2022 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Peronismas a big tent : the political inclusion of Arab immigrants in Argentina / Raanan Rein and Ariel Noyjovich ; translated by Isis Sadek. Other titles: Muchachos peronistas árabes. English Names: Rein, Raanan, 1960– author. | Noyjovich, Ariel, author. | Sadek, Isis, 1977– translator. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in ethnic history. Series two ; 53. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s studies in ethnic history. Series two ; 53 | Translation of: Los muchachos peronistas árabes. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2021031723X | Canadiana (ebook) 20210317299 | I SB N 9780228008828 (cloth) | IS BN 9780228010111 (eP D F ) | I SB N 9780228010128 (eP U B ) Subjects: lc s h: Arabs—Political activity—Argentina—History—20th century. | l c sh : Peronism—History—20th century. Classification: l cc f 3021.a59 r 4513 2022 | ddc 982.004/927—dc23 This book was typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon.

For my granddaughters, Lia and Gili Raanan Rein

For my grandfather Isaac Ariel Noyjovich

Contents

Figures

xiii

Acknowledgments

Introduction

xv

3

1 The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina 18 2 ¡Viva Berón! The Political Integration of Arab-Argentines 40 3 “For an Arab, There Can Be Nothing Better Than Another Arab” 75 4 From Opening Railroad Stores to Running the Province: Arab Immigrants and the Peronization of Tucumán

112

5 The “New Lords of the Levant” in Santiago del Estero and Their Support for Peronism 140 Epilogue | 164

Notes

183

Bibliography Index

227

211

Figures

0.1

2.1

2.2

2.3

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

Vicente Saadi and Peronist leaders standing for the national anthem in the Atlanta Stadium during the 1983 election campaign. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires 7 Small talk between the Argentine president Perón and Lebanese president Chamoun during the latter’s visit to Buenos Aires, May 1954. Source: Raanan Rein’s personal collection 50 The title page of the edition in Arabic of Eva Perón’s autobiography, La razón de mi vida (Buenos Aires: Peuser, 1952). Courtesy of the Museo Evita, Buenos Aires 63 Vicente Saadi at a meeting of the Peronist Party’s National Council, 1985. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires 72 President Perón hosting his Lebanese counterpart, Camille Chamoun, in Buenos Aires, May 1954. Source: Mundo Peronista, no. 66 (1 June 1954) 77 The cover of a booklet published by the Argentine Presidency to celebrate the visit of Lebanese president Camille Chamoun to Buenos Aires, May 1954. Source: Raanan Rein’s personal collection 79 Zelpha Tabet, wife of Lebanese president Camille Chamoun, visiting the Eva Perón Foundation, 26 May 1954. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires 80 Américo Barrios (right) granting the Peronist Medal to Egyptian president Mohamed Naguib, Cairo, July 1953. Source: Mundo Peronista, no. 49, 1 September 1953: 18 81

xiv

3.5

3.6

3.7

Figures

Syrian diplomat Zeki Djabi granting Eva Perón the Order of the Umayyads, April 1952. Source: Newspaper clipping, Raanan Rein’s personal collection 84 Cover of the edition in Arabic of the Second Five-Year Plan, 1952−57. Source: República Argentina, Subsecretaría de Informaciones, Buenos Aires, 1953 91 Jorge Antonio, a leading figure among Arab-Argentines supporting Peronism. Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires 99

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of a common effort and a long path that led us to various parts of Argentina and numerous archives and repositories. We are indebted to the many librarians and archivists (in Buenos Aires, Tucumán, and Santiago del Estero), colleagues and friends (in Argentina, Israel, Germany, the United States, and Canada), students (largely at Tel Aviv University), and relatives, for their support along this path. Each of them contributed in one way or another to the development of theoretical concepts, the search for unpublished materials, or the fulfillment of an oral history project. We are unfortunately unable to name them all here. To begin, we are grateful to our editor at Sudamericana, Roberto Montes, for his support of this project, which first culminated in Los muchachos peronistas judíos and now with Los muchachos peronistas árabes. We owe a similar debt of gratitude to Richard Ratzlaff, our editor at McGill-Queen’s University Press, for the initiative to publish an updated version in English of both books. Claudio Panella of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, collaborator for a decade now in various projects on the history of the Peronist movement, read the first draft of this text carefully and offered valuable comments, as did Darío Pulfer of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín. We owe a special debt of gratitude toward Jeffrey Lesser of Emory University, David Sheinin of Trent University, and Stefan Rinke of the Free University of Berlin, all of whom partook in an enriching intellectual dialogue about emerging critical perspectives on ethnicity in Latin America. In various phases of this project, we had interesting conversations with Susana Brauner, Fabián Bosoer, Ezequiel Adamovsky, Alejandro Cattaruzza, Alejandro Dujovne, Adriana Brodsky, Carlos Escudé, Mariano

xvi

Acknowledgments

Plotkin, Emmanuel Kahan, David Selser, Nerina Visacovsky, and Rosalie Sitman. Special thanks to Daniel Campi of the Instituto Superior de Estudios Sociales (ises ) in Tucumán, César Canceco of the ises ’s library, Amira Juri of the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, and Alberto Tasso of the Biblioteca Sarmiento in Santiago del Estero. Julián Blejmar and Adrián Krupnik collaborated in preparing the epilogue and the section on Jorge Antonio. Omri Elmaleh and Maayan Nahari, both at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies, have also provided assistance. Last but not least, Ariel would like to thank his wife, Ortal, and his parents, Natalio and Alicia. Raanan thanks his wife, Mónica, and his parents, Shlomo and Nehama (who passed away as we were preparing this book), as well as his children, Omer and Noa, and his daughter-inlaw, Chen. Isis Sadek dedicates this translation to the memory of her father, Gamil, who always found the right words. We have benefited from the support of the Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies and the Elías Sourasky Chair of Latin American and Spanish History, both at Tel Aviv University, as well as the Alexander von Humboldt and Fritz Thyssen foundations. This book was published with the support of the Israel Science Foundation. We thank them all for making this book possible.

peronism as a big tent

Introduction

In a speech that President Juan Domingo Perón gave to thousands of supporters gathered in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo on 17 October 1950, he evoked the twenty fundamental truths of the Peronist party’s doctrine. The sixth tenet, proclaimed in front of a cheering multitude, stated that “there can be nothing better for a Peronist than another Peronist.”1 Four years later, when addressing Arab–Argentine community leaders, Perón added another fundamental “truth” to his populist lexicon, this time with an ethnic twist: [May] this community, so linked in brotherhood and so supportive of our movement, remain ever united and may it also find that, just as we say that for a Peronist there is nothing better than another Peronist, within the Arab community in Argentina, too, there should be nothing better for an Arab than another Arab.2 The Peronist decade (1945–55) introduced far-reaching changes in the very meaning and shape of citizenship in Argentina. Governmental measures contributed to broadening the scope of the debate about how citizenship should be defined. Those years are marked by changes in political representation in Argentina and by a gradual shift toward a participatory model of democracy. These two processes played an important role in the making of what, from a contemporary lens, we would characterize as a multicultural society. Within that framework, ethnic identities came to be perceived as less of a threat to understandings of Argentine identity (argentinidad). Perón’s government substituted the traditional model of the melting pot by granting greater legitimacy to hybrid identities and emphasizing the broad range of cultural matrices at the base of Argentine society.

4

Peronism as a Big Tent

Authorities accordingly granted an unprecedented degree of recognition to cultural and ethnic differences. Peronism as a Big Tent, similar to Rein’s previous book, Populism and Ethnicity,3 examines the efforts of Peronism to garner the support of Argentines of Semitic origins, be they Jewish, Maronite, Orthodox Catholics, Druze, or Muslim. These efforts reflect the leader’s evolution from perceiving Argentina as a majority Catholic country to embracing a more inclusive vision of society that was multicultural – that welcomed in its midst members of various faiths and that should celebrate this plurality accordingly. In this work, the concept of citizenship therefore functions as an analytical lens through which to understand changes in how Arab-Argentines related to the institutions and symbols of the Argentine state. Any discussion about citizenship encompasses the modes of belonging and integrating to a political community. In pre-Peronist Argentina, particularly in public discourse, non-Catholic communities were rarely acknowledged. As Arnd Schneider has argued, “The very notion of the melting pot, though apparently conveying the meanings of equality and homogeneity among immigrants and their descendants, also contained elements of an ideology of the superiority of certain immigrants over others.”4 This attitude, and the pressure to achieve cultural homogenization and assimilation, was particularly acute among nationalist Catholic groups and xenophobes. As Peronism was a populist movement, it adopted an antiliberal stance.5 This allowed it to challenge in interesting ways long-standing ideas about the Argentine racial/ethnic melting pot. Through this critique, innovative points of view and optics arose that granted equal importance to the meaning of politics and of citizenship. This revision also extended to debates on the varied normative foundations of democracy, with the tradition of political liberalism and its individualistic understanding of entitlements challenged by republican undercurrents that stressed the self-governing character of the political community and by associational foundations that favoured a model of social cooperation.6 In light of this, how did Peronism change the relation between ethnicity, citizenship, Argentine identity, and the state? A direct answer is that Peronism extended the scope of the rights bestowed upon immigrants and their descendants, as Argentine citizens, by granting them political rights in addition to their existing legal rights. Furthermore, it legitimated the desire of many in these communities to boast a hybrid identity. The first Peronist administrations were characterized by a strong drive to promote civil associations and a corporative mode of political

Introduction

5

representation under the aegis of the “organized community.”7 As part of these processes, Perón endowed the state with the role of mediating between various sectors of society or between groups representing social, economic, and professional interests. While the government acknowledged powerful organized groups – such as the labour confederation (Confederación General del Trabajo), the business confederation (Confederación General Económica), the professional confederation (Confederación Argentina de Profesionales), the students’ confederation (Confederación General Universitaria), and even the high school students’ union (Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios) – its recognition of ethnic communities should also be highlighted. Perón frequently met with the leaders of the Jewish, Spanish, Italian, and Arab communities. Through these acknowledgments, the president reconfigured the criteria for belonging to the Argentine political community. This new concept of corporative citizenship facilitated a heightened recognition of collective rights, which manifested in the gradual integration of Argentines of Jewish or Arab origins in the political system, as well as that of Indigenous peoples’ movements and women’s activism.8 Although all ethnic and gender-based groups underwent comparable processes, they did not do so at the same pace or to the same extent. The slowest and least consistent government policies were, without a doubt, those that furthered the interests of Indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, the regime’s encouragement of immigrants and their descendants to maintain ties with their countries of origin represented an initial change not only in its adoption of policies that promoted social justice, but also in the politics of recognition of, for example, collective group identities. Although Perón is typically thought of in relation to interwar European fascism, corporativism was in fact an important element of Latin American populism. It was rooted in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and was an Argentine tradition that stretched back all the way to independence. By the early 1950s, Peronism had adopted a more inclusive perspective and began to demonstrate respect for all religions. Peronism aspired to confront the transgressions of the privileged few by protecting the rights of minorities, marginalized groups, and those most vulnerable. It portrayed itself as a conglomerate in which every decent Argentine who supported the project of justicialismo (derived from the word “justice”) could find their place. In sum, the Peronist government reconfigured the criteria for belonging to the Argentine polity not only by including the weakest sectors of society who had until then been economically and socially marginalized, but also by including ethnic groups and acknowledging their transnational

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Peronism as a Big Tent

ties. Although Peronist authorities continued to refer to a “racial melting pot,” they gave this expression a more inclusive scope. In contrast with Article 25 of the 1853 Constitution, which referred to the necessity of promoting “European immigration,” a pamphlet published in various languages by Perón’s government sought to attract immigrants by referring to Buenos Aires as a destination that welcomed “men of yellow, black, and white races.” As the document explained, Some immigrants, not knowing the conditions of life in the country, imagine that the authorities will discriminate against them because of the colour of their skin or eyes. Their fear is natural enough. They carry deep wounds that have not yet healed. They have seen the application of the racial system in their own country or in countries which they have had to cross or reside in for a time ... The man who suffered persecutions or slights of a racial character discovers to his surprise that he has not only found a new country but also a new world. From that moment he lives again in the security that he is equal to any other man in the world.9 During the second half of the twentieth century, Arab-Argentines came to play a significant role in politics at the municipal, provincial, and national levels. This process of political inclusion culminated when Carlos Saúl Menem was elected president in 1989. During the decadelong tenure of this Syrian-descended Argentine from the province of La Rioja, Argentines of Arab origin exercised a considerable degree of influence on the Argentine political system. The involvement of people of Syrio-Lebanese ancestry in important government positions was noticeable as early as the first Peronist administrations (1946–52, 1952–55). One of the first newspapers of the Arab community in Argentina, Azzaman (La Época): Órgano libanés, proudly published this headline on the front page of its April 1946 issue: “A vice-governor, a senator and five members of congress of this new constitutional period of the Republic are members of our community.” Vice-Governor Ramón Asís originated from Córdoba and Senator Vicente Saadi, from Catamarca. Four of the five members of Congress were listed: Leonardo Obeid (Córdoba), Rosendo Allub (Santiago del Estero), Teófilo Naim (Buenos Aires), and Cayetano Marón (Buenos Aires). Two years later, in 1948, twenty-five of the two hundred Peronist members of the national Congress came from Arab immigrant families. When Perón was overthrown in September 1955, twelve members of the national Congress were Arab-Argentines.10

Introduction

7

Figure 0.1 | Vicente Saadi (ftont row, third from left) and Peronist leaders standing for the national anthem in the Atlanta Stadium during the 1983 election campaign.

These politicians were all well known for their actions in their provinces of origin, and for being members of the Peronist Party or neo-Peronist parties. Vicente Leónidas Saadi was one of the most reputed Arab-Argentine Peronist politicians. He was the son of Lebanese immigrants who settled in the province of Catamarca during the early twentieth century. From within the Peronist movement, the Saadi family held the reins of local politics for nearly five decades. Felipe Sapag presents a similar case in the province of Neuquén. The Sapag family dominated the political stage from the creation of the province of Neuquén in June 1955 to the second decade of the twenty-first century, particularly by way of the neo-Peronist party that they founded, the Movimiento Popular Neuquino. A third example of a provincial caudillo of Arab ancestry is that of Julio Romero, the governor of the province of Corrientes. Romero’s family originated from Baalbek, Lebanon. Romero

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Peronism as a Big Tent

was considered one of Perón’s closest collaborators. The Romero Feris family carried on in the Peronist tradition not from within Peronism, but from the Partido Autonomista Liberal, which supported the Menem administration. These three cases highlight the growing influence of this ethnic group in Argentine politics, particularly within the Peronist movement, in both local and national arenas.11

p op u l i s m a n d t h e in t e g r ati on of argenti na’s m a r g in a l iz e d p o pulati ons Populism is one of the most nebulous concepts of the modern political lexicon. Populism’s lack of identification with a coherent and systematic ideology makes this phenomenon even more of a challenge to decipher. The lengthy and winding trajectory of many populist politicians adds further complexity, particularly when dealing with charismatic leaders whose policies, strategies, and ideological principles shifted over decades.12 Classical populist movements in Latin America took shape over two different periods. Those that coalesced during the interwar period primarily voiced political demands and sought to make government legitimate and representative. These movements instituted a politics oriented toward the masses, but their agenda continued to ignore significant social issues. In Argentina, the main example of this is the Unión Cívica Radical (ucr ; Radical Civil Union), which came to power in 1916 under the leadership of Hipólito Yrigoyen. Populist movements that emerged after the Second World War, in contrast, reacted to different social and economic conditions arising from local industrialization. These movements typically redirected resources from agriculture to manufacturing and sought to increase the working class’s share of the national income.13 The new populist leaders tended to show a greater degree of authoritarianism in their efforts to impose economic and social solutions conducive to the development of the nation’s economy. They also made considerable efforts to mobilize voters using mass media, recognizing the support from working class voters as vital to their success. They understood that to win the support of the masses, it was necessary to improve their economic situation. Similar to their predecessors, second-wave populist movements brought together Argentines from different social classes. Still, the political power of these movements stemmed largely from the urban working class and parts of the national industrialist bourgeoisie. The Peronist movement in Argentina was a clear example of this. Torcuato di Tella described with precision this counter-hegemonic bloc half a century

Introduction

9

ago.14 In addition to its base in the country’s working class, Peronism gathered under its umbrella various sectors of the middle class, a portion of the national bourgeoisie, and factions of the Armed Forces that upheld industrialization as a means of ensuring the nation’s greatness. Its ideology opposed the status quo and gave voice to the protests of marginalized groups that aspired to a redistribution of the national pie favourable to the majority and a redefinition of the concept of citizenship. Thus it might be more fitting to describe populism as a set of values and beliefs that, although not ordered in a systematic way, reflects a specific view of the world. What many perceived as an ideological ambiguity stemmed, above all, from the fact that populist movements were broad coalitions that represented virtually all social sectors, except for traditional elites and the revolutionary opposition. Peronism rejected oligarchy as well as socialist revolution. The movement put forward an intermediate position that emphasized statist values, with the aim of avoiding socioeconomic distortions and guaranteeing progress, all the while preserving private property. Peronism simultaneously promoted social solidarity as a means of confronting the alienation of the working class under modern industrial capitalism. Peronism glorified work and workers. It recognized unions and encouraged their growth. It adopted measures to foreground various facets of popular culture and folklore that the Eurocentric elites had typically belittled. In sum, Peronism established a new symbolic hierarchy of society. Symbolic manifestations of social integration and incorporation into politics were, after all, just as important as their material and concrete expressions. Although the main beneficiaries of the recent integration into the national polity were, evidently, members of the working class, immigrant communities – including Jews and Arabs – also benefited in important ways from this process. A number of studies have looked at the integration of Jews into Argentine society, but little has been written about ArabArgentines and their integration into politics during the Peronist period.

a n e w c o n c e p t o f ci ti zens hi p In modern societies, the concept of citizenship has taken shape as the core idea that defines civil, political, socioeconomic, and cultural rights. Citizenship, in turn, determines the conditions of membership in a political community by mapping groups of persons who are endowed with rights and responsibilities, and differentiating them from those who lack those same attributes. Through these operations, this concept generates

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Peronism as a Big Tent

the framework of a society. The contours of citizenship can shift and be subject to change due to cultural or socioeconomic trends, or else political movements that pose a challenge to the hegemonic definition of citizenship.15 Citizenship functions as a tool for integration that mediates between the inhabitants of a particular place, in spite of their social and cultural differences. It also allows ethnic groups, in this case ArabArgentines, to confront negative stereotypes and fulfill their aspirations to integrate into local society and national identity without losing their cultural idiosyncrasies.16 The crux of citizenship is the intersection between belonging, public recognition, and politics. Its very nature depends on the quality of the relation between groups and individuals, on the one hand, and states and nations, on the other hand. From a historical perspective, integration and exclusion alike were elaborated after the colonial era in various Latin American republics to foment a sense of citizenship. The elites of these countries developed a consensus on who would be represented and integrated in the state and who would remain on the margins of society. Over time, these elites espoused a conservative form of liberalism as well as positivist ideas to guide their policies. These perceptions had significant consequences for the access that various groups and sectors of society had to positions of power, economic resources, and public recognition.17 Perón made efforts to update the conditions that defined one’s belonging to the national political community. In keeping with this endeavour, the leader highlighted Middle Eastern immigrants’ ability to adapt, without denying their ethnic identity: In our land, the assimilative power of Arabs is well known. This assimilative power is perhaps the most extraordinary feature of men of action. Generally, this inextinguishable action of efforts is what assimilates and unites the Earth. In our homeland, Arabs have proven in exemplary ways how they are perhaps those who assimilate most rapidly into our land and customs, into our glories and traditions.18 Perón’s praise of Arab-Argentines’ “assimilative power” was not incompatible with their continuing traditions from their countries of origin. The first lady voiced a similar opinion when she spoke of “these Arab peoples, who demonstrated that they are honourable and hard-working men, who have assimilated into our homeland and who have felt proud to live under the blue and white flag.”19 Thus, Juan and Eva Perón rejected the argument according to which Arab-Argentines were alienated. Instead, they chose to emphasize this community’s dedication to the country and sought to

Introduction

11

integrate them into society. This perspective is reflected in the speech that the president gave to parliamentarians of Lebanese origins: “When you come to this [presidential] house, I don’t only view this as the arrival of the Lebanese community; it is, to me, the arrival of a group of compatriots.”20 Perón also deployed this discourse in addressing other ethnic groups, such as Jews or the Japanese. During the ceremony to inaugurate the headquarters of the Organización Israelita Argentina, the Jewish section of the Peronist Party, in 1948, Perón spoke of “the infinite honour of being the president of all Argentines.”21 As in his speeches addressing ArabArgentines, Perón included Jewish people in the Argentine citizenry and, in doing so, made it clear that they were an integral part of the Argentine people. He proceeded similarly in addressing the community of Argentines of Japanese ancestry: “When we say ‘for all of the Argentine people,’ it satisfies us immensely to include all the Japanese who live with us as full constituents of the Argentine people for whom we fight and work.”22 Prior to the emergence of Peronism, Jews and Arabs were not always considered as part of the Argentine polis, civitas, or demos. It meant little to grant formal citizenship to Indigenous peoples and immigrant ethnic groups in a society in which elections were rigged and elites looked down upon immigrant cultures and expressions of popular culture. Peronism forged the path for new definitions of citizenship. Peronism therefore transformed many of these “imaginary citizens” into an integral part of Argentine society through specific actions that included the promotion of popular culture and folklore, efforts to rewrite the nation’s history, and the inclusion of ethnic minorities that had until then languished on the margins of society. Perón’s policies acknowledged the legitimacy of the claims of collective, and therefore multiple, ethnic identities. This shift paved the way for contemporary, multicultural Argentina precisely by recognizing rights, not only on an individual level, but on a collective one.

b e in g pa rt o f t h e new argenti na These three cases – Argentines of Arab, Jewish, or Japanese ancestry – demonstrate Perón’s keen awareness of the alienation felt among numerous non-Latin immigrants and his dedication to diminishing this sentiment through public statements in which he asserted that these communities were an integral part of the Argentine people. Through these manifestations of empathy toward marginalized ethnic groups, Perón generated among them a sense of belonging, which played an important role in broadening the notion of citizenship. The government attempted

12

Peronism as a Big Tent

to generate a feeling of “spiritual unity” by excluding the opposition from political discourse and strengthening the cohesion of the Peronist masses, which it characterized as “the people.”23 In other words, this concept of Peronism included any and all who supported the movement and did not oppose it. By recognizing the support of numerous ArabArgentines for the Peronist doctrine, the leader included them in the ranks of the Peronist people: When we initiated in this New Argentina a crusade, one that Arabs had already debated and shaped three thousand years ago in their lands, I was fully certain that few Arabs would oppose the tenets of the Justicialista doctrine. I had no doubt about this because I know of their greatness and of their struggle for maintaining this greatness of spirit over the course of centuries. This is why I have always viewed Arabs in Argentina not as a foreign community, but as an Argentine community. And this is not only because my heart ordered me to; it is because I have seen them share our ideas and our sentiments, and nothing can unite men more than sharing the same sentiments and ideas.24 Historian Jeffrey Lesser, in his research on immigration to Brazil, argues that immigrants and their offspring developed various strategies to become Brazilians, thus challenging national identity as defined by local elites. As ethnicity was already integrated into nationality, collective identities became more flexible and fluid in the constant negotiation between these two components.25 Under Peronism, it was the state that challenged conservative definitions of national identity by opening the latter to marginalized sectors, changing the very meaning of the concept of Argentine citizenship. The Peronist movement encouraged immigrants to maintain ties with their countries of origin. For example, Peronism did not consider incompatible the simultaneous loyalty of Jewish-Argentines to Argentina and to the state of Israel. Perón considered that the newly founded state was the “homeland” of all Jews, just as other ethnic groups that reached the shores of the River Plate had a homeland: Spain for Spaniards, Italy for Italians, and so on. This concept of allegiance legitimated those members of the Jewish community who identified with Zionism. The leader spoke of Arab-Argentines in similar ways, acknowledging their transnational activities, which he saw as a vital link with Middle Eastern countries, particularly with the newly created republics of Syria and Lebanon. In the ceremony in which Perón was decorated by the Syrian government, he stated,

Introduction

13

Minister: I implore you to, in addition to my official response to the Syrian government, kindly interpret my deep gratitude by telling the President that in this remote Argentina, his Compatriots live and work with the same affection with which they lived in Syria, and that the President of the Argentine Republic, once more obliged by the kindness that your government has shown him, is here the faithful interpreter of this sentiment of friendship and affection with which we Argentines welcome on behalf of Syria, its representatives and nationals.26 His policy recognized as legitimate the coexistence of ethnic identities that were collective and varied. He did not suppress the ethnic identity of Arab-Argentines; instead, he positioned them as intermediaries between his regime and the governments of their countries of origin. Peronism thus demonstrated a particular understanding of the relationship between the diaspora and its origins. As long as this ethnic group continued to support Perón, he recognized and encouraged transnational relations, in part because these ties helped him fulfill his policy for international relations. Within this context, Perón expressed support for the struggles for independence of the Arab countries.27 Following his electoral victory in 1946, Perón characterized his socioeconomic policy as equidistant from capitalism and communism, and as one that prioritized the interests of Argentina. He adopted a similar stance, known as “the Third Position,” in foreign policy. One of the tenets of this policy was that, as Argentina was a food-producing country, it could gain a privileged place in the postwar, new world order. This is what prompted Perón to establish relations with the Soviet Union and countries of the Eastern bloc, as well as countries of the Arab League and the State of Israel.28 His public identification with the Arab peoples’ struggles for independence, which were often waged in the homelands of Argentines of Arab ancestry, aspired in part to garner him and his movement the support of the community. Arab immigration to Argentina largely occurred during the final years of the Ottoman Empire and comprised a variety of faiths and nationalities. As a result, the nature of Arab community organizations in Argentina fluctuated in response to political upheavals in the Middle East. These differences persisted until the 1970s when they began to be smoothed out.29 Perón’s aspiration to unify these groups fit within his vision of the “organized community.”30 This book sheds new light on the Peronist phenomenon. The emergence of Peronism during the mid-1940s constituted a critical turning point in the country’s modern history, one that continues to influence present-day

14

Peronism as a Big Tent

society. Yet most studies focus on the various processes of economic development and social modernization brought about in Peronist Argentina, and thus pay little attention to the inclusion of different ethnic groups of immigrants and their offspring born in Argentina.31 This book aims to fill this void. Furthermore, the study of the presence and influence of ArabArgentines, scattered across the vast territory, contributes to the historiography of the country’s provinces. This book highlights the significance of studying these areas to incorporate new perspectives, empirical material, and interpretations so as to better understand “the Peronist enigma.”

a h y p h e n at e d i denti ty From the nineteenth century to the present, ethnicity has constituted a highly fruitful area of study in Latin America. Some of the most commonly examined themes include the spectrum that runs from black to white in places such as Brazil, the Caribbean, and Venezuela, or from Indigenous peoples to white-skinned persons in Mexico, Central America, and the Andes, and the hegemony of white Catholic Europeans over various subaltern groups in the Southern Cone. Nevertheless, the historiography on ethnicity has seldom paid attention to Latin Americans with ancestry in the Middle East, Asia, or Eastern Europe, or to those whose forebears were non-Catholic Europeans. We use the term “hyphenated identity” to suggest that people have more than one identity component, and that each of these components is always active, even if some facets of identity have more weight than others at certain moments or in certain contexts. We purposely use this term to shatter xenophobic accusations of “dual identities.” Plurality is crucial to understanding the multiple and fluid nature of identity among individuals and communities of Jewish, Asian, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern ancestry. This feature is also shared among the populations that preceded the great European migration to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book invites readers to consider the potential of the category “Arab-Argentines.” This wording emphasizes national identity while leaving open the possibility of a diasporic identity. Our use of the concept of “Arab-Argentines” substitutes the dominant paradigm regarding ethnicity in Latin America by granting a prominent position to the concept of “nation” – in this case, Argentina. With this, we offer an alternative to dichotomies or binaries that are necessarily reductive and false. Immigrants and their offspring were not, as is commonly believed, forced to choose between assimilation and isolation – assimilating into the host

Introduction

15

country’s culture and thereby diluting their own traditions, or remaining isolated to preserve the purity of their religion and cultural heritage. For many, maintaining their identity was as important as adapting to national circumstances of diaspora. They frequently achieved both goals. The “field of identity” describes how individuals constantly move in different directions or define themselves in relation to different coordinates depending on changing circumstances (political, social, cultural, workplace-related, etc.) and on their shifting needs. Argentine writer Ana María Shúa explained her multiple and fluid identities as follows: “With all that I am. Woman, Argentine, Jew, and writer in that order or any other.”32 Américo Yunes, born in Buenos Aires in 1932 to Syrian immigrants and who, for fifty years, was the voice of the radio show Patria árabe, described his own mosaic of identity components in an interview with the Diario Sirio-Libanés: “I am Argentine, porteño from Palermo Viejo, pan-Arab, Peronist (from the time of Perón), and long-suffering fan of Racing [fútbol club].”33

In academia, just as in politics and life itself, some situations coincide in time and space, regardless of the plans one makes. The idea of writing this book was many years in the making. As Raanan was researching facets of Peronism’s relation to Jewish-Argentines, Ariel was writing, under Raanan’s supervision, his doctoral dissertation on Arab-Argentines in the Argentine provinces and their political integration via Peronism. It was in Tucumán, during a conference on immigration organized by the Comité del Bicentenario in late 2016, that Ranaan was persuaded to write this book. This conference – at which Raanan was awarded the Sello del Bicentenario – was hosted by Governor Juan Luis Manzur, of Lebanese ancestry, and his predecessor José Alperovich, the son of a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was president at the time. The administrations that she led boasted various ministers who had Jewish or Arab heritage: Héctor Timmerman in foreign affairs, Axel Kicilloff in economy, and Manzur in public health. Conversations in Tucumán convinced Raanan that it was necessary to complete the initiative launched with Populism and Ethnicity (devoted to Peronism and Jewish-Argentines) with a book about Peronist Arab-Argentines. The first chapter traces the context of Arab immigration to Argentina from the 1860s to the rise of Peronism and the independence of Syria and Lebanon. We outline Argentine migratory policies, guidelines for immigration, and processes of integration for immigrants who were initially considered “exotic.” Arab immigrants were met with all sorts of

16

Peronism as a Big Tent

negative stereotypes, but their dynamism and the help of the associations they founded enabled them to grow roots in Argentina, to prosper, and eventually to participate in provincial and national politics. The second chapter focuses on the political participation of many Argentines of Arab ancestry during the Peronist decade and their ability to transform their own economic and social capital into political assets. Community associations gradually adhered to Peronism, and by the November 1951 presidential elections and with the launch of the Second Five-Year Plan, the Syrian-Lebanese elites loudly proclaimed their support for the Justicialist regime. The third chapter situates itself in the sphere of both domestic and international Argentine politics, as it examines the relations between Peronist administrations and the new Middle East that emerged at the end of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, the end of the British mandate in Palestine, and the creation of the state of Israel. Arab-Argentine elites took advantage of Peronism’s recognition of immigrants’ ties with their countries of origin. Specifically, they attempted to position themselves as mediators and bridges between these countries and their new homeland, Argentina. This chapter also includes a discussion of gender and sheds light on the activities of Arab-Argentine women in support of Peronism. One section of the chapter delves into the life of the enigmatic figure Jorge Antonio, arguably the most famous and prosperous ArabArgentine at the time. Antonio benefited from the Peronist project and, conversely, his business activities had a direct political impact on the Perón administration. In fact, his business dealings intersected with Peronism’s ambitious plan, particularly with the policy of import substitution industrialization, as well as welfare policies aiming to improve the standard of living and consumer access to goods. In an interview for the newspaper Visión before Perón’s overthrow, Antonio said, half-jokingly, “My fate was sealed on that day, after many months of work preparing the First Five-Year Plan, when I told my boss [José] Figuerola: ‘I’m going to go write up my own five-year plan.’”34 Chapters 4 and 5 are based on research conducted in the archives and documentation centres of Tucumán and Santiago del Estero. Tucumán is of the utmost importance in the rise of Peronism because of its transformation from an “oasis of ucr supporters” into the province with the highest percentage of Peronist votes in the country. None of the studies of the ucr ’s electoral loss, the Peronist victory, and the movement’s subsequent consolidation in the province have taken this ethnic dimension into account. In examining Santiago del Estero, we shed light on the figure of Lebanese-born Rosendo Allub, who became the strongman of that

Introduction

17

province’s politics during the first half of the twentieth century. Allub’s political career started in the ucr. He was one of the founding members of the Partido Laborista (Labour Party, which supported Perón’s presidential candidacy) in Santiago del Estero and then member of the national Congress between 1946 and 1950. It is striking that Allub obtained more votes in the province than the Perón-Quijano presidential ticket. This popularity is an acknowledgment of the success of new immigrants from the Middle East who started out as peddlers and ended up accumulating substantial economic, social, and political capital. It also provides additional proof of the success of the political integration of Arab-Argentines through Peronism and their contribution to this political movement. As Emilio Constantino, the editor of the Diario Sirio-Libanés, stated, “It is noteworthy that the sons of Arabs are on the frontlines of this period of great changes. Don Rosendo Allub, who represents Santiago del Estero in the national congress, is an example of what we have been saying. He is an idol across the entire province of Santiago del Estero, and this is thanks to his characteristics, that positioned him as a leader of Peronism in this province.”35 The Revolución Libertadora (the coup that ousted Perón from power in 1955) also meant that the associations and printed press of the ArabArgentine communities had to adapt. The epilogue surveys the community’s newspapers during the presidency of Eduardo Lonardi and the first months in power of his successor, Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, and suggests similarities between the Arab and Jewish communities in their shifting political allegiances. The Diario Sirio-Libanés, for example, did an aboutface and began to criticize the corrupt Perón dictatorship. Was this shift a calculated response to new political circumstances? Was it proof that the Justicialista government had not fully achieved the Peronization of ethnic community spaces, but rather, a partial Peronization that was only attainable when the state could satisfy these communities’ demands? Or was it further proof of the breach between the policies of the elites who led ethnic community organizations through their press outlets, and the majority of Arab-Argentines who were not affiliated with community organizations and continued to support Peronism? The epilogue offers a brief biographical sketch of Carlos Menem and his career until he became president of Argentina in 1989. His presidency represented the apex of Arab-Argentine political participation, as well as the culmination of the enduring tie between many Arab-Argentines and Peronism in its different facets. We conclude the discussion with an analysis of the long path – from Perón to Menem – toward the construction of a mosque in the heart of Buenos Aires.

1 The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

Between 1870 and 1930, tens of thousands of Arabs abandoned the Middle East to settle permanently in Argentina. According to some sources, by 1917 nearly 100,000 Arabic-speaking immigrants originating from the region then known as Greater Syria, under Ottoman rule, were living in Argentina.1 These migrants were a heterogeneous group composed of a majority of Christians (Maronite and Greek Orthodox) as well as a large number of Muslims (Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites), Druze, and Jews.2 Argentina was the most popular Latin American destination for Semitic immigrants, Arabs and Jews alike. Their stories resemble in many respects those of millions of other European emigrants who set sail for the New World, fleeing the privations of the Old World. These mass migrations were facilitated by technological advances in transportation and prompted by the uneven integration of the emigrants’ home countries into the global economy. Pioneer emigrants were the first links in a chain migration of friends and relatives from the home country. The printed media that these immigrants produced and circulated – in this case, newspapers printed in Arabic – along with personal correspondence, disseminated information about lands that promised new opportunities, such as Argentina, and shaped the contours of the Arab diaspora. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed accelerated demographic growth in the South American nation, and the city of Buenos Aires mushroomed into the largest and most populous metropolis in Latin America. Its population of 180,000 in 1870 multiplied sevenfold to 1,300,000 by 1910. Emigrants who hailed mainly from Southern Europe, particularly Italy and Spain, as well as Jews from Central and Eastern Europe and Arabs from the Ottoman Empire, made Buenos Aires a city of immigrants.3

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

19

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Argentine elites and national authorities jointly espoused a policy grounded in positivist ideals and strategically designed to encourage immigration from Europe. Their aspiration was clear: they wished to increase the relatively small population and to “improve” (a euphemism for “whiten”) the composition of this population by attracting immigrants, preferably originating from the northern parts of the Old Continent, who would bring in European “civilization” at the expense of the Indigenous population and its “barbarism.” Immigrants, it was hoped, would contribute to the development of the republic and its modernization. In their determination to sever ties with the old colonial power, Spain, the members of Argentina’s governing elite turned their gaze toward republican France as a secular and progressive model to emulate. This cultural and political orientation, coupled with increasingly strong economic and commercial ties with Great Britain, contributed to the adoption of a liberal constitution in 1853, which guaranteed freedom of religion and was favourably disposed to welcoming immigrants. In 1876, a liberal-leaning migratory law that did not discriminate against non-Catholic immigrants was passed, in addition to legislation in 1882 and 1884 enshrining the state’s role in providing public education and keeping a register of births, marriages, and deaths. These measures limited the power and the influence of the Catholic Church. In 1853, the renowned liberal intellectual and politician Juan Bautista Alberdi coined the slogan “to govern is to populate.”4 This slogan was put into action when, in the span of hardly three years (1888–90), Argentine delegates in Europe handed out 133,000 free tickets for ships to Buenos Aires. It should be noted that in 1810, at the outset of the process of independence from the yoke of Spanish colonialism, the nation’s territory spanned an area of approximately 2,780,000 square kilometres – equivalent to almost the entirety of continental Europe – but this area had fewer than half a million inhabitants, that is, a quarter of the population of the small and mountainous Swiss confederation at the time, or a fifth of the population of the city of London. With this vast arable land, Argentina was destined to play an important role in the global economy by providing various foodstuffs. To that end, it required tens of thousands of working hands. The demographic revolution in European countries at that time fuelled mass migrations to the New World, particularly to the United States and the region of the River Plate, which spanned eastern Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil. Between 1880 and 1950, Argentina received more immigrants, both in relative and absolute terms, than any other Latin American country.5

20

Peronism as a Big Tent

Rumours about emigration to Argentina spread across the lands of the Ottoman Empire. Argentina was seen as a land of possibilities where anyone could be free and prosper. The myth of “making it in America” spread quickly by way of transoceanic ethnic and family networks. Relatives, friends, and former neighbours wrote in their letters about new opportunities and advised on precautionary measures. In fact, for most Arab immigrants, Argentina proved to be a “promised land” where they could secure a livelihood and an education for their children while also striving to make it their home. In a short span of time, these immigrants established community institutions and schools that met their social, economic, and cultural needs. In doing so, they created a rich mosaic of social, cultural, political, and ideological life reflective of a wide variety of beliefs, identities, and social practices. It should come as no surprise that an Argentine community leader of Syrian origin made this statement in 1928: “We identify with this country in all the phases of its existence when we experience in satisfying ways the freedom of worship outlined in Argentina’s democratic constitution, which enabled us to open our own schools and charity associations as if we were in our motherland.”6 Hopes of attracting Protestant emigrants from the industrialized European northeast, however, did not materialize. Most of the arrivals came from Southern and Eastern Europe and, to a lesser extent, from the eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans. They were typically uneducated and of modest means. Only a minority of migrants (including Muslims and Jews) were not Catholic. Many opted for the large urban centres, particularly Buenos Aires, to such an extent that, until the 1920s, half (or more) of the city’s inhabitants had not been born there. Others continued their journey and settled in the provinces. This mass migration provoked the ire of xenophobes and nationalists alike, and increased efforts to assimilate new immigrants into Argentina’s melting pot of races, particularly through the state’s educational system. Argentina’s Arab community is essentially a product of this large wave of transatlantic migration from the Old World to the Americas. Chain migration was the main pattern among those newly arrived from the Middle East, one that would shape their ways of settling in Argentina and their professional paths. In this model, an initial group of immigrants – in this case, mainly tradespeople who had accumulated sufficient capital – fostered the arrival of others of the same nationality or ethnic/religious group so that they could join them and contribute to their enterprise. The chain was built when parents and friends were invited to immigrate to the same place. Once these newcomers were also engaged

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

21

in commercial activity, they turned the South American country into one of the preferred destinations for emigrants from the Middle East. By the same token, this method facilitated the newcomers’ integration into local society by helping them overcome difficulties inherent in having to communicate in a new language and find housing, employment, professional training, and social support.7 Habib Naschbe, a tradesperson who is considered to be the first emigrant from Lebanon to Argentina, and who became a businessperson, started one such chain. Naschbe arrived in Argentina in 1868, and in his letters to his acquaintances and relatives, convinced them to join him.8 Historian Sofía Martos, in her research on Arab immigrants who settled in the province of Córdoba, has shown how the chain operated in that region. She documented numerous cases of one or two immigrants who settled there and, after a time, sponsored others – mainly relatives, friends, or neighbours from their countries of origin. In telegrams or letters to their compatriots, immigrants described their wealth and personal security, and also recommended the best way to travel to the new country. Immigrants who had successfully achieved financial security purchased tickets to Argentina for their relatives.9 This model also shaped the geographical distribution of these immigrants who, like other groups, arrived at the port of Buenos Aires but mostly opted to settle across the vast Argentine territory, with a marked preference for the Northwest.10 By settling in different parts of the national territory, these immigrants helped to shape Argentina’s national borders as well as the contours of the Middle Eastern diaspora within Argentina. Like other newcomers, numerous Arabs who reached the Argentine coast in the ships that docked on the River Plate spent their first days in the capital of their new country at the Hotel de Inmigrantes, the first stop on their path to becoming Argentines. Many then journeyed on into the hinterland or lodged at conventillos – tenement houses typically two or three storeys tall with high ceilings. The one- or two-bedroom apartments on each floor could be accessed from the long hallways that lined one or two interior patios. One or two immigrant families huddled together in a single, stuffy room. The kitchen, bathroom, and washtub were shared. In 1887, 2,885 such houses in the city of Buenos Aires housed 80,000 inhabitants. In other words, that year, more than a quarter of the city’s population lived in tenement houses. By 1901 that proportion had decreased to 17 per cent, and to 14 per cent by 1904. Community lore bears witness to how Sunnis residing in the conventillo located at 400, Charcas, on the edge of the Barrio Turco (Arab neighbourhood), made a special effort to find a place to pray. They

22

Peronism as a Big Tent

carried their rugs by foot to the Plaza San Martín, which became a “large open-air mosque,” to avoid bothering the other residents of the conventillo. Practicing Muslims were nicknamed “worshippers of the sun.”11 Here it is worth clarifying that many of these immigrants did not privilege the religious element over others; rather, they typically sought a community space. This resulted in the rise of mutual aid societies that attempted to meet communities’ humanitarian needs, in addition to preserving the cultural patterns of their homelands. The Syrian-Lebanese community in Argentina viewed itself as having a common cultural heritage and language, similar regional origins, and shared experiences in Argentina. These factors shaped this community as well as their reception among, and the perceptions of, other Argentines.12 Arab-Argentines were thus present in greater numbers in the provinces than in the urban fabric of Buenos Aires. The 1895 census revealed that most Syrian-Lebanese immigrants settled in the region known as the noa (Northwestern Argentina), comprising the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Catamarca, and La Rioja. Syrian-Lebanese immigrants, who represented 27 per cent of the region’s total immigrant population, perhaps chose to settle in these provinces due to their geographic similarities with their region of origin. Arabic-speaking immigrants also settled in the Cuyo region (comprising Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luis), where they represented 13 per cent of the region’s immigrants, and the province of Córdoba, where they amounted to less than 6 per cent of foreigners. In the rest of the country, only 2 per cent of the immigrant population were Arabs. In 1895, the cumulative percentage of Arabs who settled in the Argentine Northwest, Cuyo, and the province of Córdoba was greater than that of any other community. Arabs were the main immigrant community in some provinces; in La Rioja, they outnumbered even the Spanish. In Catamarca, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán, Córdoba, and San Luis, Arab immigrants were the third-largest group after the Spanish and the Italians. Half a century later, the 1947 census identified that, out of the 18,674 Muslim immigrants residing in the country, half lived in the federal capital and in the province of Buenos Aires, and the other half was spread out in the hinterland, with nuclei in Santa Fe, Tucumán, Córdoba, and Mendoza.13 To account for the geographical distribution of Arab immigrants in Argentina, historian Jorge Omar Bestene hypothesizes that their relatively late arrival compared with other groups and the resulting scarcity of employment opportunities in Buenos Aires prompted them to head toward the country’s hinterland, where business opportunities were numerous as competition from other groups was slim. In other words, the possibility of greater social mobility drew Arab immigrants to

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

23

provinces that had a smaller immigrant population and, therefore, fewer potential competitors.14 By contrast, most Jewish immigrants settled in large cities, and only a minority, significant at first, became farmers. Jewish immigrants who founded agricultural settlements were brilliantly portrayed in Alberto Gerchunoff’s novel, Los gauchos judíos, named after them and published in 1910 to coincide with the centennial anniversary of the Revolución de Mayo (May Revolution), which launched Argentina on the path to independence from Spain. A literary work of this calibre has yet to be written about the “Arab gauchos” (horsemen or cowboys), portraying their contribution to developing the nation’s provinces and their rootedness in, and attachment to, the land. As with any other immigrant group, it is vital to analyze the factors that led some Arab people to abandon their homes for other shores and lands. The motives for migration from the Middle East were mainly linked to social and economic factors and to the obligation of military service in the ranks of the Turkish army. Two periods can be teased out: first, from the late nineteenth century to the end of the First World War, when Syria and Lebanon were still part of the Ottoman Empire; and second, from 1918 to the end of the Second World War, when those countries were controlled by different European countries until gaining political independence. During the first of these two periods, Arabs left their homelands because of limited agricultural yield, the decline of the silk industry and of manufacturing in general, unemployment, high taxes, and the waning importance of the Middle East’s terrestrial commercial routes as a result of the inauguration of the Suez Canal. In addition, the persecution of religious minorities and the mandatory military service in the wars in which the Ottoman Empire engaged had an impact on decisions to leave. Without a doubt, the 1909 resolution to also recruit Christians in the army prompted many young, single men of that faith to seek out other places of residence.15 These migratory waves were also spurred by the political persecutions ensuing from the emergence of new nationalist movements across the Middle East. The increasing movement of Muslim immigrants from Europe to the Ottoman Empire threatened the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians in Greater Syria. Those newly arrived settled on public lands, taking possession for all intents and purposes, whereas the existing inhabitants were required by landlords to pay rent for their parcels. Furthermore, prior to the Young Turks’ Revolution of 1908, the Ottoman Empire attempted to repress freedom of expression, hampered the work of intellectuals, and restricted individual freedoms.

24

Peronism as a Big Tent

During the period spanning from 1918 to 1945, immigrants’ economic motivations were similar to those previously described: crises in the homeland, high unemployment rates, and high population density. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East was divided between two Christian, European powers: France and Great Britain. This, along with the fear that these new authorities might favour the populations from Christian religious minorities, prompted large contingents of Muslims and Druze to emigrate.16 From north to south, the American continent seemed to promise prosperity and a better future to Jews and Arabs alike. Argentina became home for hundreds of thousands such immigrants. In their efforts to reach Argentina, they faced two main obstacles. The first was the imperial authorities’ dislike of the departure of their subjects, due to the scarcity of soldiers and of labour power in some sectors of the economy. The second was the Argentine government’s policies, which did not promote immigration from the Middle East and subjected these immigrants to prolonged bureaucratic processes that included the presentation of certificates of good conduct issued by local police of their place of origin, which were difficult to obtain, along with medical documentation, and proof of the financial situation of visa applicants. As a result, many migrants arrived at other destinations in South America and entered Argentina through clandestine means from bordering countries. Montevideo was the preferred destination for many who then crossed the River Plate into Argentina. The opening of the Ottoman consulate in Buenos Aires in 1910 allowed for the normalization of relations between the Turkish empire and Argentina and for an increase in the inflow of immigrants from the Middle East to the South American country. However, Syrians and Lebanese did not receive assistance or subsidies to immigrate to Argentina, as other groups did, nor did they benefit from government programs for settlement. An article penned by Moisés Azize and published in Crítica in 1930 attests to the difficulties that these immigrants encountered: For the past fourteen months, our compatriots have been unable to secure entry into the country for their closest relatives …, bureaucratic processes in all of these cases have been marred with obstacles that could not be bridged … The president of the national library of a Syrian city had to return [to that city] from Montevideo as he had been denied entry into the country, despite having made an in person request to the former minister of agriculture that

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

25

he intervene in his favour. An elderly man who was sick when he reached Argentina was denied entry by the department of immigration, despite having demonstrated that fifty of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren resided in the country and had Argentine citizenship … A family of farmers with a valid work contract has been waiting for a year to receive authorization to enter the country … There are applications from the Syrian-Lebanese Board … that, since November 1930 have been unresolved despite having been turned in to the minister in person.17 Even if Argentine laws did not prohibit these immigrants from entering the country, government bureaucracy clearly constituted an obstacle. In this regard, their situation was different from that of most immigrants from European countries. For example, those who came from the Middle East were often not allowed to stay at the Buenos Aires Hotel de Inmigrantes (Immigrants’ Hotel), a situation that only changed when the inflow of migrants was drastically reduced due to the war breaking out in 1939. Authorities accordingly granted Syrians and Lebanese access to this temporary place of accommodation that welcomed newcomers.18 Like the “rusos” (as Jewish people were colloquially dubbed), “gallegos” (Spanish immigrants), or “tanos” (Italian immigrants), among others, the “turcos” (Arabs) benefited from Argentina’s open immigration policy, but were, from the late nineteenth century onward, also the target of racism and negative stereotypes. Jews and Arabs were confronted with the disappointment of criollo elites (supposedly white, locally born people) upon seeing the tangible results of their own initiatives to “Europeanize” or “whiten” their country. Consequently, both of these ethnic groups were viewed with hostility. Against the backdrop of growing nationalist, authoritarian, and xenophobic currents, particularly in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, immigrants of “Semitic” origin, whether Christian Arabs, Jews from Eastern Europe, Muslim Arabs, or Jewish Arabs – in sum, all those who were not as “white” or were not Catholic – were regarded as the most undesirable members of the migratory wave and were characterized by some Argentine positivists as racially inferior, dirty, and corrupting elements. An 1898 article in the Buenos Aires Herald documented this attitude: “Are we becoming a Semitic republic? The immigration of Russian Jews is now the third largest [in the country], while Syrian Arabs (“turcos”) and Arabians are also flocking to these shores.”19 Similar concerns were voiced in the columns of several Spanish-language newspapers. For example, in 1910, the conservative daily La Nación stated that

26

Peronism as a Big Tent

Syrian-Lebanese peddlers’ miserable commerce of “geegaws” was a stain on the honour of the host country and that it was therefore necessary to restrict immigration from the Levant.20 In addition to economic factors, Ernesto M. Aráoz, a politician from the province of Salta, defended his support for the exclusion of Jews from Argentina on racial grounds, alluding to the threat of dissolution and the challenge that recently arrived Jewish immigrants posed to the homogeneity of “our race.”21 Among the country’s liberal elites, even the most loyal advocates of immigration embraced the concept of a racial melting pot. It was expected that all those recently arrived, particularly those who were not Catholic, would abandon the customs and idiosyncrasies of their countries to adopt those of the new culture that migrants were shaping in Argentine society. This attitude, and the pressure to homogenize and assimilate, were particularly pronounced among those who upheld nationalist and xenophobic views. Although this segment was a minority within Argentine society, xenophobic individuals and groups had always existed, and at times their influence was broader than their numbers, as their reach extended to political, military, and religious circles and seeped into the contemporary intellectual climate. Peronism would bring about a change in the treatment of these immigrant communities’ multiple identities. Strikingly, some Argentine nationalist xenophobes voiced their visceral anti-Semitism but upheld a positive image of Arab immigrants. Santiago Peralta is the most famous of these. He was head of the Office of Ethnography between 1943 and 1945 and director of immigration from November 1945 to July 1947. Peralta developed extremely selective criteria for immigrants; Jews were victims of Peralta’s policies, yet SyrianLebanese benefited from them.22 Peralta expressed this affinity toward Arabs in his 1946 book, Influencia del pueblo árabe en la Argentina (Influence of the Arab people in Argentina), praising their skills in integrating and assimilating. He wrote, In the poor areas [of the country] where Europeans, hampered by the climate and environment, haven’t settled, Arabs generally settle as small business owners and end up working as others do; they purchase lands, trade cattle, work in small industries, and their adaptation culminates with their passionate participation in politics … Arabs are a part of this country’s universities and of its intellectual life; one of them is even a member of the national senate. One could not ask for more as far as these immigrants’ adaptation.23

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

27

Peralta had to resign from his post in 1947 because of the arbitrary discrimination he imposed and especially his anti-Semitic stance. A year later, the director of immigration who succeeded him, Pablo Diana, also resigned, accused by the Peronist senator Alejandro M. Hoyos of actions that discriminated against the Arab community. During a visit to Europe, Hoyos had heard complaints from several Argentine consuls about the country’s immigration policy. At the end of 1948, Carlos Brunel, a staff member at the consulate in Istanbul, was also forced to resign due to malpractice and discriminatory treatment of Lebanese applicants.24 The size of the Arab population in Argentina during the twentieth century, including immigrants and their locally born offspring, is still being debated. The lack of precise data and of exhaustive research prevents us from accurately segmenting these immigrants according to their area of origin within Greater Syria.25 This challenge is compounded by the fact that many of these immigrants left their country in a clandestine mode, leaving no archival trace, and those who passed through border countries (Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay) were obviously not accounted for in the registries. The data that do exist lack cohesion and detail in how immigrants’ origins were defined, in part because Argentine state institutions modified the name of registered groups to reflect ongoing changes in the Middle East: Turks, Ottomans, Syrians, Lebanese, SyrianLebanese, and so on. Additionally, no first-class passengers arriving at the Argentine coast were included in the registry of immigrants, and groups of less than 200 persons were registered as “other” in the rubric that indicated their nationality. Finally, as was also the case in other communities, many Arab immigrants would return to their country of origin after a more or less prolonged stay in South America. All of these methodological challenges make it difficult to establish statistics as to how many immigrants settled permanently.26 Nevertheless, researchers estimate that before the Second World War between 92,000 and 150,000 people immigrated from the Middle East to Argentina. These estimates make Arabs the fourth-largest group of immigrants to Argentina during the first quarter of the twentieth century.27 This wave peaked in 1909–13 and subsequently diminished when the great war broke out. More than half of immigrants from the Middle East to Argentina were Syrians. The 1947 census identified 33,000 Syrians, 13,500 Lebanese, 1,000 Palestinians, and 68 Iraqis in Argentina. The first Arab immigrants to Argentina were Lebanese Maronites, as were most immigrants from the Middle East until the early twentieth century.28 However, official data about these immigrants’ religion are scarce, and existing statistics do not reflect the diversity of their religious affiliations. In addition to

28

Peronism as a Big Tent

regional origin and diversity of social origin/background, religious divisions imposed barriers in generating social cohesion as a community, a trend that intensified after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Immigrants can be divided into three main groups, each of which encompasses various currents. Christian Arabs were the first and largest group of immigrants during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. If Maronites were the largest religious group among Arab immigrants until 1910, after that the number of Orthodox immigrants increased, as did the proportion of community organizations they established: Catholic Maronite, Armenian, Greek Orthodox, and Syriacs.29 Muslims were the second-largest group of Arab immigrants and, as they arrived simultaneously to Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs, were an organic part of immigration from the Middle East from the late nineteenth century onward. Muslim immigrants can be divided into subcurrents: Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, and Ismailis, apart from Druze. Although it is not possible to precisely determine the numbers, estimates calculate that 15 to 40 per cent of Arab immigrants were Muslim. Jews were also part of the migratory wave from the Middle East and often shared cultural and linguistic traits with other groups from the region.30 In his recent study on Muslims in Argentina during the first half of the twentieth century, Steven Hyland Jr asserts that in 1909 40 per cent of immigrants from Greater Syria in Buenos Aires were Muslims. Even though Hyland does not adduce more specific statistics, this estimate helps explain the foundation of the Sociedad Islámica (Islamic Society) in 1910. Hyland mentions data according to which between 7,000 and 75,000 Muslims lived in Argentina during the First World War. He cites the general consul of the Ottoman Empire in Buenos Aires, Emir Amin Arslan, whose statistical assessment of the Muslim population in 1912 was much more conservative than that provided by a source at the French embassy, which estimated that 61,000 Muslims lived in Argentina in 1928, and 70,000 in 1933.31 Variations in statistics stem in part from the tendency among most studies to focus on immigrants who were affiliated with formal community institutions, even if research has shown that most members of ethnic communities never affiliated with these institutions. Furthermore, in nationwide censuses, many Muslims chose to not identify as such, whether out of fear of having an ethnic label next to their names in governmental records and databases or because the form offered no option to simultaneously select the various components that constituted their identity or to unite these, as if with a hyphen. Respondents therefore avoided giving more weight to the Arab ethnic component of their identity than to the Argentine one.

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

29

The social and urban history of the Arabs of Buenos Aires can be gleaned from their patterns of settlement across the city’s districts. Lebanese Shiites, for example, preferred the Flores district, whereas many Syrian Sunnis lived in San Cristóbal. The small group of Druze opted for Palermo, as did the Alawites, and some Druze chose to settle in Villa Crespo. Christian Arabs tended to spread out. Various considerations influenced the decision to live in a specific neighbourhood. Important criteria included location in relation to one’s place of work, cost of rent, availability of public transportation, opportunities to open a business, whether relatives or compatriots lived nearby, and availability of halal products in restaurants and shops. Many found it easier to integrate in an area where they could use their mother tongue as well as familiar cultural codes, where they found the social and cultural institutions that could meet their needs, and where they could see at least some familiar faces. Such circumstances made it easier for people to develop a sense of belonging by adopting local identity traits while maintaining distinctive ethnic features. The immigration to Argentina of Arabs and other populations continued apace, with the exception of a temporary halt during the First World War, when the country experienced a recession and rising unemployment due to fluctuations in commercial ties with Europe. In contrast to the restrictions imposed in the United States and other countries, Argentina’s liberal immigration policy remained virtually unchanged but for minor amendments during the mid-1920s. The great economic recession that ensued worldwide, following the Wall Street crash of 1929, froze migratory flows. The subsequent political effervescence spurred the first military coup in Argentina’s history (September 1930), which in turn strengthened nationalist, Catholic, and xenophobic tendencies that had until then remained latent in Argentine society.32 During the 1930s the Arab population, through many of its community institutions, pressured the government to loosen restrictions on immigration. President Agustín P. Justo, who in 1933 participated in the inauguration of the Syrian-Lebanese School and was named honorary president of the Patronato Sirio-Libanés de Protección al Inmigrante (Syrian-Lebanese Board for the protection of immigrants), rescinded some of the restrictions imposed by previous administrations and granted Syrians and Lebanese the same rights and benefits as immigrants who originated from European countries.33 Immigration to Argentina picked up again – though in smaller numbers than before – by the mid-1940s, after the defeat of fascism and the end of the war. In 1947 the populist president Juan D. Perón repealed most

30

Peronism as a Big Tent

of the restrictions that had been imposed on immigration. Over the next three years, some 300,000 immigrants came to the country, chiefly from Spain and Italy, the two main sources from which Argentina’s population hailed. In 1947 over 46,000 Arab immigrants came to Argentina.34 Nevertheless, during the 1950s, the immigration of Arabs decreased, due in part to the political independence of Syria and Lebanon. The Peronist regime’s decision in October 1949 to grant amnesty to all residents whose status was irregular allowed thousands of Jewish immigrants to normalize their situation, as well as Syrian-Lebanese immigrants.35 Unfortunately, war criminals and collaborators with the Nazis were also among those who benefited from this amnesty, as they had sought refuge in Argentina using false identities. The constitutional reform spearheaded by the Peronist government yielded new legislation on naturalization, adopted during the early 1950s, that enabled foreigners, often the least desirable members of society, to obtain citizenship. This is how many Jewish and Arab immigrants became Argentine citizens.

di ve rs it y a n d t r a n s n at i onal ti es among a r a b im m ig r a n t s i n argenti na The diversity of Arab ethnic community organizations in Argentina is a concrete manifestation of immigrants’ different religious beliefs and regional origins, and yet common identity components. The institutions that these immigrants founded shortly after their arrival in Argentina largely had social and economic purposes, but some organizations sought to further religious and political goals. Despite the large number of community organizations, these were not grouped under a single framework or umbrella until 1970. Christian immigrants affiliated with the churches of Latin rites put up consistories and places of worship so as to maintain their cultural rites and ensure mutual aid within their community. The Colegio San Marón, which opened its doors in Buenos Aires in the early twentieth century, and the newspaper El Misionero, both affiliated with the Maronite church, were among the first such institutions in Buenos Aires. These institutions sought to preserve Lebanese identity and Arabic language, as well as to ensure that immigrants’ children integrated into Argentine society. Similarly, the Iglesia de Antioquía (Church of Antioquía) emphasized its members’ Syrian identity and Arabic language and culture. During the 1910s, the first Orthodox church opened its doors in the capital city, and in 1923 the Orthodox Administrative Commission was established

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

31

with plans to build a church, strengthen ties among immigrants, and disseminate their language and culture. It can be inferred from the types of activities that Christian institutions played a part in shaping an identity that combined religion and ethnicity, adding Argentine national identity components in comparable measure. Religious organizations operated with patterns similar to those of ethnic organizations in civil society founded by immigrant groups.36 The first Muslim and Druze religious institutions were established in the early twentieth century, but they were fewer than their Christian counterparts. In these circumstances, Islamic immigrants preferred to integrate into regional and social institutions rather than religious ones. In 1923, the Asociación Panislámica (Pan-Islamic Association) was founded in Buenos Aires in an effort to meet the needs of Muslims of different factions. Twenty-five years later, during the Perón administration, the Consejo Administrativo de la Mezquita de Buenos Aires (Administrative Council for the Buenos Aires Mosque) was formed to plan the construction of a place of worship in the city, which was partially completed in 1957 – as discussed in this book’s epilogue. The full mosque and cultural complex was not opened until the end of the twentieth century.37 Regional origin and belonging were other factors that prompted immigrants to group together in institutions beyond religious differences. Until the 1930s, ethnic organizations were named after immigrants’ place of origin, typically a city. From the beginning of the French mandate in the areas of present-day Syria and Lebanon, Arab organizations in Argentina began to define themselves as Syrian, Lebanese, or Syrian-Lebanese. That geopolitical shifts in the Middle East helped shape immigrants’ ethnic identities illustrates how identities are social constructs, and as such they are fluid, not static. The regional component of Arab-Argentine institutions underwent transformations, and transnational political activity generated new identities tethered to the newly sovereign states of Syria and Lebanon. For example, the Centro Hamauense, founded in 1925, broadened the scope of its activities across the country in 1940. The institution initially sought to assist those who had come from the Syrian city of Hama to Buenos Aires. Over time, its leaders became the elite of the country’s Arab community and founded the Banco Sirio-Libanés del Río de la Plata (Syrian-Lebanese Bank of the River Plate) and the Cámara de Comercio Sirio-Libanesa (SyrianLebanese Chamber of Commerce). There are more such cases of ethnic organizations that expanded the scope of their activities from the region to the nation.38 Arab immigrants also founded schools, hospitals, and organizations that focused on charity, mutual aid, and social needs.

32

Peronism as a Big Tent

An umbrella organization, Patronato Sirio-Libanés, was founded in 1928 to assist newcomers in overcoming the obstacles they encountered in the host country. The Patronato advocated for the interests and concerns of immigrants in their interactions with the Argentine government. The organization launched its activities within the context of the adoption in 1930 of restrictive immigration policies, which negatively affected migrants from the Middle East. Argentine state restrictions resulted in growing clandestine immigration, and these immigrants were deprived of legal status and risked expulsion. This situation generated cooperation among Arabs already settled in Argentina. The Patronato spearheaded the campaign against the measures, which were repealed soon after.39 Similarly, the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria (Syrian-Lebanese Club Honour and Motherland) created a space of social interaction and enabled the reconstruction of the Arab elite’s ethnic identity in Argentina. The club simultaneously operated as a charity organization for the community and negotiated Arab ethnic identity with Argentine identity. Its mission was precisely to integrate its immigrant members into Argentine society. As the club’s founder, Moisés Azize, wrote in a letter to Horacio Bustillo, president of the prestigious Jockey Club, Gauchos and Bedouins, Arabs and Argentines; the melodious and sinewy pampa and the whistling of the wind in the vast sands; the quena and the guitar; the domain of those whose skin is tanned by the sun and sand every midday; mercy and shelter for the brother in the bread and salt of the legendary tent, in the hand that extends the friendly mate and welcomes others into the warm country home. There is an abstract analogy, a pure spirit that blooms within the personality of Argentines and Arabs; racial ancestry, pride of one’s caste, familial coat of arms.40 Arab immigrants’ commercial activities led them to create an institution to support their financial needs. The aforementioned Banco Sirio-Libanés del Río de la Plata was established in 1925, as was the Cámara de Comercio Sirio-Libanesa in 1929 with the aim of offering a reasonable level of economic stability for businesspersons, particularly during the great crisis of the 1930s. These structures were also intended to facilitate the reception of relatives who immigrated to Argentina and to safeguard the community’s shared, economic interests. Upon settling in Argentina, Arab immigrants generated informal social networks and official institutions in order to foster a sense of community life and to

The Arrival of “Turcos” in Argentina

33

protect their rights and interests. The emergence of charity organizations and of an Arabic-language or bilingual printed press were part and parcel of the process of integrating into the new country; these organizations eased immigrants’ integration into Argentine society and helped them confront prejudices against them.41 Mass migration and the development of mass communications over recent decades have contributed to the evolution of research on transnational phenomena, even if transnationality is not specific to the current era. Yet the study of transnational processes in which Arab-Argentines engaged is insufficiently developed. The concept of transnationalism describes the creation of a community across national boundaries and the links that groups of immigrants maintain with their homeland (real or imagined). Transnationalism frames collective identities, social networks, communities, and institutions that exist within the local, provincial, or national spheres. Transnationalism challenges rigid understandings of nationality and promotes complex identities whose components are not necessarily contradictory, but often complementary. Transnationality forces the host country to adopt a broad policy of integration that can foster a more intense sense of belonging among diverse minorities and, in so doing, ensure a stronger social fabric. At present it is clearer than ever that immigrants do not cut off ties with their homeland; rather, they develop new identities to accommodate their material and spiritual baggage. This is why ties with other immigrants and with the home country’s culture continue to be relevant in the host country. The meaning of these cultural ties varies for each generation, particularly for those who were born in the host country. The concept of transnationalism therefore emphasizes that the process of migration does not occur in a single direction nor is it definitive; instead, transnationalism highlights how migration is a variegated process that is not linear or cyclical. Immigrants engaged in three types of transnational activity: economical, political, and sociocultural. Economic activity took the form of commercial transactions between home country and host country. Political activities engaged party activists, officials working in the public service, or community leaders in government circles with the aim of attaining influence and prestige in the host country or the home country. Sociocultural activities aimed to strengthen ethnic identity and included, for example, language lessons, shows featuring ethnically specific performances, competitive sports typical of the home country and involving teams of immigrants, the election of beauty queens, or the celebration of national festivities with key community figures. Transnational activities were initiated by both individuals and organizations. When initiated

34

Peronism as a Big Tent

by immigrants as individuals, these activities can be considered “transnational from below”; when organized by powerful actors or institutions, then they are “transnational from above.”42 The contribution of immigrants and diaspora communities to shaping Arab nationalisms has not been systematically evaluated, even though a large number of nationalist Arab intellectuals resided outside their home country for extended periods and influenced the home country by contributing ideas and stances developed abroad. Researchers have paid even less attention to Arab, Syrian, or Lebanese transnationalism in Argentina. The few works that discuss this topic focus on the transnational political activities of ethnic elites during the first half of the twentieth century, that is, until the rise of Peronism.43 The First World War created a space for Syrian intellectuals in Argentina to publish newspapers and disseminate information about, and participate in, the discourse of nationalist movements. As Steven Hyland contends, these debates situated intellectuals in the Arab “literary republic,” a common imaginary space that united Arab-Argentine intellectuals with their colleagues in other countries across the Americas and in the home countries. This shared space stimulated among immigrants an interest in the fate of their homelands and the possibility of shaping a new sense of place and community in Argentina. Transnational politics and processes have had long-term consequences for many Syrian and Lebanese immigrants living in Argentina. These Arabic-speaking Argentines frequently felt the situation in both their homeland and place of origin. The creation and development of Syrian and Lebanese identities in the mahjar (the diaspora of expatriates) were controversial for ideological reasons that had more to do with political divides than religious belonging. Politics in the homeland further fractured cohesion within the Syrian community. Differences emerging around the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, for example, and the aspiration to self-determination, caused rifts among cultural elites. The political issues debated in the countries of origin had a direct bearing on immigrant communities in Argentina, particularly on their social fabric.

in t e g r at io n d e s p it e s tereotypes Peddling was the first occupation of many immigrants from the Middle East, and it became a stepping stone for their activities in trade and industry. Data collected by immigration authorities estimate that between 1876 and 1895, approximately 86 per cent of Arabs in Argentina worked as peddlers.44 Mohsén Bilal’s first-hand account of the

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35

arrival to Argentina of his father, Mohamed Ibrahim Ali Bilal, suggests why so many of them gravitated toward this line of work: There were few places where one could find work. The farmer became a peddler, not just in cities and towns, but in remote villages, out of the way mountains, and endless plains that were sometimes uninhabited. They were forced to do this due to the requirements of a world in which educated immigrants felt alienated.45 Bilal’s words reveal that immigrants typically had to change their occupations out of necessity. Although peddling did not reflect their level of education in the home country, this occupation was almost the only way for them to integrate economically in Argentina. In 1909, peddling was still the main profession for immigrants from the Middle East; two-thirds of the Arabs in the country were travelling salespersons, and half of travelling salespersons in the country were Arab immigrants. Immigrants had to quickly find a way to generate an income, and peddling required a low investment of capital and could be undertaken without formal education or professional training. For these reasons, at the start of the twentieth century, peddling was the characteristic line of work for Arabs – and to a significant extent, for Jews – in some Latin American countries. Once these peddlers accumulated capital, they began to settle down and open shops, especially general stores and textile shops, and then went on to retail and light industry. The variety of professional activities is another feature of this group: they worked in real estate, the textile industry, agriculture, and even forestry in the Argentine Northwest. The second and third generations of Arab immigrants marked a shift from their parents’ occupations, taking their social integration one step further, especially in the province of Buenos Aires where travelling sales declined in the second half of the twentieth century. During that period, a considerable proportion of the second and third generation of ArabArgentines were thriving shopkeepers, industrialists, or landowners. Arab immigrants integrated economically into Argentine society despite deeply rooted stereotypes. The country’s elites held negative perceptions of Arabs well before mass immigration started. As early as 1845, the Orient was present in the seminal texts of national literature. For example, Domingo F. Sarmiento established parallels between the Arab and the gaucho, figures identified with “barbarism,” in contrast with “civilization,” in the debate on national identity.46 The elite’s negative perceptions of Arabs began to coalesce during the late nineteenth century, in

36

Peronism as a Big Tent

times of socioeconomic crisis and political instability. Argentine society assimilated additional stereotypes about Arab immigrants: the hawker and the beggar. The fear that Arab peddlers were present in every corner of the country haunted the popular imagination, and the press fuelled these fears in frequent demands that the flow of Arab immigration be stemmed. In 1902 the weekly Caras y Caretas published an article claiming that Arabs set a bad example for workers. Local press in the province of Salta criticized the phenomenon of peddling; the editors of one newspaper wrote about “an epidemic of Arab peddlers” that was worse than a swarm of locusts, and stated that it was up to the police to prevent them from ruining the country.47 To analyze social perceptions about immigrants from the Middle East, historian Jorge Omar Bestene examined three plays that had immigrants as central characters. These theatrical works replicated the stereotypes anchored in commonly held ideas and stoked by the prejudices of the elites or literature. The plays scorned Arab immigrants for substituting “b” for the letter “p,” a sound that did not exist in Arabic; they standardized Arab’s faiths by depicting all Arabs as Muslims, even though Christian Arabs were a majority among the immigrant population. Characters also tended to be excessively identified with their line of work as shopkeepers or peddlers. Nevertheless, economic activity was a catalyst for the social integration of Arab immigrants and allowed many to join the middle class, and a few to become part of the elite. The Arab elite flaunted its commercial activity to emphasize its contribution to growth in Argentina. In response to anti-immigrant discourse, members of this elite forged ties with diverse politicians and social institutions to further the community’s interests. The shared social space of the Club Honor y Patria was crucial to this goal, as it was there that Arab elites mingled with local elites and adapted their identities to fit in. Once this goal had been achieved, community leaders became intermediaries for the immigrants vis-à-vis the community’s institutions and the national political elites. The religious dimension also shaped the social integration of immigrants from the Middle East. Christians integrated much more easily than Muslims. Many immigrants affiliated with the Maronite and Orthodox churches adopted the Roman Catholic rite, which enhanced their similarity to the society of the host country. Muslim immigrants, on the other hand, minimized the expression of their faith in response to discrimination and marginalization. Indeed, a significant proportion of the Muslims and Druze who arrived in Argentina embraced Christianity or baptized their children as Catholics. The most famous

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37

conversion was that of Carlos Saúl Menem,48 described in the epilogue. Between 1947 and 1960, the proportion of Muslims in Argentina decreased markedly, and the reasons for this – in addition to their being a minority among Arab immigrants and mostly men – are attributable to the social environment of the host country. These immigrants and their offspring faced pressures from the Catholic milieu, which made efforts to assimilate them. From their first steps in Argentina, religion was an integral part of everyday life for many Arabs, Christian or Muslim. They made efforts to maintain their religious identity within family structures. But the weight of the religious element diminished over time. That these immigrants’ children went to public schools, due to, among other factors, the lack of a solid ethnic educational system, contributed to their integration in Argentine society. This process was simultaneously accelerated as many immigrants ceased to speak the Arabic language and adopted Catholic rites. As they lost their original religious identity, the preservation of their ethnic identity became more important. The children of immigrants – those who had been born or educated in Argentina – created a mosaic of Arab-Argentine identity components upon entering higher education institutions or stepping into their professional life. Their upward mobility, enabled by their parents’ success in commerce, was evident in their decision to study at university, and their professional status granted them coveted access to the middle class. This is why ethnic organizations emphasized the importance of education. Becoming a professional was linked as much to individual success as it was to the possibility of contributing to the betterment of the social status of the Arab community as a whole.49 By the early 1930s, the children of immigrants began to graduate from universities; according to historian Abdulwahed Akmir, student life and their professional paths integrated them into society while distancing them from Arab community organizations. The 1950s and 1960s were noteworthy for the integration of Arab-Argentines into cultural life, with the activity of outstanding figures such as writers Juan José Saer and Jorge Asís, musicians such as Eduardo Falú, singer and film director Leonardo Favio, and filmmaker Elías Sarquis. The children of Arab immigrants also became active in the foreign service and the Armed Forces. Access to the former had typically been reserved almost exclusively to the local elite, but some Arab-Argentines were able to find work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Perón administration’s policy of openness toward ethnic minorities, and the parallel establishment of diplomatic representations in the new Arab states, significantly

38

Peronism as a Big Tent

increased the number of personnel with Middle Eastern heritage in the foreign service. Given the elites’ resistance to this shift, this process involved numerous difficulties and incidents of discrimination. In the armed forced, where sons of immigrants were welcome, immigrants’ economic success and Christian affiliation facilitated the integration of Arab-Argentines.50 Between 1928 and 1962, a significant proportion of graduates from military academies were Arab-Argentines, and they began to occupy positions in the ranks of officials. Community leaders worked to oppose discrimination by disseminating an exaggerated image of these immigrants’ rapid integration, as if they had not faced challenges and obstacles or confronted negative stereotypes along the way. This was, of course, a myth woven to demonstrate how Arabs fit into Argentine society.51 The political integration of Arabs in Argentina, particularly during the Peronist decade, has not received enough attention in historical studies. Only a few works have been written about the relations between immigrant communities and Peronism, and our previous book focused on the case of Jewish immigrants.52 Historiography on immigration from the Middle East to Argentina is still in its infancy, dating from the mid1980s. This research has mostly concentrated on the local integration of Arab immigrants in specific provinces or regions, such as Córdoba, Mendoza, Tucumán, or Patagonia. It is likely that the presidency of Carlos Saúl Menem (1989–99), together with events in the Arab world during that period, encouraged the study of Arab-Argentines. Most of this research has examined the volume of those coming to the country as well as the patterns and levels of integration in Argentine society. It is, however, more difficult to find in-depth studies that examine the following generations – those born in Argentina with Arab heritage – and their integration into local politics. Existing historiographic studies are permeated by the piercing argument that immigrants from the Middle East were victims of discrimination, a case also made in the historiography on the Jewish presence in the country – a perspective that highlights the anti-Semitism of the host country’s society. Argentine elites were one of the main sources of this discrimination as they typically distrusted Syrian-Lebanese – and Jews – and often avoided social dealings with Arabs, even as these immigrants and their children were gradually accumulating capital and climbing the economic ladder and then the social one. Contrasting with this bleak perspective, researchers such as Ignacio Klich and José Omar Bestene have argued that, in comparison with other countries and regions, immigrants from the Middle East to Latin America were less persecuted and

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enjoyed more freedom of movement and action. Despite their rejection by the elites, these researchers correctly argue that there was no clear policy of discrimination against Arab immigrants.53 The development of research on the Peronist movement has been enmeshed with, and influenced by, sociopolitical events in Argentina since the 1940s. As a result, scholars’ emphasis has shifted over the years. Historians Darío Macor and César Tcach differentiate between three phases in research on Peronism: the “orthodox” phase, which peaked during the 1950s and 1960s; the “heterodox” phase of the 1970s; and the last phase, which since the 1990s has directed its gaze away from the city of Buenos Aires and toward the peripheries and hinterland.54 This last phase does indeed focus on the provinces. Its main hypothesis is that traditional institutions were crucial to the emergence of Peronism in the provinces. These historiographies maintain that Perón sought the support of strong, local political and social leaders in each province who would help him clear the path toward the presidency.55 This book contributes to the latter perspective, particularly in our examination of the political integration of Arab-Argentines in the provinces of Tucumán and Santiago del Estero, and the role that this integration played in the rise and consolidation of Peronism in these provinces.

2 ¡Viva Berón! The Political Integration of Arab-Argentines

Perón, in unison with his party’s leadership, frequently expressed his appreciation of immigrants from the Middle East. These public statements of support legitimated immigrants’ identities as Argentines, encouraging them in turn to participate in political life, especially by joining the Justicialista movement. These mutual interactions were most characteristic of the Peronist period, although immigrants had reached out to public figures in previous decades, when the leadership of ethnic institutions organized events such as celebrations of Argentine national holidays featuring public figures from across the country, and sought to forge close ties with political leaders in an effort to consolidate their own prestige.1 Examples of such gestures can be observed during the presidencies of Hipólito Yrigoyen in the 1920s and Agustín P. Justo in the 1930s. During the 1940s, Arab-Argentines made efforts to cement their status as an immigrant group that had unique features and to translate their economic success into political influence. This, they hoped, would neutralize elites’ negative stereotypes about them. To that end, the organized community funded a number of initiatives led by journalists and other opinion-makers. They also publicly supported candidates during electoral campaigns by publishing favourable articles in community newspapers or by organizing proselytizing events.2 In the eyes of ArabArgentine leaders, improving their public image and generating political influence were central goals to guarantee their social insertion. In striving toward these goals, they were aided by the web of relations that Peronism wove between the community and the populist leader. In his speeches, Perón often told the story of how he met Arab immigrants in rural areas of the hinterland, recalling how these encounters made a positive impression on him. In spite of this, even he often resorted to stereotypes to describe immigrants’ characteristics:

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I would also like to thank them for the thousands of gestures that they have bestowed daily upon me, all my life, beginning with the most humble gesture when during my childhood, in the old haciendas, the “Turco” Amado gave me something from his peddler’s case, up to today, when I can appreciate just how much you all offer to this generous land with your efforts, your decency, and your work. For all my life, I have always seen and appreciated that in this land, an Arab is not only grateful, he is as much of a benefactor as many Argentines.3 These stereotypes had taken root in the late nineteenth century, when the combination of an economic crisis and elites’ disappointment at the educational level of immigrants and their social integration brought on a shift in attitudes to the question of immigration. The arrival of millions of Spaniards, Italians, and others generated tensions between the established elites and those newly arrived. That a city undergoing a process of modernization and seeing the rise of a new, wealthy class, was also packed to the gills with poor immigrants, instilled in elites a fear of anything related to these “others,” of that which was different, and a nostalgia for the period prior to massive immigration.4 As discussed in the previous chapter, this fear brought about a nationalist reaction that peaked in 1910, when xenophobia came to the fore, particularly targeting undesirable groups such as Jewish and Arab immigrants. Xenophobic criticisms were grounded in the argument that immigrants were supposedly “inadequate” for the process of building the Argentine nation. Liberals and conservatives alike saw in the Syrian-Lebanese a group that was inferior and different from the veteran Argentine population. For the elites, these immigrants could potentially bring about a deterioration of the racial melting pot. Syrians and Lebanese were described as exotic and considered a threat to the Latin component of Argentine identity. Manuel Láinez, senator for the province of Buenos Aires, voiced these perceptions in a speech to Congress in 1910. Láinez sought to call attention to how the influx of immigrants from Italy was diminishing while the arrival of Levantines was increasing, and this situation, he suggested, could provoke an ethnic tragedy.5 Xenophobic nationalism persisted through the first three decades of the twentieth century, becoming a major political movement during the mid-1930s. Proponents saw and portrayed Semitic immigrants as undesirables. By speaking of his childhood in the provinces and recalling meeting the “turco” Amado, Perón was criticizing Argentine society for having failed to acknowledge the value of Arab immigrants. During the Peronist

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administrations, the number and frequency of negative images about these immigrants decreased. They were considered an integral part of the New Argentina’s social-political project and were treated as equal citizens of the national community. During the mid-1950s, the ArabArgentine community, under the leadership of Elías Richa, president of the Asociación Patriótica Libanesa, organized an event to pay homage to Perón in Les Ambassadeurs ballroom in Buenos Aires. Leaders of the country’s Arab communities were in attendance, as were the ambassadors of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt and the minister of foreign affairs, Jerónimo Remorino.6 In the words he spoke on that occasion, Perón again evoked his childhood memories to describe his ongoing bond with Arab-Argentines and depict their integration: I want to thank them for the profoundly moving words that, representing the Arabic-speaking community, my friend (Elías) Richa, has kindly spoken tonight. I express my gratitude with the most utter sincerity, moved only by the great sympathy and deep affection that I have felt since I was a child for this hard-working, decent, and constructive community. I learned to love them as a child, when our friends in the provinces were Arab traders, always ready to give a child a present, moved by this deep love felt among these millennial motherlands that, through time, have carried with them these beautiful sentiments that have made them great and have made them noble. Now that I am older, I am also learning to love them, when in our work and struggles I have always seen them [actively participate].7 Perón was well aware of the stereotypes that were circulating about Arab immigrants: they were said to be obsessed with getting rich and willing to do anything for that purpose, and to have come to the country with the sole intent of abusing the resources available. Argentina’s printed press was one of the principal means of propagating these portrayals, characterizing Arabs with negative traits and associating their economic activity with mendacity, exploitation, and fraud. An article published in November 1928 in the Buenos Aires–based newspaper La Razón, for example, warned the public that Semitic immigrants could not be trusted to repay their loans. The piece reported that commercial courts criticized Jews and Arabs for frequently declaring bankruptcy as a ploy to renegotiate their debts. The article overflowed with racist descriptions of the two ethnic groups, and the epithets the author used against them emphasized their ethnic features.8

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Just as Perón did in his campaign against anti-Semitism and his rejection of stereotypes against Jews – a stance that won him the support of part of that community – he understood the importance of confronting negative images of Arabs. In his speeches, he took pains to counter these perceptions by highlighting these immigrants’ contribution to his country and their tenaciousness. At a banquet held in November 1950 to honour the visit of the Lebanese minister of foreign affairs – during which Perón was presented with the insignia of the Orden del Mérito Libanés (Lebanese Order of Merit) and the Gran Cordón de la Orden Nacional del Cedro (Large Ribbon of the National Cedars’ Order) – Perón recognized Arabs’ contribution to the development of Argentina. His words were a seal of approval for their economic activity. The president sought to transform the image of Arabs as parasitic and unkempt into a community whose actions had patriotic value. Perón countered the discursive trend that scorned these immigrants by depicting them as fully involved partners in the tasks of constructing the nation. By describing Arab immigrants as both rural and urban workers, the president confronted another myth: that Arabs did not work the land. Perón frequently mentioned that Arabs demonstrated their “capacity to assimilate” by adopting local customs and taking on agricultural work. His words publicly acknowledged these immigrants’ sense of belonging and thereby reflected an understanding that the Argentine people were composed of a variety of ethnic groups. This shift in attitude was crucial to welcoming into the nation’s public life groups of immigrants who had until then been marginalized. Perón’s discursive maneuvers linked Arabs together in a bond that solidified their roots in the Argentine soil. Arab-Argentines were deeply appreciative of the national leader’s public statements and those of his ruling movement. The president’s rhetorical strategy was not reserved to Arab-Argentines, as he also deployed it vis-à-vis Jewish-Argentines. His words were echoed positively in ethnic groups’ press. Eva Perón, like her spouse, also forged ties with the Arab and Jewish communities, as exemplified in a speech she made during a homage event that the Arab community organized in Buenos Aires: Knowing as I do that all members of the Syrian-Lebanese community are as eager as I am, as Argentine and as a fervent Peronist, to hear the words of the leader of our nation, I will be brief. But, before I leave you for tonight, although, in a spiritual sense, I am always with this community that is so dear to my heart, I want to leave you with the most absolute conviction that in the president’s spouse, in this

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Argentine and Peronist woman, the Syrian-Lebanese community has a sincere and loyal friend at all times.9 The Peróns made such statements on numerous occasions with the aim of integrating Arab-Argentines into the narrative of nation-building and development. During an event in which Perón received a decoration from the Egyptian government, the leader emphasized that the Arab community should be praised for its perseverance, for the honesty of its members, and for all that they had done for Argentina.10 He also singled out how the breadth of these immigrants’ geographic distribution across the territory disseminated their economic contribution to all regions: And for this, all it took was for us to get to know each other and to partake in each other’s daily lives. As the republic hosts hundreds of thousands of Arab brothers, it is very familiar with the progressive thrust that they have brought to our land. They have disseminated their constructive actions, not only in the populous centers, but also in the most remote places of the Argentine motherland. This is the testament that we all have of this millennial and persevering race; this is the testimony that I want to give here, not as one in a foreign community, but among friends and compañeros who fight alongside us for the same ideals. We know well the treasure of sincere loyalty and love that exists in the heart of every Arab … We know that, in forging this immense personality which made them Arabs across all latitudes, they also edified for our own personality the value of these inextinguishable sediments that humanity has been witnessing for five thousand years.11 Perón maintained that the Arabs had brought positive features from their homelands, which they contributed to the country’s development. In other words, they brought progress from the Middle East to Argentina. This assertion challenged elites’ worldview according to which progress was synonymous with whatever was occurring in Europe, and to a degree, also in the United States, which they saw as an extension of European civilization. Perón portrayed Arab’s loyalty and perseverance in work as characteristics that contributed to the construction of a better country, in accordance with the basic principles of the Justicialist doctrine. The same strategy of praising particular traits of immigrant communities in order to highlight their belonging to the new fatherland was also deployed to describe Japanese immigrants in Brazil. Historian Jeffrey Lesser argues that some notable members of the Japanese community

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in Brazil stated that the country might be improved if it “Japanized” itself.12 Among Brazilian politicians, some believed that immigrants from the land of the rising sun could improve local society on the basis of the Japanese tendency toward loyalty. In addition to rejecting negative stereotypes and praising particular strengths, Perón applauded Arabs’ settlement in the country’s hinterland and their integration in society, which blurred their otherness to a large extent: This is why when we Argentines are travelling in the countryside and see a Syrian or a Lebanese on horseback, like we are, and dressed like we are, we look at him and can’t tell whether he is a criollo or a Syrian-Lebanese. Gentlemen: our concerns are yours. These lineages are separate through time, but they are united in their virtues and sentiments. This is why we are and will be one people, who loves and respects the same things and … with a common destiny, we work with our sights set on the virtues of our ancestors and our ambition directed towards all else: love, peace, justice, and work.13 As Argentina was becoming a de facto multicultural society, striving to elaborate a model of participatory democracy, such public acknowledgments of the shared sense of belonging among Argentines of Arab origin encouraged them to increase their participation in politics, as they had done in other sectors of society. In response, Arab immigrants formed committees to express their support of Perón’s re-election. One such committee, representing Lebanese immigrants and their offspring, was formed in August 1951, weeks preceding the Justicialist open cabildo (town hall meeting) organized by the Confederación General del Trabajo (cgt ; Trade Unions Confederation) in Buenos Aires to support the electoral ticket featuring Juan Perón and Eva Perón for the presidency and vice-presidency, respectively. This committee endeavoured to attract supporters and, in turn, gain the social capital necessary to call on the president as a collective and express their position, similar to other organizations formed on the basis of gender, profession, or economic class. The committee achieved this goal when Perón hosted its members in the Salón Blanco of the Casa Rosada (the seat of government) on August 9. Participants in the meeting with the Peróns included a delegation representing the Lebanese communities; the under-secretary of information, Raúl Apold; and the president’s military aide-de-camp. In his speech on this occasion, Perón said, “To us, you, as well as the descendants of

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Lebanese who live on this land, are Argentines, out of sentiment, which is the best way of being Argentine to which one can aspire.”14 No president had ever before publicly stated that Arab-Argentines were a fundamental part of the Argentine nation.

s pai n ’s m u s l im l e g acy a n d the i ncorporati on of ar a b - a r g e n t in e s in p eroni s t di scours e Echoing many Arab-Argentine intellectuals, Perón alluded to Spain’s Muslim past to justify the presence in the country of immigrants from the Middle East and thus strengthen the case that they belonged to the Argentine people. In their works, writers Juan Yaser and Ibrahim Hallar used the figure of the gaucho to include Arabs in the early history of colonial Spanish America. Of Muslim Lebanese descent, Hallar (1915–1973) devoted his life to highlighting the deep roots of Arabs in Argentina, and published books such as Descubrimiento de América por los árabes (1959) and El gaucho: Su originalidad arábiga (1962). These writers linked this Hispanic world with the Arab world of Al-Andalus to provide the background for the contemporary ties uniting the descendants of Spaniards and Arabs in Argentina. They argued that the archetype of the gaucho was influenced by Spain’s Muslim past and that, due to this very past, the ties between Arabs and Argentines predated the migratory influx from Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.15 Regardless of the authenticity of this claim as to Arab presence throughout the history of modern Argentina, this amounted to saying, “We were here before, and we are therefore more Argentine than many other Argentines.” In a ceremony held in the Casa Rosada’s Salón Blanco, Perón, upon receiving a decoration from the Syrian government, reasoned in like manner, linking the Arab presence in Argentina with the period of the Muslim conquest of Spain: “The old dynasty represented in this decoration, [the dynasty] that has fulfilled the mandate of the civilization and the culture of Mohammed, has intertwined with our own blood in Muslim Spain, and has been reaffirmed without exception by all the noble Syrians who have come to our land to forge with us, in common, the greatness of this new fatherland.”16 By espousing this narrative about the links between Spain and the Arab world, Perón sought to account for the strong roots that Arab-Argentines had in Argentina. Although during the early 1950s the populist leader began to distance himself from his earlier characterizations of the concept of “hispanidad” (Hispanic identity) as a central component of Argentine identity,17 he continued to use it to emphasize how Arab immigrants belonged in Argentina.

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Similar strategies to consolidate the long-standing roots of immigrant communities have been observed in the case of Arab and Japanese immigrants in neighbouring Brazil. As Jeffrey Lesser argues, the SyrianLebanese community’s leaders understood that they could use nationalist rhetoric as a tool to promote Arab-Brazilian identity. In keeping with this strategy, they adopted a narrative about the historical role that Christian Arabs had fulfilled in the Lusitanian colonial enterprise and portrayed themselves as being at the very heart of Christianity; consequently, their presence strengthened Brazil as a Christian nation.18 Japanese immigrants deployed similar arguments in an attempt to negotiate their position in Brazilian society. A theory suggested that the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon region were in fact a lost tribe of Japanese people, supporting the belief that these groups had a shared biological origin. This was taken as a guarantee that Japanese immigrants would integrate in Brazilian society. The local elite took favourably to this argument, and as a result, the Japanese came to be viewed as one of the pillars of modern Brazil.19 Arab immigrants adopted a similar strategy during the Peronist decade, winning the approval of the populist leader. But Perón did not stop at highlighting their successful social integration. He also referred specifically to their participation in the movement: When in this New Argentina, we launched a crusade that the Arabs had already discussed and brought into being three thousand years ago in their land, I was absolutely convinced that few Arabs could oppose the central notions of the doctrine of justicialismo ... In our political action, we have considered them our allies. We have never thought that they represented other sentiments than the ones that we feel.20 Similar to the narrative foregrounding the links between Spain and the Arab world, the president connected the community’s historical political values with those of the Peronist doctrine. The argument was that the legacy of loyalty and social justice that Arab-Argentine immigrants had brought to Argentina coincided in part with the movement’s principles. This meant that they were “natural” Peronists. Their contribution to the movement was echoed by Eva Perón when, during a tribute that the Arab community gave her, she stated, “I am also deeply moved to share this table with this community that is so beloved among Peronists, because it has always encouraged us and has fought for common ideas that we share, to consolidate this Justicialist doctrine that the now glorious and beloved Colonel Perón established in fateful days.”21

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Perón deployed similar rhetorical strategies in his dealings with other communities. In the inauguration of the Organización Israelita Argentina (oia ) headquarters, he said, “In the name of Peronism, I welcome you to join our ranks. We know the value and capacity of your men; the party assimilates you proudly, as this adds one more step to its achievements toward justice, as, for you [Jews], in many places across the world, the justice that you enjoy is not enough.”22 Just as he did in characterizing Arab-Argentines, Perón emphasized the positive features of the Jewish community and its suitability to the political movement. Where Perón underscored Arabs’ loyalty and industriousness, he emphasized the values and the skills of Jewish immigrants. Perón insisted that Jews should participate in local politics and, of course, in his party. As he stated in 1951, “Our movement includes a number of Jewish leaders who have joined our Justicialist orientation. We are hoping that this collaboration will increase and that they will participate in politics.”23 Perón’s efforts to attract the Jewish vote were typically greater than those geared toward Arab voters. This strategy was largely attributable to his desire to counter the rumours and suspicions circulated by members of the opposition and some circles in the United States that he was anti-Semitic and a supporter of fascism and the Nazis. To counter these negative portrayals, Perón had to be much more proactive in his relations with the Jewish community.24 This imperative did not play a part in his relations with the Arab-Argentines. As part of this strategy, the Peróns referred to the Jewish people as those best positioned to understand the meaning of Justicialism, as its members had been victims of oppression and injustice for centuries. Evita evoked them as an example of national consciousness that endured over time. In describing Arab-Argentines, Juan Perón observed that this community was able to perfectly understand Peronist principles and connect with them: This is why I agree with my wife when she says that Arabs are good Peronists. We Peronists seek only to interpret our people and to follow their own inclinations. To this, we add that we constantly share their worries, their needs and their aspirations, and all of you, who have the same soul as our people, how could you be anything else than Peronists, considering that being a Peronist or supporting justicialismo is more a feeling than a political party, that it is more of a spiritual state than a political one?25

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By resorting to the stereotype that portrayed Arabs as emotional rather than rational people, Perón sought to account for their particular suitability to the Peronist movement. Once again, Perón inverted negative images into positive depictions. With such public expression of esteem toward Arab-Argentines, the Peróns also aimed to increase their support among this ethnic group.26

p e ro n is t a n d arab: e t h n ic a n d p o l it ical loyalti es The government’s redefinition of the conditions for belonging to Argentine society and politics was based on the incorporation not only of the weaker, and therefore marginalized, groups but also of ethnic groups with strong transnational ties. Peronism acknowledged these ties and did not see any incompatibility, for example, between the simultaneous loyalty that Jewish-Argentines harboured toward Argentina and the state of Israel. Perón considered that Israel was their “motherland,” as Spain and Italy were for immigrants from those countries. Perón went further than that: he legitimated the Jewish-Argentine community’s identification with Zionism and with the state of Israel. During the decade of his first two mandates, these ties were not considered to be a “dual loyalty,” as the rhetoric of the nationalist Right depicted it, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s.27 Similarly, Perón acknowledged the ethnic identity and transnational activities of Arab-Argentines. He demonstrated this when, to greet Lebanese president Camille Chamoun, who visited Argentina in May 1954, Perón invited the ambassadors of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, as well as representatives of the different Arab communities, regardless of their origin, ethnic community, or religion.28 As he explained in the aforementioned ceremony in which he was conferred a decoration from the Syrian government, Perón saw in Arab-Argentines a critical connection with the countries of the Middle East: I promise you that every day of my life I will honour [this decoration] by strengthening the bonds of our friendship with modern, independent, and republican Syria … and we will be sure to respect, love, and honour her through the Syrian community of Buenos Aires with whom we are joined by such deep affection and respect.29 The identities of Arab-Argentines made them potential intermediaries between the Argentine government and their countries of origin. Perón saw, in immigrants’ transnational activities and bonds with their

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Figure 2.1 | Small talk between the Argentine president Perón (left) and Lebanese president Chamoun (right) during the latter’s visit to Buenos Aires, May 1954.

homelands, the possibility to develop international relations. A similar logic guided his acknowledgment of Zionism and the Jewish community’s ties with the state of Israel. Perón therefore supported transnational activities and the ongoing struggles for independence in the Arab world: Of all the ignominies that mankind has committed in this earth, none is greater or more criminal than the domination of the Ancient world, seat and foundation of all worlds and all eras. This is why that which for the Arabs was a rebellion, was also a rebellion for Argentines. Just as they fought for their freedom, we fought for ours, and this brotherhood for the freedom of men includes all of us free men who are ready to die for any of the enslaved fatherlands. Just as we, if we lived in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, or [among] any of

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the Arab peoples that might be subjugated, we would be one soldier among many, ready to die for their freedom; I also know that every Arab in Argentina is an Argentine soldier ready to die for the freedom of this fatherland.30 Within the framework of the Third Position that Perón had adopted for his administration’s domestic and foreign policy, he forged diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, as well as those of the Arab League and Israel.31 He manifested his identification with the peoples of Middle East in their struggle for independence, fully aware that some of these countries were the original homelands of immigrants residing in Argentina. Perón hoped that this stance would win him the support of these immigrant communities and encourage them to participate in local politics. Perón was well aware of the internal divisions within the Arab community about the changes happening in the Middle East during the first half of the century. He aspired to bring the community together so as to amplify its strength. Although most Arab immigrants came to Argentina during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, they were, from a religious and national point of view, a heterogeneous group. For that reason, their ethnic self-definition in Argentina changed over the years in response to the political twists occurring in the Middle East. Perón understood that transnational activities could potentially divide the Arab community, a risk that ran counter to his aspiration to consolidate it. His wish to unify that immigrant community stemmed from his corporatist policy, particularly his desire to shape what came to be known as “the organized community.” In that spirit, Perón had encouraged members of the Jewish community to form the oia . Many of his speeches addressing the Arab community were given during the 1950s, especially around the time of the 1951 presidential elections and the adoption of the Second Five-Year Plan. He hoped to obtain their support for both initiatives, and was keenly aware of these immigrants’ political, economical, and social power, particularly in the provinces of the hinterland, owing to the social fabric that they had woven through their economic and commercial activities. It is, once again, noteworthy that the government adopted a similar strategy toward Jewish-Argentines and Japanese-Argentines to incorporate the members of these communities into the national polity and into Peronism. As mentioned above, Perón and Evita portrayed Jewish people as perfectly capable of understanding justicialismo due to the persecutions and injustices inflicted upon them in the past. Although the goal of

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politically integrating Japanese (or Armenian) immigrants has yet to be fully researched, this emphasis also comes across in the couple’s speeches: And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to close this brief address by expressing my gratitude for the infinite displays of kindness with which the Japanese community has showered my wife and myself. In this situation, we fulfill only one duty in the name of all of the Argentine people, and when we say “all of the Argentine people,” it gives us immense satisfaction to include all of the Japanese who live with us as full members of this Argentine people for which we work and struggle.32 These stances toward Jewish and Japanese immigrants illustrate that Perón’s gestures vis-à-vis Arab-Argentines were not part of a peculiar or unplanned maneuver toward a specific ethnic group. Rather, they fit within a new and comprehensive policy espoused by a president who, for the first time, referred to non-Latin immigrant communities (that is, not Spanish or Italian) as an integral part of Argentine identity. He was aware of the new complexity of mid-twentieth-century society, composed of various strata and segmented along class, gender, and ethnic lines. The latter category included groups that had until then been excluded from public discourse. These groups would come to be an integral part of the nation. For this reason, and owing to its openness in this aspect, the Justicialista movement also became more complex in its social composition, reflecting politically a process that unfolded across all of society. The movement recruited new members of various backgrounds, who succeeded at joining the public service and participating in national politics, when they had previously been denied access to these spheres.

be yon d j ua n p e ró n : p e ro n i st poli ti ci ans and a r a b - a r g e nti nes Perón’s openness toward Arab-Argentines also came across in the statements and actions of his public servants and party leaders. Jorge Sabaté, mayor of the city of Buenos Aires (1952–54) and project planner for the Fundación Eva Perón (Eva Perón Foundation), for example, reiterated the administration’s esteem for Arab immigrants at two high-profile events. At the first of these, held at city hall, the Agrupación Peronista de Descendientes Árabes (Peronist Association of Arab Descendants) presented him with a gold medal to acknowledge his work as the city’s mayor. Sabaté’s acceptance speech highlighted the Arabs’

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industriousness, as well as their patriotism, and expressed his support of the president’s policy of promoting the integration of Arabs as an essential part of the Argentine people.33 The second event was held in the Casa Libanesa (Lebanese House) of Buenos Aires and included as guests the Arab-Argentine activist Gabriel Kairuz and the national lawmaker, Luis Atalá. In his speech at that event, Sabaté emphasized the participation of Arab-Argentines in Peronism and in the Argentine nation: The Arab community, whose generous and millennial trunk gave life to this Peronist association that is proud of its heritage and that infuses our contemporary economic, political, and social values with the ancient values of a race that does not conceive of life without freedom, without justice, and without the roots of an impassioned and activist fraternity, has once and for all joined the national community and is an integral and indissoluble part of this New Argentina shaped by General Perón, an Argentina which only aspires to work, to cooperate, and to elevate man as a symbol of a new world which, in still inexplicable ways, tends toward cataclysms and destruction.34 One of Sabaté’s predecessors, Emilio Siri (mayor of Buenos Aires between 1946 and 1949), delivered a speech in a similar vein at the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria in 1946, a few months after Perón won the presidential election.35 At first sight, these gestures might seem to repeat the line adopted by previous governments, and to be in continuity with these. But the Peronist rhetoric would go well beyond its predecessors. It wasn’t enough to make statements toward the ethnic community. Peronism attempted to integrate this community into its movement and, in doing this, in the Argentine nation. The creation of new nation-states in the Middle East also spurred politicians’ interest in fostering positive relations with this ethnic group. In a gesture toward the special envoy of the Lebanese government, Raphael Lahoud, Vice-President Quijano agreed to the shipment of 100,000 tonnes of wheat, to which Perón added 10,000 tonnes as a gift.36 Quijano announced this shipment during a visit in 1947 to the Casa Libanesa, a setting that clearly demonstrated how the Arab-Argentine community was both an intermediary with, and a representative of, the original homeland. Peronism acknowledged transnational identifications and fostered relations between diasporas and their countries of origin. Lawmakers such as Héctor J. Cámpora, who would become president of Argentina during the 1970s, built on these transnational ties.

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In 1950, when Cámpora was president of the Chamber of Deputies, he invited Lebanon’s minister of finance, Philippe Takla, as well as members of the Lebanese community to a special reception held at the national Congress. Guests included the Syrian ambassador; Hipólito Paz, the minister of foreign affairs; and senators Alberto Teisaire (who would become vice-president in 1954–55) and Diego Molinari.37 The Syrian ambassador’s presence ensured that events such as these reverberated across the entire Arab community. It also conveyed the importance of this community – particularly in its ability to mediate between the home countries and the new homeland – to the Peronist administration. Furthermore, in an effort to strengthen Argentina’s relations with Syria and Lebanon, Senator Molinari, who was chair of the Senate’s Committee for Foreign Relations, went on a tour of the Middle East in April 1950.38 In an interview from Beirut with the Argentine Diario Sirio-Libanés, he expressed his happiness at having the chance to visit the fatherland of “so very many friends of the Lebanese community residing in the city of Buenos Aires.”39 These episodes are examples of Perón’s innovative attitude and of how other levels of his administration also took advantage of these immigrants’ transnational ties. In 1948, on the eve of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Lebanon and Syria, Peronist legislator Ernesto Bavio had delivered a speech to Congress praising the Arab-Argentine community and, in so doing, justifying the ties forged with the new states: An important colony comprising the peoples of Syria and Lebanon resides in our country. It is known for its hardworking conditions, for its admirable capacity to assimilate our customs, and in particular, for its fervent loyalty to our institutions in such a way that it can be said that in our country Syrians and Lebanese work alongside Argentines toward the nation’s progress and greatness … Three hundred factories under Syrian-Lebanese ownership and manufacturing various types of products are estimated to be active in Argentina; as for trade, the Syrian-Lebanese are established in most of the republic’s territory, owning approximately 18,000 businesses. With the evolution and increase of all industrial and trade activities in the country, between their properties and their capital that is in circulation, this important community is responsible for two thousand millions of pesos [of the country’s economy] in national currency.40 In his overview of the history of Syrian-Lebanese immigration to Argentina from the late nineteenth century onward, Bavio emphasized the Arab

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community’s economic power to justify the establishment of diplomatic ties with the countries of origin. This appreciation of the Levantines in the words of a lawmaker affiliated with the government, along with the resolution to open embassies in those countries, amounted to an additional confirmation of the community’s high level of integration in Argentine society and legitimated its transnational ties. The speech circulated widely among the Arab-Argentine community, and its newspapers used it to foreground the prestige of community members. In response, the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria organized a homage to Bavio, at which the lawmaker repeated his perceptions of the community’s value.41 Peronist ministers also referred to the Arab community in public addresses. For example, José María Freire, minister of labour, emphasized the successful integration of Arabs at an event organized by the brothers Nissim and Ezra Teubal, Jewish industrialists of Syrian origin, together with their coreligionist Simón Muse. All three had immigrated to Argentina from their native Aleppo at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Teubals had started out as peddlers, had moved on to retail, and had finally become producers in the textile industry.42 The three men organized the event at the Club Pueyreddón to pay tribute to the minister of labour. In his speech, Freire upheld the Teubal brothers as an example of good relations between company owners and workers, and also emphasized the successful integration of Arabs in the country. Although this event was not held in the framework of an Arab-Argentine institution, it was deemed by the Arab community to be a gesture toward immigrants originating from Syria. That the Teubal brothers were Jewish was no obstacle for the Arab community to perceive the event as taking place on their behalf; Jewish community organizations did not participate.43 Freire’s appreciation of the idiosyncrasy of immigrants from the Middle East was well received in the community’s newspapers and media. This positive coverage resulted in a reception held one month later in Simón Muse’s home, again in honour of Freire. The minister once again praised the Arab-Argentine community’s economic and industrial power.44 Clearly, the minister understood the economic importance that the Peronist government assigned to Arab-Argentines. Ángel Borlenghi, minister of the interior and an important mediator between the regime and the Jewish community, also acknowledged the contribution of immigrant groups from the Middle East to the success of Peronism’s economic plan. At an event to pay tribute to Borlenghi held at the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria and broadcast nationally by Radio del Estado in October 1946, Borlenghi made the following statement:

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[This community’s] trajectory was analogous to the government’s whose members were of humble political origin just as the origins of the community’s members had always been economically humble, and we hope that this will always honour the fatherland’s future … I reiterate that the five-year plan should interest the community, particularly in its industrial and commercial aspects … Plans for industrialization are of great interest, and the community can play a crucial role, because Syrians and Lebanese are men who work and fight, for the timely realization – with the cooperation of all – of this plan for industrialization.45 Thus, from early on, the Peronist administration made efforts to attract the support of Arab-Argentines by affirming their industriousness and economic power. Official circles had high hopes that they could win over this support for the Second Five-Year Plan.46 When Ramón Cereijo, minister of treasury, was honoured by the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria at an event attended by the Egyptian ambassador, attachés from the Syrian and Lebanese embassies, and lawmaker Ernesto Bavio, he reiterated the appreciations voiced by his fellow lawmakers regarding the contribution of Arab-Argentines to the country’s development. He further praised Arab-Argentines as exemplary in their moral conduct.47 In another gesture toward this community, Jerónimo Remorino, the minister of foreign affairs, hosted a delegation of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants in 1952, led by the member of the province of Córdoba’s congress, Luis Atalá. Atalá’s presence made it possible for members of the delegation to meet with the minister to request that restrictions on sending remittances to family members in the countries of origin be loosened.48 Peronism demonstrated once again that it was opening its doors to ethnic groups that had heretofore been segregated, to some extent, from public life. The status of these communities had changed, and they could now present requests to the authorities.

b roa d e n in g t h e e thni c space: a r a b p e ro n is t o r gani zati ons Immigrants’ social networks were woven by ties between members of extended families or inhabitants of a single hometown. These ties influenced immigrants’ choices and enhanced their ability to adapt to this new environment, supporting them in securing housing and sustenance. In their host country, immigrants replicated the institutional

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and informal social networks of their home country to sustain a sense of community and increase their chances of success. The development of mutual aid organizations, ethnic-specific newspapers, and a social hierarchy among immigrants were decisive factors in this process. These organizations also furthered the integration of immigrants in the host society and helped them to protect themselves against stereotypes and discrimination. The social and cultural life of the Arab community in Argentina flourished. By the 1920s, the Arab community in Argentina was publishing over thirty magazines and newspapers and had founded over one hundred community institutions. Two sources were at the root of this activity: the community’s own desire to assert itself socially, and the transnational politics deployed by the Syrian-Lebanese. Religious and national differences, however, spurred the creation of separate Syrian and Lebanese community institutions, in keeping with contemporary events in the Levant resulting from the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Some community groups were drawn in the 1920s to the Arab nationalist movement in its quest to forge a common cultural and historical identity, particularly among elites. One of the most prominent leaders of the Arab-Argentine community was Moisés Azize. He was born in the Syrian city of Hama and came to Argentina in the early twentieth century, becoming a salesperson in the provinces of Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, Córdoba, and Buenos Aires. He was a key figure in important institutions such as the Patronato Sirio-Libanés, the Club Honor y Patria, and the Banco Sirio-Libanés del Río de la Plata. He also founded the Syrian-Lebanese newspaper Diario Sirio-Libanés, the main press organ of Arab-Argentine community leaders since the 1930s. As he was embracing Arab nationalism, Azize promoted policies to unite the Arab-Argentine community by bridging regional and religious differences. This is why the institutions he created were named “SyrianLebanese.” During the 1930s, this designation came to be used across the country as Azize’s newspaper, the Diario Sirio-Libanés, took on a key role in the social spaces where ethnic identity crystallized. Simultaneously, a pan-Arabic movement emerged in the Middle East that would shape modes of organizing as a community, overcoming differences between religious or national groups. Nevertheless, in the 1920s, separate Lebanese and Syrian organizations began to emerge in accordance with national and religious identities. The fragmentation of community institutions into groups (Lebanese, Syrians, Syrian-Lebanese) was also noticeable in the organizations launched in support of President Perón.

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These phenomena illustrate the complexity of this community, largely stemming from the processes unfolding in the homelands of origin and the cultural baggage that immigrants brought with them. While Arab-Argentine institutions fragmented into groups, the JewishArgentine community exemplified the opposite trend: its ethnic diversity and various regions of origin were not obstacles to successfully establishing broad community organizations such as the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (amia ; Argentine Israelite Mutual Association), founded in 1894, and the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (daia ; Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations), founded in 1935; these organizations still exist today despite ongoing internal struggles and controversies. Although the majority of Jewish-Argentines are not affiliated with community institutions, these entities spoke for the organized community throughout the twentieth century, representing them vis-à-vis national authorities, international Jewish organizations, and subsequently, the state of Israel. A number of Peronist Jewish-Argentines were inspired by these umbrella organizations when they founded the Organización Israelita Argentina (oia ) in 1947 to work toward their political goals. This institution lasted until the Peronist regime was overthrown in 1955. The oia may not have garnered the support of a majority of Jewish-Argentines, but its internal cohesion and its proximity to the highest circles of the state led to several achievements, in addition to offering an alternative notion of identity that gave priority to the Argentine component over the Jewish one.49 Unlike Jewish-Argentines’ success at creating the oia , Peronist ArabArgentines were unable to form a central organization, in spite of Perón’s publicly expressed desire, reflected in, among others, a speech to the Arab-Argentine community in 1954 in which he referred to the concept of organized community. The broadly defined program for an “organized community” had at its basis the aspiration to create a social body articulated in different organs, each representing the interests of a sector or group organized around social, economic, professional, or (in this case) ethnic interests. The organized community sought to substitute class struggle for social harmony.50 Within this program, Perón aspired to bring Jewish and Arab communities within the fold of the Justicialist doctrine while simultaneously encouraging them to retain their ethnic identity, as he saw the ethnic-cultural factor as a unifying thread among all sectors of the Arab community. Perón’s positive attitude toward Arab-Argentines and his proposal for an organized community spurred attempts among Arab-Argentines to organize. Some efforts were local in scope, others, national, while others

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emerged in reaction to events or to meet specific purposes, such as to elect party representatives to the Constitutional Assembly in 1948, to support Perón’s campaign for re-election in 1951, or to promote the Second FiveYear Plan. These ad hoc organizations were mentioned in newsletters sent out by Arab-Argentine groups that supported Perón. The first of these organizations was the Centro Peronista Descendientes de Sirios-Libaneses (Peronist Centre of Descendants of SyrianLebanese), established in late 1948 in the province of Tucumán. This centre took shape as a support group to elect party representatives to the Constitutional Assembly that was to amend the national constitution in the spirit of Peronist ideology. Among those party representatives, Alfredo Maxud was a member of the Arab-Argentine community and provincial minister of the interior. He stressed that Arab-Argentines should become involved in politics in general and in Peronism in particular. The centre opened its doors in San Miguel de Tucumán’s city centre, at 854 Maipú, opposite the headquarters of the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa (Syrian-Lebanese Association). Maipú and the surrounding streets were inhabited by a good proportion of the city’s Arab-Argentines. By locating the centre in that spot, its founders hoped to establish close ties with the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa, which would enable it to recruit the broadest support possible and consolidate its status as a powerful group within the populist movement and the Arab-Argentine community. The periodical El Eco de Oriente (Echo of Orient), which was printed in Tucumán and distributed across the region of the Argentine Northwest, described the launch of the centre as follows: Given the historical and political importance of the elections of December 5, the majority of the descendants of Syrians and Lebanese residing in our city, have chosen to become involved, considering that this election will have a determining role in the republic’s institutional life … [There is an] overwhelming need to constitute a political centre to gather all of the descendants of Syrians and Lebanese, so as to in this way be able to jointly collaborate to the patriotic task that General Perón has undertaken from the seat of government.51 This excerpt underscores how Peronists of Arab origin were well aware of their value in society as an ethnic group and that they could leverage this value by uniting as political force. The creation of the centre also brought to light how some sectors of this ethnic group, in response to the government’s measures, expressed their desire to participate in politics and to do so within the framework of the Partido Peronista (Peronist

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Party). Through this involvement, they aspired to become active partners in the creation of the New Argentina and, in so doing, be legitimated as an integral and organic part of the Argentine people. Although the centre was established ad hoc to support candidates to the 1949 Constitutional Assembly, we can presume that the members intended to pursue their activities, even after the December 1948 vote, “to constitute a cultural and political centre that would gather them to work for the triumph of Peronism in the upcoming electoral struggle and, in the future, to continue to work and uphold the tenets of the Revolution of June 4 [1943] and its leader, General Perón.”52 The campaign for the 1951 presidential elections was another event around which Arab-Argentines attempted to unite. As did other sectors of society, members of this community organized to manifest their support for Perón’s re-election. The Peronist organizations founded by Arab-Argentines three months before the elections held in November 1951 were identified in the printed press. The most prominent of these was the Comisión Pro Reelección del Presidente Perón (Commission for the Re-election of President Perón) founded in Buenos Aires to group Arab-Argentines of Lebanese heritage. This organization used the community’s spaces, such as the Diario Sirio-Libanés or the Club Libanés, to promote its activities and garner support. In this regard, it acted similarly to the oia and the newspaper Mundo Israelita, through which Peronist Jewish-Argentines used ethnic spaces to express their support for Perón and to proselytize within their community. The second noteworthy organization is the Comisión Sirio-Libanesa Pro Reelección del General Perón (Syrian-Lebanese Commission for the Re-election of General Perón), launched in 1951 in the city of Córdoba. Unlike its Buenos Aires counterpart, it was comprised mostly of members of the local Arab community, and its leadership was visibly masculine. In covering that organization, the community’s printed press did not discuss its structure, focusing instead on its leadership. While the two organizations took shape with a view to the upcoming presidential elections, neither lasted long enough to become a “Peronist-Arab” nucleus after the elections. The status of women changed substantially during the Peronist decade. Women were granted the right to vote in 1947, and the Partido Peronista Femenino (Womens’ Peronist Party) was formed in 1949 with the aim of involving women en masse in the political system. In the 1951 presidential elections, women voted for the first time and were also elected to various posts for the first time, to the delight of many.53 Arab-Argentine women were invited to partake in this process of integration into

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public life; for example, an editorial in the newspaper Unión Libanesa (Lebanese Union) called upon readers to participate in the meeting of the Comisión Pro Reelección del Presidente Perón, reiterating that the summons was directed toward “men and women of the community.”54 Whereas Arab-Argentine women had not been included in the process of electing members of the Constitutional Assembly, this time they participated actively in political organizing. This participation culminated in the commission’s visit to the Casa Rosada in August 1951 in support of Juan and Eva Perón’s candidacy. Prior to the president’s address to those present, Jorge Curi, the commission’s president, paid tribute to the leaders’ work. He also acknowledged Delia Sarquis de Dantur, the representative of women of Lebanese background.55 In response to the economic crisis that buffeted Argentina between 1949 and 1952, and whose effects were felt with particular intensity in the recession of industrial production and rising inflation, the Perón administration developed an economic program aimed at accelerating the country’s industrialization by strengthening the private sector.56 This plan sought to involve private citizens in the debate about the problems that Argentina faced and the search for viable solutions. These efforts generated enthusiasm among broad sectors of the population for the Second Five-Year Plan.57 The requirements of the new economic policy highlighted the presence in the country of a network of diverse organizations that were active in civil society, but were also linked to the political presence of Peronism. This synergy strengthened the ties that local clubs, committees, and libraries had with institutions that were within the Peronist political conglomerate, such as trade unions and party branches. The latter spawned various organizations that supported Perón’s economic policy. As historian Omar Acha argues, Peronist identity was flexible, so long as its new supporters did not question the leadership cadres. Due to this feature, and to the necessity of mobilizing broad support for the five-year plan, the populist movement included organizations of varying backgrounds.58 Replicating its effects in society at large, Peronism’s openness to various groups enabled the emergence of organizations such as the Comisión Sirio-Libanesa de Difusión del Segundo Plan Quinquenal del Gobierno (Syrian-Lebanese Committee for the Dissemination of the Government’s Second Five-Year Plan), founded in February 1952 in the province of Córdoba. The leadership of this organization was elected within the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa (Syrian-Lebanese Association), and it was resolved that the commission’s honorary president would be a foreigner, Abdul Malek, the Syrian consul in the province, and that the

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commission’s launch would be celebrated with an event at the Teatro San Martín in the province’s capital. Arab-Argentine politicians took part in this event, including the provincial vice-minister of the treasury, Fidel Manzur, and the national congressman for Córdoba, Luis Atalá, who acted as a spokesperson for the Syrian-Lebanese Association.59 Similar to the Arab community’s Peronist organizations in Tucumán, the community made a point of featuring its politicians in public events as a display of its integration in local politics, particularly in the Peronist Party. The founding of the commission, and the event held to celebrate this, exhibited the community’s social and economic power so as to enhance its political integration. Prior to the commission’s launch, its delegates met with the province’s governor, Raúl Lucini, to express their support for the five-year plan and to obtain his approval for the opening event and their planned activities. The Diario Sirio-Libanés reported that the governor authorized the use of the municipal venue and participated in the event, expressing his commitment to grant them all the assistance they might need. To thank him for this support, the delegates gave him an Arabiclanguage copy of Eva Perón’s autobiography, La razón de mi vida (The reason for my life).60 That gesture was a kind of personal thanks and a show of the Arab-Argentine community’s loyalty to the fundamental principles of Peronism. The commission’s activities mainly consisted in promoting the economic plan among members of the Arab-Argentine community across the country. To that end, they set out on a campaign, led by Luis Atalá, to speak to their fellow compatriots about the advantages of the program.61 A distinctive feature of this organization was that its activity did not radiate from the country’s centre (Buenos Aires) toward the periphery, but instead began in a province with the aim of reaching those regions with a significant proportion of Arab-Argentines. This trajectory reflected the patterns of settlement of immigrants from the Middle East, due to which the social and economic centres were located in the country’s hinterland and not in the federal capital. In naming as honorary president the Syrian consul in Córdoba, the commission articulated the convergence of various frames – the national one, the ethnic community, and transnational networks – in the promotion of local political aims. As Perón had legitimated transnational activity and the coexistence of an ethnic identity alongside Argentine identity, members of the commission could be simultaneously Argentines, Arabs, and Peronists. The designation of the consul may also have been a show of support for the Third Position policy, which guided Peronism’s approach to international affairs at a time

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Figure 2.2 | The title page of the edition in Arabic of Eva Perón’s autobiography, La razón de mi vida (Buenos Aires: Peuser, 1952).

when Cold War tensions were rising. The Third Position sought to trace an intermediate path independent of the imperatives of the major powers and to foster regional integration. Perón aspired to export this model to the Middle East. While we have not found proof that central figures of the national Peronist movement encouraged the creation of this commission, it is likely that it had the support of the government of Córdoba, which at the time included Peronist Arab-Argentine politicians. El Despertar Árabe-Argentino (The Arab-Argentine Awakening) was another community organization with Peronist tendencies. This association was founded in 1952 and, unlike those previously mentioned, it embraced a salient pan-Arab identity without marking national distinctions such as Syrian, Lebanese, or others.62 Its goal was to consolidate Arab identity and to unify the community around its language and culture. It also valued transnational activities aligned with the interests of Arab nations. In spite of this, the organization had limited success in its efforts to broaden its scope beyond Argentina, asserting that, as it was an Argentine organization, it identified with the Peronist movement.

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A statement to that effect was made through its ideological platform, the newspaper Bandera Árabe, in December 1952: 4) Exhort [others] through all the moral and material means within our reach to uphold the Third Position, that ingenious notion of the leader of all Argentines, General Juan Perón, [born] out of an understanding that this concept is linked to the broadest spirit of equity, in accordance with the aspirations and concerns of the Arab people. 5) As a result of this, in an ideal of unity and common well-being, this organization addresses all Arabs, and especially their descendants living in this hospitable land to close ranks around this movement of unity and liberation that awakens to the light of the dawn of the Justicialist Doctrine whose fertile seed will flourish in the Heart of all noble peoples.63 El Despertar is a good example of the combination of transnational activities with national politics, comparable to the Jewish Peronist oia . Unlike previously formed organizations, El Despertar did not emerge in reaction to a specific event, but rather from the will to have a permanent entity capable of unifying Arabs in Argentina under the principles of the Peronist doctrine. In a manifesto published in Bandera Árabe, the organization clarified that it was born in the “light radiating from Justicialism” and that its goal was to amalgamate all the members of the Arab community in the country and their offspring.64 Because the organization’s members were part of the Arab world and loyal Peronists, they considered it their duty to disseminate the Third Position policy in the countries with which they had ties. This is how a transnationalism took shape that was both Arab and Peronist, that represented simultaneous participation in local politics and in the fatherland of origin.65 The leadership of El Despertar chose Bandera Árabe as its official organ possibly due to its pan-Arab identity.66 This newspaper was directed by Abdul Latif El Jechin, who was born in Lebanon in 1905, immigrated to Argentina at the age of twenty-three, and eventually began his journalism career in the newsroom of Al Fitre, a newspaper of Arabist and Islamic orientation. He founded Bandera Árabe in 1934 with a clear pan-Arab ideology. He dedicated most of his life to journalism and literature in his ethnic community (he died in 1986). El Despertar sought to strengthen Arab identity across the hinterland and to position Arab culture at the heart of the ethnic group with the aim of connecting and unifying people. An additional example of the transnational

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scope of its initiatives was a speech given by journalist Américo Barrios, director of the Peronist dailies Democracia and El Laborista. His talk was hosted in Buenos Aires’ Teatro Cervantes and followed his return from a journey across the Middle East.67 Other events spearheaded by El Despertar included a play that showcased aspects of Arab culture and functioned as fundraiser for the organization. Representatives of Arab countries attended the opening night, as did Argentine public figures.68 In addition, El Despertar opened a school where children could learn the Arabic language and become acquainted with their cultural heritage. These activities attest to how some members of the Arab-Argentine community felt a need to foster and develop Arab identity among immigrants’ offspring. Such activities did not distance the organizers from the social milieu but were part of the process of shaping an Argentine identity. This compatibility was palpable in the cultural event hosted by the Sociedad de Solidaridad Árabe Argentina (Association of ArabArgentine Solidarity) in Buenos Aires in 1954, particularly in the choice to open the event with the national anthems of Argentina, Syria, and Lebanon.69 This symbolic act expressed an identity mosaic that, during the Peronist period, was not considered to be a sign of “dual loyalty.” The archives of the community’s printed press mention other similar organizations that took shape mainly during Perón’s second mandate. One of these was the Agrupación Peronista Descendientes de Árabes (Peronist Organization of Descendants of Arabs), led by Assam Tarbuch. The main event organized by this group was held in April 1953, when it bestowed a gold medal on the mayor of Buenos Aires, Jorge Sabaté. In presenting this gift of gratitude, Tarbuch said, In the name of the Agrupación Peronista Descendientes de Árabes, which I have the honour of presiding, and, interpreting the will of all of its members, we make this public manifestation of just how much we appreciate you, as well as the high merits that you bring as a public servant working next to the greatest Argentine of all epochs, our beloved General Perón. In this event, we bestow you with a modest souvenir: this gold medal.70 This Peronist organization, which was formed on the basis of a common ethnic denominator, granted Tarbuch the necessary legitimacy to pay tribute to the mayor as a fellow member of the movement and as a participant in the same political project. It should be noted that leadership lists of Arab-Argentine Peronist organizations show that some leaders were members of various organizations at the same time. In his acceptance

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speech, Sabaté underscored the Arab community’s contribution to Argentina and commended Perón for his decision to refer to this community as “an integral part of this great country’s native population.”71 The broad spectrum of Peronist-Arab organizations indicates that, like Arab-Argentines in general, the Peronists among them were incapable of establishing a unifying frame. Peronist Arab-Argentine organizations largely emerged in response to local political events or shifts. This pattern attests to an interest in Peronist policies and to the inclusion of this community in Argentine society and in the national economy. The constitutional reform and the Second Five-Year Plan provided opportunities for Arab-Argentines to become active participants in the social changes that were underway and to be recognized as part of this process. Nevertheless, Peronists within the Arab-Argentine community were unable to establish an umbrella organization that would represent the majority of Arab-Argentines.

more ac t iv e a n d m o r e v is ib le: the parti ci pati on of a r a b - a r g e n t in e s in nati onal affai rs Perón’s openness toward ethnic groups such as Arab-Argentines ensured him favourable coverage of his government’s projects in community media and spurred the emergence of groups to support him and the movement’s agenda. This stance also enabled the integration of ArabArgentines in the public service at all levels, from low-level personnel to those working in the courts, managers of state banks, ministers, lawmakers, and governors. The 1946 general elections in which Perón was elected president marked a turning point for all aspects of ArabArgentines’ participation in politics and the public service, locally and nationally. For the first time in the community’s existence, they could be found in all sectors of public life. Community newspapers emphasized these milestones, demonstrating their awareness of this shift and its meaning. These newspapers’ directors understood participation in politics as the last step in the complete integration of Arabs in Argentina.72 Simón Bestani, director of the Banco de la Nación Argentina (Argentine National Bank), was the highest-ranking public servant in the national sphere.73 Born in 1914, this second-generation Argentine of Lebanese heritage was an inspector at the Taxes and Duties Department and then went on to become a member of the board at the Banco Español del Río de la Plata (Spanish Bank of the Río de la Plata). The Peronist government named him director of the Banco de la Nación in 1952, a position he held until February 1954.74 When Bestani began his term as director, the community’s largest institution, the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria,

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organized a homage that was attended by the community’s elite and bank executives. In the speech that Bestani gave on that occasion, he underscored Perón’s acknowledgment of the importance of the Arab community: Those who have followed closely the evolution of the Lebanese and Syrian communities will have been able to grasp the difference between not-so remote times and the current full acknowledgment of these community’s fecund work in favour of Argentina, an acknowledgment that we owe above all to the most excellent president of the nation, General Perón, who, together with his most worthy Eva Perón, have taken every opportunity to make known to the public the noble features of our race, which have made possible its immediate adaptation to the Argentine environment.75 In this resounding echo of Perón’s politics toward Arab-Argentines as an ethnic community, Bestani identified with Peronism while voicing his belonging to the Arab-Argentine community. The event signified the link between the Arab-Argentine public servant and his ethnic community of origin, as well as the compatibility between his political and ethnic identities. This event also reflected a general trend, in that organizations or politicians from the community would host a reception or dinner to celebrate the appointment of a community member to a prominent position. These were not mere gestures aimed at glorifying someone; rather, they were opportunities to publicly exhibit the community’s achievements and its successful integration, ultimately enhancing its prestige in society. Manuel Mainar was another Arab-Argentine who came to occupy an important post when in 1948 he was appointed minister in the administration of the province of Buenos Aires. The son of immigrants from the Middle East, Mainar was a writer, interpreter, and journalist whose career unfolded in the Buenos Aires–based Diario Sirio-Libanés. He was a member of the Unión Cívica Radical (ucr ; Radical Civil Union) until the June 1943 revolution, which initially prepared the path for the birth of Peronism. He then joined Peronism and began to work at the Secretariat of Labour and Welfare, headed by Perón. There he would also meet the future governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Domingo Mercante. When Mercante was elected governor, he named Mainar as chief of staff, promoting him two years later to the post of minister in Argentina’s most important provincial administration. Mainar occupied this post until his premature death in July 1949.76 Mercante’s cabinet also included another Arab-Argentine, Víctor Marún. Marún was born in Argentina to parents who had immigrated

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from Lebanon. He was a lawyer who began his career as an adviser at the Department of Transport. In June 1948 he was named a minister in Mercante’s provincial government.77 Parallel to his work as a public servant, Marún participated in various events hosted by the Arab community, including the event that Perón hosted in honour of the Lebanese foreign minister. He was a member of the committee to celebrate the twenty-third anniversary of the Banco Sirio-Libanés del Río de la Plata and took part in the launch of this institution’s branch in the province of Tucumán.78 Both Mainar and Marún participated actively in their community’s events, before and after their mandates in public posts. During the Peronist administration, Arab-Argentines were named to prominent posts in the public service of the province of San Juan. In 1946, industrialist Salomón Nacusi became vice-president of the Banco de San Juan, and Elías Amado was named the province’s minister of the interior.79 Two years later, another Arab-Argentine, Alfredo Marún, would take over Nacusi’s post when the latter became president of the province’s bank.80 Until then, Marún had been manager at the bank and adviser in economic issues to Governor Ruperto Godoy. Marún’s mandate lasted until 1950 when he was named provincial minister of state and education within Amado’s cabinet.81 In 1953 he returned to the bank, this time in the position of president, remaining in that post until 1955.82 He was also known for his participation in the ArabArgentine community in the province of Cuyo where, between 1941 and 1944, he led Juventud Libanesa (Lebanese Youth) and, from 1944 to 1947, was president of the committee of the Lebanese community of San Juan.83 The ties between these three figures, in addition to their participation in the community, attest to Arab-Argentines’ ability to integrate into local life. Gabriel Kairuz was another figure who became active in Peronism, although he was not elected to a public post. Born to Lebanese immigrants, Gabriel, together with his brother Alfredo, were shop owners who joined the ranks of radicalismo (the movement affiliated with the ucr ),84 supporting the re-election of Hipólito Yrigoyen in 1928.85 Gabriel continued to participate in radicalismo until he was expelled from the party in 1948 for supporting Perón. This prompted him to join forces with tango songwriter, theatre director, and political activist Homero Manzi, who had been a member of the Fuerza de Orientación Radical de la Joven Argentina (Force for the Radical Orientation of Young Argentina). Manzi founded the Movimiento Radical Revolucionario (Radical Revolutionary Movement), which represented those Radicals who supported Perón.86 The importance of Kairuz to the Peronist movement can

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be gleaned from the guest list of his wedding ceremony, which was held in 1948 at the Casa Libanesa. President Perón attended the wedding, together with his brother-in-law and personal secretary Juan Duarte, as well as the minister of public health, Ramón Carrillo, the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Domingo Mercante, and various members of the national Congress.87 The presence of the party leadership at the wedding and the fact that it was held in an Arab institution point to Kairuz’s importance within the movement and the closeness between Peronism and part of the Arab-Argentine community. In 1954, Kairuz founded the Agrupación Peronista Descendientes de Sirio-Libaneses (Peronist Organization of Descendants of Syrian-Lebanese). Arab-Argentines’ support of Peronism enabled members of this community to win seats in the nation’s Congress for the first time. Vicente Saadi was elected senator for Catamarca, and Rosendo Allub won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, representing Santiago del Estero. Like many of his fellow militants, Allub first became involved in politics by way of the ucr and then, in the mid-1940s, moved toward Peronism. In 1951, Esther Fadul, of Lebanese heritage, was elected as delegate (and later as member of the Chamber of Deputies) for Tierra del Fuego.88 Two Arab-Argentine representatives, Leonardo Obeid and Luis Atalá, were elected to represent the province of Córdoba in the Chamber of Deputies. Atalá, in his role as director of the newspaper Mundo Árabe, would play an important role in promoting the Second Five-Year Plan. Obeid was born to a family of Lebanese immigrants in the province’s capital. He graduated from medical school in 1931, qualified to practice as a surgeon. He worked in his city’s pediatric hospital and directed the medical care division of the local penitentiary service. His involvement in politics also began in the ucr , and he was active in the push to renew radicalismo. In 1945 he joined the faction of the ucr ’s Junta Renovadora that supported Perón and, a year later, he was elected to the national Congress for this party. He sat in Congress for two years and, in 1954, was appointed mayor of the city of Córdoba, remaining in this post until Perón was overthrown in 1955.89 Luis Atalá, also a son of Lebanese immigrants, obtained a seat in Congress to replace the deceased ucr member of the Chamber of Deputies, José Lencinas. Atalá had been a delegate of the union representing shop employees and started off his political career as a provincial legislator representing the Partido Laborista (Labour Party). In the national arena, he represented the Peronist Party in Congress until 1955.90 In 1953 he was elected secretary at the Consejo Superior del Partido Peronista (High Council of the Peronist Party).91 Throughout,

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Atalá maintained close ties with the Arab-Argentine community, which held events in his honour.92 He would often accompany Arab immigrants to meetings with the minister of foreign affairs, Jerónimo Remorino, at which they requested the softening or lifting of restrictions on remittances to relatives in the Middle East.93 The vice-governor of the province of Córdoba, the engineer Ramón Asís, was the son of Syrian immigrants from Yabrud. He became active in the Juventud Radical (Radical Party Youth) during the 1930s, remaining in that movement until the emergence of Peronism. In 1945 he was named secretary of public works and hygiene in the provincial administration, and a year later he was elected as head of the province’s Partido Laborista’s branch. As the result of an agreement with the ucr ’s Junta Renovadora, the latter joined forces with the Partido Laborista to present a unified ticket for the May 1946 elections for governor, which put Asís in the post of vice-governor. Asís’s tenure in that position was short-lived due to the deep divisions between the parties involved in the agreement. These differences prompted the national executive branch to intervene in the province of Córdoba and dismiss the authorities that held the governorship, replacing them with others who conformed to the imperatives of the federal government. Following these events, Asís decided to leave the political arena, moving to Buenos Aires to resume his work as an engineer.94 Like his aforementioned colleagues, Asís was also an active member of the Arab-Argentine community. During his term as vice-governor, he gave many interviews to the Diario Sirio-Libanés, which extensively covered his activity.95 The community sought to highlight the presence of an Arab-Argentine public figure in the highest political spheres, as this was a token of its social integration. Doctor Elías Amado made it to the position of provincial governor during the Peronist decade. Amado was born to Lebanese immigrants who arrived in Argentina in the late nineteenth century. His father, Francisco – whose original name was Harib Efrem Habib El Corbani – managed a general store in the town of Caucete in the province of San Juan. Francisco gradually broadened his trade network in that province and in the neighbouring province of La Rioja. After some time, the family moved to the province’s capital, where Francisco and his brother were founding members of the Club Sirio-Libanés de San Juan. Amado studied medicine and became director of the Hospital San Roque while also working as assistant manager of the Banco Comercial. In 1946 he was appointed provincial minister of the interior, and in 1950 he was elected vice-governor of San Juan. Shortly after his victory, the governor-elect,

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Ruperto Godoy, died, and Amado became governor of San Juan until the end of his mandate in 1952, when he was elected senator for San Juan, a post that he occupied until Perón’s overthrown in 1955. In parallel to holding these posts, Amado was also vice-president of the Sociedad Libanesa de Socorros Mutuos (Lebanese Mutual Aid Association).96 His mandates as minister and governor were widely covered in the community press, as were those of other Arab-Argentine public figures; for example, Eco de Oriente covered his visit to the residence of the Lebanese ambassador, an event also attended by the governor of Catamarca, Félix Názar.97 Throughout their political careers, public servants endeavoured to maintain their status within the ethnic community that was at the root of their political standing. Vicente Leónidas Saadi was the most famous Arab-Argentine governor during the Peronist decade, as his lengthy career continued well beyond the overthrow of the regime in 1955. Saadi was born in 1913 in Belén, Catmarca, to a Lebanese father (Wadi) and a criolla mother (Leonor). He studied law at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba while working at the tax department to pay for his studies. After graduating in 1939, he returned to his native province where he began to practice as a lawyer for the local tax department, going on to work at the Banco Hipotecario Nacional (National Mortgage Bank). Until the 1943 coup, he was active in radicalismo, the movement associated with the ucr . In late 1945 he became one of the founding members of the Partido Laborista in Catamarca, which set the stage for Justicialism. A few months later, he was elected to represent his province in the national Senate, where he would also be named president of the group of Peronist senators. In June 1949 Saadi left his seat in the Senate to take on the post of governor of Catamarca. His mandate was marred by suspicions regarding the dishonest conditions through which he had been elected to the post.98 After a few months, pressure from the faction that opposed him within local Peronism forced him to resign. Saadi was a controversial figure because of his political ambitions, and his relations with the Peronist administration shifted according to the vagaries of the provincial scene. Claims alleging corruption in the province, filed by national representatives Armando Casas Nóblega and Armando Vergara, prompted federal intervention. Saadi was replaced by another ArabArgentine, Félix Antonio Názar. To further punish Saadi’s attempt to challenge Perón’s authority, the movement’s high council expelled Saadi “on the grounds of his disloyalty to the party.”99 The former vice-governor of Catamarca, Benjamín Juáres, and the former minister of government, Raúl Madueño, were also expelled in the high council’s

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Figure 2.3 | Vicente Saadi (centre) at a meeting of the Peronist Party’s National Council, 1985.

response to the irregularities reported by Delina Bottana de Molina, whom the party had appointed auditor. Saadi garnered more coverage in the community press during his tenure in public office than any other Arab-Argentine politician.100 He also gave interviews to newspaper directors such as Nagib Baaclini at El Eco del Oriente and Emilio Constantino at Diario Sirio-Libanés.101 Community organizations held events in his honour when he was elected to the position of governor.102 The proliferation of events, homages, and news stories indicated his status and prestige in the community. The community’s press did not mention the political conflicts in which he was embroiled. Once he left the governorship in 1949, he disappeared from the headlines for a number of years. Saadi was in many regards the ideal Arab-Argentine: he graduated from university, quickly climbed the social ladder, and attained central posts in Argentine political life. He was a worthy example of the integration of Arab immigrants in Argentina.

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In spite of these upheavals, Saadi remained active in Peronism. In 1968 he was named Perón’s attorney; the former president was exiled in Madrid at the time. With the return of Peronism to power, and Perón’s homecoming to Argentina in 1973, Saadi was elected to represent his province in the national Senate and kept his seat until the March 1976 military coup. With the return to democracy in 1983, Saadi was once again elected to the Senate and named president of the bloc of Peronist senators. He was re-elected to this post in 1986, and closed a cycle when he ran for the post of governor of his province. He won that election and, as governor, continued the work of his son, Ramón, who had been provincial governor in the 1980s during the post-dictatorship administration. The federally appointed governor who succeeded Saadi in 1949 was also of Arab heritage. Félix Názar was born in 1922 in Chumbicha to immigrants from Lebanon. He began his professional path as a teacher and received his law degree from the Universidad de Córdoba in 1945. A year later, he joined Peronism, and in 1947 he was named attorney general of Catamarca. In 1949 he was elected to represent his province in the Constitutional Assembly and then ran to replace Saadi as senator when the latter resigned in order to begin his duties as governor of Catamarca. Názar had already served as interim governor, named by the federal government, between March and June 1949, which prepared the path for Saadi to be elected to that post. Saadi occupied the governorship from June to November, when a federally appointed auditor’s findings led to his ouster.103 Názar was appointed to calm the political turmoil in Catamarca. He engaged the province’s unions, which benefited from his conciliatory policies, and stimulated industry and the local agricultural and livestock sector. Názar had the support of Perón and Evita, which allowed access to government funding for public works initiatives. This close affective tie is also documented in the poem that Názar wrote in the aftermath of Evita’s death. It is striking that the political magazine pbt depicted him in a caricature as a peddler, an activity that was associated with his forefathers. Once Názar completed his term as appointed governor, he was named judge in the province’s Court of Appeals.104 His tenure in public office was covered in positive terms in the community’s press, and he was honoured in a number of events, including his wedding at the Buenos Aires’ Club Honor y Patria, attended by Rosendo Allub and Vicente Saadi.105 In sum, aside from Simón Bestani, the Arab-Argentine community deployed its political power in the country’s hinterland rather than in the federal administration. Many of its members were elected to national Congress or to key positions as lawmakers, ministers, or governors at

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the provincial level. It is noteworthy that Argentine society had no objection as to the ethnic origins of these public servants, particularly when they were elected by popular vote. The profiles featured here also point to another distinguishing trait: how an academic degree functioned as a crucial catapult for participation in political life. Indeed, in most of these cases, university studies drew members of the community into the sphere of activism. Whether before or during their time in public office, most politicians of Arab heritage were renowned within the ethnic community. The flurry of events that community institutions organized to honour them attests to the importance of politicians of Arab heritage as an expression of the community’s level of integration in Argentine society. At the same time, the participation of these public figures in events organized by the community suggests that the latter formed the infrastructure of their social base. This dynamic was fostered by Peronism’s encouragement of its members’ ethnic-specific activities.

3 “For an Arab, There Can Be Nothing Better Than Another Arab”

In 1950, Diego Luis Molinari, then president of the senate’s Commission for Foreign Relations, set out on an extended trip across the Middle East. His visit was intended to promote Argentina’s cooperation and commercial ties with the newly formed states in the region – Syria, Lebanon, and Israel – with which his country had established diplomatic relations over the course of the previous three years. The visit was to serve as a concrete expression of the importance that the Perón government ascribed to this region. The itinerary originally comprised only Arab countries, but when Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs learned about the plan, they immediately requested that their country be included in this tour. The minister of foreign affairs, Juan Atilio Bramuglia, and Molinari were quick to grant that request, as it would ensure a degree of balance in Argentina’s policy toward the Middle East and fulfill one of the government’s principles. Molinari expounded on the Peronist doctrine during talks he gave at Damascus University and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Argentina’s new constitution was presented as a model for the documents that Syrian jurists and politicians were drafting at the time.1 Coverage of the tour in the Lebanese press praised Argentina and its president; Israeli press was also positive in its coverage of the guest’s meeting with the political and economic elite of the Jewish state.2 Molinari’s trip was a watershed in a process that began after the end of the Second World War. Perón’s tenure in power coincided with a series of shifts in the Middle East that would come to modify the region’s face. French and British imperialism had no choice but to renounce a number of their enclaves. While their forces were withdrawing, the independent republics of Syria, Lebanon, and subsequently, the state of Israel took shape. In this changing climate, Argentina and the new Middle Eastern states alike were eager to expand the range of countries with which they

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maintained full diplomatic relations. Argentina had been marginalized on the international scene as a result of its neutral stance and policy during the global conflict, which was interpreted as a show of support and sympathy toward the Axis countries. The clique of military officials who took power after the June 1943 coup, and included Colonel Perón, was considered to be Nazi-Fascist. It should therefore come as no surprise that numerous countries, among them the United States and those of the Soviet Bloc, sought to marginalize Argentina in various international contexts. Buenos Aires needed allies, legitimacy, and hands to vote in its favour about crucial matters for the country in international venues such as the United Nations, established in 1945 after the San Francisco Conference, and its affiliated organizations. At the Palacio San Martín, the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there were fears that at the un Security Council’s first meeting, held in London in 1946, Argentina would again face calls for expulsion. As Argentina’s membership was confirmed, its representatives understood the importance of broadening their base of international support and establishing diplomatic relations with more countries, as this would afford Argentina more latitude and independence in its foreign policy. In accordance with these priorities, Argentina established formal diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia (February 1946), Iraq (April 1946), Egypt (June 1947), and the Kingdom of Jordan (August 1954), and held a series of exploratory meetings with additional Arab and Muslim nations. The policy adopted regarding the question of Palestine was cautious, so as to please all involved parties in a context marked by considerable pressure, equally from the Zionist lobby in Buenos Aires and its Arab-Argentine counterpart. In the un vote on the partition of Palestine in November 1947, Argentina was one of the half dozen Latin American states that abstained. Once the Jewish state was founded, however, Argentina recognized its existence, and the two established diplomatic relations in May 1949.3 Diplomatic relations with Syria and Lebanon were slow to start, even though Beirut and Damascus expressed their desire to establish them in 1944 and ethnic community organizations representing the interests of Argentines with roots in both countries made efforts to pressure the military government and subsequently the elected government headed by Perón. This is an example of the active role that many immigrant groups attempted to play in shaping Argentina’s foreign policy. Officials in Buenos Aires wanted, it seems, to receive France’s approval before establishing these diplomatic relations; they had previously demonstrated similar caution in their support of Egypt’s membership in the

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Figure 3.1 | President Perón hosting his Lebanese counterpart, Camille Chamoun, in Buenos Aires, May 1954.

United Nations so as not to generate unnecessary tensions with Great Britain. Argentina formally recognized the new states in the Middle East in November 1945 but did not establish formal diplomatic relations until after the creation of the state of Israel in May 1948. This suggests

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that Argentina’s positioning vis-à-vis the region was subject to broader criteria: the country’s wish to improve relations with the United States and its image in Western public opinion. These factors were particularly palpable in the handling of relations with the state of Israel and the efforts made to avoid generating frictions with the British and the French in matters involving the Arab countries. Jewish community organizations in Argentina demonstrated high levels of identification with Israel and Zionism, which manifested in, among other forms, the meeting in Montevideo that brought Elías Teubal and Simón Mirelman, leaders of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities respectively, together with Jacob Tsur, who was on his way to Buenos Aires where he was to present his credential letters as first ambassador to Argentina of the state of Israel. Teubal and Mirelman suggested to the diplomat that, together with a group of wealthy Jewish-Argentines, they purchase a building in downtown Buenos Aires that would headquarter the Israeli legation.4 Indeed, the aforementioned group purchased for a million and a half pesos (US$150,000) an elegant three-storey mansion in the same district where many of the city’s embassies were concentrated near the Palacio San Martín. Teubal, who as discussed in the previous chapter was a Jew from Syria, wanted the Israeli legation to stand out in comparison with the Lebanese embassy, which was at the time the only embassy representing an Arab country in Argentina. Similar to community protagonism in the Israeli case, Arab-Argentines had raised funds through donations to purchase the building on Libertador Avenue and furniture for the embassy of Lebanon (which is still at that location), expressing in this gesture their diasporic identity. It is noteworthy that the Argentine government did not hamper in any way these fundraising efforts, whether those of Jewish-Argentines in support of Israel or the transfer of money from Argentines of Syrian-Lebanese descent to the new states in the Middle East. In the following years, Argentina repeatedly requested the support of the five Arab states that were members of the United Nations (Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon) and usually voted as a bloc. The Muslim states of Iran and Pakistan often sided with that bloc. In 1946, all of these countries supported Argentina’s failed candidacy to become a member of the Economic and Social Council and the International Court of Justice. One year later, they participated in the election of Argentina to the Security Council, despite the United States’ reservations. Shortly after Perón was elected president and even before his official swearing in, he designated one of his supporters, Rafael Lahoud, a journalist of Lebanese background, to travel to the countries of the Middle East and communicate his wish to promote cooperation and economic

Figure 3.2 | The cover of a booklet published by the Argentine Presidency to celebrate the visit of Lebanese president Camille Chamoun to Buenos Aires, May 1954.

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Figure 3.3 | Zelpha Tabet (second row, centre), wife of Lebanese president Camille Chamoun, visiting the Eva Perón Foundation, 26 May 1954.

trade. Similarly, Perón sent Argentines of Arab origin as emissaries to the Arab countries in the role of worker attachés: Alejandro Jatar, of the Sindicato de Operadores Cinematográficos (Film Workers’ Union), was dispatched to Syria and Lebanon from 1947 to 1949, and Santiago Gaffuri, of the Sindicato de Barracas de Lana (Wool Union of Barracas), to Lebanon from 1949 to 1952. One of Perón’s aims, having declared the country’s economic independence in 1947, was to broaden Argentina’s traditional export markets. Yet the development of these commercial ties was slow and limited. In 1950, Argentina signed a bilateral commercial agreement with Israel for US$10 million, a sum that might not seem that significant relative to the totality of Argentina’s foreign trade, but that made a considerable contribution to the new Jewish state during that phase.5 Prior to formalizing this agreement, Israeli diplomats had lobbied members of Perón’s cabinet in Buenos Aires for two years, proposing that Israel could serve as a centre for the distribution of Argentine commodities across the

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Figure 3.4 | Américo Barrios (right) granting the Peronist Medal to Egyptian president Mohamed Naguib, Cairo, July 1953.

Mediterranean basin. Sujer Matrajt, one of the oia ’s leaders, told an Associated Press journalist in New York upon returning from a seventeen-day visit to the Jewish state that a duty-free zone for Argentine ships and exports was to be created at the port of Haifa.6 The project for the port of Haifa did not materialize due to, among other factors, fears of the reaction from Arab countries. Francisco Arias Cuenca, the Argentine representative in Beirut, sent a report to his superiors in Buenos Aires in which he stated that although the establishment of diplomatic relations between Argentina and Israel had not provoked vigorous protests in the Arab world, it had not been received with delight. As Arab heads of state understood the political logic behind this measure, they did not interpret it as a show of hostility toward them.7 The trade agreement with the new state, Arias Cuenca speculated, would also not provoke strong opposition from the states of the Arab countries. In contrast, he warned, the selection of Haifa as a centre for the distribution of Argentine export goods would shore deep resentment in the Arab world

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as it was boycotting Israel and did not maintain commercial relations with the Jewish state. In light of this, he recommended that the idea be rejected in favour of the port of Beirut, from where commodities would be distributed throughout Lebanon and to Syria, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, and Turkey.8 The Syrian Ministry of Economy also suggested in 1950 that a duty-free zone be established in its territory for Argentina’s trade with Lebanon and Egypt. In the end, none of these proposals materialized. Nevertheless, due to the limited volume of trade with the Arab world, in 1954 the trade balance was favourable to Argentina.9 In April 1955, Argentina signed an agreement to open a trade office in Beirut. Throughout his tenure as president, Perón always sought to maintain balance between his support of Israel and his wish to develop closer ties with his Arab neighbours. This also manifested on the symbolic level; when the Fundación Eva Perón authorized seventeen shipments of foodstuffs, blankets, and clothing for use by newly arrived immigrants to Israel, the first lady took the initiative of coordinating a similar humanitarian gesture toward Arabs. Argentina was also one of the countries supporting the creation of the un agency formed to assist displaced Palestinian refugees during Israel’s War of Independence. Almost every visit to Buenos Aires by an Israeli notable tended to be followed by the visit of an Arab public figure. For example, shortly after the warm welcome that the national Congress gave to the speaker of the Israeli parliament Iosef Shprintzak,10 Perón hosted General Fawzi al-Kawukji, one of the main leaders of the Palestinian rebellion during the 1930s and a fighter against the establishment of the Jewish state in 1947-48. The same year that Argentina decorated Israeli president Chaim Weizmann, the country also granted a similar honour to Syrian president Hashim al-Atassi. It was the signing of an agreement for cultural exchanges with Israel that prompted the naming of Malatios Khouri, a Syrian-born Argentine, as cultural representative for the Arab world.11 The influx of distinguished Israeli visitors was nevertheless higher than that of their Arab counterparts, as were the bilateral commercial and cultural ties forged. Among the noteworthy events in Argentina’s relations with Arab countries, we can point to the signing in 1950 of an agreement for cultural cooperation with Lebanon.12 In June 1952 the newspaper Azzaman published a story about a monument of Perón, in uniform and on horseback, that was to be erected in Beirut.13 Of greater importance is the visit of the president of Lebanon, Camille Chamoun, in 1954, as part of the celebrations for the 144th anniversary of the Revolución de Mayo (May Revolution) that launched Argentina’s path to independence from Spain.14 On that occasion, Perón gave a speech in which he praised

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the Arab-Argentine community and its active participation in hosting this visiting dignitary via the Confederación de Entidades Libanesas (Confederation of Lebanese Entities). A key figure present at the event was Elías Richa, an industrialist in the textile sector who operated as a link between the two countries. In 1955, Richa received a building from the Lebanese government that would be the seat of the Argentine embassy in Beirut.15 As part of Peronism’s effort to attract the support of Arab-Argentines and some sectors of public opinion in the Middle East, José Guraieb, based in the city of Córdoba, was authorized in early 1952 by the Ministry of Technical Issues to translate the Justicialist doctrine into Arabic.16 When this volume was published in 1954, the ethnic community press in Argentina saluted it in effusive terms.17 Yet the Peronist doctrine did not resonate in the Middle East at the time, despite the propaganda efforts deployed. The magazine Mundo Peronista, which always praised the regime – as can be deduced from its title “Peronist World” – sought to convince its readers that in every corner of the planet the eyes of the masses looked to Peronism’s actions. One article asserted that “Perón not only dignified the Jewish community as part of the Argentine People. The transcendence of Perón’s Doctrine and of his accomplishment is global and has had deep effects across the Israeli nation.”18 The publication claimed that Perón was hugely popular in Israel because of the great sympathy that he had demonstrated toward the Jewish state: “Perón, for the Israeli people, is as beloved as he is for us and, as we do, they claim him as theirs.”19 Mundo Peronista also informed its readers that “in the mind of the community of Arab peoples, an indomitable force is born: the extraordinary and mystical admiration for Perón’s Justicialism and for Eva Perón.”20 With the same exaggerated tone, the magazine applauded the allegedly mutual admiration between Perón and the leaders of the 1952 Revolution that put an end to monarchy in Egypt. General Mohamed Naguib is quoted by Américo Barrios, director of the newspaper Democracia, saying that “Perón and I have such similarity of opinion that it seems that we are in agreement, even without ever having met.”21 Naguib was decorated with the Peronist “Medal to the Loyal Friend” in a ceremony held as part of Barrios’s tour of Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, where he met with the presidents of these countries: General Naguib, Camille Chamoun, and Colonel Adib Shishakli, respectively. Gamal Abdel Nasser, the charismatic populist leader who would soon become the strongman of the Egyptian Revolution, was spoken of as an ally to Perón and his Third Position.22 The Lebanese-Argentine diplomat to Damascus, Malatios Khouri, also translated into Arabic Eva Perón’s autobiography of sorts, La razón de

Figure 3.5 | Syrian diplomat Zeki Djabi granting Eva Perón the Order of the Umayyads, April 1952.

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mi vida (My Mission in Life), as well as the text of the Second Five-Year Plan. These translations were often adduced as proof of the close ties between Argentina and the Arab world. The Arabic-language edition of Evita’s book was presented to the Peróns in a pomp-filled ceremony held at the Casa Rosada in May 1952. The first lady attended, concealing her agony; she would die in July. Arab-Argentine community leaders were present at the ceremony as were diplomats from Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Thousands of copies of this edition were distributed and gifted to Arab-Argentine Peronists and shipped to countries of the Middle East.23

g e nd e r e d ac t iv is m : a r a b-argenti ne women In 1947 the bill to grant full civil rights to women in Argentina was passed into law, thirty-five years after the Sáenz Peña Law enacted the electoral reform that made voting mandatory in all elections for all males who had reached the age of majority. The 1947 law not only made it possible for Argentine women to vote, it also made them eligible to run for office. Although Eva Perón did not play a central role in passing the law granting women these rights, she would soon be glorified as the initiator of this process.24 Most of the Arab-Argentine community newspapers sympathized with all that pertained to the integration of women in the political system, but their coverage of this aspect was minimal, even though it was one of the pillars of the Peronist ethos. Assalam published a column informing readers of the law without adopting a clear position on it. The Syrian-Lebanese newspapers El Eco de Oriente, Unión Libanesa, and Al Istiklal emphatically supported the bill. The Diario Sirio-Libanés defended women’s equality and added that women had integrated into all areas of Argentine society, well beyond their “natural milieu” of the household: Women’s vote is a logical consequence of the predominant role that women play in the Republic of Argentina. The simple truth is this: women are completely capable of exercising the right to elect and to be elected … women are not alien to any fact of coexistence. Quite the contrary, women are an important part of this coexistence that unites and divides men to the same extent that it unites and divides women … In our country women are active in all professions, in all public areas of employment, in all scientific, artistic, literary, social, charitable establishments, to name a few … To grant them the rights that they demand is simply to legalize a situation that exists in the facts. 25

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The author of this column describes a complex situation in which women were already integrated into Argentine society, including in the political sphere, and regards women’s right to vote as the culmination of this integration. This perspective may have been inspired by the role that women had taken on in immigrant communities from the Middle East since their arrival to Argentina. Historian Sara Gualtieri argues that the independent immigration of Syrian women to the United States was proportionally much greater than that of other immigrant groups, and that this enabled their liberation from the patriarchal order that characterized Arab society.26 For Sofía Martos, this argument is also applicable to the situation of Arab women in Argentina.27 Furthermore, during the first decades of the twentieth century, second-generation Arab-Argentine women confronted social challenges in the form of the tension between families’ expectations that they maintain tradition and the possibilities for integration in a society that was more liberal. This situation drew women to community and religious institutions as a means to fulfill their aspirations to develop and express their talents beyond the household. Community newspapers supported the participation of women of Arab origin in local politics provided that they received the necessary civic training.28 The editorialists of the Diario Sirio-Libanés voiced their opinion on women’s lack of preparation for public life, adding that women should receive training to face these new challenges: This newspaper has, on other occasions, covered the initiative to enable women to participate in civic struggles. We have expressed our thoughts about women’s vote and we will repeat this at present: Argentine women are fully prepared to intervene in electing political leaders and to be elected … What must be undertaken once the law is enacted by the executive power is to complete the civic training of women, as the aim is for women to involve themselves as soon as possible in active citizenship, which cannot and should not be reduced to the simple task of dropping a ballot into a box.29 Participation in politics was therefore the active dimension of citizenship through which women could be a part of debates and the management of public issues and, in so doing, fully join the political community. Registration was one of the requirements that would facilitate women’s right to vote, and the government made efforts to ensure the registration of the highest number of women voters possible to exercise their right to vote in the November 1951 elections. The editors of the Diario SirioLibanés took part in this campaign by publicizing the dates and places

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for women to register and reiterating the importance of registering, especially for those men and women who had entered the country illegally; they should now legalize their status:30 The precious attainment of women’s civil rights, now enshrined in the Justicialist constitution, should compel the natural concern of women so that when they cast their ballot for the first time, in the upcoming elections, they don’t encounter difficulties of any sort. For this reason, I would like to remind those fellow [female] citizens who don’t yet have their libreta cívica [national identity document] that they should fulfill this requirement as soon as possible, in keeping with the recently voted amnesty law; … so that they can perfectly meet the legal requirements to exercise their right to vote.31 The newspaper’s editors thus saw themselves as part of a system that had the duty to educate women about the meaning of their obligations as citizens. Indeed, from 1951, Arab-Argentine women became more involved in politics, alongside men. The scale of this involvement was not massive, but it was sufficient to assert that Arab-Argentines’ integration into the country’s political life was not the exclusive province of men. An example of this can be found in the visit to the Casa Rosada of representatives of the Lebanese community in 1951 to express their support of Perón’s candidacy for re-election. Delia Sarquis de Dantur was among the members of the delegation. After the speech made by the head of the committee, she spoke in the name of Lebanese women in Argentina.32 Two years later, in covering a speech made by lawmaker Luis Atalá as part of a tour to shore up support for the Second Five-Year Plan, the community press highlighted the participation of another congressperson of Lebanese descent, Esther Mercedes Fadul, representative for Tierra del Fuego in the Chamber of Deputies. Born in Ushuaia in 1915 to Lebanese immigrants, Fadul began her Peronist activity in 1947 when Eva Perón named her as delegate in charge of the census for Tierra del Fuego and inspector of all Unidades Básicas (party branches) across Patagonia. The following year Fadul was named national secretary of the Peronist Party and also appointed to the important post of president of the Commission of National Territories at a time when Argentina comprised only fourteen provinces and nine national territories. She represented Tierra del Fuego in the Chamber of Deputies from 1951 until she was stripped of her seat by the self-proclaimed Revolución Libertadora (Liberating Revolution) that overthrew Perón.

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Fadul was one of the first women to be elected to Congress after women won the right to vote. She was, without a doubt, one of the Arab-Argentine muchachas peronistas (Peronist women). In his speech, Atalá emphasized the central role of women, and coverage of the talk in the Diario Sirio-Libanés was equally noteworthy: “What was striking and gave the event a unique note was the presence of many women in attendance.”33 The image of Eva Perón as a driving force behind the integration of women in the political system was prominent in Arab-Argentine community press. Two similar columns were published in Al Istiklal and Unión Libanesa, attributing to the first lady women’s right to vote and to be elected.34 A similar article in El Eco de Oriente expressed esteem for the role that Eva Perón and the Peronist doctrine had played in the attainment of women’s rights.35 It seems that the directors of these community newspapers saw such statements as expressions of loyalty toward the governing party, as well as its leader and his wife. The Catholic Church condemned women’s new social role, alluding to its potential to undermine the institution of the family. The law guaranteeing women’s right to vote and the emergence of the women’s wing in the Peronist Party sowed fear in ecclesiastic circles that women’s involvement in politics might affect traditional understandings of women’s role.36 Historian Silvana Palermo observed that some voices within the Catholic Church viewed Peronism as an unworthy defence of women’s rights, arguing that it was based on a mistaken conception of the feminine condition.37 The newspaper El Misionero, which was the bulletin of the Maronite Church in Argentina, expressed similar reservations, quoting Pope Pius XII: In light of the theories and practices that, through different means, pull women away from their mission and do so with false promises of unlimited freedom, in fact making her a victim of misery and deny her personal dignity and dignity as a woman, we have heard a cry of alarm that calls for her presence as much in the home as possible.38 We can suppose that as the Maronites were affiliated with Catholicism, they would oppose women’s vote in the same terms as the pope. They supported women’s right to vote but opposed the second part of the law, which summoned women to actively take part in civic life. El Misionero was the only Arab-Argentine newspaper that expressed reservations regarding women’s right to vote. Although we have not found any testimonies of organizations or campaigns run by Arab-Argentines

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to support the law, the fact that most of the coverage in the community press was positive can be interpreted as an expression of support for Peronism. Women’s voices, however, were hardly heard in ArabArgentine community media.

arab-a r g e n t in e s a n d t h e fi rs t fi ve-year plan The First Five-Year Plan charted the course of Argentina’s economy from 1947 to 1951. This project promoted national industrialization largely to stimulate the domestic market.39 Peronist policy ascribed a central role to the state, putting it in charge of economic planning so as to channel its resources in more equitable ways. It is noteworthy that this project did not aim to eliminate the private sector. Rather, as outlined in the plan, the state was expected to build its own enterprises and articulate mixed enterprises in which private capital would participate, particularly to exploit mineral resources and organize the production of commodities from the agricultural and livestock sectors.40 In practice, however, the plan amounted to a series of separate bills that were put forward for the approval of Congress, rather than a systematic and integrated program. José Figuerola was one of the main figures in charge of drafting the plan. This Spanish jurist and politician was an expert in social legislation and workplace relations and had been a public servant in the Spanish Ministry of Labour under the dictatorial regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera. He immigrated to Argentina in 1930 and, shortly after, began to work at the Department of Labour, which Perón would first transform into the Secretariat of Labour and Welfare and then into a full-fledged ministry.41 Once in power, Perón named Figuerola technical secretary to the presidency, assigning him, among others, the task of drafting the First Five-Year Plan, which would put an end to wartime economy and define new political lines for development and modernization. The plan’s implementation did not always fulfill the expectations for national reorganization, but it would bear fruit across society when millions of citizens began to receive benefits such as pensions, health-care coverage, and social assistance. In keeping with the plan, bridges were built, roads were paved, and people’s access to sewage and safe drinking water grew exponentially. Advertising campaigns were launched to increase the plan’s visibility in the public arena as it was being put into effect. Government-run press, which accounted for most media, reported daily on the administration’s achievements, and the government made sure to distribute thousands of copies of the program.42

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As Arab-Argentines were an integral part of society, they witnessed the sweeping transformations across the country and were also influenced by the regime’s propaganda. Nevertheless, this community did not massively support the First Five-Year Plan, as it would do with the second one. Community press is our principal source to document this assertion. Coverage of the first plan in the community’s newspapers was limited to informative reports.43 The Diario Sirio-Libanés was the only such organ to express sympathies toward the national project; however, it also expressed reservations and made no effort to mobilize the community’s support. The Diario’s position supposedly comes across in the adjectives used to describe the plan: “the wonderful five-year plan,” “the five-year plan that confronts the country’s social progress with such logic and courage,” or “the outstanding five-year plan.”44 It can reasonably be surmised that this praise stemmed, at least partially, from the awareness that opposition to or sharp criticism of the plan could spur reprisals from the government, as emphasized by the editors-in-chief of Assalam and the Diario Sirio-Libanés: “General Perón warned that those who seek to work against this plan will not be qualified as opponents, but as traitors to the fatherland.”45 The Diario Sirio-Libanés described the advantages that community support would bring. On 3 October 1946, the newspaper stated its intention to closely follow the actions ensuing from the economic program, as “General Perón’s five-year plan is the symbol and materialization of the higher ideals and noble ambitions that reaffirm the dynamic Argentine people’s aspiration to achieve powerful realizations.”46 On 29 January 1947, the newspaper outlined the benefits of the program to the Arab-Argentine community: “We consider that the ten points of the five-year plan that General Perón has outlined to Argentine citizens and to foreigners identified with the national ideal, is a model of patriotic inspiration whose noble aspects must structure the new consciousness and be the vital plasma of the mentality of renewal of Argentine life.”47 These two articles illustrate how some Arab-Argentines thought of cooperation with the government as a means of expressing their loyalty to the country and its president. Supporting the plan, in their view, would enable them to participate in building the New Argentina and thereby cement their integration in the country. The plan hinged on strengthening industrialization through a state-controlled process of promotion, protection, and in some cases, nationalization of key industries, such as metallurgy.48 Some ArabArgentines quickly understood the central role of industry in this political turn, as reflected in an article published in Assalam in December

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Figure 3.6 | Cover of the edition in Arabic of the Second Five-Year Plan, 1952−57.

1946, in which the author argued that one of the plan’s aims was to preserve national industries so as to promote development and prevent unemployment. The Diario Sirio-Libanés advised that the development of industry should not neglect the agricultural sector so as to ensure the equilibrium of the economy. These perspectives document a growing awareness of Argentina’s transition from an agriculture-based economy to one anchored in industry, in addition to a perception that industrial activity would facilitate Arab-Argentines’ socioeconomic integration, heretofore blocked by the hegemony of the elites in the agricultural sector. It is no coincidence that the Diario Sirio-Libanés, which marked its anniversaries with a special supplement, focused in 1947 on the contributions of Arab-Argentines to the nation’s industries.49 This attests to Arab-Argentines’ desire to portray themselves as participants in the five-year plan and in building the New Argentina. Positioning themselves as collaborators gave the Arab-Argentine community opportunities to suggest proposals for improvement and voice constructive criticisms. We find one such example in an article in the

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Diario Sirio-Libanés, titled “It is urgent to promote the growth of immigration to benefit progress and the greatness of Argentina,” in which the author argued that increasing the flow of immigrants would accelerate progress toward meeting the goals outlined in the five-year plan.50 An article about the importance of savings published in the same outlet criticized Argentina’s culture of consumption and the absence in the fiveyear plan of a clause requiring public education in economics. It seems that many Arab-Argentines viewed the typical patterns of consumption in Argentina as harmful and wasteful. They felt confident enough to express themselves on this issue because of their self-image as people experienced in finances.

in t h e s h a d ow o f the 1951 p r e s id e n t ia l e l ecti ons By the 1951 presidential elections, Peronism had implemented various political and administrative reforms. Once women’s right to vote was passed into law, modifications to the Constitution abolished the electoral college and made it possible for a president to run for re-election. A Law of Parties was also sanctioned so as to control the political formations that participated in elections. That same year, legislation was passed that modified the way in which the president and senators were elected, specifically by altering the demarcation of electoral districts across the country and the tally of votes. During the Peronist decade, seven of Argentina’s nine territories obtained the status of provinces. These measures granted the right to vote to residents in these new provinces, in addition to women. As a result, the number of eligible voters doubled in just a few years.51 When the Sáenz Peña Law for Universal Voting was passed in 1912, politicians feared that some of the new voters would be citizens lacking education and experience in political participation. Adopting a paternalistic attitude, they therefore deemed it preferable to proceed to educate them in their new civic duties. For historian Sabrina Ajmechet, Perón’s point of view was that the people had already shown their maturity and knowledge of civics during the 1946 vote. If the idea behind the Sáenz Peña law was that each election should provide schooling in civics, Peronism considered that the moment was ripe for other forms of popular expression in public spaces. Through both the organization of society and the creation of structures to gather and unite different groups, the ideal citizen would be able to participate in politics and, naturally, support the government. An analysis of the

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community newspapers’ coverage and of Perón’s speeches illustrates that the conduct of many Arab-Argentines on the eve of the 1951 elections was consistent with the Peronist vision of citizens’ political participation. The Arab-Argentine community press closely followed the election campaign, focusing their attention on the goings-on within the Peronist Party and its leader’s candidacy for re-election. The most extensive coverage appeared in the Diario Sirio-Libanés, which enthusiastically reported on events in support of the re-election that were held across the country,52 especially the Justicialist open cabildo (town hall meeting) organized by the Confederación General del Trabajo (cgt; Trade Unions Confederation) and held on 22 August 1951. This mass gathering was intended to introduce Perón and his wife as candidates to the posts of president and vice-president, respectively. On the eve of the event, the Diario Sirio-Libanés encouraged its readers to participate: The idol, justly nicknamed the republic’s foremost worker, and his wife, known as the champion of workers, will receive today the largest tribute up until now from the Argentine people. As we state in our op-ed, the people in its entirety, without distinction of social class, religious creed, nationalities, will be present in Justicialism’s Cabildo Abierto, which will set the glorious life of our nation on a new direction.53 In addition to this declaration of support for the presidential first couple, the column underscored the openness that Peronism practiced and how this policy was changing the status of various groups that had traditionally been marginalized from political life. Equally noteworthy in the coverage of the Cabildo Abierto is the position of Unión Libanesa and Al Istiklal.54 These newspapers expressed their support of the leader by praising his qualities as a statesman and applauding the broad popular support that he enjoyed. For these newspapers, the re-election of Perón would ensure that the rights of workers would be protected and respected, and that the construction of Justicialist Argentina would continue, transforming the country into one that valued work by placing it at the heart of politics. These community newspapers emphasized the industriousness of Arab-Argentines in an effort to modify the negative stereotypes that portrayed them as exploiters and to include their community within the Peronist program. At any rate, due to her failing health and pressure from the Armed Forces, Eva Perón stepped down from the candidacy and it was announced that Hortensio Quijano would replace her on the ticket.

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Perón shaped his struggle for social justice along personalist lines, using his charisma to obtain popular support. This feature was highlighted in the community press. Unión Libanesa and El Eco de Oriente, with the support of the Comité Libanés para la Re-election de Perón (Lebanese Committee for the Re-election of Perón), ran political propaganda advertisements for the Líder (leader). At the August 1951 meeting during which the president hosted the chairs of this Lebanese committee, the head of the delegation, Jorge Khuri, described the contribution that, through their hard work, immigrants from Lebanon made to the country’s economy: Unlike is commonly thought, sir, our activities, as your compatriots, are not restricted to trade and the exercise of liberal professions. If this was, in the beginning, the channel through which these [immigrants’] activities were oriented, for the past twenty years their characteristic industriousness and enterprising spirit have manifested in a remarkable diversification of efforts. Without a doubt, there is currently no constructive activity in our country that has not benefited from the work and perseverance of a Lebanese person.55 In keeping with the narrative woven by Arab-Argentines, Khuri’s speech stands out for its eagerness to emphasize the industriousness of the ethnic group and to reject the stereotypes that viewed this group exclusively as merchants. Delia Sarquis de Dantur was the next speaker. On behalf of women of Lebanese descent, she expressd support for Perón’s candidacy for re-election, and added that he should be accompanied by his loyal and most fervent collaborator, Eva Perón. De Sarquis’s choice of words mirrored the Peronist stance on women’s social function: although women were important and active, their primary role was to support men. When Perón spoke of the support for his party among immigrants of Lebanese origin, he referred to it as a “natural” movement that had its origins in the affective bonds between the two peoples, and added that this was why they were worthy of being part of the Argentine people and even representatives of Argentine identity. Although the meeting had been organized by Argentines of Lebanese origin, it was covered across all Arab-Argentine community media, regardless of their regional affiliations with the homeland. This coverage underscored Perón’s warmth toward this ethnic group, particularly when the leader referred specifically to them as Argentines.56 Statements such as these, coming from the country’s highest political authority, had repercussions across the Arab community and

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certified that they were not foreigners, in addition to encouraging them to support Perón’s re-election. Government-run media also reported on the meeting and the Lebanese community’s support for Perón.57 The considerable coverage dedicated to this event demonstrates its importance for Peronist politics, which aimed to recruit as many sectors and groups as possible and incorporate them into the movement. The 1951 presidential elections marked a watershed in the integration of Arab-Argentines in local politics, as it was the first time that, through ethnic community media and political ad hoc groups, part of the ArabArgentine community openly and unambiguously supported Perón.

“a g oo d a r g e n t in e s u p p o rts the fi ve-year plan” Between 1949 and 1952, a crisis in Argentina’s exports prompted a recession in the country’s industrial production. The government tackled these challenges by supporting the intensification of industrialization in its Second Five-Year Plan, designed to make the nation’s economy more robust. The plan’s implementation was delayed in early 1953 due to measures to restrict consumption and curb inflation. In the reorganization of the economy outlined in the plan, Perón assigned a more prominent role to the private sector. Businesses would accordingly play an important part in the aspiration toward economic independence. The state ceased to be a monolith in charge of the treasury’s activities, becoming instead a captain that defined goals and oriented private initiative, a role that the state under Perón would never renounce.58 The central goal was to bring to citizens’ attention the challenges the country faced and potential solutions. These efforts yielded an enthusiastic response to the Second Five-Year Plan from the public. People from all corners of the republic sent letters to the Secretariat of Technical Affairs offering suggestions for improving Argentines’ standard of living. Historian Eduardo Elena argues that this communications channel increased people’s identification with the state’s program. Encouraging citizens to make suggestions was not the only way to broaden political participation in central planning. Events in public spaces to support these initiatives were another avenue to involve supporters of Peronism in building the New Argentina.59 Sources show that Arab-Argentine communities across the country directly supported the campaign for the Second Five-Year Plan. The most important group to mobilize in this endeavour was the one assembled at the Buenos Aires–based Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria. This organization played a central role due to the broad reach of its activities

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and its tradition of forging ties with public figures in Argentina. Ethnic associations such as the Sociedad Drusa de Beneficencia (Druze Charity Association) also contributed to this campaign.60 Nearly all Arab-Argentine community newspapers published advertisements in bold capital letters to call upon readers to support the fiveyear plan, as did most other printed press outlets in the country, in all languages. Some of these advertisements were paid for by the Banco Sirio-Libanés del Río de la Plata, which hoped that they would function as a marketing strategy to stimulate readers to save, one of the principles of Peronist economic policy. Others were published in the media outlets of Peronist organizations, such as Bandera Árabe, or in outlets that had at their helm supporters of Perón, as was the case of Nagib Baaclini, editor-in-chief of El Eco de Oriente. Among the Arab-Argentine community press, the directors of its largest outlet, the Diario Sirio-Libanés, were the ones who most enthusiastically and most thoroughly covered the measures outlined in the plan. Although other community media supported the plan, they adopted a more informative tone. When the Second Five-Year Plan was announced in late 1952, the Diario Sirio-Libanés unambiguously expressed its commitment to disseminating the work of the populist leader: The Diario Sirio-Libanés will continue to disseminate, as much as it can, the work of General Perón, because this newspaper knows that it does this for the good of the fatherland in which Syrians and Lebanese have founded their homes, and that the offspring and grandchildren who grew up in these homes are Argentine and feel as their own the great destiny of the land to which their forefathers arrived, some in the last third of the past century, others in subsequent generations.61 To convince readers to support the national effort, this newspaper not only disseminated the plan but also explained its important role in strengthening Argentina’s economy. Bandera Árabe, the official outlet of the Peronist organization El Despertar, also enthusiastically supported this campaign and emphasized that Arab-Argentines were united in support of the plan: The Arabic-speaking communities residing in this country, which have always abided by the laws of the Argentine nation and whose members have adapted to its customs and ways of doing, identifying fully with the natives to the point that they form a single and vast family with other foreigners, we are sure that they applaud the

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great undertaking required to fulfill the second five-year plan of the Executive Power.62 Bandera Árabe saw its community as having to support the economic program as an expression of loyalty to the president and, by extension, as an expression of their belonging to the Argentine people. This vision echoed Peronism’s redefinition of the Argentine people as including groups that had been marginalized until then. As seen earlier, this inclusion was conditional upon the support of the populist leader’s politics. Advertisements and editorials therefore encouraged the general public to support the plan. Furthermore, the publication of the same advertisement in three Arab-Argentine community media suggests that different groups within the community could unite in support of the same goal, beyond religious bounds or those defined by the ancestral homeland. Luis Atalá, the Peronist member of the Chamber of Deputies for Córdoba, found a new way of capturing the support of the ArabArgentine public: he gave a series of speeches in a tour of Argentina beginning in January 1953, shortly after Perón announced the Second Five-Year Plan. This tour was part of a campaign sponsored by the Arab community of Córdoba to reach various provinces. A column in the Diario Sirio-Libanés described the important role that a political personality of Atalá’s stature could play in the campaign: As congressman Atalá is a member of Argentina’s Arab community, this news has been greeted with genuine delight among the social circles of the Syrian-Lebanese community residing in this country, as this means that one of its offspring, who sits in the Argentine parliament, contributes with his talent and enthusiasm to disseminating the fundamental ideas of the president of Argentina, who is the author of both this plan and the first five-year plan.63 The talks were scheduled to take place in March and April, but we can infer from community media coverage that the tour continued until August of that year.64 The geographic scope was broad, as Atalá addressed audiences in the cities of Córdoba, Santa Fe, Rosario, Rufino, San Juan, Mendoza, Chilecito, Bahía Blanca, Coronel Suárez, and Buenos Aires.65 Surprisingly, we have found no evidence of visits in the provinces of the Argentine Northwest, where most of the ArabArgentine community was settled. It is possible that Atalá avoided these locations to prevent friction with local politicians of Arab ancestry who were engaged in similar initiatives.

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The Peronist Party’s support of Atalá’s tour can be inferred from the presence of Peronist members of Congress at Atalá’s speaking engagements. Among them were two figures of Lebanese ancestry: Antonio Benítez and José Tesorieri, both Peronist members of the Chamber of Deputies for the province of Buenos Aires. Benítez, like others discussed in the previous chapter, first became involved in politics as a member of the ucr ’s Junta Renovadora faction during Edelmiro Farrell’s presidency. He was then elected as a Peronist Party candidate to sit in the Chamber of Deputies, which he did until the 1955 coup. Tesorieri was head of the Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado (Association of State Employees) during the 1930s and 1940s, and a Peronist member of the Chamber of Deputies between 1952 and 1955. Luis Atalá succeeded at winning the support of most of the ethnic institutions in the cities of the provinces that he visited as part of his tour. Rosario is a good example. There, the Arab-Argentine community was represented by three institutions: the Asociación Islámica (Islamic Association), the Club Social Argentino Sirio (Argentine Syrian Social Club), and the Sociedad Libanesa (Lebanese Association). In spite of this atomization, Atalá’s status as a member of the Arab-Argentine community who represented its interests in the nation’s Congress enabled him to give a talk at each of these institutions.66 Arab identity was the common denominator among all those who attended. In addition to the support of the community’s establishment, Atalá travelled accompanied by writer Ibrahim Hallar. Originally from the province of San Luis, Hallar was born in 1915 to a family of Muslim Lebanese immigrants. He was one of the founding members of the Centro Islámico de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires Islamic Centre) and considered a promotor of dialogue between Muslims and Christians.67 Hallar was likely chosen to travel with Atalá because of his prestige among ArabArgentines as a figure capable of smoothing tensions and who always sought consensus within the community. Atalá underscored Arab-Argentines’ ability to integrate by evoking how, through their work and sacrifice, they contributed to the nation’s economy and development. Because of this, he reasoned, they should support the Second Five-Year Plan, the foundation for the economic independence and nationhood promoted by the Peronist doctrine.68 In the talk he gave in Bahía Blanca, he explained, My Arab heart, as a first-generation Argentine, swells with pride at this certainty. Upon seeing the men of same stock as my elders partaking in our impulse toward renovation and creation with the aim

Figure 3.7 | Jorge Antonio, a leading figure of Arab-Argentines supporting Peronism.

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of ensuring the fortune of my children and their children, I feel how my admiration for this race grows. Arabs and their offspring, who work tirelessly for the greatness of the Argentine people, will receive universal thanks for this contribution to the task of building the New Argentina that tomorrow will expand its ideas of peace and fraternity, of justice and solidarity, of sovereignty and freedom, toward all the peoples of the world. This notable task, without equal in the history of the peoples of America, is spelled out in the most minute details in the perfect and perfectible architecture of the Second Five-Year Plan, and all the Argentines and foreigners who live in this country will participate in it.69 Atalá thus appealed to a common Arab-Argentine identity with the aim of overcoming religious and ethnic differences within the community and reaching a larger audience. Similarly, the Diario Sirio-Libanés emphasized in its columns that the destiny of Argentina was one and the same as the destiny of the SyrianLebanese community and that the country’s problems were therefore also those of the community:70 Arabs feel as their own the destiny of this people, in which the role of the Second Five-Year Plan is of the utmost importance. One is almost certainly correct in stating that no other community in Argentina has done as much as ours to disseminate the tenets of the Second Five-Year Plan … Those who are familiar with our community’s collaboration with Argentina’s progress cannot be surprised by what happened. The deep affection that our community feels for this people is not brand new, not is its affection for the country’s head of state.71 The dissemination of the Second Five-Year Plan turned Arab-Argentines into active partners in economic policy and, in so doing, increased their feeling that they had a place in the Argentine state.72 Members of the community translated the program into Arabic for dissemination in the Middle East. The translations were printed by the International Service of Argentine Publications, the regime’s international propaganda arm,73 and supervised by Malatios Khouri, the cultural attaché in the Arab countries. This role fit within his mission, which consisted in improving the image of Argentina in the Middle East and promoting the Peronist doctrine in that region.74 The distribution of Arabic-language copies of the plan via Argentina’s embassies in Lebanon and Syria was a propaganda tool,75 but the community’s press

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in Argentina announced the publication of these translations as if they were yet another patriotic action.

jo r g e a n to n io chi bene: p e ró n ’ s m ys t e r i ous fri end After Perón’s regime was ousted from power in September 1955, the Arab-Chilean newspaper Mundo Árabe published a lengthy story titled “Perón’s mysterious friend.”76 Indeed, little was known about Jorge Antonio Chibene, even though he was one of the most important protagonists within Peronism. Interviews that he gave throughout his life are the main source of information from which to piece together his history. Indeed, Antonio played a central role in shaping how his impressive trajectory was remembered, both at large and in the annals of the Peronist movement. Although Antonio never held an official post, he played a prominent role in Peronism during the 1950s and was one of the main intermediaries between Perón and his supporters during the 1960s. When Perón returned to Argentina, in 1973, Antonio remained in Madrid as he had fallen out with Perón’s right-hand man, José López Rega, and Isabel Perón. He visited Argentina to attend Perón’s funeral and returned there to settle in March 1976, on the cusp of the military dictatorship. Antonio always introduced himself as a self-made man who was passionate about his work. An aficionado of automobiles and a skillful interpreter of the Peronist project of industrialization, Antonio made the national auto industry into his leitmotif. Careful not to harm his business opportunities, he claimed that he became a Peronist after the leader was overthrown and his numerous properties were seized, but in fact, as many of Antonio’s contemporaries perceived, his ties with the Justicialist project were long standing. According to Antonio’s testimony, “Perón’s enemies have created a myth about me. That I had a great fortune and that I had put it to the service of Perón. There was no such fortune. The will and the imagination to create the deeds that Perón needed were what I put in his service, and this terrified Perón’s enemies.”77 With his first wife, Esmeralda Rubin, he had four children and adopted seven more. Inés Schneider was his second wife. According to various sources, both women were of Jewish ancestry. Antonio’s father, Elías Antun Squef, was born in Yebdene, a Syrian village on the outskirts of Damascus, where the family had lived for centuries. Young Elías was forced to leave the home abruptly to escape a forced levy conducted by

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the Turkish-Ottoman army. Had he been able to stay, he would have continued the family tradition, as the first-born son, by becoming a Christian-Orthodox priest. During the three-month journey to the River Plate, most of his fellow travellers died, and upon his arrival, as often happened in the host country, the agent changed the name “Antún” to “Antonio.” Elías remained close to his fellow Arab immigrants, some of whom were more comfortable financially than he was. On occasions, he even worked on Sundays instead of partaking in the weekly day of rest. He became part of a community of Arab families in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of La Boca.78 Elías knew how to read and write classical Arabic, which won him the respect of his peers. Visiting with friends, he met María Celia Chibene. María Celia was seventeen years old at the time. Born in Mercedes, Uruguay, to Catholic Lebanese parents, she had just earned her teachers’ diploma and was living with one of her sisters. She and Antonio got married in 1916 in a church ceremony across from the landmark Parque Lezama, and in La Boca’s civil registry office. On 14 October of the next year, Jorge Antonio was born in that same neighbourhood. Due to the repeated invitations of the maternal grandparents and the economic crisis, the young family moved to Nueva Palmira, a small town in Uruguay named after the Syrian Palmyra. Antonio’s grandparents owned a grocery store in the town. Elías and María Celia would have seven children, including one daughter who died shortly after her birth. The family lived in a large home with four hectares. Until the age of twelve, Jorge Antonio studied in a nuns’ school. When his parents could no longer cover the monthly fees, they moved him to a boys’ school and then to a co-educational school, which left him some free time to work. He found a job at a Ford factory and spent a year away from school until the family’s situation improved, thanks to income from the sale of lands that his father had inherited in Syria. Jorge Antonio nevertheless continued to work at the Ford factory. The ethnic community’s social networks once again proved their importance, as the owner of the factory, Elías Dohir, gave the very young Jorge Antonio special permission because he and the young man’s father were paisanos.79 When Jorge Antonio was fifteen, his father bought a truck intended for an employee to drive and carry merchandise. Jorge Antonio convinced him that he would be able to drive it, and he began to work as a driver alongside his father. During the moments they shared, Elías transmitted his values to his son: “For Arabs, friendship is a sine qua non. Many of the present problems in the Arab world could be more easily understood if Westerners knew the value of friendships for Arabs.”80 The

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family integrated into the new nation and built friendships with their immigrant neighbours, many of whom were Polish Jews. Throughout Antonio’s young life, family traditions were present not only in the form of typical dishes, but also in the duties inherent in his role as the first-born son: “I am the eldest son, which, for Arabs, is transcendental.”81 At the age of seventeen, his parents gave him permission, along with twelve Uruguayan pesos, to move to Buenos Aires to find work and study. He arrived one day in 1934, with only a suitcase in his hand. Once again, he would benefit from the help of a paisano: In the afternoon, I went to visit one of my father’s co-nationals with whom he had made the trip from Syria. His name was Julio Joles, he lived in La Boca in a very modest home … He owned a small bookstore and had two rooms next to it. He absolutely insisted that I stay in his home, so I did … I asked him if he could find work for me … He told me that I did not need to work, that if I needed anything, I could ask him for it. He wanted me to help him with his affairs. That’s all. Of course, I was not convinced.82 Jorge Antonio found work on the shop floor of a textile factory and in the Swift meatpacking plant in La Plata, where he became intimately acquainted with the poor hygiene conditions – they made him sick – and the injustice perpetrated there. The company fired him and then hired him again, which prevented him from securing his status as a regular employee with social rights. A friend invited him to talks on politics where he learned about anti-imperialist notions and read Marx’s Capital. Antonio recalled, Those Arabs who, as victims of Ottoman imperialism, had not submitted to Ottoman dictates, were instinctively branded anti-imperialists, nationalists … I was a Christian and, as an Argentine, the imperialism that was beginning to concern me wasn’t Turkish, it was Anglo-Saxon, and it wasn’t so much political as it was socio-economical. In that regard, my experience at the meatpacking plant was crucial.83 Discussing Marxist ideas with a Catholic priest who was a friend of Joles led him, however, to be suspicious of these ideas. Three months after Jorge Antonio’s arrival in Buenos Aires, the entire family joined him. His father and two partners opened a grocery store in the Abasto market. Jorge Antonio worked at a construction company until he began his military service in 1938. He was personal

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secretary to the doctor assigned to a regiment and, in that capacity, saw to it that the enlisted men had access to Aspirin, could make phone calls, or had notes to take sick leave if necessary.84 It was in that framework that Jorge Antonio met people who would later become public figures or hold important posts. Between 1937 and 1939, as he continued his university studies, through his work at the military clinic he met students of the newly opened Liceo Militar (Military School), including Raúl Alfonsín, Albano Harguindeguy, and Leopoldo Galtieri, all of whom would hold positions of power across the political spectrum in the 1970s and 1980s. It was through one of his acquaintances in the military that Antonio first heard of Perón as the man who called the shots within the Farrell administration. In discussing the start of his relationship with Perón, Antonio gives at least two different dates. In an interview aired on television, he claimed that he met Perón at the home of a friend, a colonel, and that he began to meet with him personally in 1949, when he began negotiating with the government on behalf of Mercedes Benz.85 He had previously stated, “I saw him for the first time in 1944 … I saw him [but we didn’t speak]. I was still going to the military school to work, and by that time he was minister of war. I saw him in a parade.”86 Another source describes his impression of Perón: “I saw him walking energetically and in a very firm manner … That had a deep impact on me, but for the guys at the School, he had poise, he was this officer that had distinguished himself and whose books and activities were discussed.”87 What is certain is that Antonio first came into contact with Perón’s ideas through the mediation of José Figuerola, whom Perón had placed at the Argentine Electricity Company until he was hired at the Labour Department. Figuerola also introduced Antonio to a German businessman who had ties with the German brewery group, Bemberg. Antonio recalled, “It seems that Figuerola enjoyed our conversations and I loved hearing about the work programmes that he designed.”88 When Perón won the presidential elections, Figuerola invited Antonio to help in coordinating the First Five-Year Plan. Although officially an employee of the Industrial Bank, Antonio was attached to the secretariat of the presidency. Within months he was fired because of Figuerola’s jealousy and Jorge Antonio’s arrogant and independent attitude. With his savings, Antonio bought a new car. As he could only afford the first five payments, the car was sold to him for that amount because he had “some degree of friendship” with Ildefonso Cavagna Martínez, who at the time was deputy secretary of Industry and Commerce, the

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entity that regulated the sales of automobiles; Martinez would later become president of the National Bank. This new car provided the perfect circumstance to invite the aforementioned German businessman, along with the father of a student at the military school, for a ride. The three became partners in Jorge Antonio’s first business ventures, in manufacturing fibre cement articles. The initial profits enabled Jorge Antonio to make inroads in buying and selling land: When I signed my first real estate deal, I didn’t have enough funds for the purchase. I was only able to do it because every night I memorized the Five-Year Plan, especially the economic geography that Perón mapped for the 1950s … The Five-Year Plan played a part, as did my knowledge of the provinces of the interior, and my contacts there.89 Jorge Antonio forged ties with the owners of a car dealership that sold him another car and where he would become manager. He expanded and reorganized the mechanical repair shop, also expanding and modifying sales. His aim was to produce and sell parts for use in new cars to meet the demands of the growing domestic market of the postwar years. The government had regulated and imposed limits on the use of foreign currencies, and Antonio proved capable of adjusting to these and thereby continuing to import automotive vehicles, arguing that these imports were a means of attracting foreign capital into Argentina and that the vehicles were sold to government divisions (accounting for 50 per cent of his sales). His partners did not join him in his industrial initiatives, and his plan did not fully come to fruition. Some of these partners also had Arab ancestry: “They were a large Arab family living in Tucumán … I was interested in the Mejails because they were said to have had the support of large sources of capital.”90 One of the rumours about Jorge Antonio alleged that he was a straw man or partner of Juan Duarte, Eva Perón’s brother. Antonio repeatedly denied this, clarifying that he had done Duarte only one favour, consisting in selling three automobiles at half the retail price to three friends of Duarte’s. He added that the cars were paid for by the government, which, he acknowledged, might have represented an instance of corruption.91 In Antonio’s version of the story, it was Eva Perón whom he first met, in 1946. He did not see her again until 1949, and met with her more regularly from 1951 on.92 Nor was it his friendship with Juan that won him an audience in Eva’s office, but rather, his prosperous business activity in the automobile sector:

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It happened at what was then the presidential residence … Eva went right to the point. After we greeted, she looked at me and said, “I have heard a lot about you, Antonio. People say that you are rich, that you know a lot, and that you have experience with cars. We need 2,500 new units as soon as possible for the taxi drivers’ union.” I tell her that this seems fine to me … “It’s not about what you think is possible or not, sir. It’s about finding those taxis and selling them to us at cost.”93 To ensure his rise, Antonio had to convince his reluctant partners that the domestic automobile market had potential. Darío Sarachaga, one of his friends from the military, now retired, aided him in this endeavour. Sarachaga was, with owner Roberto Noble, co-president of the newspaper Clarín.94 Antonio had had lunch with Noble on several occasions, and in 1950 he requested an in-person meeting with him. Once in Noble’s office, he asked that the owner publish a story “as visibly as possible” stating that, due to the Korean War, the United States might interrupt its automobile and machinery exports to Latin America and other places. Noble granted him this favour, publishing this story on the front page.95 About this, Jorge Antonio said, “This was not a real story, but it could be. In business, as in war, everything is possible when you are after a goal.”96 Because of the story, Antonio’s car dealership quickly sold all its vehicles from General Motors. Antonio imported vehicles from Mercedes-Benz and applied for this company to get the government contract for trolleybuses in 1951. In compensation for this, he negotiated that his commissions would be paid in the form of government investments for, and machinery installed in, a future truck manufacturing company that was to be MercedesBenz’s first in Argentina. This project also benefited from a US$5 million investment from François Dreyfus, the French trader of grains. For negotiations with the government, Antonio was summoned to the Casa Rosada. Various ministers awaited him, particularly Ramón J. Cereijo and Alfredo Gómez Morales, who opposed his project. Nevertheless, Perón was favourable to the project from his very first meeting with Antonio. As Antonio said in an interview, I recall that decisive moment in my life, as it was the start of a deep, loyal, and sincere friendship. I can say for certain … that no one ever impressed me in the way that Perón did. None of the kings, prime ministers, or presidents that I have met … The assurance that he showed in his movements, the aplomb in the way he spoke, the tone

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of intimate sincerity expressed in his words, and the considerable pleasantness that exuded from him made me feel instantly that I had before me an extraordinary man … He gave the impression of being taller than he was, which he was, according to our standards.97 Within the ambitious state-led project for development and modernization, Antonio won the contract for the trolleybuses that year, opened a factory to manufacture tractors, and began to manufacture parts for vehicles. He also travelled to Germany and arranged the visit of that country’s minister of economy, Ludwig Herhardt, who met with Perón at Antonio’s home along with businessmen and public servants from both countries. From that point on, Antonio functioned as an intermediary for a number of German firms to negotiate the opening of offices and plants in Argentina. These firms included Siemens, Krupp, Deutz, and Bosch. The growth of Jorge Antonio’s businesses was unstoppable. In 1952, when the government invited tenders for the management of broadcast networks that had previously been privately owned by the news agency Télam, Antonio’s business conglomerate acquired LR3 Radio Belgrano and Canal 7. To manage Canal 7, which its owner, Jaime Yankelevich, had sold back to the state,98 Antonio partnered with Víctor Madanes, a businessperson with close ties to the government.99 Antonio recalled, “I asked Madanes to find the best materials for us to program. He says: ‘Do you know what the problem is? That the best broadcasters are Jewish and anti-Peronist.’ I didn’t care, as long as they avoided conducting politics on tv , so we named Blackie and Cecilio Madanes.”100 But Antonio’s true aspiration was to import, assemble, and make televisions in Argentina. He first imported 50,000 units from the Standard Electric Company and signed agreements to open a factory in Argentina. His group came to own twenty-seven businesses operating in a range of sectors: transportation, forestry, livestock and grain, real estate, and media. At least one of these, Forja Argentina, had ties with the Air Force. In 1955, Antonio almost lost his life in a car accident. While he was hospitalized, Perón visited him, as well as various ministers and influential figures from the political scene and the Catholic Church, such as Antonio Caggiano and Monsignor D’Andrea.101 That year, he was invited to official inaugurations in which he stood alongside Perón, and owing to his direct contact with the minister of external trade, Antonio Cafiero, he played a central role in the international commercialization of Argentina’s linseed oil. Antonio maintained that by commercializing the totality of national production of linseed oil, he succeeded at

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protecting the commodity from a British move to lower its price. He added that he had nothing to gain from this, as he sold the oil back to the state. For this, he was congratulated by the president. In interviews, Antonio never denied the varied and multiple ties he had with political power. He did, however, emphasize the bureaucratic obstacles that he had to overcome, and he attributed his success to the organizational features of his business group and his personal skills: The truck manufacturing factory posed considerable difficulties because people opposed me at every turn … The entire economic team. Gómez Morales wasn’t the enemy, he let everyone go about their business. The enemy was Ramón Cereijo.102 I was an institution in the country and people knew that I had standing with Perón. But I had a reality, which was a fantastic industry that was coming into being in an overwhelming fashion. We built trucks, we built tractors, and Cafiero put up every possible obstacle. We had an export company and we won all the government calls for contracts, not because we were better, but because we were more skilled. We had a modern organization with very few employees; it flowed well.103 When asked why he was the only one who foresaw the potential of the automobile business in Argentina when there existed such a large unmet demand in the country, he explained that it was because “[people] were fearful. I don’t know what fear is.”104 Antonio’s version of himself contrasts with the context and analysis put forward by political historian Norberto Galasso. Galasso synthesized Antonio’s meteoric career, highlighting the magnitude of his achievements relative to his age. Indeed, at the age of twenty, he was an army nurse; at twenty-nine, he was working at the presidency’s Technical Secretariate; at thirty-one, manager of an automobile agency; at thirty-three, importer and agent for Mercedes-Benz; at thirty-five, president of Mercedes-Benz Argentina; at thirty-six, importer of 50,000 televisions; and at thirty-seven, millionaire and leader of a group that owned twenty-seven businesses. At thirty-eight, his properties were seized by the Aramburu administration. For Galasso, Low-interest loans during a period of inflation, as well as the growth of the internal market, and the protection against foreign manufactured goods, prompted in those ten years the consolidation and growth of new “national bourgeois” – such as José Ber Gelbard,

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Julio Broner, and César Cao Saravia. Closer to 1952–53, however, we see the emergence, very close to circles of power, of a new type of businessman, with a penchant for adventure, involved in various types of business – trade or import –, sometimes in partnership with the old agro-exporting country, or else taking advantage of state mechanisms such as the differential exchange rates. Jorge Antonio Chibene, Silvio Tricerri, and others corresponded to this new type. If the [businessmen] of 1945 provoked some doubts as to whether they could be characterized as a national bourgeoisie due to their lack of historical awareness, the latter, from 1953, were often disqualified from an ethical point of view.105 Upon recalling, years later, the phase prior to the ouster of Perón from power, Antonio said that he “lived it intensely because at that time I was a sort of minister without a portfolio. I was consulted on a lot of issues …”106 Indeed, during the failed June 1955 coup, Antonio was with the minister of communications, Oscar Nicolini, from whose office he saw how the Air Force bombarded the Plaza de Mayo: “The bombs fell on a trolleybus. I saw how the structure twisted, how the flames reduced it to a pile of steel.”107 The next day, he was among those who went to the Casa Rosada to greet Perón. For days, Antonio had heard multiple warnings about the imminent coup, but instead of accepting the escape offered to him and his family, he chose to warn Perón. Antonio was present when Perón told those closest to him that he had decided to leave the country and was among those invited by the president to follow him into exile. Antonio nevertheless remained in Argentina. Antonio rejected de facto president Lonardi’s offer to leave the country while Antonio was sheltered in the Uruguayan embassy. He also received the support of figures such as Arturo Frondizi, Roberto Noble, and Antonio Caggiano. In October 1955, he appeared before the courts to answer questions about his involvement in the previous government. His businesses had been taken over. When asked about an alleged “gift of cars,” he explained, “I have only donated units for social or humanitarian motives. If you don’t believe me, ask numerous Catholic bishops.”108 Those close to him offered to organize an escape, but he refused. He was finally sent to the Río Gallegos prison, alongside leading Peronist figures such as Alfredo Gómez Morales, Guillermo Patricio Kelly, Héctor Cámpora, and John William Cooke. He would escape by land in 1957 with various political prisoners. By that time, his properties had been confiscated. He first went to Chile and then to Venezuela, where he was reunited with Perón and met the former president’s third wife, Isabel.

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His time in prison, he claimed, marked a turn in his support of Peronism: “I began to be rabidly Peronist on 6 January 1956, when I arrived at the Ushuaia prison. [Prior to that] I was not Peronist, nor anti-Peronist. Perón was the symbol of a new country with extraordinary ideas that allowed me to continue to be a Christian, respect the Church, go to church. This separated me from Communism.”109 He spent two months in Caracas, and his offices were also Perón’s headquarters. According to Antonio, the former president lived in the most modest manner, in a two-bedroom home with the major-domo, Pablo Vicente, sleeping in the dining room. President Marcos Pérez Giménez made it known that the general’s modesty irritated the local military, as it further exposed their own sumptuousness. In that context, Antonio spoke to Perón about moving and received the following answer from Isabel: “We are tired of living here. We can’t afford rent anywhere else, let alone purchase a decent house.” Antonio secured a house for them, the former residence of a diplomat, but after the Peróns moved in, the change of government in Venezuela pushed them to move to the Dominican Republic. Years later, in Spain, Antonio also arranged their arrival and searched for a home for the general, first in Torremolinos, then in el Plantío, and finally in Madrid.110 Antonio was close to Perón when the exiled politician resided in Puerta de Hierro – his final residence in Spain – and contributed to financing the electoral campaigns of Peronist candidates such as Andrés Framini. In 1964 he asked Perón to meet with a compatriot of his, future president Carlos Menem, whom he introduced as “a young man from La Rioja, [who is] interesting.”111 That same year, he was at Perón’s side in his failed attempt to return to Argentina.112 Years later, he said that in exile “[I] faced a lot of pressures because people thought that I had greater influence on Perón than I actually did.”113 His relationship with López Rega – by then, Perón’s right-hand man – was poor, and Perón “had to dodge the watchful eyes all around to meet up for coffee with Jorge Antonio. That same ‘turco’ who had met him at a time when Isabel and Lopecito didn’t dream of Peronism.”114 Antonio was expulsed from Spain in the mid-1960s and then settled in Asunción, Paraguay, a block away from the residence of General Stroessner. In one-on-one conversations, the general guaranteed Antonio that he would not be extradited to Argentina. Perón’s supporters came to visit him. Antonio recalled, “Peronists come from Argentina all the way to this home. They come to visit me, to chat, to seek orientation.”115 Guests included Isabel Perón, who stayed at his house for two months. Antonio was a regular intermediary between Perón and these supporters.

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Throughout his life, his Arab identity, and that of many of his contacts, played a noteworthy role that Antonio acknowledged. He stated that he was a friend of King Faisal and of Brazilian businessman João Saad. During the late 1960s, he mediated between Perón and Syrian businesspeople about possible investments in Argentina.116 When asked about his role in agreements between Argentina and various Arab nations, Antonio said, “Jorge Antonio, as you know, enjoys a degree of respect among the moderates of the Arab world.”117 When he relaunched the weekly magazine Primera Plana, he named Raúl Jassen as its director – Jassen had penned the first biography of Nasser in Spanish and had been editor of the magazine Nación Árabe, founded by Hussein Triki, the leader of the Arab League in Latin America.118 During the 1980s and before Menem became president, Antonio said, “I am united with Menem by the ties created by blood.”119 When, despite López Rega’s opposition, Antonio secured a meeting between Menem and Perón, Antonio said that he would “meet with him, first, because he is a Peronist, and second, because he is the son of Arabs, as I am.”120

4 From Opening Railroad Stores to Running the Province: Arab Immigrants and the Peronization of Tucumán

Asper (meaning “spirit”) Shehade was born in the village of Kusba Al Kurah in northern Lebanon, and in 1901 he immigrated to Argentina with his wife and son. The Shehade family arrived at the village of Buena Vista in the province of Tucumán, where his older brother Miguel Salazar was living and working as a wholesale retailer. After settling in the city, Asper Shehade joined his brother’s business, right by the railroad tracks. As a result of their success in business, the Salazar-Shehade brothers decided to open a new branch in the capital of the northern province, which would be managed by their younger brother and his spouse, María Juri. The brothers also purchased a property in the La Cocha area that they named “Monte Líbano” as a tribute to their country of origin. The Shehade-Jurises had nine children, some of whom continued to work in the family business; the rest forged paths in other fields such as medicine, occupying important positions in local hospitals.1 Chichila Obeid’s parents were born in the 1870s in the area of Hama, Syria. Her father came to Argentina at the age of fourteen, fleeing the compulsory military service imposed by the Ottoman Empire. He first settled in Santiago del Estero, where he met the woman who would become his wife. Many paisanos from his faraway homeland lived in that city. After many years, the couple and their two children moved to Famaillá in the neighbouring province of Tucumán, which also had an important Arab presence. There, Chichila’s father opened a general store across from the town’s main square. Most of her brothers only completed primary school, and so they worked in the family business. The younger brothers, in contrast, did obtain a university degree. Chichila’s father wove social ties with newly arrived Arab immigrants, whom he often invited to his home to enjoy meals from their homeland. Chichila married and became a housewife, but she was active in

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the Sociedad Árabe, the social space where Arab-Argentines gathered during the 1950s and 1960s.2 The trajectories of the Shehade-Salazar and Obeid families are representative of the immigration process and social integration of broad sectors of Tucumán’s Arab population. Chain migration was common, as Argentina, and especially Tucumán, were chosen as destinations because a relative had previously settled in the province. New immigrants worked as peddlers or shopkeepers until they had accumulated some capital that they could multiply. Some of their offspring continued in trade whereas others pursued a university education. It should be underscored that, as second-generation Arab immigrants participated actively in the various local ethnic organizations, their becoming Argentine did not occur at the expense of their Arab identity. The largest wave of immigration into Tucumán occurred between 1906 and 1914 with the arrival of approximately 34,000 persons. In 1914, only 1.3 per cent of immigrants to Argentina settled in Tucumán, which was, at the time, the sixth-preferred province among immigrants. Nevertheless, immigrants from the Middle East were the third-largest group to settle in the province (13 per cent), after Spanish (50 per cent) and Italian (24 per cent) immigrants. Around two-thirds of immigrants settled in urban areas, particularly San Miguel de Tucumán, the province’s capital. The decade 1885–95 saw the arrival of the first Arab immigrants in Tucumán. Many of them were young, middle-class men who had a university education and sufficient capital to take on the costs associated with immigration.3 Most of them came from the area of Mount Lebanon and were Maronite Christians. Syrian immigrants began to arrive in Tucumán in 1904, from the departments of Homs and Hama; they were mostly Orthodox Christians, with an Alawite minority. As with other groups, this large migratory wave continued until 1914–15, tripling the population of Arab origin in the province. Another, smaller migratory wave from the Middle East occurred between 1920 and 1930, following the end of the First World War and continuing until the international economic crisis.4 To understand the central role of Tucumán in Arabs’ process of immigrating to Argentina, it is important to consider that in 1914 Tucumán had the second-largest Syrian-Lebanese community in the country after Buenos Aires. Forty years later, in 1954, the Lebanese government acknowledged this sizable population when it opened a consulate in Tucumán’s capital to meet this community’s needs. The religious composition of Arab immigrants in Tucumán at the time was similar to that of

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the first waves, as the Maronites were the majority among the Lebanese and there was also an Orthodox minority. Syrian immigrants were typically Orthodox, with Alawite and Maronite minorities.5 Despite the Christian majority among immigrants from the Middle East, as early as 1947 Tucumán had become the province with the largest Muslim population in Argentina. By then, new Arab immigrants to the province did not just come from the Middle East, they also moved from the neighbouring provinces.6 As mentioned in the first chapter, chain migration was the main model for settlement among Arabs. A veteran immigrant offered assistance to the newcomers in all matters related to learning Spanish and finding housing or work. This help also included loans to establish a business. Another form of financial assistance consisted in giving products to new immigrants that they could sell in the province’s hinterland. It is through this type of activity that most immigrants, during their initial years of settlement in Argentina, first worked as peddlers along the railway lines in the province and settled around those areas.7 The first migratory strategy was to settle in an area where other members of the community lived. In San Miguel de Tucumán, Arab immigrants and their descendants lived in the city’s centre and surrounding area. According to Tucumán historian Liliana Asfoura, this strategy enabled them to develop a sense of belonging that then facilitated their successful integration in the new environment while maintaining their ethnic identity.8 Another distinctive feature of Arab immigrants’ settlement was that, in cities, the residence and place of business were housed on the same property. Arabs who conducted business in rural areas, however, usually lived in a nearby city.9 The city of Bella Vista, where Arabs were the second-largest immigrant population, is one such example of settlement in the province’s interior. Upon settling in the city, these newcomers began to open stores near the train station and the Bella Vista sugar refinery. Although a significant number of Arab immigrants settled in rural areas, such as Cruz Alta (15 per cent), Río Chico (15 per cent), Monteros (12 per cent), or Famaillá (11 per cent), they were most numerous in the department of San Miguel de Tucumán (48 per cent).10 These Arab immigrants did not succeed at creating an organization that gathered all the components of the community. Efforts toward this could not overcome, among others, individual antagonisms between powerful businessmen. Due to this, the community’s elite fractured and created different institutions representing either creed/faith or regional affiliation. One of the first Arab institutions in Tucumán was the Sociedad Al Nahdat Al Adabiat (Society of Literary Revival), created in 1914 by immigrants

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from the Syrian village of Rabah. In 1924 the society opened a school to teach Arabic language and culture, but it remained open for only a few years. In 1925, the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de Tucumán (Syrian-Lebanese Association of Tucumán) was created with the aim of uniting Syrians and Lebanese, organizing social events, and representing its members in interactions with government institutions in the province. Due to the local Arab community’s diverging positions on the French mandate in Lebanon – another example of diasporic identities and transnational ties – part of the Lebanese-Argentine elite split from the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de Tucumán in 1937 to found the Asociación Libanesa de Socorros Mutuos (Lebanese Mutual Aid Association); its primary goal was to support Lebanon’s independence from the French mandate. Muslim immigrants, most of whom had come from Syria, created the Asociación Cultural Panislámica (Pan-Islamic Cultural Association) to provide religious services, including a place to gather for prayer and education. This institution was also responsible for the Muslim cemetery – the only one in the area – in the neighbouring city of Yerba Buena.11 Like other ethnic groups in Argentina, Arab immigrants in Tucumán were targeted with pejorative stereotypes. The local press sometimes depicted Arab immigrants settled in the northern province as strangers with a foreign accent interested only in generating capital. Tucumán’s media also overrepresented Arabs in all matters related to penal crimes. In 1911, for example, Syrian immigrants were accused of perpetrating a great fraud. The alleged crime was widely covered in the press, forcing Arab immigrants to defend themselves by launching a public campaign to “clean up” their tarnished image.12 Arab-Argentines were arrested time and again, often due to misunderstandings stemming from their lack of knowledge of Spanish. Racial stereotypes waned as these immigrants further integrated into Argentine society and empathy toward them grew.13 As Arab-Argentines gained economic power and strengthened their ties with the local population, they were less frequently alienated by locals. Social integration was evident in the simultaneous participation of Arab-Argentines in Tucumán’s institutions and in ethnic community institutions, as exemplified by the story of Musa Melhem. Melhem immigrated to the province of Mendoza in 1906 and, six months later, decided to settle in Tucumán, while working in businesses in the cities of Concepción and San Miguel de Tucumán. He managed his economic activity through the Banco Sirio Libanés and split his social duties between the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa and the Biblioteca Alberdi in the province’s capital; the library served mostly workers and youth.

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Another such example is that of Alberto Saad, who studied pharmacy at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán and then opened a business located on Maipú street in the city’s core. Alongside his membership in the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa, Saad would also be welcomed as a member in various elite institutions in the city, such as the Lawn Tennis Club, the Atlético Tucumán, and other cultural organizations. These examples demonstrate that, in the 1940s, racial stereotypes did not prevent the active participation of Arab-Argentines in different cultural and sports institutions in the province, alongside activities in their community’s organizations. The most salient feature of this group of immigrants was their rapid economic development and increasing influence on trade in their local milieu. Immigrants from the Middle East to the city of Bella Vista and its surroundings exemplified this pattern. During the first years, they made a living as peddlers in rural areas. After having succeeded at accumulating some capital, they began to open businesses near the train station, which had significant commuter traffic because of its proximity to the Bella Vista sugar refinery. Typically, workers coming from Santiago del Estero and Catamarca to Tucumán got off the train at the Bella Vista station, and before heading to the harvest, they purchased necessary provisions in the shops of Arab immigrants, which the workers preferred because the shopkeepers offered flexible conditions for payment. The economic development of Arab immigrants in the capital of Tucumán occurred similarly to that in rural areas. The main difference was that, once Arab immigrants in San Miguel de Tucumán had amassed sufficient capital, they became involved in importing and wholesale trade.14 The following statistics illustrate the rapidity of Arab immigrants’ economic development in the province’s capital: in 1913, they owned 13 per cent of the businesses; between 1920 and 1924, they owned 29.62 per cent; and by the late 1930s, that number had risen to 82 per cent.15 The economic importance of this community stemmed not so much from the value of its assets – relatively small next to those of other ethnic groups – as it did from the value of its merchandise, which was greater than that of its properties.16 This economic activity is at the root of the growth of an elite of Arab business owners in the province’s capital. They settled and opened shops all along Maipú street, turning this strip into the heart of the city’s Arab community. Despite the economic success of some Arab-Argentines, there was, within the community, a group that did not enjoy strong social ties and was more vulnerable to the winds of the local economy and dependent upon the sugar industry. Although it is commonly thought that the vast

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majority of Arab immigrants and their offspring worked in commerce, in fact only a little over half of Tucumán’s Arab-Argentines worked in that sector. Others worked in a variety of areas, such as agriculture, education, law, medicine, and other professions.17 The economic integration of Argentines of Arab origin in the province of Tucumán is exemplified by the stories of the Fiad and Fara families. Jorge Fiad immigrated to Tucumán from Beirut in 1898 and began working as a salesperson in the town of Bella Vista. Between 1902 and 1913, three of Jorge’s brothers immigrated and joined his business. In 1912, the brothers jointly purchased a parcel of land in the area of Pala Pala to grow sugar cane and corn, while continuing their business activities in Bella Vista. Later, they would open a branch of their business in the train station at Pala Pala. Their capital grew, and the Fiad Brothers’ company developed into one of the largest in the department of Leales, becoming the main provider of bread, beer, foodstuffs, and gas in the area. The Fiad brothers also owned a hair salon, a pharmacy, and a power station. In 1938, they opened a school named República del Líbano (Republic of Lebanon) in tribute to their native country. In acknowledgment of this Arab family’s contribution to the area, Pala Pala was renamed Villa Fiad.18 Once again, the Fiad family’s story illustrates the most typical pattern of settlement among Arab immigrants in the province’s interior. The brothers started out in sales, and once they had accumulated sufficient capital, they expanded to other, more profitable types of economic activity, such as agriculture. Chain migration was decisive in this case, as Jorge arrived first, followed by three brothers, and their cooperation enabled the business to grow. Alongside this economic activity, the brothers had social commitments that increased their influence, in that in order to attract agricultural labourers, the Fiad brothers had to provide them with basic services such as medicine, meals and food, electricity, and education. In this way, their economic activity wove a social network, as the group of immigrants provided work and services to local residents. This is how Arab settlers became powerful elites in these areas. The second example is that of Juan Fara, who was born in the Lebanese village of Amioun and arrived in Tucumán in 1891. Fara began his economic activity in sales (a general store) in the city of Villa Quinteros, in the province’s southern area. He then began to sell tobacco, as well as seeds and tools for planting and harvesting tobacco. Over time, Fara became one of the main exporters of tobacco in the area. In parallel to his commercial activity, Fara purchased land to plant and harvest sugar cane, and he became, through the Ingenio Juan Fara (Juan Fara

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Refinery), one of the most important sugar cane traders in the province’s southern area.19 Similar to the story of the Fiad brothers, Fara’s trajectory brings to light interactions with the local population, particularly with rural workers who would become the base of his social capital beyond the local Arab community. A growing number of Arab-Argentines born in Argentina obtained university degrees and were employed in fields corresponding to these degrees. The most typical pattern of professional integration among Tucumán’s Arab families was that the eldest brother inherited the management of the family business and the younger siblings pursued a university education. Higher education was a tool in combatting the stereotypical image of the turco peddler as someone interested only in generating capital.20 Elías Jorge was an example of the professional integration of the Arab-Argentines of Tucumán. Jorge graduated from the Colegio de Comercio in 1939 and pursued a graduate degree in accounting from the same institution. He then continued his studies at the Universidad Nacional Eva Perón, where in 1952 he obtained his PhD in economic sciences. He went on to teach at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán and Colegio de Comercio, both in the province’s capital city. Arab-Argentine intellectuals in Tucumán founded ethnic presses in Argentina that expressed the community’s voice. Tucumán’s El Eco de Oriente took on precisely that function under the direction of Nagib Baaclini. Prior to this newspaper, the first Arab community publication in the province was, it seems, Al Fatah Suriya (The Young Syria), launched to mark the adoption of the Ottoman constitution of 1913. This newspaper, founded by Baaclini together with Elías Turbay and Simón Hamati, would only run for a year. After the newspaper folded, Baaclini founded El Comercio (Commerce), targeting Tucumán’s business owners as a potential audience.21 Baaclini was a central figure in Tucumán’s ethnic press and, more broadly, in the province’s printed press. He was born in 1882 in the Lebanese village of Zahle and began to study in the Jesuit Saint-Joseph University of Beirut. He was seventeen when he emigrated and settled in the city of San Fernando in the Catamarca Valley, where he developed close ties with political personalities and writers such as Adán Quiroga and Joaquín V. González. After a few years, he moved to Tucumán and in October 1917 founded the first bilingual (Arabic-Spanish) newspaper in Latin America, El Eco de Oriente, with the aim of reconfiguring the Arab community and strengthening its connection with local society. It is also noteworthy that the newspaper was distributed in all of the northern provinces and in Buenos Aires.

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Prominent journalists and writers of Arab heritage in Tucumán were regular contributors to El Eco de Oriente. Jorge Sawaya was one of these figures. He had also graduated from the University of Saint Joseph, with a degree in medicine, at the age of eighteen. After residing in Argentina, Sawaya moved to the United States where he got his degree validated by Harvard University and subsequently by the Universidad de Buenos Aires. In 1936 he decided to settle in Tucumán, and alongside his work as a doctor, he wrote for El Eco de Oriente. Another contributor, Pedro Nacif Estofan, was born in Tucumán but studied in Beirut, with the aim of returning to his country of birth to write for Arabic- and Spanishlanguage newspapers. In addition to working as a journalist, Estofan was employed as an official Arabic-language translator for Tucumán’s Supreme Court. The literary and journalistic activity flourishing around El Eco de Oriente spurred the opening of a cultural centre in the city of Tucumán, the Ateneo Khalil Gibran, where most of the local Arab-Argentine writers gathered and were joined by other Argentine authors. Beyond the central role of this newspaper and its writers for the province and the country’s Arab community, all of Tucumán’s society recognized the importance of this outlet. To complete the picture of Arab-Argentines’ printed press in Tucumán, it should be noted that other such outlets appeared in the 1920s, making that decade the peak period for the community’s ethnic printed press.22 Many Arab-Argentine intellectuals in Tucumán and Buenos Aires worked in commerce alongside their literary activities. Such was the case of José Guraieb, who, in addition to his business activities, was a writer and translator, or Antonio Eleas, who arrived in Tucumán in 1908 and sold sugar until he was able to dedicate himself to literary writing. They were among the intellectuals who saw themselves, in particular, as participants in political discussions of their land of origin. The First World War and the decline of the Ottoman Empire generated a space that enabled them to publish newspapers or to write articles in which they disseminated the nationalist narratives of their native countries. In so doing, these intellectuals earned a place in the Arab world’s “Republic of Letters.” The common imaginary space composed of their homelands and their host country made these immigrants feel that they were participants in the fate of their countries of origin and that they had the possibility of fashioning a new identity based on place and community in the land that had welcomed them, Argentina. In spite of this, politics around the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, as well as the nationalist awakening in the Middle East, caused fractures among Tucumán’s

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Arab cultural elites, which, as mentioned earlier, determined the creation of separate institutions, each reflecting an ideological stance.

b e t w e e n t h e c ru ci fi x and t h e s u g a r c a n e p lantati ons The birth and consolidation of Peronism in Tucumán were closely tied to the growth of unions representing sugar cane plantation workers. Historians of Peronism in this province have accordingly focused on that sector, and on the role of Catholic public servants in the development of these trade unions, as well as on the relations between the Catholic Church and Peronism and between the local university and the state. Various topics pertaining to Peronism in Tucumán therefore have yet to be studied in depth, such as the role of sugar cane plantation owners, the political participation of women and merchants, and the role of various ethnic groups, such as Arab-Argentines, in the workers’ movement.23 The crisis of liberalism after the First World War, heightened during the 1930s, prompted a flourishing of alternative political projects that sought to compete with liberalism and, more precisely, to redesign Argentine society. Catholicism played a central role in this context, making efforts to strengthen the influence of the Church in all areas of the nation’s public life.24 The Church portrayed itself as an alternative to liberalism and communism, digging into the cultural heritage of integralist Catholicism.25 The Church’s rhetoric manifested a nationalist ideology that praised militarism, Hispanic identity, and anti-capitalism, as well as anti-communism. Catholic activists in Argentina saw the June 1943 coup as an opportunity to increase their presence and visibility, and to disseminate the Church’s ideas, goals that were to be achieved through the incorporation of Catholic activists in key positions within the new government. As the military government and the Church grew closer, the boundaries between religion and politics became blurry. Both institutions were most in agreement when it came to education. This led to the decree, sponsored by minister of education and nationalist intellectual Gustavo Martínez Zuviría (better known outside of Argentina by his pseudonym Hugo Wast), to make religious education mandatory in public schools. After the 1943 coup, the Catholic Church exercised influence on the political and social life of Tucumán through the Church’s integration into the workers’ movement.26 This consolidated a gradual process begun at the start of the twentieth century with the formation of the first unions. Although the Catholic Church typically had little influence

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on unions, which tended to be linked to leftist organizations, this situation changed from June 1943 on, when activists of Tucuman’s Acción Católica (Catholic Action), such as Carlos Aguilar, were appointed to key government posts. Aguilar became the regional representative of the Secretariat of Labour and Welfare, headed by Perón at the time. A nationalist militant who identified with the Church’s social doctrine, Aguilar played a central role in the creation of the Federación Obrera Tucumana de la Industria Azucarera (fotia ; Tucumán Sugar Industry Workers’ Federation) in 1944. His involvement in both spheres attests to the closeness between religion and politics in Tucumán during the de facto government that took power in 1943. The military government – and especially Colonel Perón – deemed that workers’ unions could be potential allies and accordingly encouraged massive unionization, instilling a stronger national sentiment in the working class. The Catholic establishment of Tucumán adopted this stance via the leadership of some clergymen who aspired to play a greater role in the organization of society through trade unions. The fotia played a central role in the creation of the Partido Laborista (Labour Party) – a central piece in the Peronist coalition – in Tucumán, with its candidate for governor winning over 70 per cent of votes in the elections. In this context, the key figures in the province’s Church voiced concerns about all matters related to the government’s social policy aimed at benefiting workers. In spite of this, by 1945, some Catholic activists, who supported the government and its officials, were in public office. In Tucumán, the subsequent confrontation between Perón and the Catholic Church would not have the same magnitude as it did in Buenos Aires. The Church supported Peronism, especially its more conservative and Catholic currents. Catholic militants in Tucumán continued to support the movement in this province until Perón was ousted in 1955.27 In 1946, Major Carlos Domínguez was elected governor of Tucumán as a candidate for the Partido Laborista thanks to the support of the fotia. He became one of the most prominent political actors of the period. Domínguez was a member of the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos (gou ; Group of United Officers) involved in the 1943 military coup, after which he was named general secretary of the Tucumán administration, reaching the peak of the provincial bureaucracy three years later. Soon after reaching power, the Partido Laborista was ousted from Peronism due to its independent policies. In 1950, new elections were held in which Domínguez lost to the Peronist candidate Pedro Fernando de Riera. The latter’s mandate lasted only two years due to the decision to henceforth hold these elections simultaneously with the national

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elections. In 1952, Peronist candidate Luis Cruz, a socialist and longtime labour activist, was elected to the post and remained there until the federal intervention of March 1955 that continued until the military coup that ousted Perón in September of that year.28 At first glance it appears that the Peronist decade was one of political stability in the governorship. An in-depth examination, however, reveals that the relations between the Peronist Party and the sugar industry workers’ unions underwent upheavals that included power struggles between the unions and the leaders of the movement, who followed the president’s lead. These conflicts caused the Peronist leadership in Buenos Aires to strip the leaders of the Peronist Party and the sugar industry union (members of Confederación General del Trabajo; cgt , Trade Unions Confederation) in Tucumán of their posts. While Perón needed the workers’ support to legitimate his political power, the workers needed Perón in power to uphold the social and economic changes that he championed. Peronism recognized the power of the sugar industry workers and, in so doing, made them feel that they were a part of society. From Perón’s electoral victory, the sugar industry unions’ leaders assumed that they were a pillar in the edification of Peronism in the province. To them, Peronism represented change, and as early as October 1945, workers thought that they could turn the fotia into a symbol of Justicialism in Tucumán. In line with this goal, the workers’ union controlled local Peronism from the latter’s inception, exhibiting a variety of powers, for example, in the election of representatives. The fotia became stronger than unions in other sectors, with an eye to gaining political power. Not a few of Perón’s sympathizers resented the hegemony of sugar industry unions. Sugar cane workers would consolidate their exclusive role within the political movement until the great strike of 1949. Between 1946 and 1949, the fotia supported all the Peronist candidates to the national and provincial legislative elections, which ensured their electoral victory while preventing other organizations from gaining power within Peronism.29 This achievement, compounded with the weakness of the ucr ’s Junta Renovadora and the overwhelming victory of Peronism in Tucumán, strengthened the power of the sugar industry’s leadership. These union leaders repeatedly opposed the candidacies of prominent Peronist politicians who were not within their fold, such as Governor Carlos Domínguez and national senators Fernando de Lázaro and Luis Cruz. The fotia ’s control of the Peronist Party put it at odds with other political forces within the Peronist movement. One of these was the

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ucr’s Junta Renovadora. It took Perón’s personal intervention for Peronist candidates who were not promoted by the sugar industry union to win an election; in particular, Perón instructed the fotia to support Carlos Domínguez. Until 1949, Perón was the only one capable of restraining the party’s autonomy in the northern province. His charisma and political weight allowed him to oppose the fotia . The hegemony of the sugar industry workers was questioned in 1948, when various tendencies within Peronism called upon the provincial branch of the party to acknowledge the value of several leaders from other sectors of Tucumán’s society. In the elections held that year, a province-wide workers’ front known as Frente Obrero Peronista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Front of Peronist Workers) presented candidates who were not necessarily party members, in criticism of the methods used to ensure that Peronist representatives were elected. The front was protesting the party’s lack of internal democracy and won the support of all Peronist provincial senators. In response to this movement, the provisional executive committee of Tucumán’s Peronist Party decided to expel the rebel senators who had formed the front. The pre-electoral process was fraught with accusations of fraud and irregularities, due to which the headquarters of the Peronist Party in Buenos Aires intervened in the party’s Tucumán branch. National congressman Alcides Montiel was dispatched to the province, tasked with uniting the different tendencies. Montiel’s mission failed, and the fotia would once again see its candidates elected to posts in the national parliament. The 1948 elections strengthened the fotia in the political field. fotia ’s members legitimated their rejection of local public servants who were not part of the union by alluding to the support of the 1943 military government in the union’s inception, as well as the union’s participation in the creation of the Partido Laborista. This attitude blurred the boundaries between syndicalist and political activities, which, in turn, spurred tensions between the fotia and Perón. The union leaders had contributed to the consolidation of Peronism in Tucumán, but by 1949, their protagonism would bring about federal intervention in the fotia .30 In 1949, sugar industry workers understood that their socioeconomic situation was not commensurate to their political power. They accordingly undertook the struggle to improve their quality of life by resorting to strikes. Perón saw the strikes as an opportunity to intervene in Tucumán’s Peronist Party and reorganize it. In so doing, the populist leader wanted to demonstrate to the union’s leaders that their aspirations to power had limits. To that end, the president reiterated arguments used in 1946, accusing the union of saturating public spaces and

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emphasizing the need for a restructuring of the union that would place it under the control of the state. In late 1949, the Peronist movement centralized the concentration of power. Various factors determined that process, such as the place of workers within the party’s structure, the national polarization of politics, and Perón’s increased power once a new constitution came into effect. The movement ousted many Peronist leaders dating from its formative phase and replaced them with people who did not have their own supporters and owed everything to the top leader. In all matters related to Peronism in Tucumán, the Consejo Superior Peronista (csp ; Peronist Superior Council) took on a central position in restoring the party’s internal equilibrium and in taking a firm stance toward fotia ’s leadership. When seven members of the csp resigned in March 1949 due to an internal power struggle, a new administrator was dispatched to oversee the Peronist Party in Tucumán. Benito Ottonelo attempted to ensure that the csp ’s decisions were obeyed, emphasizing that obedience amounted to loyalty to Perón, because the csp represented the wishes of the leader. Unlike in previous elections, in 1950 the csp selected the Peronist candidates, which put an end to the disciplinary process targeting the party’s branch in Tucumán. This brought out the authoritarian dimension of Peronist populism. The province’s Peronist Party lost its autonomy at the hands of the csp , and as a result, the power of the union movement declined. Henceforth, spaces for dialogue within the party narrowed, as did the diversity of points of view. Any objection to a Peronist measure was deemed to be antigovernmental. Within this context, Fernando Riera and Arturo del Río were named candidates for governorship of Tucumán in the 1950 elections. Neither was a union member, and both were named by the party. They were linked to the intervention, represented loyalty to Perón, and symbolized the centralization of the Peronist Party’s power in that province. Although unions had been marginalized from positions of power, in the 1950 elections Tucumán’s workers demonstrated that they were still loyal to Perón and that they were willing to accept the party leader’s rejection of key union figures, without this diminishing these workers’ political identity. Provincial elections for governor were held again in 1951 because of the new 1949 national constitution. The csp presented a ticket that included workers in an effort to strengthen its support among the working class, particularly in sectors other than the sugar industry. The two candidates were Luis Cruz, the leader of the railroad workers’ union, and the former socialist Vicente Míguez, also a worker and the leader of the state employees’ union. They were

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respectively elected governor and vice-governor with the support of the local cgt and the fotia . The 1954 elections confirmed the political hegemony of Peronism in Tucumán. From that point until Perón’s overthrow in September 1955, the Peronist Party in Tucumán acted as an arm of the national state. Successive federal interventions shaped the political field in Tucumán during those years, as did the federal interventions in the cgt and the fotia . Despite the sugar plant owners’ oppositional rhetoric, they accepted the rules of the Peronist game, eager to secure benefits from the state in the form of low-interest loans, subsidies, and increases in the price of sugar cane. When, in 1949, workers began to demand higher salaries, the plant owners did not oppose this, so long as meeting these demands did not cause them to lose profit.31 The sugar industrialists showed flexibility in this regard because they understood that the Peronist campaign did not harbour revolutionary ideologies, but rather, a reformist brand of populism, and that Perón did not threaten at any point private property in general or their interests in particular.32 The political style of sugar cane industrialists was nevertheless premised on direct negotiation with the government in Buenos Aires about topics related to their sector. The government did not reject the industrialists’ demands and championed a policy of distribution, while maintaining control of the limits of social struggle. In his visit to Tucumán in late 1945, Perón expressed the desire to control unions, as he was seeking to appease industrialists and prevent their estrangement from the movement. To that end, industrialists had to acknowledge Perón as their representative and as capable of handling social conflict thanks to his position as intermediary between the various sectors of the economy. In fact, the Peronist government did not threaten the interests of sugar industrialists, who formed part of Tucumán’s elite; instead, Perón presented himself as the main mediator between the various sectors of society, with the ultimate aim of preserving equilibrium and social control.

be t w e e n t h e e t h n ic c l u b and the party cell Although Arab-Argentines began to engage in Tucumán’s politics during the 1930s through the Unión Cívica Radical (ucr ; Radical Civil Union), it took one more decade and the emergence of Peronism for them to massively participate in politics and attain positions of power in the provincial government. During the 1930s, Syrians and Lebanese immigrants supported the ucr , as the party represented the middle sectors of society and various immigrant groups. To win the support of Tucumán’s Arab

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community, ucr leaders frequently expressed in public their esteem for this community. Such statements, and the ucr ’s hegemony in Tucumán, ensured that it was the principal political home of Arab-Argentines. Until the mid-1940s, this ethnic group’s political activity can be identified in specific sectors of Tucumán’s civic life, especially in the provincial and national legislative branches where they attained positions through the ucr. With the emergence of Peronism, Arab-Argentines became involved in other spheres of Tucumán’s public life as well. Although the sugar industry unions controlled Tucumán’s Peronist Party, many Arab-Argentines who were not members of those unions attained key positions in the Peronist Party and in the province’s legislature and bureaucracy. El Eco de Oriente, the Arab-Argentine community’s main media outlet in the province of Tucumán, publicly expressed its support for the charismatic leader, his social and economic plan, and his foreign policy.33 These stances were expressed, for example, in advertisements and editorials supporting the 1949 constitutional reform. Nagib Baaclini, the newspaper’s editor, authored several of these editorials, explaining to readers the benefits of the new national constitution and identifying with the Peronist values that the constitution put forth. To strengthen these arguments, Baaclini quoted a speech by his son, Ernesto, who was city councillor at San Miguel de Tucumán’s city hall.34 A similar pattern emerged in the newspaper’s coverage of the 1948 and 1951 provincial elections. Baaclini sought to stimulate among the Arab-Argentine community support for Peronist politics. Aside from this particular newspaper, however, it seems that ArabArgentine community institutions in Tucumán were more careful in defining their stances between 1946 and 1948. Like the Jewish community organization daia , Arab-Argentine community organizations initially attempted to stay out of party politics so as to ensure their autonomy and survival. It was imperative for them to remain independent from specific governments within the framework of a society that was polarized along political lines. Nevertheless, the members of these ethnic communities were increasingly turning to Peronism and supporting it. Tucumán’s Arab-Argentine community, as well as El Eco de Oriente, widely supported the Second Five-Year Plan. This economic policy created new social and economic opportunities for Arab-Argentines, thus furthering their integration. In an editorial titled “La colectividad siriolibanesa y el plan” (The Syrian-Lebanese community and the plan), Nagib Baaclini sought to persuade Arab-Argentines that this ethnic community could increase its power by supporting the proposed plan:

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The government’s five-year plan has also contemplated the basic concerns of the communities that live on our soil, the goals it defines are oriented toward the growth of immigration so as to facilitate the arrival to the country of people of other ethnic groups who are capable and useful to the economy. We consider that the community of Syrian-Lebanese residents in our province is well prepared to support and orient the initiatives specified throughout the plan and to direct an action that can benefit the dissemination and knowledge of this plan.35 Beyond that, active participation in the government’s economic policy was a step in the integration of Arab-Argentines in local society and a gesture of loyalty toward the president. Community institutions such as the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de Tucumán echoed this position. To express its support of the plan, the organization hosted an event inviting all of Tucumán’s Arab-Argentines. Participants included political figures such as minister of government Luis Elizalde, and Antonio Musi, who represented the Peronist Party and was secretary of the community institution. Speeches were made by Jorge Elías, an economics professor at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán and the government-appointed interventor (controller or inspector), and Ernesto Baaclini, the son of Nagib Baaclini. From the coverage of the event in El Eco de Oriente, we know that the flags of Argentina, Lebanon, and Syria were raised simultaneously, as were the images of Eva and Juan Perón.36 These visual details, in addition to the participation of Peronist public figures, demonstrate that local and national politics had found their way into the frame of the ethnic community, which had until that point been perceived as closed off from external political influences. During previous administrations, these institutions attempted to demonstrate their neutrality in the political arena. This event brings to light how the line between the ethnic community’s activities and party politics had become flexible and open to negotiation. Alongside Arab-Argentines’ varied shows of support for the Peronist government, the community also forged ties with central figures in the provincial and municipal governments, such as governors or mayors. It is important to note that these relations were reciprocal; on the one hand, Peronist politicians were responsive toward the community members’ requests, and on the other hand, the politicians promoted this contact with the ethnic community. In the provincial capital, for example, Mayor Luis Taglioretti and Julio Storni, president of City Council, fostered close ties with Arab-Argentines. Seeking to maintain the warm

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relations with his city’s ethnic community, the mayor participated in various local events, such as a gala held to honour Arab-Argentine professionals.37 In a similar vein, he invited community leaders to events organized in the municipality of Tucumán, including the mass to honour the capital city’s patron saint. As part of his official activities, the mayor visited, together with Ernesto Baaclini, the offices of the Diario SirioLibanés in Buenos Aires. During that visit, Taglioretti also met with the Lebanese ambassador to Argentina and invited him to the inauguration of the streets named “Líbano” and “Siria” in San Miguel de Tucumán.38 Julio Storni, who was also director of the Institute of Ethnology at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, expressed his personal appreciation for Arab culture by touring Lebanon and Syria.39 Storni also took part in social events organized by Tucumán’s Arab-Argentine community, such as the celebration of the anniversary of the departure of French colonial forces from Syria.40 Storni’s warm relations with the local Arab community were reciprocated when the community held a gala in his honour, with, as guest participants, Tucumán’s minister of economy, Alfredo Maxud – also a member of the community, the bishop of Tucumán, and mayors of towns across the province. On that occasion, Storni recalled that his friendship with Arabs living in Argentina began when he was a child in the neighbouring province of Santiago del Estero: “They were the only business owners in the city and the fields, and they offered the same service to the poor as they did to the rich.”41 He commended the contributions of members of the ethnic community to the local economy and society, and their skill at social integration: The Argentine people in rural areas owe to the Syrians and Lebanese this economic achievement which benefited the entire population … There is no palace, no shack, no school, no seat of government that exists independently of the courage, the passion, and the perseverance of the Lebanese and Syrian people; in their effort to become Argentine … they make their own the motherland of their children, developing true affection for the new mother, without ever forgetting their original mother or losing their customs.42 Storni’s words echoed the narrative woven by other Peronist politicians with regard to Arab-Argentines, focusing on their capacity for integration into local society and noting how they simultaneously maintained their ethnic identity. Similarly, Tucumán’s Peronist governors promoted relations with Arab-Argentines. The first of these was governor Carlos Domínguez,

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who attended the ethnic community’s important events, such as the inauguration of the Tucumán branch of the Banco Sirio-Libanés del Río de la Plata.43 In an interview with Ernesto Baaclini, the governor expressed his positive opinion of the ethnic community and highlighted its contribution to the country’s development.44 Ties between the Arab-Argentine community and Luis Cruz (governor from June 1952 to March 1955) began when Cruz was national senator and lasted throughout the electoral campaign in which he was elected governor of Tucumán. During his mandate representing Tucumán in the national Senate, a celebration was held in his honour at the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria in Buenos Aires. Tucumán’s Syrian-Lebanese community organized an event supporting his candidacy for governor, during which Cruz expressed his wish and the necessity for cooperation with Syrians and Lebanese, as, if elected, he considered this to be crucial for the success of his work as governor.45 It is significant that the event in support of Cruz was held in the ballroom of the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa, and that it was a Peronist organization that rented the venue.46 The ethnic community organization, which previously had refrained from making public pronouncements on Peronism, had agreed on this occasion to rent out its space for the purposes of a party-specific event. This furthered the institution’s involvement in local politics and its support of Peronism. The benefits of the ties between Luis Cruz and the Arab community of Tucumán were mutual, as the governor understood how the power and influence of Arab-Argentines could determine the success of his mandate. The governor’s wish to maintain the support of Arab-Argentines was voiced in an article published on 12 January 1954 in the Buenos Aires–based Diario Sirio-Libanés: I have the highest impression of the Syrian-Lebanese community, which deserves special acknowledgment for the efforts it has expended, evident in commerce and industry as well as in its rich cultural heritage and in its unity of spirit in all civic manifestations. It is through these manifestations that this community contributes to the progress and to the uplifting of our motherland. This has been made possible by the … support of the extraordinary work of government developed by the maximum genius of the President of the Nation, General Juan D. Perón, who, referring in a very special way to the community, said that “the Syrian-Lebanese community doesn’t view itself as foreign in our country, but is, rather, part of the Argentine community.” This is the highest praise that the

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community has earned from the Argentine head of state, and I share it entirely as I identify with his patriotic concerns.47 Although Luis Cruz maintained close relations with the Arab community of Tucumán, his predecessor, Fernando Riera, was closest to the community due to his marital ties with the Juri family. Riera had won the support of some community members during the 1950 electoral campaign. El Eco de Oriente declared its support for the ticket featuring Fernando Riera and Arturo del Río on its front page.48 Furthermore, in an unprecedented stance vis-à-vis a political party, the newspaper’s editor made a public appeal to its (Arab) readers to join him in supporting the Peronist candidate: As part of the intimate identification among men of our race with the Argentine ideals, the Syrian-Lebanese of Tucumán have had a most notable place in all the events of the campaign that will be crowned with the triumph of the Riera-Del Río ticket. The Syrian-Lebanese, who are nearly all … naturalized Argentines, have responded at present, as they always do, to General Perón’s call, which they know contains the luminous future of this great nation, which they love with the same fervor as that in which they were born … Without a doubt, the Syrian-Lebanese have given an example of civic virtue by fighting alongside their Argentine brothers [during this campaign] and bringing to all their conviction that adopting Argentine citizenship wasn’t a mere formality, but the true expression of the deep Argentine sentiment.49 In his efforts to attract the support of Arab-Argentines to the candidacy of Fernando Riera, Nagib Baaclini directly connected support of Peronism to the ethnic community’s shared aspiration to consolidate their identity as Argentines. In striving toward that goal, adopting Argentine citizenship was a requisite to participating in local politics and society. And indeed, during Riera’s tenure as governor (4 June 1950 to 4 June 1952), Arab-Argentines were more closely connected to political institutions in Tucumán than ever before. Two members of the community had central positions in his administration: Nalla Salim was minister of health, and Amado Juri, the governor’s brother-in-law, was chief of police of Tucumán. El Eco de Oriente described these appointments as “another example of the close relations between our (Arab) compatriots and the state institutions in the province.”50 Likewise, the governor

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of Tucumán responded positively to requests from the province’s Arab community, such as naming two principal streets in the capital “Siria” and “Líbano,” and declaring a gala organized by the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa in honour of José de San Martín, liberator of South America from Spanish colonialism and Argentina’s national hero, to be an event of public interest.51 These examples of the ties that mayors and governors cultivated with Arab-Argentines point to the shared interest between these parties. Tucumán’s Peronist politics adopted a rhetoric of integration toward the different ethnic groups, with the aim of securing their political support. On the one hand, these politicians’ speeches praised the social and economic power of Arab-Argentines; on the other hand, like the political movement’s leader, governors and mayors understood how the integration of the ethnic group within “Argentine-ness” was advantageous in the strategy for popular mobilization. For their part, Arab-Argentines used the Peronist movement as a tool to increase their participation in public life and to recognize themselves as a central factor in Tucumán’s society. These dynamics led community institutions that tended to be politically neutral, such as the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa, to become more involved in political events than they had ever been. El Eco de Oriente, which spoke for the Arab community across the Argentine Northwest, adopted a clear pro-Peronist stance, and its editor had direct access to central figures in the province’s political sphere, such as governors, mayors, and lawmakers. During the Peronist decade, the social capital that Arab-Argentines accumulated enabled them to hold positions in the province’s successive governments, independently of internal conflicts within the movement.

t h e pat h to the top: arab-a r g e n t in e s as p ow e r brokers i n tucumán Several members of the Arab-Argentine community succeeded at being appointed or elected to various key positions in the political structure of Tucumán’s Peronist Party. Among these were Alberto Mender, a member of the party’s propaganda department during the 1950 electoral campaign, Juan Abadie, member of the general commission of the Frente Obrero (Workers’ Front), and Andrés Addur, secretary of the party cell for the Villa Luján neighbourhood in San Miguel de Tucumán. Other examples of influential Peronist political militants of Arab origin in Tucumán are Amado Naschtar, José Salim, and José Yapur, who were secretaries and members of the executive commission of the party cell

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located at 710, Larrea Street, in San Miguel de Tucumán. In addition, Marcelino Salomón was secretary of the party cell of the 160th electoral circuit, and Jesús Yapura was secretary of the Centro de Ayuda Social María Eva Duarte de Perón (María Eva Duarte de Perón Centre for Social Assistance) in the Tucumán district of Villa Alberdi.52 These facts shed light on the social insertion of Arab-Argentines into party structures from the level of party cells to leading positions. This integration became viable during the late 1940s, when Perón’s intervention curbed the power of sugar industry workers, and as a result, other Peronist groups could aspire to positions within the party’s hierarchy. Some Arab-Argentines tried their luck in the various elections held during that period, running for seats in the provincial legislatures, some of them unsuccessfully. This was the case for Jorge Ciad, Miguel Kermes, and Marún Fiad, who ran for seats in the province’s parliament in the 1946 general elections. Ciad was candidate for the Partido Laborista, whereas Kermes and Fiad ran for the Unión Cívica RadicalJunta Renovadora.53 Other similar instances are those of Moisés Nelle and Antonio Musi. Nelle ran unsuccessfully in the 1948 elections as a Frente Obrero candidate for a seat in the provincial senate.54 Antonio Musi, secretary of the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa in Tucumán, ran as a Partido Peronista candidate for a seat in the 1951 elections. These candidacies demonstrated that Peronism opened political opportunities for this ethnic group. Antonio Musi’s path specifically reveals how active participation in the ethnic community was not seen as opposed to party politics. In fact, simultaneous participation in ethnic institutions and party politics was deemed to be positive. This situation was described in the meeting minutes of the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa, when the organization decided to express its gratitude toward the leadership of the Peronist Party for naming Musi as candidate to the legislature. The close ties between members of the ethnic community and Peronism became particularly visible during the 1950 electoral campaign when various members of the community supported the candidacy to the post of governor of Pedro Fernando Riera, brother-in-law of Amado Juri. Some community leaders, such as Luis Caram, Miguel Fajre, and Antonio Baaclini, actively expressed their support for the Peronist ticket by participating vocally and eloquently in the electoral campaign, whereas others were satisfied with expressing their support in the local press.55 Within the context of this activity, a group of ArabArgentines was formed that supported Peronist candidates and aimed to raise funds for their campaigns, thus contributing to the electoral efforts. The group was helmed by Sabino Budeguer, a businessman of Lebanese

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background, who criss-crossed the entire province to collect monetary contributions and win the support of Arab-Argentines.56 Although some Arab-Argentines running as candidates for the Partido Laborista and then for the Peronist Party were unsuccessful, others did win seats in the provincial legislature or the municipal council. Such was the case of Miguel Asad and Ernesto Baaclini. Asad was born in Syria in 1891 and arrived in Argentina in 1910. From the outset, he joined various ethnic community organizations. With the launch of the Centro Peronista de Descendientes de Sirios y Libaneses (Peronist Centre of Descendants of Syrians and Lebanese) in 1948, he acted as honorary president.57 Asad first worked in commerce and then in the meatpacking industry. His job as a slaughterman in one of the slaughterhouses of the provincial capital led him to become one of the founders of the Sociedad de Matarifes de Tucumán (Association of Slaughtermen of Tucumán). His activity in this branch made it possible for him to run as a Peronist Party candidate for city council. He was elected city councillor for San Miguel de Tucumán in 1948 and subsequently named senior vice-president of the municipal legislature.58 During his mandate, and in exchange for the support he had received from workers in the municipal slaughterhouses in Tucumán, which were mainly located in the Villa 9 de Julio neighbourhood, Miguel Asad advocated for a public housing project to improve the quality of life in the Villa.59 Asad also pushed forward projects that specifically concerned the local Arab community, such as the permit granted to the Syrian-Lebanese community to build a monument to the congressmen of the 1816 Congreso de Tucumán, which was intended as a homage to Argentina.60 Another such project in which Asad was involved was the proposal to change the name of two streets in Tucumán to “Siria” and “Líbano.” The Arab community perceived this as an explicit acknowledgment of its presence in the province of Tucumán.61 When Miguel Asad died in 1950, his funeral was attended by workers in the meatpacking industry, the mayor of San Miguel de Tucumán, the province’s governor and vice-governors, and leaders of the Arab community.62 The presence of these figures symbolized the social capital that this Peronist politician had accumulated through his professional trajectory and his ethnic origins. Ernesto Baaclini was born in San Miguel de Tucumán in May 1921. As mentioned earlier, he was the son of Nagib Baaclini, the founder of El Eco de Oriente, who immigrated to Argentina from Lebanon at the start of the twentieth century. Ernesto followed in his father’s footsteps by working as a journalist. His political career began in 1946 when, at

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the age of twenty-five, the Partido Laborista named him candidate for a seat in Tucumán’s parliament. Although Baaclini did not win that race, that same year he was named vice-secretary of the provincial Secretariat of Statistics. He remained in that position until 1948, when he decided to run for city councillor in San Miguel de Tucumán as a Peronist Party candidate.63 Baaclini was elected to that post for a two-year term. Upon winning the election, he also became secretary for a group of Peronist provincial lawmakers and a member of the Budget Commission.64 Just as Miguel Asad, Baaclini promoted projects that were of particular interest to the local Arab community and participated in events organized by community institutions.65 In 1948, Baaclini and Asad were named honorary presidents of the Centro Peronista Descendientes de Sirios-Libaneses.66 It is also noteworthy that Ernesto Baaclini was chosen to accompany the Lebanese consul in Argentina to meet with the mayor of San Miguel de Tucumán.67 Once his term as city councillor ended, he resumed his work as a journalist at El Eco de Oriente. Soon, he was named director of the Boletín Oficial (Official Bulletin) of the province, remaining in that position until 1955 while he continued his work at his father’s newspaper.68 These two figures illustrate how the lines between political and ethnic community activities became blurred to the extent that they merged. Their careers suggest that Peronism’s embrace of ethnic groups that had previously been almost entirely excluded not only occurred on the national scale, but also reached the grassroots of Argentine politics, making itself felt in the country’s hinterland. Further, the Peronist Party promoted the candidacy of Arab-Argentines to seats in the provincial legislature, both in the Lower Chamber (Chamber of Deputies) and in the Senate. One such candidate was Miguel Jottar, who ran unsuccessfully in the 1946 elections as a Partido Laborista candidate to the Chamber of Deputies. Four years later, Jottar ran as a Partido Peronista candidate and won a seat in the provincial Chamber of Deputies, remaining in that seat until 1952.69 Another successful candidate, Antonio Fajre, born in Tucumán in 1909 to Lebanese immigrants, began his political career in 1927 as a member of the ucr . He left that party in 1943 to join the ranks of the Partido Laborista. Three years later, in the 1946 elections, he was named candidate to the provincial Chamber of Deputies for the department of Trancas. He won the seat and remained in that position until 1950, when he was appointed senior vice-president of the Lower Chamber; he was also an active member of the Budget Commission.70 Fajre would later be appointed director of the Banco Provincia (Provincial Bank). On the eve of this appointment, he received a congratulatory letter signed

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by Nagib Nadra, president of the Sociedad Sirio Libanesa, and Antonio Musi, secretary general of the institution and an active member of the Peronist Party. They wrote, “We cannot hide our intimate delight at the naming of one of the members of our community to such a notable position in the public administration.”71 Similar to the press coverage of the activities of this Arab-Argentine lawmaker, the letter manifested the symbolic importance of these appointments for the ethnic community in publicly underscoring the integration of Arab-Argentines in local society. The Peronist Party also provided a path for Arab-Argentines to run for seats in the Upper Chamber of the provincial parliament. For example, David El Gandur, the son of Lebanese immigrants, won the first elections in which he ran as a candidate for provincial senator.72 El Gandur held this seat for two years and was a member of the senate’s commissions for the economy and the constitution. In 1949, he was elected director of the provincial Registry of Property.73 Unlike El Gandur, Jorge Fiad had previous experience as a lawmaker in the provincial Chamber of Deputies when he joined the province’s senate in 1948. As mentioned earlier, Fiad was born in Beirut and arrived in Tucumán in the late nineteenth century. He first worked as a salesperson and then opened businesses in the city of Bella Vista. Once he had accumulated capital in that sector, he became involved in sugar cane and corn crops, together with his brother. The Fiad family’s political influence stemmed largely from its ability to provide work for a large part of Bella Vista’s population.74 It was in the 1946 elections that Fiad became involved in political life, when he ran as a Peronist Party candidate for a seat in the provincial Chamber of Deputies. He was representing the department of Leales, and Villa Fiad and environs were the focus of his electoral campaign.75 Jorge Fiad won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies for a two-year term and served as a member of the Commission of Agriculture until he decided to run for the provincial senate in 1948.76 His candidacy was successful, and during his four-year term he was a member of the Commission of Agriculture, Industry, and Social Welfare, and was appointed president of the group of Peronist senators.77 Fiad’s trajectory illustrates how his economic activity and his family’s strong influence in the area of Villa Fiad enabled him to accumulate the social capital necessary to participate in local politics. The appointment of an ArabArgentine legislator as president of the group of Peronist senators and as commission member attests to his importance within the party and local economy. Although he owed most of his political capital to the inhabitants of the Villa Fiad area, Jorge Fiad maintained his ties with the local

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Arab community. As did many other politicians from the community, he became a link between Arab-Argentines and the state. Amado Juri was one of the most prominent figures among the public servants of Arab origins who held positions other than that of minister. Juri was the first Arab-Argentine to be appointed chief of Tucumán’s police. In the 1970s, he was elected governor after running as a Peronist Party candidate. He was born in 1916 in Tucumán, the son of a criolla mother and a Lebanese father who immigrated to Argentina during the late nineteenth century, after a brother had settled in that province. Amado Juri studied at the Colegio de Oficiales de la Armada Argentina (School for Officials of the Argentine Army) in Buenos Aires, until he decided to return to Tucumán to work in the store that his uncle, Asaf Juri, owned in Bella Vista. In that city, Amado met and later married Dolores Riera, the sister of the aforementioned governor of Tucumán. His brother-in-law was the main source of Juri’s political influence. After Riera named Juri chief of Tucumán’s police, Juri began to show off his power, both in the province’s political sphere and in the local Arab community. The latter sent him a letter congratulating him on his new position. In his reply, Juri thanked the community, praised Peronist ideals, and expressed his commitment to protecting the safety and the morals of the local population.78 This correspondence is evidence of the community’s need to claim as its own an achievement in the public service of one of its own and to conversely emphasize Juri’s ties with ethnic community institutions. The letters exchanged also reveal the political facet of Juri’s appointment, which would come to the fore in a speech peppered with Peronist ideology that he would give during the inauguration of the Police Academy in August 1950.79 Juri’s involvement in political life continued after Perón was ousted in 1955, when he attempted to organize the Peronist resistance movement in Tucumán.80 Whereas Juri’s trajectory from salesperson to one of the top officials in Tucumán’s bureaucracy seemed to demonstrate how the son of an immigrant could integrate into society, Alfredo Falú’s story showed a more typical path – that of Arab-Argentines who were university graduates. Falú was born to Syrian immigrants in the town of Galpón in the province of Salta in October 1917. He completed his primary and secondary school education in that same province. Then, in 1939, he enrolled to study law at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, graduating six years later. While at university, Falú worked as a journalist for various newspapers, including Nueva Época, El Pueblo, El Orden, La Unión, El Eco de Oriente, and La Provincia de Salta. In 1943–44, he was a public servant in Tucumán’s Registry of Property. Subsequently,

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he worked as a consultant in the province’s income department. During that period, Falú began his political activity within the pro-Peronist wing of the ucr ’s Junta Renovadora, serving as secretary of its executive committee. He ran unsuccessfully as candidate representing that faction for a seat in Tucumán’s Chamber of Deputies. Following Perón’s victory in the 1946 presidential elections, Falú joined the Peronist Party and was appointed member of its Disciplinary Tribunal. Falú also wrote in the local Justicialist publication Doctrina Peronista and gave speeches on the movement’s ideas.81 That same year, Falú was elected to two other public positions: as legal advisor to the municipality of Tucumán and as advisor to the provincial representation of the federal Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare.82 In 1952, when Luis Cruz was elected governor of Tucumán, Falú was also named secretary general of the governor’s office. He held that position for only a few days, because he was named attorney at the province’s treasury. Falú served in that position until June 1952, when the federal interventor, José Martiarena, named him fiscal minister of Tucumán’s Supreme Court.83 Alongside his activities as a public servant, Falú was involved in the life of Tucumán’s Arab community. He participated in the events to mark the anniversaries of the independence of Syria and Lebanon. The province’s Sociedad Sirio Libanesa named him its legal advisor.84 His path illustrates the particular form that social mobility took on for Arab-Argentine public servants living in the Argentine Northwest who had a university education, as well as their continuing relations with the ethnic community. In Tucumán’s political sphere, the post of minister was the highest political position that an Arab-Argentine attained during the Peronist decade. Prior to the emergence of Peronism, Arab-Argentines had never been appointed to this post. One of these ministers was Dr Nalla Salim, the son of Lebanese immigrants. Salim worked as a traumatologist at San Miguel de Tucumán’s Ángel Padilla Hospital, and in 1946 he was named director of the hospital. In addition to his professional career, Salim was active in politics. He became a member of the Peronist Party in the mid-1940s and ran as one of its candidates for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies in the provincial parliament.85 When Pedro Riera was elected governor of Tucumán in June 1950, Salim was appointed minister of health and social welfare and also interim minister of the interior. These appointments attest to the high degree of trust that Riera placed in Salim, who remained in these positions for the duration of the governor’s term, when Salim resumed his duties as director of the

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Ángel Padilla Hospital.86 Sources reveal that, like other Arab-Argentine politicians, and alongside his political and professional activities, Salim nurtured his relations with the ethnic community.87 Of the Arab-Argentines who were appointed ministers during these years, Alfredo Maxud occupied the highest such post, serving as minister of the economy. Maxud was born to Lebanese immigrants in June 1914 in Tucumán and completed his secondary studies at the Colegio de Comercio (School of Commerce). He moved to Buenos Aires to study economics at the University of Buenos Aires, graduating with a degree in public accounting. Maxud then decided to pursue a PhD in economics and law at the National University of La Plata. When he graduated in 1941, he returned to his province of origin to work as a lawyer. In 1943, he was appointed general director of Santiago del Estero’s Registry of Property and remained there for a year until he had to enlist for compulsory military service. Upon returning to public life in August 1945, Maxud was named vice-president of Tucumán’s Caja Popular de Ahorros (Popular Savings Bank). In June 1946, when Peronism came to power with Carlos Domínguez’s election as governor, Maxud was appointed minister of economy in Tucumán, remaining in that post until 1950.88 After that, Maxud became president of the Banco de la Provincia de Tucumán (Bank of the Province of Tucumán). Two years later, he was again appointed minister of the economy in Luis Cruz’s government.89 Beyond his activities as a public servant, Maxud was an active supporter of Peronism. In early 1948, he announced his candidacy with the party for a seat in the provincial Chamber of Deputies, but stepped down from this candidacy shortly afterwards. The party’s Superior Council nevertheless named him representative for Tucumán at the convention to reform the national constitution.90 His appointment in one of the most important ministries in the provincial government and his central role in the Peronist Party reveal the importance of this Arab-Argentine politician in Tucumán and the trust placed in him by the highest authorities of his party, such as governors and the Peronist Superior Council, which has controlled the party’s fate in Tucumán since the late 1940s. Community press coverage of Maxud’s activities befit his important role in Tucumán’s public life. Most of his activities as minister, bank president, and representative in the constitutional convention were covered widely and in positive terms in ethnic community newspapers, national and provincial. The symbolic significance for the community of having an Arab-Argentine in the highest levels of political life comes across in the correspondence between Maxud and community’s leaders, and in an event to pay tribute to Maxud, organized by the Asociación

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Libanesa de Tucumán (Lebanese Association of Tucumán) and attended by the province’s governor:91 You have the high honour of being the first of the descendants of Syrians and Lebanese in the province to be called upon to collaborate in a government from such an estimable position … For this reason, you must take on a twofold commitment: fulfilling the word you have given before the constitution and the province’s laws … and another, equally important, is to, through your deeds, demonstrate to public opinion that the men of your race are also prepared to put their intelligence and integrity in the service of this fatherland.92 Alfredo Maxud represented the exact opposite to the stereotype of immigrants from the Middle East as dedicated exclusively to business and lacking in intellectual development. His image as an educated man with university degrees, along with his appointment as provincial minister of the economy, demonstrated to the broader society that Arabs and their offspring were capable of gaining and exerting influence. During his term as minister of the economy, he also served, just as Alfredo Falú had, as legal advisor for the province’s Sociedad Sirio Libanesa. His wedding to Elvira Gettar (also an Arab-Argentine) was held at that institution, and the couple’s godfather was the governor of Tucumán.93 Maxud identified as Argentine and Lebanese. His views about how these components of his ethnic identity shaped his political life were frequently quoted in in the ethnic community press and reiterated the newspapers’ editorial position. His desire to enhance the visibility of his ethnic identity was a sign of the Peronist movement’s openness to all matters related to the interaction between ethnicity and nationality.

5 The “New Lords of the Levant” in Santiago del Estero and Their Support for Peronism

The decades between 1890 and 1914 saw the largest wave of migrants from the Middle East who settled in the northern province of Santiago del Estero. Coming mostly from Syria and Lebanon, these immigrants travelled to Argentina by sea from European ports, particularly along the coasts of France, Italy, and Spain. After arriving in Buenos Aires, those who had relatives or acquaintances in the country’s hinterland reunited with them and settled in those areas. Historian Alberto Tasso has published a testimony that illustrates this migratory dynamic: In a French boat, we reached the port of Marseilles. From there, we boarded an Italian boat and made it to Spain. Buenos Aires was similar to Beirut. The problem with Buenos Aires was the food because we couldn’t get used to it. We spent two or three days there. My brother wasn’t able to come greet us, so he sent a local in his place. From Buenos Aires, we took a train headed for La Quiaca. When the train passed by La Banda, my uncle was waiting for us and convinced us to stay in La Banda for a week. Then we continued by train to La Quiaca, where my brother had a store … We lived there for three years and then we decided to make it to Santiago [del Estero] because it was very cold in La Quiaca.1 Family and community networks played a decisive role in the arrival of immigrants to Santiago del Estero and in shaping their group settlements at specific locations in the province’s territory. The similarity between Santiago’s weather and that of these immigrants’ lands of origin was a factor in their decision to settle there. In 1914, approximately 74 per cent of the province’s population lived and worked in rural areas, but like other immigrant groups, Arab immigrants went against that trend

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by settling in urban areas. The urban centres that received the most Arab immigrants were the province’s capital (also named Santiago del Estero), Loreto, Frías, La Banda, Suncho Corral, Fernández, and Atamisqui. This list of locations illustrates the geographical breadth of Arab immigrants’ settlement across the province’s territory, and this expansion was the main force behind their local political power.2 The city of Loreto is a paradigmatic case of a locality in the province’s hinterland that was home to a large concentration of Arab immigrants, who were the main source of immigration to the city. This trend remained strong, even though the 1914 census showed negative population growth for the city. Thanks to Arab immigrants’ continued settlement and commercial activity, the economy of Loreto grew significantly despite the exodus of the province’s established families, who moved to more developed, prosperous, and trendy places. Newly formed social groups among the Arab population increased immigrants’ importance in the province, and Arab-Argentine citizens came to occupy leading positions in society and in local politics.3 The biography of Durval Nazario exemplifies the settlement and social integration of Arab immigrants in the province’s hinterland. Nazario was born in the Syrian city of Hama. He reached the shores of Argentina in 1921 at the age of twelve years old. Nazario completed his primary and secondary school education in the city of Santiago del Estero. Afterward, he became active in business in the city of Loreto, as did many other Arab immigrants, and then went on to import textiles. Nazario also participated in the community, founding the Rotary Club of Loreto. In the absence of established elites in the province’s hinterland, Arab-Argentines attained key positions in society, transforming in the process the composition and profile of the local elite. The first ethnic Arab community institution founded in Santiago del Estero’s capital was the Sociedad Cumplimiento del Deber (Association for the Fulfillment of the Duty), established in 1909 by immigrants from the Syrian city of Hama to raise funds to assist those from Hama who were in greater need. Iglesia Ortodoxa San Jorge (San Jorge Orthodox Church) was founded in 1917. In the early 1920s, the association opened a branch in Santiago del Estero with the aim of establishing an Arabiclanguage school to help the poor. The Arabic school was founded in 1924, and two years later, it came to be directed by the Sociedad de Mujeres Fatah el Chakri (Fatah el Chakri Women’s Association). In the 1920s the Centro Hamuense (the Hama Centre) was launched in Santiago del Estero, and in 1931 it was renamed the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa (SyrianLebanese Society) with various functions, including mediating between

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Argentina, Syria, and Lebanon, serving as the cultural centre for the province’s Arab community, and carrying out activities contributing to social welfare. Especially noteworthy activities included providing economic assistance to schools and organizing charity events for the province’s Arab population. The opening of an Arabic school and the launch of other cultural institutions attest to these immigrants’ wish to preserve the ethnic component of their identity. Arab ethnic institutions were also established in the province’s hinterland. In 1924, la Estrella de Oriente (The Star of Orient) was founded in Tintina, which had a large community of immigrants from the Middle East. The association’s mandate was to provide social services to its members. Two years later, an organization gathering the Syrians and Lebanese in the city of Frías was established, and other such organizations were founded in Añatuya and La Banda. In Suncho Corral, the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa de Beneficencia de Socorros Mutuos (SyrianLebanese Society of Charity and Mutual Aid) was established in 1948. The multiplicity and geographical spread of these ethnic institutions bring to light the pattern of dispersion in the settlement of Arab immigrants in Santiago del Estero and their tendency to settle in nuclei. These clusters served as the main meeting places, at least for the first generation of immigrants. The Arab community in Santiago del Estero founded two periodicals. The first, titled Las Estaciones (The Seasons), published its first issue in 1929 and was owned by the Maronite priest Mubarak Marún. The pages of this publication featured the writings of Lebanese poets such as Kahlil Gibran, articles on Lebanese history, and works by Argentine writers such as Domingo F. Sarmiento or Esteban Echeverría. Half the newspaper was printed in Arabic and the other half, in Spanish. It is likely that this newspaper was short-lived as there is no evidence of its existence in the years following its launch. The second periodical, La Aurora (The Dawn), ran from 1933 to 1936. Just as its predecessor, this publication was bilingual. Its contents, however, focused on community life and on news from Syria and Lebanon.4 We have found no evidence of an Arab daily newspaper published in Santiago del Estero. It is likely that Arab-Argentines in Santiago read ethnic newspapers from Buenos Aires, such as the Diario Sirio-Libanés or Assalam, or El Eco de Oriente from neighbouring Tucumán. The socioeconomic integration of Arab immigrants in Santiago del Estero was facilitated by their interaction with businessmen who had successfully settled in Argentina and who taught the newcomers the country’s etiquette in commercial dealings and helped them learn

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Spanish. These immigrants also developed close ties with the criollos and the working class who comprised most of the clientele of Arab-owned businesses. In Santiago del Estero, these ties required that newcomers become fluent in Spanish as well as in Quechua to communicate effectively with locals.5 The rural areas of Santiago del Estero were dominated by a mode of social organization based on clientelism. This system was a remnant of the previous colonial order, premised on relations between feudal lords and vassals. Over time, the lords from the colonial period disappeared; they were replaced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by businessmen with a capitalist orientation. Arab immigrants to the province began to accumulate economic and social power in the rural areas by filling the gap left behind by the feudal lords of the colonial era and competing with other sectors for positions of power. Between 1940 and 1970, Arab-Argentines consolidated their influence in this clientelist relationship by controlling the sale of basic goods, supplying goods from outside the province, and participating in political posts. The Arab-Argentines of Santiago del Estero situated themselves between two broad social sectors: the working class, which constituted their main clientele, and the local elite. Arab immigrants and their offspring thus became part of the small rural middle class, gathering subsequently in the province’s capital. Commercial activity furthered the economic development and integration of Arab-Argentines. Nabid Jozami, for example, was born in Lebanon and arrived in Argentina at the age of sixteen, settling in the city of La Banda. He worked as a peddler and then as a shopkeeper. After becoming economically stable, Jozami founded the Sociedad SirioLibanesa de La Banda (Syrian-Lebanese Association of La Banda). The Kozameh family, also of Lebanese origin, settled all over the province of Santiago del Estero after immigrating to Argentina in the late nineteenth century. Abraham Kozameh opened, together with his brother Nicolás, a general store in the province’s capital. Five years later, the brothers opened a larger store in the city of La Banda. In 1911 they became active in wholesale trade, supplying basic goods to the population living along the stretch of the Central Argentino railway line, which ran southeast all the way to the province of Santa Fe. Between 1916 and 1917, Abraham Kozameh was named treasurer for the municipality of La Banda, and later, delegate of the Banco Nación’s branch in his city of residence.6 These two examples demonstrate the central role of commercial activity in the economic development of Arab-Argentines which, in turn, enabled their integration into Santiago del Estero’s social and political spheres.

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By the late 1920s, peddling had become a secondary activity among Arab immigrants because their ownership of businesses had increased significantly, particularly in small and mid-sized cities in the areas surrounding logging camps. Arab-Argentines became mediators between wholesale traders and consumers in rural areas, and as such influenced the local population’s patterns of consumption. Syrians and Lebanese also came to own many stores in the Mercado Armonía, a large indoor market established in 1936 in the city centre of Santiago del Estero.7 Although Arab-Argentines in Santiago del Estero were most typically active in business, they were also involved in the lumber industry. Between 1925 and 1950, 46 per cent of the names inscribed in the registry of owners of logging camps were of Middle Eastern origin. Under the provincial governments of Juan Castro and Pío Montenegro, many Arab immigrants took advantage of the sale of thousands of hectares of wooded areas to anyone who would exploit them. This process consolidated the social and economic integration of Arab immigrants and their offspring. Members of this ethnic group controlled the commercial networks in rural areas, and many of them came to own logging camps. The centrality of Arab-Argentines in the lumber industry was so conspicuous that, during the 1940s, most of the leadership of the Asociación de Productores de la Industria Forestal (apif ; Association of Lumber Industry Producers) was of Arab origin. Simultaneously to their integration in the field of logging, ArabArgentines became equally involved in the textile sector in Santiago del Estero. Domingo Zain, José Nallar, and Durval Chahud owned some of the largest textile factories in the province, and Yamil Mulki owned a shoe factory.8 Arab-Argentines also branched into other industries, such as Abraham Cahud’s candy factory, Elías Mitre’s mill, Salvador Azar’s distillery, and Francisco Tamer’s soap factory. In contrast with the popular belief that most Arab-Argentines were only active in trade, these life stories illustrate that many Arab-Argentines in Santiago del Estero sought to make a living in various areas of production, despite Santiago del Estero’s relatively low rate of industrialization. Although many children of immigrants from the Middle East followed in their parents’ footsteps, some opted to study at university, which opened the door to positions in the public service. Elías Lludgar, for example, practiced law and won a seat in the provincial parliament between 1928 and 1936 as a candidate for the Unión Cívica Radical (ucr ; Radical Civil Union). In 1942, he was elected to the national Chamber of Deputies with the same political party. A similar path of sociopolitical integration is exemplified by José Zain, who studied law at

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the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (National University of Córdoba) and was appointed judge in the province of Santiago del Estero in the late 1940s.9 Medicine was another profession of choice among the Arab-Argentine population of this province. Salim Alegre completed his primary and secondary education in Santiago del Estero and went on to study medicine at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Alegre was elected director general of Santiago del Estero’s Ramón Carrillo Hospital and simultaneously served as president of the provincial capital’s Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa. Similarly, José Yunes, who was born in San Pedro de Guasayán, completed his primary and secondary school education in his native province and then studied at the School of Medicine at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. He returned to Santiago del Estero to practice medicine in various hospitals of the provincial capital. These trajectories attest to the important role university education played in upward mobility and in attaining social recognition from the province’s society and from one’s own ethnic community. The process of Arab-Argentines’ social integration in the province reached its peak during the mid-1940s. During the period examined in this book, this ethnic group established itself economically in the province through extensive activity within the commercial and industrial sectors. Arabs immigrants also succeeded at becoming professionally established, with the second and third generations active in professions that contributed to their social integration. The social rise of these generations occurred thanks to political influence, professional standing, and the accumulation of capital.10

p e ro n is m a n d t he poli ti cal t r a n s f o r m at io n of a provi nce The particularities of the social and economic context in the province of Santiago del Estero are crucial to understanding the growth of the Peronist movement there. During the early twentieth century, timber production was the main economic activity in the province. The demand for this commodity remained strong until the 1930s, when the construction of railway lines slowed down. The Second World War caused an upturn in the lumber industry, which stimulated the unbridled and unregulated exploitation of the forests of Santiago del Estero. During the 1940s, of the province’s total population of 590,000, the lumber industry employed between 100,000 and 130,000 workers. These numbers indicate the electoral power of these workers and the lack of professional diversification.

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In the 1930s, scarce employment and the increased cost of basic goods prompted an exodus from Santiago del Estero to neighbouring provinces such as Santa Fe and Tucumán. In a province like Santiago del Estero, with its economy based on exploitative conditions for local labourers, its low rate of urbanization (30 per cent), and its weak proportion of unionization, the Peronist movement took on features different from those that characterized it in other parts of Argentina that were more industrialized.11 Since the early twentieth century, the logging camps had functioned as centres, not only in an economic sense, but also culturally, socially, and politically. They offered the framework for the establishment of alliances stemming from relations between timber producers and workers in the sphere of production. Against the background of this social dynamic, new modes of governing the province emerged. With the adoption in 1912 of the Ley de Voto Universal (Law for Universal Voting), local political leaders began to play an important role in politics due to their capacity to draw votes to their party. That role had previously fallen to landowners, but shop owners and timber producers took it on beginning in the 1920s. This process opened up the political field to immigrants – particularly Arabs and Spaniards – and their offspring, who went on to occupy key posts in the social sphere and in commercial networks woven around logging camps. The timber producers’ economic and political power ensured that they had a place of privilege in the province’s social milieu. In this context, the military coup of June 1943 provoked a conflict between, on one side, timber producers and the provincial government, and on the other, representatives of the federal government. This conflict was centred on the lumber industry’s labour laws. The aforementioned apif , together with the Chamber of Defence of Commerce and the leadership of rural producers, rejected in no uncertain terms the implementation of labour legislation in the province. These organizations’ representatives demanded to meet with Perón to discuss the issue. Leading up to the day of the meeting, they put pressure on the local representative of the Secretary of Labour and Welfare and disseminated their perspective in various media. Perón met with the timber producers in December 1944. The delegation was helmed by Jorge Azar who, like most of its members, was an Arab-Argentine. The province’s timber producers and businessmen understood that it was in their interest to cooperate with the Secretariat of Labour and Welfare. The provincial government ousted by the military coup was an Antipersonalist faction of the ucr . The Antipersonalist wing of the Radical party had opposed the leadership of Hipólito Yrigoyen, elected

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again to the presidency in 1928 and ousted in a military coup in 1930. It had close ties with conservatives and economically powerful lumber industry groups. The businessmen who rose to prominence during the 1930s, among them Arab-Argentines, were at the basis of politicians’ electoral power due to the alliances these businessmen made in the rural sphere. Politicians therefore generated a network that distributed benefits among timber producers, traders, peddlers, police chiefs, judges, inspectors, coal producers, workers, and various social groups linked to the lumber industry. Peronism, in order to exert political power in the province, had to win over these business elites. The integration of Arab-Argentines in politics was the culmination of Santiago del Estero’s political shift. Until the mid-1940s, they had occupied only marginal political positions in the province. But now their economic power enabled them to secure a central place within the reconfiguration of relations between political leaders and the working class. As a result, Peronism’s alliance with Arab-Argentines became decisive for the movement to achieve political hegemony in the province. From the movement’s early days, the province’s economy had become increasingly reliant on budgetary appropriations from the federal capital.12 The expansion of the public sector prompted a significant increase in public salaries based on federal financial allocation. Consequently, some leaders of the local productive sector saw their social and political value shrink. The lumber industry, however, maintained its importance in local politics because of the large number of voters in that sector. In 1947, 75 per cent of the population of Santiago del Estero lived in rural areas. Provincial politicians therefore had to be active on two levels. In the national sphere, they had to negotiate with the federal government in a dynamic that turned the governor into an “administrator of resources” from Buenos Aires. In the local sphere, they had to develop new strategies to recruit votes from the rural population and from an urban population largely dependent upon employment in the public sector. Local institutional and political stability hinged on the effective management of federal resources. This situation underscored the importance of relations between national and local elites. Those who were capable of brokering deals with national power groups then succeeded at making a place for themselves in provincial politics. Simultaneously, these politicians had to make alliances with agents who recruited votes at the local level, especially in rural areas. In Santiago del Estero, workers became prisoners of their place of employment due to the relations of control and power that bound them to the logging camps’ owners and because of the concentration

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of basic goods in the hands of store owners. Although these conditions of high dependence continued during the Peronist period, farmers and rural workers increased their influence through their ties with political brokers, making them a key factor in the victory of Peronism in the province. The working class in the northern province was divided into two groups: unionized workers and rural workers. Unionized workers, who were mostly urban, were few; nevertheless, over time, and as unions were established across the province, these workers began to occupy key positions in the public sphere. Rural workers were often considered to be second-class citizens in political, social, and economic terms, even though they accounted for most of the province’s population. In 1943, prior to the military coup, many unions had already been established in Santiago del Estero, such as the Federación Obrera Santiagueña (Federation of Workers of Santiago) founded in 1939. Public service workers, salespersons, construction workers, and to a lesser extent bakers, drivers, and restaurant industry workers, were unionized. However, many of these organizations were not officially recognized. The weakness of Santiago del Estero’s workers’ movement accounted for workers’ low participation in the events of 17 October 1945 in the province (that date, when workers’ mass protests demanded the release of Colonel Perón from detention, is considered the founding of Peronism). Furthermore, prior to the emergence of Peronism, the development of unions was consolidated through the support of the local Socialist Party, which was politically autonomous from the state. This dynamic continued at the beginning of the Peronist decade, but over time, the workers’ movement became ever more subordinated to the populist movement to the point of total dependence. Smaller unions disappeared, and the new ones were affiliated with Peronism.13 Among the various forces that shaped the political sphere of Santiago del Estero, religious institutions were prominent. The Acción Católica Argentina (aca ; Argentine Catholic Action) was established within this framework. Catholic Action was a global initiative spurred by Pope Pius X at the start of the twentieth century. The Argentine chapter was established in 1931 with the aim of re-Catholicizing public life – by then immersed in a process of secularization characteristic of societies in the midst of modernization and industrialization – and building a new nationalist and Catholic order.14 The economic and social crisis of the 1930s contributed to the growth in Argentina of an antiliberal atmosphere. In that sense, the establishment of Acción Católica was an ideological response to liberalism, socialism, and communism. The June

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1943 coup had the support of Catholic nationalists and demonstrated that the Church and the Armed Forces were on the same wavelength.15 The diocese of Santiago del Estero had been founded in 1910 with the goal of strengthening the internal organization of the local Catholic Church. In the same vein, a chapter of Acción Católica was established in the province in September 1931. This chapter won the support of a large part of the working class, the middle class, and the province’s intellectuals. Between 1931 and 1943, Catholic activists were appointed in large numbers to provincial administrations. Key political figures emerged from the ranks of the aca , including the Peronist governor Carlos Juárez, who was appointed director of the association’s national board in 1939. Juárez would dominate the province’s politics for much of the second half of the twentieth century. When the Partido Laborista de Santiago del Estero (Labour Party of Santiago del Estero) was established in 1945, the provincial Church took a passive position. The naming of General Aristóbulo Mittelbach as the party’s candidate for governor guaranteed the presence in the provincial sphere of a nationalist candidate capable of maintaining the Catholic influence in the local government. The emergence of the Partido Peronista and the disappearance of the Partido Laborista shifted the balance between regional forces. Mittelbach’s tenure was short-lived (1946–48), and Juárez replaced him. In Santiago del Estero, Peronism brought together local organizations and caudillos who had previously been active in other political parties, especially the ucr and the conservative party. At the same time, the movement appealed to various social classes, while upholding the province’s traditional style.16 Peronism’s need to organize a force capable of bringing Perón to power in 1946 compelled the movement to broaden its quest for support instead of focusing solely on workers. This meant attracting traditional voters from long-established political parties and entering into negotiations with local caudillos. In Santiago del Estero, three leaders disputed the control of the new party. The first of these was Santiago Corbalán, the son of a family of oligarchs and nephew of Governor Dámaso Palacio (1898–1901). In 1911, Corbalán was representative for the Partido Unión Nacional (National Union Party) at the constitutional convention. After that, he was appointed minister in the administration of the conservative governor Antor Álvarez. Corbalán held a seat in the national Chamber of Deputies representing the ucr between 1916 and 1919; he was elected to the national Senate in 1928, and then elected to the national Congress for the Antipersonalist radicalismo in 1939. Six years later, he joined the ucr of Santiago del Estero.

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The second figure was Colonel Justiniano de la Zerda, brother of Governor Domingo Medina (1924–28). Medina appointed de la Zerda as minister and chief of police during his administration. Then, in 1931, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a Partido Demócrata candidate. In 1943, he joined the ucr Concordancia. De la Zerda was also a relative of Governor Mittelbach and was Juan Perón’s teacher at the Colegio Militar (Military Academy). Rosendo Allub was the third rival in this provincial political contest. Allub was for many years a member of Santiago del Estero’s Cámara de Defensa de Comercio (Chamber of Commerce Defence) and president of the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa. Born in Lebanon, Allub immigrated to Argentina in 1909. He worked as a peddler in the logging camps and was involved for a lengthy period in the trade of livestock between Argentina’s northern provinces. His political career began in the Partido Radical (ucr ) as a provincial lawmaker and public servant in the administration of Governor Juan B. Castro. Allub remained with the ucr until 1945, when he joined the Partido Laborista.17 These three biographies illustrate the various factors at play in the local political sphere, such as prior political activity in conservative political parties, enrollment in the Armed Forces, ties with national political leadership, involvement in the lumber industry, and ethnic origin. Peronism was a heterogeneous coalition of right-wing nationalists and socialists, Catholics and anticlericals, conservatives and progressives, military officers and union leaders. Loyalty to Perón kept them together, but there was constant infighting among Peronists. Perón’s visit to Santiago del Estero on 31 December 1945, as part of a tour of the region, was instrumental in solving conflicts within his nascent movement. Because local leaders were unable to agree on a candidate for governor of the province, Perón appointed Colonel Aristóbulo Mittelbach as candidate, mainly due to the colonel’s loyalty to Perón and his membership in the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos (gou ; Group of United Officers) responsible for the June 1943 coup. The elections for governor were held in 1946 and the Peronist ticket won, but conflicts within the party continued. Mittelbach’s health deteriorated, which hampered his ability to govern and oversee the public works outlined for the province in the First FiveYear Plan. This situation justified demands, voiced by various sectors within Peronism, for further federal intervention in the province. As a result of Mittelbach’s ineptitude, a division emerged within Peronism in the province between the “Juan Perón” or “Hierro” (steel) bloc that opposed the governor and the “Manteca” (butter) bloc that supported him. The constant clashes between the two groups finally brought about

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a federal intervention in January 1948, under the auspices of Carlos Juárez, one of the members of the “Bloque de Hierro.” Perón was looking for figures capable of generating alliances, solving conflicts with local strongmen, and recruiting central actors in unions. Mittelbach had not achieved these objectives during his term as governor because, in addition to his poor health, he was not a member of the ucr or part of a union. As María Cecilia Erbetta puts forward, the ideal provincial Peronist leader required two characteristics: a political career that highlighted their closeness to the party’s leader, and the ability to forge alliances capable of producing the necessary legitimacy in the political field.18 Mittelbach’s attempts to lead local Peronism failed because of his inability to achieve the latter. Once the 1949 elections were called, the Peronist Party presented Orestes di Lullo as candidate for governor, with the support of the cgt and Santiago Corbalán, the party’s president in the province. In spite of this, a few days before the elections, Carlos Juárez proclaimed himself to be the Peronist candidate for governor with the support of national senators Carlos Montes de Oca and Rosendo Allub. In light of this, Corbalán resigned from his post as president of the party’s provincial branch, alleging that he had been targeted by a deliberate intervention from the headquarters in Buenos Aires. Peronism in the province became divided again, this time between those who supported Juárez and those who backed Orestes di Lullo. Juárez won the elections and remained in his post until 1952. He had the support of both Juan and Eva Perón, which granted him a high degree of legitimacy vis-à-vis all sectors of Peronism. Allub’s support brought about a strengthening of the province’s Arab-Argentine community’s ties with Peronism. Peronism sought to make a place for itself in Argentine society comparable to that of the liberal tradition. In its reinterpretation of the past, this political movement sought to identify itself with Argentine nationalism and portray Justicialism as a direct continuation of the previous century’s epic struggle for independence. Peronism accordingly highlighted the anticolonial thrust of the declaration of independence and almost entirely ignored the country’s history between 9 July 1816 and the movement’s emergence in 1945. Governor Carlos Juárez identified with this interpretation of Argentine history, insinuating that his mandate was the starting point of the province’s history. Juárez portrayed himself as the executor of Perón and Evita’s political wishes, thus strengthening his legitimacy and credibility. Over time, Juárez enjoyed strong popular support, largely due to his charismatic personality and not necessarily to the support of Juan Perón.19

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In the November 1951 general elections, candidates also ran for the post of governor of Santiago del Estero. The Peronist candidate Francisco González won the election with the support of the cgt . His triumph was therefore a victory for the party’s unionist wing. The governor-elect was general secretary of the bankers’ union of Santiago del Estero and area representative of the cgt . At the start of his tenure, González had the support of the outgoing governor, Carlos Juárez, but shortly afterwards, the two were engulfed in a dispute over González’s attempt to audit the legality of the previous administration’s handling of budgets for public works. Due to this, González “gained” a new enemy in the national Senate (his predecessor), who finally achieved the destitution of his nemesis in early 1955. Beyond this particular conflict, González faced staunch opposition within his own party, as his power was further weakened after the death of his main protector, Eva Perón. Any conflicts unresolved within the provincial sphere were addressed in Buenos Aires. Thus, in February 1955, the federal government once again intervened in Santiago del Estero to end the mandate of a governor who was incapable of satisfactorily addressing a variety of problems. To complete a term successfully and remain within Peronism, a governor had to show loyalty to Perón while also attracting the support of the local population. Just as Mittelbach, González had to confront intrigues within his party and overcome his geographical and political distance from the national leadership; his failure on both counts brought about his downfall. Peronism’s emergence in Santiago was shaped by the weakness of unions in the province. It thus rooted itself in the support of ucr strongmen and politicians with connections in the Armed Forces and the region’s nationalist milieus. These phenomena deepened the lack of autonomy evident in the election of candidates for governor. Candidates were usually imposed from headquarters in Buenos Aires so as to secure victory while ensuring the loyalty of local politicians to the national movement. In addition, and similar to the movement on a national scale, Peronist politicians in Santiago del Estero needed the sponsorship of traditional political brokers who had emerged from the ranks of conservative radicalism. The province’s first two Peronist governors were hampered by lack support at the level of the nation or the province. Aristóbulo Mittelbach had no prior political experience before the creation of the gou and the June 1943 coup. Carlos Juárez was too young to have had a long political career prior to becoming governor. Both had come to power thanks to the support of political “godfathers” who had connections among conservatives, some of whom were Arab-Argentines.

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t he p e ro n is t c o m m it t e e o f don ros endo (rashi d) In the 1920s, Arab immigrants began to establish themselves both socially and economically. This process brought about an ever-greater integration into politics, particularly during the administration of Governor Juan Castro (1932–36). During the 1920s and 1930s, two political tendencies vied for power in Santiago del Estero – the ucr and the ucr Antipersonalista, that is, supporters and opponents of President Hipólito Yrigoyen. Both sought to win the support of the local Arab community. The mediation of Rosendo (Rashid) Allub in favour of the ucr Antipersonalista drew many Arab-Argentines to that wing of Radicalism. Castro was interested in the Arab-Argentine community principally because he wanted to gain their economic support. Shortly after coming to power, Castro named the Arab-Argentine businessman Elías Gubaira as inspector of the department Avellaneda. As the governor had the authority to appoint mayors across the province, he selected many figures in the community for these posts, such as Odelio Vitar in Tintina, Real Jorge in Suncho Corral, José Jelid in Quimili, Abraham Daher in Atamisqui, and Aisar Matar in Loreto. Castro also designated Rosendo Allub and Jorge Azar as candidates of the ucr Antipersonalista to the provincial legislature. As Azar did not have Argentine citizenship, he was not admitted into the province’s parliament; instead, he was named to the board of directors of the Banco Mixto (a bank with both private and public capital). In recognition for Castro’s positive treatment of the local Arab community, the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa named him its honorary president. The mediation of the ucr Antipersonalista facilitated the initial phase of Arab-Argentine political integration in the northern province in the 1920s and 1930s. The brothers Antonio and Nemitalla Raed, who immigrated from Lebanon to Argentina and settled in Santiago del Estero in 1908, exemplified this emerging political involvement. They initially worked as peddlers and, after accumulating the necessary capital, opened a general store in the town of Suncho Corral. They later became involved in various areas of agriculture, such as alfalfa and cotton. Both brothers held various public posts in that locality. Nemitalla Raed was mayor of Suncho Corral in 1927 and provincial legislator for the area in 1934 during Castro’s administration. His brother, Antonio, was a political militant for Radicalism in the department of Matará between 1932 and 1936 and then became commissioner of the Banco Nación in the province.20 Nevertheless, it was Peronism that facilitated the first opportunities for Arab-Argentines to be elected to the national parliament and serve in other important posts. Peronism developed ties with the province’s

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lumber industry thanks to the mediation of businessmen from Santiago del Estero’s hinterland who were, for the most part, Arab-Argentines connected to Rosendo Allub, the caudillo of Lebanese ancestry. The large extent of Arab-Argentines’ integration in local politics was palpable in their taking a stance in Peronism’s internal conflicts, as they adopted a position vis-à-vis unions and the nationalist group that promoted the overthrow of Mittelbach. Historian José Vezzosi argues that ArabArgentines were influential in the choice of Carlos Juárez over Orestes Di Lullo as Peronist candidate for governor.21 This central role is reflected in an incident involving provincial minister of finance Aníbal Oberlander and a group of Arab-Argentines. During Oberlander’s resignation proceedings, members of the “Bloque de Hierro” demanded that he be tried for “drunken behaviour” in the provincial capital’s downtown. According to the chief of police, during that episode Oberlander insulted him and yelled that minister Carlos Juárez had orchestrated the conspiracy against him in collusion with the “bribing turcos” in parliament. This insult highlighted both the role of Arab-Argentines as key actors in local politics and the nationalists’ hostility toward the Arab community.22 Although many Arab-Argentines identified strongly with Peronism, other members of the community supported the movement’s nemesis, the Unión Democrática, a loose coalition formed in late 1945 to oppose Perón’s presidential candidacy. When it came to politics, the Arab community was divided, as were other groups and sectors of Argentine society. The Jewish-Argentine community, for instance, was widely perceived as being opposed to Peronism even though some members of the community supported Peronism from the start. Among Arab-Argentines, many students supported the Unión Democrática in Santiago del Estero; in 1946 that list included Eduardo Lludgar, Asís Abdulajad, and Abelardo Basbus.23 Arab-Argentines were also active in Radicalism, a political party established in the late nineteenth century that in the 1920s and 1930s had a separate Antipersonalist wing. Karim Nassif Neme, Carlos Nassif Neme, Pedro Miguel, Musa Vitar, Jorge Miguel, and Domingo Abdulajad were the most notable supporters of Radicalism among the community.

chi e f s in t h e c o u n t rys i de and acti vi sts o f t h e p o p u l ist party From the beginnings of the Peronist movement in Santiago del Estero, Arab-Argentines served in central posts within the different political tendencies that culminated in the creation of the Partido Peronista after

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the 1946 elections. Two Arab-Argentines, brothers Luciano and Pedro Gelid, were leaders in the Movimiento Radical Revolucionario, a spinoff movement of Radicalism that supported the candidacies of Perón and Mittelbach; they served respectively as the party’s political secretary and secretary general. Within the Partido Peronista, Isaac Abdala was secretary of the Centro Político Peronista (Peronist Political Centre) in the city of La Banda, Roberto Cheble was secretary of the departmental party cell in the city of Clodomira, and Pedro Ailan was secretary of recruitment for that cell.24 Other Arab-Argentines exerted influence in their role as political chiefs during the Peronist decade. These posts had been established in the first constitutional reform in the province, enacted in 1903; the reform also eliminated the provincial senate. Political chiefs (jefaturas políticas) answered directly to the governor, and as such, during periods of conflict, they acted as mediators between the governor and the local population. They played a key role in organizing relations of patronage and in the provincial government’s communications across the province. Their various areas of involvement enabled them to accrue such power that they exercised total control over the province’s departments: in addition to their surveillance activities, they had influence over the justice system and the collection of taxes. Political chiefs wielded considerable political power especially in agricultural areas where a great number of workers toiled.25 During the Peronist decade, many of the political chiefs in Santiago del Estero were Arab-Argentines. For example, Abraham Matach was principal commissioner of the department of Silipica in 1946, and three years later he was appointed political chief of that department. Farid Elías, the political chief of the department of Jiménez and Abraham Daher, was appointed provincial inspector for the department of Loreto. Elías Mattar, José Azar, and Felipe Azar were respectively political chiefs in the departments of San Martín, Taboada, and Atamisqui.26 The proliferation of Arab-Argentine political chiefs in the province during that period illustrates the geographical reach of immigrants from the Middle East and their successful socioeconomic integration. Their political power was rooted in the province’s hinterland; in this, they had the support of the provincial government. Arab-Argentines’ ability to translate into political influence their clientelist relations and their closeness to the province’s Peronist leadership made them central figures in Santiago del Estero’s hinterland. In addition to serving in administrative posts in cities and departments across the province, Arab-Argentines were able to consolidate

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their influence in the provincial parliament through their participation in the Peronist Party. Some Arab-Argentines, such as Lian Allub and Estela Jorge, unsuccessfully ran for seats in parliament as Peronist Party candidates. Others, however, did win seats in the legislature. Alberto Farjat, who began his political career in 1946 as inspector of the municipality of Añatuya, was elected to the provincial parliament as the Peronist Party’s candidate for the department of Taboada.27 Isaac Jorge, from Clodomira, was hired as the party’s lawyer in La Banda, the second-largest city in the province. In the 1951 elections, he also won a seat in the provincial parliament.28 Luis Salim was active in the Partido Laborista, and in 1946 he won a seat in the legislature as a candidate for that party. In 1947, Salim accompanied the ambassador of Lebanon, Yubran Tuani, in his visit to the provincial parliament. This duty was an honour bestowed upon Salim due to his ethnic origins and political post. In addition to his activity as a lawmaker, Salim was a member of the Commission for Journalism, on which he represented the tactic command of the Peronist Party cell in the city of Frías. Having completed his term in the legislature, Salim ran as city councillor in the department of Choya in 1951.29 Luis Salim’s path therefore contrasts with the previous trajectories in which the process of integration in provincial politics began in the periphery and gradually evolved toward the capital. In 1946, the wealthy businessman Elías Gubaira, still affiliated with the ucr at the time, publicly expressed his loyalty to Juan Perón. He did this in an open letter published in the province’s printed press, in which he also supported Mittelbach’s candidacy for the post of governor. That year, Gubaira won a seat in the provincial legislature as a Partido Laborista candidate. Two years later, he became an active member of the Peronist Party and a member of its finance committee. Just as Luis Salim, Elías Gubaira cherished his ethnic identity; for example, he made a speech in parliament during the visit of Ambassador Tuani.30 In contrast to Salim and Farjat, Gubaira’s political trajectory was broader, beginning in the ucr and in the province’s hinterland. With the emergence of Peronism, he decided to join this nascent political movement. With the exception of César Carubin, who was provincial minister of the interior during the federal intervention of 1945 promoted by the military government, Arab-Argentines did not attain cabinet posts in the province. Carubin remained true to his Arab roots, as can be appreciated in a column on the politician published in the Tucumán-based newspaper El Eco de Oriente:

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Doctor Carubin hosted us cordially in his office at the ministry and we say cordially because he began by stating that he was honored of his Lebanese ancestry … In his words, he said … “I will never hide or moderate my particular satisfaction at knowing that I am of Arab origin. This satisfaction grows in unique ways in Santiago del Estero, where I know that eighty percent of commerce, industry, agriculture, and all the noble activities of production, is in the hands of men who have come from the near East.”31 The Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa de Santiago del Estero held an event in honour of Carubín, with the presence of inspector Alberto Saá. The institution’s president and Peronist activist, Rosendo Allub, delivered the speech.32 Unlike their counterparts in the province of Tucumán, Arab-Argentines in Santiago del Estero did not attain ministerial posts within the provincial administration during the Peronist decade. Due to the high degree of centralization of power in the northern province, these appointments were distributed to a handful of public servants. In spite of this, ArabArgentines participated in this administration across the province’s territory in their work as political chiefs.

a p e ro n is t c au d il l o : ros endo allub’s p o l it ic s a n d ethni ci ty Rosendo Allub was the main Arab-Argentine figure in Santiago del Estero’s political sphere during the first half of the twentieth century. He was born in Lebanon and settled in the province in 1909. He started out working as a peddler and, a decade later, settled in the provincial capital. In 1922, after completing his secondary school education, he opened, together with José Alegre, a wholesale business. Four years later, Allub was elected city councillor for the capital city. In the late 1920s, during the term of Radical governor Santiago Maradona, Allub was elected to the provincial legislature and re-elected to this post in 1934. Allub’s political career at the provincial level was shaped in the beginning by his activism in the ucr Antipersonalista and his close ties with Governor Juan Castro. In parallel to his public duties, Allub was a member of the Comisión de Defensa de Comercio and president of the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa de Santiago del Estero. According to historian José Vezzosi, Allub derived his political power from his ability to elicit votes from the forest industry. He could do so thanks to the social and commercial ties that he had forged,

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from the mid-1920s on, with other Arab-Argentines who had established themselves as political brokers in the cities of the provincial hinterland. Allub’s involvement in the ucr ended in 1945 when he left the party and joined the Partido Laborista, which supported Perón.33 After joining the Partido Laborista, which then became part of the Partido Peronista, Rosendo Allub won a seat in the national legislature for a four-year term (1946–50). It is noteworthy that in the 1946 general elections, he captured more votes across the province than the PerónQuijano presidential ticket, the Peronist candidate for governor, or any other candidate running for a seat in the provincial legislature. This illustrates the high degree of political and social capital that this politician of Lebanese heritage had amassed, particularly in rural areas of the province, and thanks to which he won more votes than the charismatic colonel. A year earlier, in 1945, Allub was re-elected to another term as president of the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa de Santiago del Estero. This politician’s activities are a noteworthy example of the symbiosis between participation in politics and in one’s ethnic community, as the boundaries between the two were often blurred. This confluence was illustrated by the publication of Allub’s open letter supporting Perón and Mittelbach, signed jointly with other Radical politicians, in the provincial newspaper La Hora and in the Diario Sirio-Libanés. In addition to these political and community activities, Allub was director general of a forestry company that he had established with his Arab-Argentine partner, José Alegre.34 His presence and influence reached far beyond his ethnic community. In the pages of La Hora, he was described as “a central figure in political, commercial, and economic circles.”35 El Eco de Oriente and the Diario Sirio-Libanés also underscored Allub’s political and economic power in the province. The ethnic community’s printed press outlets based in Buenos Aires and in the country’s Northwest assiduously covered his political and legislative activities.36 After the June 1943 coup, the military government set up various commissions to investigate the dealings of previous provincial administrations. Allub had been a member of some of these administrations. This prompted El Eco de Oriente to immediately publish an article offering clarifications to neutralize any potential suspicion of corruption involving the Arab-Argentine legislator. The article also featured a letter in which Allub defended his innocence.37 The newspaper came to the defence of this public figure because Allub’s alleged involvement in cases of bribery threatened to sully his positive image and in turn that of his ethnic group. Allub deftly used the community’s printed press to defend his innocence and to promote local political interests.

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The electoral victory that won Rosendo Allub a seat in the national legislature drew the attention of the community’s printed press. El Eco de Oriente in particular penned various articles honouring the politician. In the words of Nagib Baaclini, For the first time, one of the most encompassing constitutional rights in Argentina, granted to foreigners who make their home under the banner of the freedom and generosity of this great people, is given to one of the sons of our race, who will be a worthy representative of our large community in the nation’s Congress … [Allub] will perform in outstanding ways the role of legislator … in the light of a deep love for his second fatherland, where he has shaped his definitive personality, without forgetting, let alone denying, his origins … It is now up to the community to resoundingly pay tribute to this first member of the national legislature who is of Arab race, who has handsomely demonstrated that our compatriots are in exceptional conditions to attend to the country’s public affairs.38 In covering the political trajectory of the fellow Arab-Argentine legislator from Santiago del Estero, El Eco de Oriente and other community newspapers brought to light the intense connections between Arab ethnicity and Argentine citizenship, emphasizing that the participation of Arab-Argentines in political life was not opposed to their sense of belonging to their ethnic community. Rather, ethnic identity played a role in the integration of Arab immigrants and their offspring into local politics. An article in La Hora praising Rosendo Allub reiterated the important role that a public figure from the community had in shaping this group’s self-perception. Published in a leading provincial newspaper that supported Peronism, this article praised an Arab-Argentine public figure and specifically referred to his origins. It is unsurprising that this article was reprinted in the Diario Sirio-Libanés.39 Allub’s trajectory also became a tool to emphasize how Peronism had enabled the successful political integration of Arab-Argentines and illustrate their loyalty and contribution to this movement. Writing about Allub’s input to the Peronist movement, Emilio Constantino, editor of the Diario Sirio-Libanés, argued that “it is noteworthy that the children of Arabs are at the forefront of this era of great changes. Don Rosendo Allub, member of Congress for Santiago del Estero, is an example of all that we are saying here. Congressman Allub is an idol in the province of Santiago del Estero, due to his characteristics that have positioned him at the helm of Peronism in Santiago.”40 In another article, Constantino

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called readers’ attention to Allub’s loyalty to Peronism, as well as commitment to hard work and social justice: In the current political regime, Mr Allub has, with his clear vision, accompanied the men of the revolution from the very first moment, because he knew that this revolution was social more than it was political, and he knew that the people needed this revolution that would bring about justice in society, because he is a hard-working man who did not make a living off of politics, but rather, from his businesses; he understood workers because he lived near them; he saw social justice and had faith in General Perón’s new Justicialist doctrine that, from the first elections in 1946, gave a new destiny and a new orientation to the country’s population.41 Constantino made a point of stressing that Allub’s involvement in politics was attributable to social motivations, not economic factors. The aim of this observation was to eradicate the stereotype depicting Arab immigrants as parasites who exploited national resources for their own gain. To counter negative stereotypes, the image projected was that of an established businessman who was active in a political party that promoted the rights of the lower classes. The editor of Diario Sirio-Libanés further observed that Allub was selected directly by Perón as a candidate for Congress. In other words, from Arab-Argentines’ perspective, Allub’s candidacy represented Perón’s blessing of the social and political integration of this ethnic group. In shaping his representative government, General Perón was well aware of Allub’s high esteem among the electorate of the province of Santiago del Estero; indeed, Allub was elected with more votes than any other lawmaker.42 It seems that Perón recognized the political importance of the geographical breadth of Arab-Argentines’ activity and of their role as mediators between the working class and elites. The latter quality, which Allub shared with other politicians of Arab heritage, won him a place within the Peronist movement. In addition to his positions as president of the Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa de Santiago del Estero and member of the board of directors of the Banco Sirio-Libanés, Rosendo Allub was very active in the Arab-Argentine community. He generally participated in the most important events held by Arab community institutions, such as the gala in honour of Juan Perón and his wife, held in 1950 in the Les Ambassadeurs ballroom in Buenos Aires, and the event to mark the anniversary of the launch of the Diario Sirio-Libanés. The Arab-Argentine lawmaker was always invited

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to events organized by the Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria in Buenos Aires and to galas held in tribute to Peronist politicians, as well as family dinners and various social events.43 Allub’s political activity benefited from his involvement with ethnic community institutions and vice versa. For example, he organized a dinner for the members of the congressional Budget Committee and hosted it in the ballrooms of the Club SirioLibanés Honor y Patria. Among the guests was Héctor Cámpora, who at the time was president of the Chamber of Deputies and would later be elected president of Argentina.44 Once Allub completed his term in the national Congress, he decided to leave political life and to devote himself to trade and industry in his business, named Alegre y Allub.45 Allub lived in Buenos Aires until his death in 1959. His remains were buried in Santiago del Estero. Allub was posthumously awarded the Orden Nacional del Cedro from the Lebanese government – an honour that had been bestowed upon Perón nine years prior – in acknowledgment of his activity in his ethnic community throughout his life.46 This decoration represented the complementarity – characteristic of Peronism – between national politics and the ethnic community’s local and transnational activities. The movement saw this activity as an opportunity to win support among a sector of society that, by the 1940s, wielded considerable political and economic influence, especially in the country’s hinterland, as well as to promote the country’s interests in international politics and commerce.

san t iag o d e l e s t e ro a nd radi cal peroni sm Just as they did at the federal level and in the province of Tucumán, Peronist politicians developed close ties with the Arab-Argentine community of Santiago del Estero. It should nevertheless be clarified that in the latter case, unlike in Tucumán, Arab immigrants and the provincial governor (Radical Juan Castro) had fruitfully collaborated prior to the emergence of Peronism. The Radical wing in which the governor was active would later become an essential factor in the creation of Peronism in the province. Peronist politicians eager to develop relations with Arab-Argentines typically participated in events hosted by community organizations, such as the celebrations held to mark the anniversaries of the independence of Syria and Lebanon. Provincial politicians took advantage of these events to recruit the support of Arab-Argentines.47 These politicians also sought to foster ties with the community by granting interviews to community newspapers. In one such interview, Mario Tula Gómez, interim governor and lawmaker in the provincial

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legislature, emphasized the historical greatness of Syria in modern civilization and praised the contribution of Syrian immigrants to Argentina’s economy. Gómez paraphrased Perón when he said that “Syrians and Lebanese are not foreigners in this country.”48 This comment illustrates that Perón’s embrace of this ethnic group resonated among provincial Peronist leaders. The same line of thinking comes across in the words of Francisco González in an interview granted to the Diario Sirio-Libanés: The Syrian-Lebanese community is deeply rooted in our soil. It is the one that has best assimilated the characteristics of the land that is Santiago del Estero and that shows its strong attachment to the province’s traditions. General Perón has defined this characteristic very well when he said that the Syrian-Lebanese community is an integral part of our country and isn’t considered as foreign. Nevertheless, I think that Santiago del Estero is the typical centre of gravity of this situation. The Syrian-Lebanese community is at one with all that is part of life in this province, and it participates actively in all the manifestations of our typical activities with an involvement that is unparalleled in other communities.49 The governor’s words synthesize the arguments developed throughout this chapter, which has analyzed the social, economic, and political integration of Arab-Argentines in Santiago del Estero and their contribution to Peronism. On the one hand, his remarks demonstrate that an ideological stance was imposed by the leadership of the Peronist Party, which kept a close eye on the ties between politicians and Arab-Argentines; his comments also bring to light the use of an overarching narrative about the integration and contribution of Arab immigrants to the province and the country’s development. On the other hand, the provincial governor describes a situation in which these immigrants’ social and economic integration was especially deep due to their having settled in the province’s hinterland and having interacted with the inhabitants, weaving a network of clientelist relations. These interactions gave Arab immigrants and their offspring the opportunity to settle socially and economically, and from this position, to translate their success into integration into the province’s political life. In Santiago del Estero, unlike in other provinces of the Pampa region, Peronism did not dramatically change the social fabric or power relations. The Peronist movement was built on conservative and Radical elements. Among those immigrants from the Middle East who became active in politics, the majority had gotten involved in the 1920s within the

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Antipersonalista and conservative wing of the ucr . When the Peronist movement emerged, some remained loyal to their political party whereas others joined the party helmed by Juan Perón. Even though the successive administrations in Santiago del Estero did not promote Arab-Argentine public servants to the highest administrative ranks – that is, as governors or ministers – the unique features of Peronism in the province did enable Arab-Argentines to play key roles in local politics. To succeed during their terms, governors needed the support, both nationally and locally, of the established political chiefs of the province’s hinterland, many of whom were of Arab heritage. Arab-Argentines thus became sponsors of the governors; thanks to their economic activity and their broad geographical reach, they contributed to the continuity of governors’ mandates and to the expansion of Peronism across the Argentine north.

Epilogue

f ro m p e ró n to menem: t he b u il d in g o f a m o s q ue i n buenos ai res The last years of the Peronist decade were characterized by increasing authoritarianism and an intensification of frictions between the government and its opponents. In that context, efforts to overthrow the regime gained steam. The political crisis worsened due to the conflict between the government and the Catholic Church. This conflict catalyzed conspiracies of a coup and brought about a failed revolt in June 1955, supported by factions of the Armed Forces and by the upper echelons of the Church. The navy’s aircrafts dropped bombs on the Plaza de Mayo, causing the death of 350 civilians who were going about their business in the area.1 On 16 September of that year, another such attempt, led by General Eduardo Lonardi, succeeded at ousting Perón and thereby inaugurating the self-proclaimed Revolución Libertadora (Liberating Revolution). The overthrown populist leader went into exile. Only a few months later, an internal revolt removed Lonardi from his post, and General Pedro Aramburu took his place. Anti-Peronist groups defined at least two goals: to promote the rejection of Justicialism as a legitimate political ideology and to eradicate it completely from the individual and collective consciousness. General Lonardi launched the campaign to “de-Peronize” Argentine society by cancelling the celebrations for the Day of Peronist Loyalty held every year across the country on 17 October and by confiscating textbooks with pro-party contents and burning them publicly. Lonardi also convened a commission to investigate the “crimes of the dictatorship” and authorized the demolition of the Palacio Unzué, Perón’s official residence in Buenos Aires. In addition to these efforts, the military leaders were

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eager to bring to light the degree of corruption of the deposed regime; to that end, they organized exhibits open to the public to display the luxury items amassed by the president and the deceased first lady, as well as by other notable figures of the Peronist hierarchy. The principal press outlets of the Arab-Argentine community echoed the process of “de-Peronization” initiated by the new regime. The reactions to the first attempted military coup were cold. The only newspaper that informed its readers about the June bombing of the Plaza de Mayo was Bandera Árabe. It reprinted an article from the newspaper La Nación that condemned the violence but refrained from criticizing the aims of the bombing, which were to oust Perón.2 Two weeks prior to the September coup, the Diario Sirio-Libanés published a story that was favourable to Peronism, in covering the speech that the president made on 31 August, in which he refused to resign from his post.3 After the coup, the newspapers’ stance toward the Peronist movement took a 180-degee turn. This shift happened across media and press outlets; just as they had adapted to the political circumstances of the previous regime, they once again adapted to the rules of the new anti-Peronist game. As the Church became one of the main actors in the post-coup political arena,4 it should come as no surprise that El Misionero, the bulletin of the Maronite church in Argentina – affiliated with the Catholic Church – was the first Arab community newspaper to express approval of the change of regime. This publication, which usually limited its scope to community and religious matters, displayed on its front page a photograph of supporters of the Revolución Libertadora and a quotation from Lonardi’s speech.5 The coverage was in stark contrast with this newspaper’s editorial policy during the Peronist government, when it avoided topics linked to political life, even though, as seen in chapter 3, it did sometimes voice criticisms of the government regarding women’s vote and the inclusion of women in the public sphere. Even though Perón was the first president who recognized the political potential of Arab-Argentines, gaining the loyalty of broad swaths of the community, many now disowned him. In the community press, this about-face in allegiance had historical precedent: Hipólito Yrigoyen (of the ucr ), the first Argentine president to obtain the support of immigrants from the Middle East and their offspring, had been abandoned once he was ousted by General José Félix Uriburu on 6 September 1930; members of the Arab community requested a meeting with the new president to express their support for the new regime. In 1955, the leadership of the Arab-Argentine community adopted a similar stance, defending in public the authorities of the Revolución Libertadora and being

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extremely careful in political statements.6 It is worth noting that other ethnic groups behaved the same way. The leadership of Jewish community organizations also welcomed the de facto government, expressing its wish for political stability. The Jewish community’s printed press praised the new authorities, and the daia published a prayer to commemorate those fallen in the Revolución Libertadora, also voicing its wishes for peace and for the continuation of freedom and democracy. Some community newspapers sought to avoid any display of partisanship, whereas others openly supported the new regime. The editors of Assalam, who had supported Peronism when it was in power, adopted a patriotic but neutral stance.7 On 23 September 1955, an editorial stated, The Arabic-speaking communities residing in the territory of the hospitable Argentine Republic and which have always respected the laws that govern their destiny, congratulate all Argentines, as we also do, for the auspicious result of the recent political conflict. We are certain that, as always, our compatriots will also collaborate to ensure progress, peace, and general tranquility.8 By contrast, the Diario Sirio-Libanés – which had also openly supported Justicialism – applauded General Lonardi in its coverage of the swearing-in ceremony. The newspaper’s director, Emilio Constantino, repeatedly described the revolution as “heroic” and its soldiers as “heroes,” also emphasizing the people’s enthusiasm toward the new president.9 Two days after the ceremony, the newspaper expressed satisfaction at the change of regime: What should most be emphasized is that what matters, in moments such as the present ones in Argentina, is not the change of names, but the change of regime. The programme that General Lonardi introduced from the balcony of the Casa Rosada on the day of his swearing in was broadly met with satisfaction within and outside the country. This is eloquently proven by the facts to which we have referred, that is, the increase in the value of the national currency and the prompt acknowledgment of the provisional government by many countries. Argentina, which yesterday began to live at a new rhythm, returns to its normal course of democratic life. There is freedom for everything, for journalism and private initiatives alike.10 This was the first time that the Diario Sirio-Libanés published a criticism, even veiled such as this one, toward the authoritarian nature of

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the previous regime and expressed its faith that the new regime would protect rights such as freedom of expression. The newspaper’s director described General Lonardi as a highly prestigious military figure with a lengthy and successful service record that ennobled the Argentine nation.11 In writing about Lonardi’s successor, General Aramburu, Constantino compared the latter’s virtues to the manipulations of the overthrown president: General Aramburu spoke of [the need for transparency] in a natural way, without an intended effect. This is precisely why these words had such an effect, because this man is exemplary in his conduct, and not because he displays fictitious attitudes as if for a photographic camera that forces him to smile for all his fellow members of the movement.12 Aramburu is portrayed as being genuinely interested in furthering the nation’s interest, whereas Perón is depicted as having been motivated by his own political interests. Most of the Arab community press, as well as other national printed press outlets, made efforts to distance themselves from any suspicions that they had supported Peronism. In seeking to accomplish this, they reversed the trend toward political participation, reverting to their previous definition of themselves as press organs representing a foreign community living on Argentine soil that observed events without participating in them. This community simply hoped for a swift resolution to the conflict.13 As an article from 26 September 1955 asserted, We cannot intervene in matters that exclusively concern Argentines. Still, we understand that we can add our voice to all of those that demand the conciliation of the great Argentine family … Our newspaper remains true to its position as the organ of a foreign community, by fulfilling its duties without any type of interference. It informs readers, but cannot become involved in that which concerns the children of this noble land in which we live, possibly better than in most other places in the world.14 The newspaper Bandera Árabe which, as mentioned earlier, was the outlet of the pro-Peronist organization El Despertar, adopted a similar attitude after the coup, underscoring its status as a foreign press outlet and, as such, one that abstained from pronouncing on matters that concerned “Argentines exclusively.”15

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The community press, in seeking to distance itself from the conflict that led to Peron’s overthrow, positioned the Arab community outside the frame of Argentine identity. Whereas during the previous regime, the community newspapers asserted time and again that Arab-Argentines were an integral part of the nation, the Revolución Libertadora saw a regression to the situation prior to Peronism’s arrival to power. It should be noted, however, that community institutions have typically not represented the majority of the ethnic community; these statements may be an example of the chiasm between the stances adopted the community’s establishment, which claimed to speak for the entire community, and the individual stances of many of its members. This chiasm persists at present, among both the Arab community and the Jewish community in Argentina. Another strategy adopted by community newspapers to “clean up” their image in the eyes of the new regime was to publish criticisms of Perón and his policies. The Diario Sirio-Libanés did so most explicitly by portraying Lonardi’s government as representing the Argentine people in their entirety, in contrast with Perón, who had represented only the sector of the population who identified with his political movement.16 Further, the Diario Sirio-Libanés characterized the “fugitive” leader as having deceived Argentines, particularly the working class: It should be said loudly and clearly that Argentina’s workers aren’t cannon fodder for any man. When they sided with the president who would later be overthrown by the movement of 16 September, they did so because they believed the word of the citizen and the military man. But when the facts demonstrated that their trust had been misplaced, they ceased to view themselves as affiliated to this leader, because he had deceived them in their civic beliefs and in what for a time was referred to as “the social gains” … Workers, as all sectors of the Argentine people, were misguided. They placed their belief in the nation’s destiny in the hands of a man who did not turn out to be whom everyone thought and believed him to be … Argentines do not grant irrevocable powers and this is why the powers of the deposed president have been revoked – he who, since 16 September, has not uttered a syllable or been seen anywhere.17 In this editorial and others, the director of the Diario Sirio-Libanés emphasized that workers had been loyal to Justicialism and that Perón was a coward who had betrayed their trust. He denounced the Peronist government as a “dictatorship.”18 It is likely that such ferocious criticism

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aimed to neutralize any suspicions that the outlet had supported the ousted regime. The editorial also referred to Perón’s authoritarianism and voiced the hope that the people would not once again get caught up in the cult of personality of the current president, which could only bring about another “tyranny.”19 Criticisms of Peronism were not limited to targeting his authoritarian style; the community press also covered the results of the investigative commissions convened by the new authorities, which determined that Perón had accumulated wealth at the expense of the people. He was, therefore, a traitor and a swindler who had taken advantage of his supporters’ good will. Criticisms encompassed the cgt , arguing that this organization did not represent the working class and its interests, and that it had misled its members to benefit the leadership.20 The press also condemned the pro-government propaganda disseminated during the Peronist decade, sometimes in international campaigns: Indeed, the people’s wealth should not be funneled toward government propaganda. This must always be remembered for the sake of a greater purpose: so that teachers always remember this when the strongman rears his head in schools seeking to alter students’ serious efforts. Unfortunately, all of this has become custom during the regime of the overthrown government … Propaganda isn’t solely conducted in the country: it was also conducted with a wealth of details wherever Argentina had a diplomatic or consular representation. Because the truth is that everything began and ended with the president.21

c a r l o s m e n e m : “a n arab” i n power The election of Carlos Saúl Menem, a Peronist of Arab heritage, to the presidency in 1989 marked the culmination of the processes analyzed throughout this book, particularly the integration of immigrants into the political sphere. A glance at his biography reveals the important role played by Menem’s ethnic background in his life and in that of his family, as well as in his political trajectory.22 Saud Menehem, Carlos Saúl’s father, arrived in Buenos Aires in 1912 at the age of fourteen. He came from Yabrud, a small town on the outskirts of Damascus; out of the 7,000 people who lived in Yabrud, 2,000 emigrated to Argentina. His older brother Mahmud had been living in La Rioja since 1906, where his cousins Tufik and Ángel had also settled. After initially working as peddlers who crossed distances on the backs of mules, the brothers Menehem became the owners of a general store and warehouse. Saud had a

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son, Elías, who would later be known as “Carlos Menem’s brother.” In 1921 Saud met Valentina Leiva, who was sixteen years old. They had two children and lived together out of wedlock until 1928. That year, Saud’s mother requested in a letter that he return to Yabrud to meet his future wife, Mohibe Akil. Saud’s future bride hailed from a family that had long been established in the same town and had good economic standing. She was, just as her future husband, Muslim, but she had been educated at a school run by Catholic nuns. A year after Saud’s departure for Damascus, his brother Mahmud told Leiva that she had to leave the house, as Saud and his new wife were to live there. Carlos Saúl was born in 1930, and Munir and Eduardo followed shortly after. While the family maintained some Muslim customs, they also adapted to local culture. During his teenage years and afterwards, Carlos worked at the general store. At the age of eighteen, as part of his integration into local life, he began to go to church, to assist during mass, and to pray and read the Bible with interest. This situation made his father furious, but he had no choice but to accept it. Carlos studied law in Córdoba and returned to La Rioja in 1955. As a lawyer, he represented political prisoners. He was also president of the clandestine Juventud Peronista (Peronist Youth). Just as Carlos’s grandmother had done with her son, Mohibe was looking to find Carlos a wife from an Arab family. Around 1964, his mother’s interventions to separate Carlos from his local girlfriend succeeded and preparations began for a trip to Syria. The Yomases were a wealthy family and acquainted with the Menem family. Carlos and Zulema Yoma were introduced in the Yoma family home in Damascus. Zulema was twenty-one years old and had eight brothers. During that trip, Menem had a stopover in Europe, which allowed him to meet Perón in Madrid thanks to the mediation of his compatriot, Jorge Antonio Chibene. Although Menem had converted to Catholicism before his wedding, the ceremony was held in accordance with the Islamic rite in the home of his cousin, Diba Akil, who lived in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Constitución. The ceremony was officiated by Jaled El Kadri, the father of Envar El Kadri, who would go on to found the Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas (Peronist Armed Forces).23 A few days later, a party was held at La Rioja’s Club Sirio Libanés to celebrate the union. The couple’s first child, named Juan Domingo, died a few hours after birth. In 1968 Carlitos was born, and the next year, when the couple faced a crisis, Zulema left for Syria and took their son with her.24 Menem’s strong ties with Syria and the Arab world have fuelled a broad range of theories regarding the agreements that the politician

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might have had with countries in the Middle East and the financial aid that he might have received from them during his political campaigns. Many of these hypotheses focused on Menem’s contacts with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Libyan ruler Muammar Khadafi in the early 1970s; these contacts came about thanks to the mediation of Héctor Basualdo of the Peronist Guardia de Hierro organization. In 1982, Menem was invited by the Libyan embassy in Argentina to visit Tripoli, which he did with the Peronist veteran Herminio Iglesias. During this trip, many of Menem’s fellow Peronists were disappointed to find out that he – as most Argentines of Arab heritage – did not speak Arabic.25 Some hypotheses about that trip point to Peronist Mario Rotundo and his contacts in Libya, Iran, and Iraq as the source of the funds that supported Menem during the party’s internal elections in the late 1980s. It has also frequently been surmised that Muammar Khadafi and Syrian president Hafez al-Assad contributed to this campaign.26 Their total contribution amounted to US$40 million, according to a statement made by the Dominican presidential candidate of Lebanese heritage, Nemen Nader Rodríguez, co-founder with Nancy Reagan of the Hispanics for Reagan committee.27 When Menem was the Peronist Party candidate against Eduardo Angeloz, in the 1989 presidential elections, he went on a tour of Europe and the Middle East, where he is said to have met with Assad in Damascus.28 The administrations led by Menem included an unprecedented proportion of public servants who were either Arab or of Arab heritage. His brothers Eduardo and Munir were his close collaborators, even though the latter kept a low profile. In 1989, continuing a trend initiated during the first Perón administrations of appointing Argentines of Arab origin to serve as the country’s emissaries in Syria, Munir was named ambassador to Syria, but a year later, Carlos Saúl recalled him as he needed his brother’s services in Argentina. Munir worked in the president’s office until the end of his brother’s final mandate in 1999. Munir was later accused of having telephoned Judge Galeano, who was overseeing the investigation into the 1994 terrorist attack on the amia (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) building in Buenos Aires, to ask him to cast aside the so-called Syrian hypothesis.29 Menem’s in-laws also played an important role in supporting him. Members of the Yoma family owned a tannery in La Rioja, and during Menem’s presidency, they were appointed to government posts. Emir Yoma was living in Syria when Menem was introduced to his future wife, and he was the one who accompanied them during their initial meeting. From that point on, their friendship blossomed and endured

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through the separations between Carlos Saúl and Zulema and the twists and turns of political life. The two men characterized the bonds that grew and strengthened between them as “Arab loyalty.” Emir was advisor to the president but had to step down from this post in 1991 due to accusations made against him by the US ambassador that he had asked for bribes. Nevertheless, many considered him a “minister without a portfolio,” and his office on Florida Street was nicknamed “the little tent”30 – a pejorative reference to the ethnic origin of those in power that characterized Arabs as nomads travelling the desert. This instance of belittling could be viewed as a feature of Argentine culture that had previously manifested in the description of Jewish Argentines who were in the inner circles of power during the Alfonsín administration as “the Radical synagogue.”31 Other relatives of Menem’s also gained public notoriety: Alfredo Karim Yoma was secretary of special matters in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Amalia Beatriz “Amira” Yoma was director of the Secretariat of Hearings. She was the youngest of Zulema’s siblings and had lived in Damascus from the age of six to twenty. As she was fluent in Arabic, she held a position in the higher echelons of the White Helmets until the end of the Menem administration. Previous to this, like Emir, she had to resign in 1991 due to acts of corruption involving her ex-husband, Ibrahim al Ibrahim. Even though the latter did not speak Spanish, he was named by decree to a high-ranking post in the strategic area of customs at the country’s largest airport, Ezeiza. Merhell Al Ibrahim also had a position in the Menem administration, as did Emir Fauad, the presidential advisor who was investigated for arms trafficking and bribery. Rima and Gacela Siman Menem were appointed to the Argentine embassy in Italy, Lila Siman Menem, to the Ministry of Health, Roberto Akil, to the Argentine embassy at the United Arab Emirates, and Amira Akil, to the Argentine embassy in Syria.

ar g e n t in a , t h e m id d l e eas t confli ct, a n d t h e a m ia bombi ng By 1989, when Syrians and Argentines of Syrian heritage were accumulating a share of political power larger than they had ever held in Argentina, one of the most conflict-ridden phases in the country’s relations with the Arab world had begun. Tensions flared due to Argentina’s failure to keep its promises and fulfill the terms of agreements related to nuclear technology and armaments signed with Syria, Libya, and Iran. Argentina’s alignment with the United States was another factor

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in this deterioration of relations with the Middle East. This stance was famously characterized by the minister of foreign affairs, Guido di Tella, as “carnal relations.” By aligning itself with a superpower, Argentina aimed to adjust the perception of the world and the behaviour of Argentine diplomats in the interests of a peripheral country.32 Transformations in relations between the military and civilians during Menem’s first mandate are key to understanding his administration’s approach to international relations. The changes in both these spheres must also be connected to Argentina’s alignment with the United States and to Menem’s economic plan to privatize state-run companies. Menem was, in fact, one of the most ardent supporters of the “Washington Consensus,” the package of neoliberal reforms promoted in 1989 by the US Department of Treasury, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Upon being elected to the presidency, Menem inherited the unresolved and thorny issue of the trials of members of the military for their actions during the civil-military dictatorship (1976–83). The Armed Forces were demanding vindication, and the carapintadas, a group within that institution that most strongly adhered to that stance, led three uprisings during the administration of Menem’s predecessor, President Raúl Alfonsín. Within this context, hyperinflation provided Menem with a suitable pretext to establish the economy as his top priority, while the military sectors, which were seeking to avoid punishment, were strengthened by the guerrilla attack on the barracks at La Tablada. The Armed Forces were not antagonistic toward Menem, as they had been with Alfonsín. From the start of his mandate, Menem signalled his openness to a negotiated outcome, particularly when he stated that he could not even stand to see a bird behind the bars of a cage.33 Three months after becoming president in 1989, Menem issued a pardon to 280 people, except for the main military figures, and a decree pardoning the carapintada leaders, Aldo Rico and Mohamed Alí Seineldín – the latter, of Lebanese Druze heritage; both men went into forced retirement. However, on 3 December 1990, two days prior to the visit of US president George Bush, Seineldín helmed a revolt within the military. Menem ordered the liquidation of the rebellion, and in less than twenty-four hours, the insurgents were neutralized. In late December, Menem issued general pardons as part of a call for national reconciliation and, in so doing, provoked criticism across the political spectrum. Once the pardons were conceded and the carapintadas, vanquished, Menem championed a new defence policy. He abandoned the long-standing hypotheses about the necessity of upholding the conflict

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with Chile and Brazil and emphasized the integrating role of the regional common market, known as Mercosur, and of aligning with the United States. These orientations contributed to his economic project. Once the hypotheses about conflict were relinquished, the Armed Forces were redirected in unprecedented ways toward the international fight against drug trafficking and in support of international peace missions led by the un. During the first Gulf War, Menem contributed two warships to the coalition against Iraq, thus differentiating himself from all other Latin American leaders and gaining high international visibility. He also sent a contingent of almost 1,000 men to serve as White Helmets in Croatia. Even more significantly, Argentina bowed to US pressures by suspending its projects to develop the Cóndor II missile and nuclear arms. The missile program had been launched in the 1970s through a web of secret agreements with countries of the Middle East to fund this research and distribute the weapons.34 The policy of privatization and budgetary cuts is also key to understanding the changes in the relations between the military and civil society and Menem’s use of the Armed Forces for dramatically different purposes and roles from those which they had traditionally had. These policies had prompt and far-reaching effects on the three branches of the military. By 1994, the military complex had largely been privatized and plans had been made for the sale of the remaining assets. The composition of the army was also drastically changing, in large part because mandatory military service was abandoned in favour of voluntary enrollment. The number of recruits diminished accordingly, as did the assigned budget. The Armed Forces thereby ceased to be a major political actor. This new orientation sought to demilitarize diplomacy on the regional and international scales, while opening new markets and attracting investors. The Menem administration’s central policy decision to align itself with the United States also affected Argentina’s relations with the Middle East, particularly with Iran and Israel.35 In 1991, Argentina abandoned the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries36 – a space in which just under two years prior, at the Belgrade Summit, Menem had suggested that he could act as a “mediator” in the Middle East conflict, invoking his Arab ethnic origin.37 Prior to Menem’s presidency, Argentina had signed agreements with Iran to provide nuclear material. Alfredo Karim Yoma, Menem’s brother-in-law, was subsequently dispatched to Iran to renegotiate the terms of the agreements. In 1990, a representative of Iran visited Argentina to finalize details, and that same year, the confidential Acuerdo Nuclear Argentino-Iraní (Argentine-Iranian Nuclear

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Agreement) was signed. This policy was nevertheless stymied by the Gulf War and Argentina’s alignment with the United States. Menem eventually suspended shipments of nuclear materials and, in 1992, publicly annulled the agreements. The key moment in Argentina’s international relations during the decade of Menem administrations (1989–99) without a doubt occurred in September 1991, after just over a year in the presidency, when Menem issued a decree to ship the Spiro corvette and the Almirante Brown destroyer to the Persian Gulf, in support of the US-led coalition’s offensive against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, ignoring the opposition’s claim that such measures had to be authorized by the Argentine Congress. After being sworn in, Menem hosted the Israeli president Chaim Herzog. Less than two years later, Menem visited Israel. The October 1991 visit had symbolic significance as this made Menem the first acting Argentine president to visit the Jewish state. This visit drew criticism from Argentina’s Syrian community, which in its disappointment alluded to the president’s ethnic background. Members of the community argued that the president should have officially visited Syria before any other Middle Eastern country. As President Assad had barred Menem from entering Syria due to Menem’s sympathy toward Israel,38 the tour continued on to Tunisia and Chipre, and then Egypt, added at the last minute. The following year, Menem was hosted by some of the countries that had participated in the Gulf War as part of the US-led coalition, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, in addition to Kuwait. Menem also signed an agreement with Egypt for the transfer of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. In 1995, he visited the United Arab Emirates, in 1996, Morocco, then in 1998, Egypt and Lebanon. In the latter country, he kept quiet when asked about the request that he support the un Security Council’s resolution 425 backing the withdrawal of Israel from the southern strip, which it had been occupying since 1982. In Egypt, he was present at the inauguration of a small atomic reactor. In 1992, he hosted the Emir of Kuwait. In 1995, he hosted the Turkish president and the Tunisian minister of foreign affairs. In 1996, he hosted the president of Lebanon and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. In Israel, in addition to signing agreements for cultural, agricultural, commercial cooperation and for future investments, Menem offered to host the Middle East Peace Conference in Buenos Aires, which in the end was held in Madrid in late October 1991. He also offered to mediate in defence of the “mistreated” Jews in Syria.39 Subsequently, in December of that year, Argentina was among the countries supporting the repeal of the un ’s 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism.

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Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Menem altered only slightly Argentina’s foreign policy, tipping mildly toward Israel, but he maintained the country’s long-held stance of equidistance, premised on a two-state solution capable of ensuring the Palestinian people’s selfdetermination and Israel’s right to live in peace within secure borders. Whereas relations with Israel improved, Menem never met with delegates from the Palestine Liberation Organization (plo ), not even when he visited Tunisia, where the plo was headquartered, nor did he meet with representatives of the Arab League, despite multiple entreaties to do so.40 Menem’s administration did, nevertheless, authorize the creation of a plo diplomatic delegation in Buenos Aires in 1994, and two years later Argentina formally recognized the Palestinian National Authority as well, granting it a property for its representative in Argentina.41 In the votes that Argentina cast as a member country of the United Nations regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even though the proportion of votes in which it sided with the United States increased noticeably between 1991 and 1995, from 1996 on Argentina returned to its traditional stance: maintaining good ties with the United States but keeping enough distance to play a more important role among nonaligned thirdworld countries.42 These policy shifts should be understood within the context of Menem’ efforts to become a mediator in the conflict, with the broader aim of positioning himself and Argentina on the world stage. Argentina’s approach to the conflict intensified in 1996, when a series of attacks carried out by the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, which were boycotting the peace process launched by Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and plo leader Yasser Arafat, killed sixty-one Israelis, due to which Israel closed its borders with the Palestinian territories. Menem sent a letter to Arafat expressing his willingness to participate in the peace process between Arabs and Israelis, in addition to his commitment to sending White Helmets to the area, which he did months later.43 Within this context, Arafat met with the Argentine minister of the interior, Carlos Corach, and Emir Yoma, Menem’s brother-in-law, at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the Gaza Strip. Arafat requested of the two emissaries that Argentina intervene by demanding that the borders be reopened.44 Menem, seeking to be recognized as a global statesman, received with satisfaction Arafat’s proposal that he should “actively use all his international ties, not only in Latin America, but also in the United States, Lebanon, and Israel.”45 Over the phone, Menem told Abu Amar that Rabin’s successor, Prime Minister Shimon Peres, had promised to gradually loosen the blockade, and he also committed to

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asking Bill Clinton to intercede to demand an end to the Israeli blockade. Menem added that he was willing to travel, if necessary – in the end, he did not. In fact, none of Menem’s efforts to become a mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict gained momentum. The Israeli embassy in Argentina was attacked with a car bomb on 17 March 1992, killing twenty-nine and wounding nearly 300.46 One of the common explanations for the attack is Israel’s murder of Abbas al Moussawi, founding member and secretary general of Hezbollah, and Argentina’s failure to fulfill its agreements with Iran.47 On 18 July 1994, another terrorist attack rocked the core of Buenos Aires. The attack targeted the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (amia ; Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) and killed eighty-six, making this the largest attack against a Jewish community after the Holocaust. In the aftermath, it seems that Israel and Argentina agreed on presenting an official version of the attack tailored to the purposes of each country. It suited Israel to point to the Iranian government’s involvement in the attacks without mentioning Syria, as at the time, Israel was negotiating a peace treaty with this neighbouring country. This version also suited the Argentine government, as “those in the highest echelons had close ties with the government in Damascus.”48 The attack promptly became one of the central topics in relations with Iran, as well as in relations with Israel and the United States. As Carlos Escudé states, the two attacks were due in part “to Menem’s own inconsistencies in promising nuclear and missile technology to dangerous countries in the Middle East and then reneging on these promises.”49 By November 1994, following the two attacks, and one month before Argentina’s vote at the un in favour of returning the Golan Heights to Syria, Assad finally granted permission to Menem to visit his country of origin. Menem claimed that then Israeli minister of foreign affairs Shimon Peres had expressed to him his willingness to deepen peace negotiations and that Israel was willing to concede to Syria the disputed territories. Peres denied this. Menem then claimed that the interpreter had incorrectly conveyed Peres’s words.50 Such fruitless attempts to intercede in the Middle East conflict largely defined the results of Menem’s foreign policy toward the region. Domestically, his failure to fulfill commitments with various Arab countries, in addition to automatic alignment with the United States and Israel, had dramatic repercussions for Argentine society, particularly for its Jewish community, even though this protagonism did position Argentina among nations that stood for democracy and rejected state terrorism.

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t he l o n g pat h towa r d the edi fi cati on o f a g r a n d mos que To fulfill a long-standing promise made by the Peronist movement in its eagerness to garner the favour of the Muslim world and in keeping with the populist policy of making space for the different communities that have made their home in Argentina, Menem personally fostered the donation of a plot of land in Buenos Aires, valued at US$20 million, for the construction of the largest mosque in the world outside of the Arab countries.51 This was not the Menem government’s only donation of land or real estate to the Arab world; the president also donated separate buildings to house the headquarters of the Federación de Entidades Argentino Árabes (Federation of Argentine-Arab Entities) and the diplomatic delegation of the Palestinian National Authority, as mentioned earlier. The most significant such donation, in terms of scale, value, and repercussions in the public sphere, was without a doubt the 33,726 square metres of land located between Libertador Avenue and Bullrich Avenue to serve as the site of the Centro Cultural Islámico Custodio de las Dos Sagradas Mezquitas Rey Fahd (Islamic Cultural Centre “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd”).52 Inaugurated in 2000, this centre includes a mosque large enough that 1,200 men and 400 women can pray separately in the direction of Mecca, as well as, for the general public, a cultural centre, rooms for artistic performances and exhibitions, a library holding 10,000 books, and a café. The complex also houses educational facilities, including a preschool, two buildings dedicated to a school for boys, a school for girls, residences for 120 students from the country’s hinterland, as well as underground parking. The two minarets tower forty-eight metres tall.53 Muslim Argentines made the first efforts toward this initiative in the late 1940s, seeking to take advantage of the political climate to secure the construction of a mosque and cultural centre that would highlight their presence in the capital city’s urban landscape.54 At the time, various immigrant communities from the Middle East had their own religious temples and cultural centres, including members of the Maronite, Greek Orthodox, and Sephardi Jewish faiths. In the early 1950s, Muhammad al-Said, Egypt’s minister plenipotentiary in Argentina, succeeded at unifying a large Muslim sector in Buenos Aires and promised to use his contacts with Perón and to secure financial support from King Farouk for the construction of a mosque. He also secured funds from Al-Azhar University, his country’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, and the SyrianLebanese bank located in Cairo. King Farouk’s uncle, Prince Muhammad

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Ali, made a contribution as well. The Egyptian diplomat’s initiative brings to the forefront the importance of diasporic ties between ArabArgentines and their region of origin. Supporters of this initiative harboured hopes that the new mosque would foster unity among immigrants from the Middle East, bridge religious differences, and ensure that Argentines and their state acknowledged these immigrants’ contribution to the country and their place in it.55 In May 1950 a ceremony was held for the laying of the cornerstone in the district of Caballito at the corner of Rivadavia Avenue and Cucha Cucha (the present-day Félix Lora Avenue). Attendees listened to the Argentine national anthem and a reading from the Quran, followed by speeches from a variety of speakers, including diplomats from Arab countries, key figures on the national and municipal levels, and leaders of Arab-Argentine community institutions. As the occasion coincided with the centennial of the death of the Libertador, General José de San Martín, Ibrahim Hallar, the secretary of the committee in charge of furthering the edification of the mosque, made a speech in which he compared San Martín with the heroic Faisal in their struggle for liberation. Hallar emphasized local Muslims’ support for the Peronist project. The ceremony was covered across the printed press, not only in community newspapers. In unison, they praised the initiative and, in some cases, compared Buenos Aires with London and Paris, where all the monotheist communities lived in fraternity.56 Peronist populism’s aspiration to integrate all members of the polity was on full display. However, the plan to build the mosque in Caballito never came to fruition. The leaders behind the initiative either lost interest or became embroiled in various scandals. The Muslim community was divided, and many of its members were apathetic toward this project. The Egyptian diplomat who sponsored it returned to Cairo. The overthrow of King Farouk ensured the end of this initiative. In 1957, another, more modest property was purchased on Rivadavia Avenue. It had a space for prayer that could also be used to teach Arabic and the Muslim religion. In some regards, Menem followed in Perón’s footsteps. This certainly was the case when it came to the integration into society of the descendants of Semitic immigrants.57 In May 1992, during a visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Menem met with King Fahd and promised him a space to build a mosque in Argentina destined for the use of the country’s one million Muslims, who comprised the third-largest community in the Americas, after those of the United States and Brazil.58 Only three months later, then mayor of Buenos Aires, Carlos Grosso, whom

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Menem had appointed to this post, declared that some lands located in the district of Palermo – one of the most expensive in Argentina – and associated with the railways were unnecessary for the government’s action. Consequently, in December 1995 Congress authorized the transfer of these lands to the embassy of the Saudi kingdom. It is a striking coincidence that the former Ottoman general consul, Emir Emin Arslan, who arrived in Buenos Aires in 1910, had imagined that an Islamic cultural centre could be built in that neighbourhood. The only senator who voted against this initiative was, paradoxically, the ucr ’s Fernando de la Rúa.59 He ended up being the one who, as mayor of Buenos Aires, placed the cornerstone and carried out the donation of land, for which he received from King Fahd the “Abdul Aziz” necklace, made of gold and sapphires and valued at US$700,000.60 Despite opposition from Radicalism and the Frente País Solidario (Front for a Country in Solidarity), the other influential political party during the mid-1990s, the Justicialista majority in the Argentine Congress approved law 24.619, which Menem enacted six days later through decree 1.004/95 and then through decree 840/96, which authorized the transfer of the lands to the embassy of Saudi Arabia.61 This measure raised controversy, as some argued that freedom of religion did not exist in Saudi Arabia, and that given the kingdom’s high revenues, it did not need such generous donations.62 King Fahd’s son, Prince Abdullah Ben Abdul Aziz Al Saud, travelled to Argentina in August 1996 to place, together with Menem and de la Rúa, the cornerstone of the future mosque, which was to include an Islamic complex. According to Saudi authorities, they had dedicated US$40 million to the construction project across the 20,000 metre area, but the actual costs were closer to US$14 million.63 The studio of the prestigious architect Mario Roberto Álvarez was hired to carry out the project and see through the design of Saudi architect Zuhair Faiz. Riva, the construction company hired for the project, had completed various public works projects for different Argentine governments. All the carpets were imported from Arab countries, trees from these lands were planted, and a group of Moroccan goldsmiths travelled to the site to engrave on the walls verses of the Quran.64 On 25 September 2000, then president de la Rúa led the ceremony of inauguration,65 but it was former president Menem who received the most resounding ovation from the 600 guests. He was accompanied by his daughter Zulema, who wore a hijab and prayed at one point during the ceremony. A large security detail of 300 police staff and gendarmes was deployed for this event attended by the crown prince of Saudi

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Arabia, Abdullah Ben Abdul Aziz Al Saud, who was also vice-president of the Council of Ministers and chief of the kingdom’s national guard, together with a committee of approximately 250 members of the Royal House and the Royal Cabinet. The crown prince was awarded the Orden del Libertador by de la Rúa and received the keys to the City of Buenos Aires from the mayor, Aníbal Ibarra. Shlomo Benhamú, the great rabbi of Buenos Aires, was also invited to the ceremony. On that occasion, de la Rúa stated that “from this day, the city incorporates into its landscape and its spiritual and cultural pulse an Islamic cultural centre dedicated to dissemination of a millenarian traditional culture,” adding that “in Argentina, we are proud that religious and ethnic origin[s] aren’t a cause for discrimination, but for solidarity and exchange.”66 Menem’s presidency represented the most prominent case of the political rise of an Arab of Syrian and Muslim background in the country.67 Aside from support or criticisms of his government, Argentine society also reacted to his ethnic origin. His ascent to, and presence in, the nation’s top post and the strong Arab presence in his entourage gave rise to what Cristina Civantos has called a “second wave” of anti-Arab sentiment in Argentina. Society’s reaction to Menem was to a large extent informed by an “orientalist” perspective, in which, as examined in the first chapter, long-standing prejudices converged with new, romanticized images. The first wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, in the 1930s, had arisen from elites’ disappointment with newly arrived immigrants. In that context, characterized by xenophobia and cultural nationalism, Jews and Arabs were singled out as the most undesirable elements among immigrants and as incapable of assimilating to the nation. From the outset, the terms used to refer to them, “rusos” and “turcos,” were clearly pejorative. All immigrants of Arab origin were called “turcos,” as they typically came from the Ottoman Empire. Although most of these immigrants were Christians, they were often associated with Islam. This first anti-Arab wave occurred within the framework of an anti-Semitism that was broadly directed toward Jews and Arabs. The second anti-Arab wave began in the late 1980s in response to Carlos Saúl Menem’s rise to the presidency and, within this imaginary, he would come to embody the “turco” par excellence. From his beginnings as a Peronist leader in La Rioja, Menem based himself on the caudillo Facundo Quiroga (1788–1835) to fashion his public image. He identified with this figure and was well aware of the parallels that writer and statesman Domingo Sarmiento had established in his seminal Facundo (1845) between the “Tiger of the Llanos” and Arabs. Before becoming president, Menem wore his hair long and

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sculpted his sideburns in the same style as Quiroga, in addition to donning the regional poncho. He named his first-born Carlos Facundo. By strategically cultivating a criollo image, he may well have been seeking to distance himself from his “turco” lineage and assert himself as an authentic Argentine. Once elected to the presidency, he redefined the Arab component of his identity as an additional element in the aesthetics of a cosmopolitan man who was seen in public with attractive women, luxury cars, and wealthy businesspeople. An enduring image from that period is his appearance on Mirtha Legrand’s daily show in which she hosted guests for lunch. On that occasion, Menem danced with a belly dancer. Whereas these gestures increased the general public’s willingness to accept Arab traits, they also heightened some deeply rooted stereotypes in Argentine society. The popular magazine Humor typically poked fun at Menem by drawing upon anti-Arab stereotypes and publishing caricatures of the president in which he pronounced “p” as a “b” (as the Arabic language does not have the “p” sound), even though he did not have an “Arabic accent.” In a satirical tone, his personal defects, political mistakes, and the various corruption scandals that plagued him were attributed to his ethnic and religious origins. The media in general reported in detail about his family’s cultural and religious traits, including how the funeral ceremony for his son’s death was held according to Islamic rites. Although Menem would not have been able to become president if he had not converted to Catholicism, once in the presidency, he modified the national constitution so that eligibility to be elected head of state was not restricted to Roman Catholics. Simultaneously, he provoked controversy when he donated a large plot of land located in the Palermo neighbourhood to the embassy of Saudi Arabia for the erection of the largest Islamic centre in Latin America. Menem’s way of negotiating his identity exacerbated existing prejudices while opening new possibilities for inclusion. His time in the presidency transformed Argentines’ perceptions of religions, particularly of Islam.

Notes

i nt roduct i o n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

Perón, Doctrina peronista. Perón, “Ante la colectividad árabe,” 176. Rein, Populism and Ethnicity. Schneider, “Two Faces,” 173. Arnson and Torre, eds., Latin American Populism; Rein, “From Juan Perón.” Sznajder, Roniger, and Forment, eds., Shifting Frontiers, 4. Perón, Comunidad organizada; Rein and Panella, eds., En busca de la comunidad; Costa Pinto, ed., Corporatism and Fascism; Wiarda, Corporatism. Milanesio, “Peronists”; Lenton, “Malón de la Paz”; Karush and Chamosa, New Cultural History; Barry, Evita Capitana. República Argentina, The Immigrant in Argentina, 19–20. Viquendi, “Sirio-libaneses,” 31. Noyjovich, “¡Viva Berón!”; Dimant, “Inmigración árabe”; Noufouri and Veneroni, Sirios. Zanatta, “El populismo”; De la Torre, Populist Seduction. Phenomena such as the neopopulism of the 1990s (as embodied by Carlos Menem, among others) or the radical populism of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (as helmed by Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) merit a separate discussion. Di Tella, “Populism and Reform,” 47. Sznajder, Roniger, and Forment, eds., Shifting Frontiers, 1; Brubaker, Citizenship, 21, 29.

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Notes to pages 10–19

16 Fennema and Tillie, “Civic Community”; Karolewski, Citizenship, 7–13, 20–1, 25, 27, 89–103. 17 Roniger, Transnational Politics, 67–8. 18 Perón, “Ante la colectividad árabe” (Buenos Aires, 20 April 1954), in Obras completas, 175. 19 Eva Perón, “Discurso pronunciado.” 20 Perón, “Discurso a residentes libaneses” (Buenos Aires, 9 August 1951), in Obras completas. 21 Perón, “En la inauguración de la sede de la Organización Israelita Argentina” (Buenos Aires, 20 August 1948), in Obras completas, 339. 22 Perón, “Ante miembros de la colectividad japonesa” (Buenos Aires, 29 May 1951), in Obras completas, 365; Rein, Udagawa, and Vázquez, “Muchachos peronistas japoneses.“ 23 Plotkin, Mañana, 30. 24 Perón, “Ante la colectividad árabe,” in Obras completas, 174. 25 Lesser, Negotiating. 26 Perón, “En la ceremonia realizada en el Salón Blanco” (Buenos Aires, 18 September 1950), in Obras completas. 27 Perón, “Ante la colectividad árabe,” in Obras completas, 174. 28 Bosoer, “Orientalismo,” 14. 29 Bertoni, “De Turquía.” 30 On the concept and the politics/policies shaping the organized community, see Rein and Panella, eds., En busca. 31 Elena, “New Directions”; Rein and Panella, El retorno, 19–95. 32 Shua, “With All That I Am,” 251. 33 “Américo Yunes: argentino, porteño, pan-arabe y sufrido hincha de Racing,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 31 October 2014. 34 Qtd in “El misterioso amigo de Perón,” Mundo Árabe (Santiago de Chile), 28 October 1955, 5. 35 “Buen comienzo,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 26 October 1946.

chapter one 1 Schamún, Siria Nueva, 19. 2 Perón, “Ante la colectividad árabe” (Buenos Aires, 20 April 1954), in Obras completas. 3 See Scobie, Buenos Aires; Walter, Politics; Gorelik, Grilla. 4 Delaney, “Immigration,” 92–3. 5 On Argentine immigration policies, see Solberg, Immigration; Moya, “The Jewish Experience”; Moya, Cousins and Strangers; Baily, Immigrants.

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6 La Nación, 6 October 1928, 8. 7 Bestene, “La inmigración,” 240, 256; Bestene, “Realidades,” 147; Valverde, “Integration and Identity,” 314–15; Humphrey, “Ethnic History,” 171. 8 Bertoni, “De Turquía,” 82. 9 Martos, Balancing Act, 74. 10 Jozami, “Aspectos demográficos,” 57–66. 11 Abboud, “Árabes musulmanes,” 239. 12 For comparative purposes, see Khater, “Becoming ‘Syrian.’” 13 Jozami, “Manifestation,” 79. 14 Bestene, “Inmigración,” 255–26. 15 See, for example, Hourani and Shedhadi, eds., Lebanese in the World; Kabchi, ed., Mundo árabe; Rein, ed., Árabes y judíos; Rein, ed., Más allá. 16 Jozami, “Aspectos demográficos,” 59; Alfaro-Velcamp, “ Historiography,” 233. 17 Noufouri and Veneroni, Sirios, 325. 18 Valverde, “Integration and Identity,” 314–15. 19 Qtd in Klich, “Criollos,” 266. 20 Qtd in Solberg, Immigration, 88–9. 21 Aráoz, Inmigración, 48. 22 Noufouri, Justicia estética, 105, 115. 23 Qtd in Viquendi, “ Sirio-libaneses,” 8. 24 Biernat, ¿Buenos o útiles?, 118–23. 25 Jozami, “Identidad religiosa,” 98–9. 26 Bestene, “Inmigración,” 244; Alfaro-Velcamp, “ Historiography,” 236; Jozami, “Manifestation,” 74; Noufouri, “Contribuciones,” 120. 27 Jozami, “Aspectos demográficos,” 62–3; Akmir, “Inserción,” 237; Dimant, “Participación política,” 163. 28 Jozami, “Identidad religiosa,” 98. 29 Bestene, “Inmigración,” 293. 30 Jozami, “Manifestation,” 70–1; Brieger and Herszkowich, “Comunidad musulmana,” 157. 31 Hyland, “Solemn Expression”; Karpat, “Ottoman Emigration”; Delval, Musulmans. 32 See important works by Finchelstein: La Argentina fascista and Ideological Origins of the Dirty War. 33 Noufouri and Veneroni, Sirios, 353. 34 Bestene, “Inmigración.” 35 About this amnesty, see Senkman, “Etnicidad”; and Sassone, “Migraciones.”

186

Notes to pages 31–42

36 Akmir, “Inserción,” 240; Jozami, “Identidad religiosa,” 105; Senkman, “Identidad,” 199–200. 37 Jozami, “Path,” 172; Noufouri and Veneroni, “Sirios,” 243–4, 249; Senkman, “Identidad,” 201–2. 38 Logroño Narbona, “Actividad.” 39 Bestene, “Inmigración,” 263, 265; Vitar Mukdsi, “Inmigrantes,” 297. 40 Noufouri and Veneroni, Sirios, 366. 41 Hyland, “Arisen,” 549. 42 Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt, “Study,” 219–22; Lie, “From International,” 304. 43 See, for example, Hyland, “Arisen,” 547–74; Logroño Narbona, “Actividad”; Schumann, “Nationalism.” 44 Jozami, “Aspectos demográficos,” 66, 69; Valverde, “Question,” 190; Humphrey, “Ethnic,” 172. 45 Noufouri and Veneroni, Sirios, 353. 46 Civantos, “Custom-Building,” 71–2. 47 Hyland, “Arisen,” 554–5. 48 Noufouri, “Contribuciones,” 199–200, 214; Akmir, “Inserción,” 249–50, 255; Klich, “Criollos,” 256; Jozami, “Identidad religiosa,”109. 49 Martos, Balancing Act, 373, 379. 50 Jozami, “Path,” 174–8. 51 Martos, Balancing Act, 348. 52 Rein, Populism and Ethnicity; see also Bell, The Jews and Perón. 53 Klich, “Criollos,” 278–80; Bestene, “Dos imágenes,” 291. 54 Macor and Tcach, “‘El enigma peronista’”; Rein, “De los grandes relatos.” 55 Macor and Tcach, “‘El enigma peronista.’”

c h a p t e r t wo 1 Akmir, “Inserción,” 245. 2 Klich, “Árabes, judíos,” 112. 3 Perón, “ En el banquete ofrecido por la colectividad árabe” (Buenos Aires, 30 August 1950), in Obras completes, 403. 4 Civantos, “Custom-Building,” 79. 5 Klich, “Criollos,” 260–1, 263. 6 “El homenaje de la colectividad árabe al General Perón,” La Bandera Árabe, 21 April 1954; “Con un grandioso acto agasajaron al Gral. Perón Las colectividades de habla árabe,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 22 April 1954.

Notes to pages 42–53 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34

35

187

Perón, “Ante la colectividad,” 173. Martos, Balancing Act, 190. Eva Perón, “Discurso pronunciado.” Perón, “En la condecoración del ministro de Egipto, Mohamed El Said Bey” (Buenos Aires, 28 February 1951), in Obras completes, 113. Perón, “Ante la colectividad,” 175. Lesser, “From Japanese,” 114. Perón, “En el banquete,” 401–2. Perón, “Discurso a residentes libaneses” (Buenos Aires, 9 August 1951), in Obras completas, 506. Civantos, “Custom-Building,” 74–5, 84. Perón, “En la ceremonia realizada en el Salón Blanco” (Buenos Aires, 18 September 1950), in Obras completas. Rein, “Peronist Nationalism.” Lesser, Negotiating. Lesser, Immigration, 161–2. Perón, “Ante la colectividad,” 174–5. Eva Perón, “Discurso pronunciado.” Perón, “En la inauguración,” 340. Perón, “Ante los miembros de la colectividad israelita” (Buenos Aires, 5 July 1951), in Obras completas, 444. Rein, Argentina. Perón, “En el banquete,” 402. Akmir, Los árabes, 203. Rein, “Entre el peronismo.” “Gran recibimiento se tributó a S. E. el Presidente de la República de El Líbano Dr. Camille Chamoun,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 21 May 1954. Perón, “En la ceremonia.” Perón, “Ante la colectividad,” 174. Bosoer, “Orientalismo,” 14. Perón, “Ante miembros,” 365. “La Agrupación Peronista Descendientes de Árabes hizo entrega de una medalla de oro al intendente de esta ciudad, Arquitecto Jorge Sabaté,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 29 April 1953. “Brillantes contornos adquirió el banquete ofrecido en honor del Arquitecto Jorge Sabaté, intendente de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 16 March 1953. “Los árabes, dijo el señor intendente municipal, no son simples inmigrantes sino hermanos que junto a nosotros laboran la grandeza argentina,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 December 1946.

188

Notes to pages 53–6

36 El Eco de Oriente, 12 October 1947. 37 “El ministro de relaciones exteriores del Líbano Doctor Felipe Takla, Condecora al Excmo. Señor Presidente de la Nación y su Esposa,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 24 April 1950; “Brillantes contornos alcanzó la recepción ofrecida por el ministro plenipotenciario del Líbano en honor del canciller libanés,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 28 April 1950. 38 Unamuno, Diego Luis Molinari, 20–1. 39 “Visitó el Líbano el senador argentino Doctor Diego Luis Molinari,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 7 March 1950; “Un senador argentino visita el Líbano,” Assalam, 11 March 1950. 40 “Relaciones diplomáticas con Siria y Líbano,” Assalam, 30 October 1948; “Con motivo de la discusión del proyecto de ley sobre establecimiento de relaciones diplomáticas con Siria y Líbano, pronunció un brillante discurso el Senador Bavio,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 28 October 1948. 41 “En ‘Honor y Patria’ se ofreció un agasajo al Senador E. Bavio,” El Eco de Oriente, 25 June 1949; “Un juicio acerca de nuestra colectividad vertido en el Senado de La Nación,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 5 November 1948; “Nuestra colectividad juzgada por el Senador Nacional Doctor Ernesto F. Bavio,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1949; “Brillantes contornos adquirió la cena de familias del Club Sirio-Libanés ‘Honor Y Patria’ en la que asistió como huésped de honor el Presidente del bloque de senadores de la nación Doctor Ernesto F. Bavio,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 25 June 1949. 42 Brauner, “Comunidad judía alepina.” 43 “Le fue ofrecida una demostración al Secretario de Trabajo y Previsión Señor José M. Freyre,” El Eco de Oriente, August 1946; “Significativa demostración al Ministro Secretario de Trabajo y Previsión Don José María Freire,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 November 1946. 44 “El Secretario de Trabajo y Previsión fue agasajado,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 27 December 1946; “El Ministro Secretario de Trabajo y Previsión fue agasajado,” Assalam, 28 December 1946; “El Ministro Secretario de Trabajo y Previsión fue agasajado,” La Bandera Árabe, 8 January 1947. 45 “Extraordinarias proporciones y lucidos contornos adquirió la brillante demostración ofrecida por el Club Honor y Patria al Excmo. Señor Ministro del Interior,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 2 November 1946. 46 “El Ministro del Interior, Don Ángel G. Borlenghi, será huésped de honor del Club ‘Honor y Patria,’” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 30 October 1946; “Extraordinarias proporciones y lucidos contornos adquirió la brillante

Notes to pages 56–64

47

48

49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59

60

61 62 63 64

189

demostración ofrecida por el Club Honor y Patria al Excmo. Señor Ministro del Interior,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 2 November 1946. “Contornos extraordinarios alcanzó la cena servida en el Club ‘Honor y Patria’ y de la cual fue huésped de honor el Doctor Ramón J. Cereijo,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 3 July 1948. “Visitó al Ministro de R. Exteriores una delegación de nuestra colectividad,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 16 January 1952; “El Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores Dr. Jerónimo Remorino recibirá a una delegación de libaneses y sirios,” Assalam, 15 January 1952. Rein, Populism and Ethnicity. Macor, “Representaciones,” 10; Rein and Panella, eds., En busca. “En una entusiasta asamblea se ha constituido el Centro peronista descendientes de sirios-libaneses,” El Eco de Oriente, 6 November 1948. Ibid. Barry, Eva Perón, 2. “Por la reelección del general Perón,” La Unión Libanesa, 4 August 1951. “Los libaneses apoyan la reelección del general Perón,” Assalam, 11 August 1951; “La colectividad libanesa apoya la reelección del general Perón,” La Bandera Árabe, 13 August 1951. The support of ArabArgentine women for Peronist political figures has been better documented than that of their Jewish-Argentine counterparts. Rapoport, Historia económica, 465–76. Brennan and Rougier, Politics, 58, 73–4. Acha, “Sociedad civil,” 207, 212. “Quedó constituida la Comisión sirio-libanesa de difusión del IIo plan quinquenal del gobierno,” Assalam, 11 February 1953; “Mañana se realizara en Córdoba el primer acto público de difusión del II plan quinquenal auspiciado por la colectividad sirio-libanesa,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 26 February 1953. “El gobernador de Córdoba, Doctor Lucini recibió en su despacho a los integrantes de la Comisión sirio libanesa pro difusión del segundo plan quinquenal,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 February 1953. “Quedó constituida la Comisión sirio-libanesa de difusión del IIo plan quinquenal del gobierno,” Assalam, 11 February 1953. “Llamado a la colectividad,” La Bandera Árabe, 8 December 1952. “Organización árabe-argentina El despertar,” La Bandera Árabe, 24 December 1952. “Proclama a la colectividad árabe y sus descendientes,” La Bandera Árabe, 14 January 1953.

190

Notes to pages 64–8

65 Balloffet, Argentina. 66 “Organización árabe-argentina ‘El Despertar’ comunicado de prensa,” La Bandera Árabe, 6 April 1953. 67 “Disertará el Sr. Américo Barrios,” El Eco de Oriente, 28 September 1953. 68 “Invitación de la colectividad árabe,” La Bandera Árabe, 29 June 1953. 69 “El dpto. cultural de ‘El Despertar,’” La Bandera Árabe, 14 February 1954. 70 “La Agrupación Peronista Descendientes de Árabes hizo entrega de una medalla de oro al intendente de esta ciudad, arquitecto Jorge Sabaté,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 29 April 1953. 71 Ibid. 72 “Incorporación de la colectividad sirio libanesa a la vida pública nacional,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 27 March 1946; “Incorporación efectiva de los sirios y libaneses a la vida pública nacional,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 10 July 1946; “Lo que ha sido el año que termina,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 27 December 1950; “Son libaneses, un senador nacional argentino y un diputado provincial,” Azzaman, 8 June 1946; “Un vice gobernador, un senador y cinco diputados en el nuevo período constitucional de la República pertenecen a nuestra colectividad,” Azzaman, 26 April 1946. 73 Cámara de Diputados, Boletín oficial, No. 17095, Buenos Aires, Decreto 3316, 22 February 1952. 74 “Brillantes contornos alcanzó el homenaje ofrecido al Sr. Simón Bestani en el Club Sirio Libanés Honor y Patria,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 19 May 1952; “El homenaje ofrecido al Sr. Simón Bestani,” Assalam, 20 May 1952. 75 “Brillantes contornos alcanzó el homenaje ofrecido al Sr. Simón Bestani en el Club Sirio Libanés Honor y Patria,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 19 May 1952, 4. 76 Mateo, “El gobierno”; “El fallecimiento del ministro de la gobernación de Buenos Aires señor Manuel S. Mainar,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 July 1949; “La Sociedad Libanesa de La Plata tributo un homenaje al Doctor Víctor Marún,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 14 August 1948. 77 “Fue ascendido el Dr. Víctor Marún,” La Unión Libanesa, 3 April 1948; “Fue ascendido el Dr. Víctor Marún,” Assalam, 6 April 1948; “Nuevo subasesor del gobierno de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Dr. Víctor Marún,” La Unión Libanesa, 17 April 1948; “El doctor Víctor Marún ha sido designado sub-asesor de gobierno de la Provincia de Buenos Aires,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 6 April 1948; “Asumió el nuevo subasesor de gobierno de la

Notes to pages 68–9

78

79 80

81 82

83 84 85 86 87

88 89

90

91

191

Provincia de gobierno de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Doctor Víctor Marún,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 10 April 1948. “Una interesante instantánea,” El Eco de Oriente, 6 May 1950; “La visita del canciller del Líbano y la vinculación argentino libanesa,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 2 May 1950; “Quedó constituida la comisión de festejos del 23 aniversario del Banco Sirio Libanés del Río de La Plata y de los actos para la inauguración del edificio propio en la ciudad de Tucumán,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 17 April 1948. “El gobierno de San Juan confió la presidencia del banco de esa provincia al señor Salomón Nacusi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 17 July 1946. “En una ceremonia que adquirió brillantes contornos asumió la presidencia del Banco San Juan, el señor Alfredo Marún,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 5 Agosto 1948. “Señor Alfredo Marún,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 18 January 1950. “El Banco de San Juan construye su nuevo y monumental edificio,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1953; “Un comunicado de la Agrupación Peronista Descendientes de Sirio Libaneses,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 21 April 1954; “Destacadas personalidades de nuestra colectividad de la Provincia de San Juan,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 28 April 1954; “Instituciones y personalidades prestigian a nuestra colectividad residente en la Provincia de San Juan,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1955. “Alcanzó brillantes contornos la demostración ofrecida en honor del escritor Malatios Khouri,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 20 October 1945. “El fallecimiento de D. Alfredo Juan Kairuz,” Azzaman, 27 July 1946. Klich and Lesser, Arab and Jewish, 27. García Sebastiani, Antiperonistas, 88–9. “Se realizó el enlace civil de la señorita Rosa Juri con el señor Gabriel Kairuz,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 30 Septiembre 1948; “Se realizó el enlace Juri-Kairuz,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 2 October 1948. Cámara de Diputados, Boletín oficial, Buenos Aires, Año 1952, Tomo I. “Imposición de nombre a escuela de salud pública: ‘Prof. Dr. Leonardo Obeid,’” in Revista de Salud Pública, Special issue (Nov. 2013): 77–81; Tcach, Sabattinismo, 83, 131. Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Nación, “La memoria legislativa argentina,” n.d., http://www.diputados.gov.ar/diputados/registroHistorico. html. “El Doctor Luis Atalá integra el Consejo Superior del Partido Peronista,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 15 May 1953; “Condecoro el Líbano al Diputado Luis Atalá,” La Bandera Árabe, 11 November 1953.

192

Notes to pages 70–2

92 “Fue agasajado el Diputado Nacional Sr. Luis Atalá,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 17 January 1952; “Fue agasajo el Diputado Nacional Don Luis Atalá,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 31 December 1953; “Fue agasajado el Diputado Nacional Don Luis Atalá por la colectividad árabe, patrocinada por la Asociación de Beneficencia Drusa,” Al Istiklal, 5 January 1954. 93 “Gestionan libaneses y sirios se facilite el envío de remesas familiares,” La Unión Libanesa, 26 January 1952. 94 Tcach, “Obreros rebeldes,” 35, 40; Tcach, Sabattinismo,” 168. 95 “Homenaje al Ingeniero Ramón Asís,” Assalam, 9 May 1946; “Vastas proporciones alcanzó el homenaje al vicegobernador electo de Córdoba, Ingeniero Ramón Asís,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 6 May 1946; “El Excmo. Señor Gobernador de la Provincia de Córdoba, Ingeniero Ramón J. Asís, formula importantes declaraciones a El Diario Sirio-Libanés,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 10 July 1946; “El Ingeniero Ramón Asís, Vicegobernador de Córdoba, Asumió el gobierno de la provincia,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 24 October 1946. 96 “Amado, Desde el Líbano a San Juan,” San Juan al mundo, n.d., http:// www.sanjuanalmundo.com/articulo.php?id=17361; “San Juan elegirá el domingo próximo sus nuevos gobernantes,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 20 January 1950; “La primera preocupación oficial,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 June 1946. 97 “El gobernador de San Juan,” El Eco de Oriente, 21 January 1952; “En audiencia especial fue recibido por el presidente de la república el gobernador de San Juan, Doctor Elías Amado,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 28 July 1950; “Será agasajado en San Juan el Ministro de Hacienda de la provincia Doctor Elías T. Amado,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 June 1946; “Extraordinarias proporciones alcanzo el homenaje al Ministro de Hacienda de San Juan, Doctor Elías T. Amado,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 22 June 1946; “Entrevistó al gobernador de San Juan, Dr. Elías Amado nuestro director Sr. Emilio Constantino,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 22 June 1950; “Visitaron al Ministro del Líbano el Gobernador de San Juan, Doctor Amado y el interventor de Catamarca, Doctor Nazar,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 17 June 1950. 98 Zicolillo and Montenegro, Los Saadi, 26. 99 Ariza, “Gobernando,” 3, 5; Ariza, “¿Qué hay de nuevo?,” 165. 100 “Son libaneses, un senador nacional argentino y un diputado provincial,” Azzaman, 8 June 1946; “El Senador Nacional Doctor Vicente Saadi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 6 July 1946; “Senador Nacional Dr. Vicente L. Saadi,” El Eco de Oriente, 24 January 1948; “El Senador Nacional Vicente L. Saadi Sera Proclamado Candidato a Gobernador de La provincia de

Notes to pages 72–81

101 102

103 104

105

193

Catamarca por el Partido Peronista,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 22 March 1949; “Expuso su programa de gobierno al candidato a gobernador por el Partido Peronista Doctor Vicente L. Saadi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 24 March 1949; “Ha sido consagrado gobernador de Catamarca el Doctor Vicente L. Saadi,” El Eco de Oriente, 23 April 1949. “El Senador Nacional Dr. Vicente Saadi,” El Eco de Oriente, 11 May 1946. “Fue agasajado en honor y patria el Senador electo Doctor Vicente Saadi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 22 April 1946; “Fue servida una cena en honor del Senador Saadi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 27 March 1947; “Será huésped de honor del Club Sirio Libanés ‘Honor y Patria’ El gobernador electo de Catamarca, Doctor Vicente L. Saadi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 May 1949; “Alcanzó grandes proporciones el homenaje al senador Saadi, gobernador electo de Catamarca,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 21 May 1949. Del Valle Chaya, Dr. Félix Názar. Ariza, “¿Qué hay de nuevo?,” 165; Del Valle Chaya, Dr. Félix Nazar, 40–1; “Juez de la Cámara Nacional,” El Eco de Oriente, 15 September 1952; “El Partido Peronista nombró candidatos a senador por Catamarca,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 10 September 1949; “En el Club ‘Honor y Patria’ Fue rendida una brillante demostración al Doctor Félix Antonio Nazar, con motivo de su próximo enlace,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 10 February 1947. “Es la más destacada figura del peronismo Catamarqueño la del actual Interventor Federal Doctor Félix Antonio Nazar,” El Eco de Oriente, 11 February 1950; “Típicamente justicialista,” El Eco de Oriente, 16 July 1951; “El Doctor Nazar ha realizado en su provincia natal un extraordinario programa de gobierno,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 2 June 1952.

c h a p t e r t h re e 1 Viquendi, “Sirio-libaneses,” 24. 2 Haaretz, 16, 19, 23 March 1950; Maariv, 15, 19, 21 March 1950. On Molinari’s visit in Israel, see also Archivo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Buenos Aires and Departamento de Política, Israel, 1950, box 3, folder 8. 3 Rein, Argentina, chapter 1. 4 Tsur, Credential No. 4, 43, 55-6. 5 Klich, “The First.” 6 La Nación, 10 June 1949; La Prensa, 14 June 1949.

194

Notes to pages 81–6

7 Legation in Cairo to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Argentina), 29 December 1949; Bengoa to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Argentina), 9 February 1950; Campodónico to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Argentina), 4 November 1949, amrec , Israel 1949, exp. 8. 8 Francisco Arias Cuenca al Ministerio, Archivo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Depto. de Política, Israel-1949, box 53, exp. 8, 15 November 1949. 9 Aramouni, “La Cámara,” 449. 10 On Shprintzak’s visit, see Haaretz 19, 28, 30 May 1950; Israel State Archives, folder 2574\3; República Argentina, Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, vol. 1(1950), 320–2; Archivo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Departamento de Política, Israel, 1950, box 3, folder 8. 11 Klich, “Equidistance,” 222. 12 Azzaman, 12 December 1950. 13 Azzaman, 25 June 1952. 14 Noufouri, Justicia estética, 178. 15 Azzaman, 12 January 1955. 16 “El professor Guraieb traducirá al idioma árabe ‘La Doctrina del Justicialismo,’” Assalam, 4 April 1952, 1. 17 “Traduce Doctrina Justicialista en lengua árabe,” Mundo Árabe, 17 February 1954, 5. 18 “Por la felicidad y la grandeza de todos los pueblos,” Mundo Peronista, 1 February 1955, 12–14. 19 “Un periodista extranjero,” Mundo Peronista, 15 March 1954, 15–16. 20 “Eva Perón en el mundo árabe,” Mundo Peronista, 15 April 1953, 22–3; see also “La doctrina y el nombre de Perón resuenan al pie de las pirámides,” Mundo Peronista, 1 September 1953, 18–21. 21 “La doctrina y el nombre de Perón resuenan al pie de las pirámides,” Mundo Peronista, 1 September 1953, 19. 22 Balloffet, “Argentine and Egyptian History.” 23 “Primeros ejemplares en árabe de ‘La razón de mi vida,’” Assalam, 23 May 1952, 1; “Tendrá enorme repercusión en el mundo árabe esta gran obra,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 May 1952, 1. 24 Barry, “Conformación política,” 14. 25 “El voto femenino,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 14 March 1947. 26 Gualtieri, “Gendering,” 74. 27 Martos, Balancing Act, 178. 28 “La mujer en las elecciones de 1952,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 February 1951.

Notes to pages 86–91

195

29 “El voto femenino,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 8 September 1947. 30 “La inscripción cívica de la mujer,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 5 June 1951. 31 “Empadronamiento femenino para los próximos comicios,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 10 July 1951. 32 “Expresaron su adhesión a Perón ayer los libaneses,” El Laborista, 10 August 1951. 33 Emilio Constantino, “Dio una magistral conferencia sobre el segundo plan quinquenal el diputado nacional Don Luis Atalá,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 15 June 1953. 34 “La mujer argentina en las listas del justicialismo,” La Unión Libanesa, 20 October 1951; “La mujer argentina en las listas del justicialismo,” Al Istiklal, 10 October 1951. 35 “El año próximo la mujer argentina decidirá de los destinos de la república,” El Eco de Oriente, 12 February 1951. 36 Bianchi, “Catolicismo y peronismo,” 28. 37 Palermo, “El sufragio femenino,” 178. 38 “La mujer debe votar por la paz,” El Misionero, 7 November 1951. 39 Rapoport, Historia económica, 386. 40 Elena, Dignifying Argentina, 76–7; Brennan and Rougier, Politics, 47–8. 41 Rein, “Los hombres.” 42 Elena, “What the People Want,” 86–7. 43 “El plan quinquenal,” Assalam, 24 October 1946; “Finalidades del plan quinquenal,” Assalam, 5 December 1946; “Publicidad para la difusión del plan quinquenal,” Azzaman, 2 June 1947; “Difusión del plan quinquenal en materia tradicionalista,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 11 July 1947. 44 “Política de justicia social y política de la producción,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 19 October 1946; “Urge promover el fomento inmigratorio en beneficio del progreso y de la grandeza argentina,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 6 November 1946. 45 “Plan Quinquenal,” Assalam, 5 October 1946; “El presidente General Perón destacó la significación y trascendencia del plan quinquenal,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 3 October 1946. 46 “El presidente General Perón destacó la significación y trascendencia del plan quinquenal,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 3 October 1946. 47 “El decálogo del plan quinquenal y el impulso creador del industrialismo argentino,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 29 January 1947. 48 Levitsky, Transforming, 28. 49 “El desarrollo de la industria y del comercio de nuestra colectividad en la Argentina,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 January 1947.

196

Notes to pages 92–7

50 “Urge promover el fomento inmigratorio en beneficio del progreso y de la grandeza argentina,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 6 November 1946. 51 Ajmechet, “El peronismo,” 250. 52 “Otros actos en favor de la reelección del mandatario nacional,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 17 April 1951; “Nuevas expresiones de apoyo a la reelección del actual presidente,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 5 July 1951. 53 “Serán aclamados hoy por toda la población de la república el general Perón y su esposa, Eva Perón,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 22 August 1951. 54 “El pueblo argentino pide la reelección,” La Unión Libanesa, 9 June 1951; “El pueblo argentino pide la reelección,” Al Istiklal, 20 June 1951; “El anhelo de la masa trabajadora,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 7 August 1951. 55 “La voluntad de un pueblo libre,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 7 August 1951; see also “La expresión de la ciudadanía argentina,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 22 August 1951. 56 “Los libaneses apoyan la reelección del General Perón,” Assalam, 11 August 1951; “El primer magistrado expresó su cariño a la colectividad libanesa,” La Unión Libanesa, 11 August 1951; “El primer magistrado expresó su cariño a la colectividad libanesa,” Al Istiklal, 20 August 1951; “La colectividad libanesa apoya la reelección del General Perón,” La Bandera Árabe, 13 August 1951; “La colectividad libanesa es una parte de la colectividad argentina,” El Misionero, 15 August 1951. 57 “La colectividad libanesa expresó su adhesión a la obra del presidente,” Democracia, 10 August 1951; “Expresaron su adhesión a Perón ayer los libaneses,” El Laborista, 10 August 1951; “Sin sacrificios, Argentina ha logrado su propia economía,” El Líder, 10 August 1951. 58 Brennan and Rougier, Politics, 58, 73–4. 59 Elena, Dignifying Argentina, 218, 220–1. 60 “Campaña de Los sesenta días pro difusión del Plan Perón,” La Unión Libanesa, 7 March 1953. 61 “La difusión del Segundo Plan Quinquenal,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 14 January 1953. 62 “El Segundo Plan Quinquenal,” La Bandera Árabe, 8 December 1952. 63 “Nuestra colectividad y el Segundo Plan Quinquenal del General Perón,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 28 January 1953. 64 “Quedó constituida la Comisión Sirio-Libanesa de Difusión del IIo Plan Quinquenal del Gobierno,” Assalam, 11 February 1953. 65 “Sobre el Segundo Plan Quinquenal disertará en Santa Fe y Rosario el Diputado Nacional Doctor Luis Atalá,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 20 March 1953; “La disertación sobre el Segundo Plan Quinquenal en Rufino por el Diputado Nacional Don Luis Atalá,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 9 April

Notes to pages 98–102

66

67 68

69

70 71 72 73 74 75

76 77

78 79 80

197

1953; “El martes próximo disertará en San Juan el Diputado Nacional Doctor Luis Atalá,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 10 April 1953; “Amplia adhesión al Segundo Plan Quinquenal de la colectividad sirio libanesa de Mendoza,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 24 April 1953; “El domingo 17 dará una conferencia en Chilecito el Diputado Atalá, sobre ‘el Segundo Plan Quinquenal y la ubicación dentro del mismo, de la colectividad árabe,’” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 15 May 1953; “Varias conferencias sobre el Segundo Plan Quinquenal y los árabes,” Assalam, 18 August 1953; “La conferencia que pronunciara esta noche el Diputado Nacional Don Luis Atalá en el Club Sirio Libanés Honor y Patria, ha de contar con una extraordinaria concurrencia,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 11 June 1953. “Sobre el Segundo Plan Quinquenal,” Assalam, 7 April 1953; “Sobre el Segundo Plan Quinquenal disertará en Santa Fe y Rosario el Diputado Nacional Doctor Luis Atalá,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 20 March 1953. Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs, 61. Emilio Constantino, “Dio una magistral conferencia sobre el Segundo Plan Quinquenal el Diputado Nacional Don Luis Atalá,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 15 June 1953. “Fue agasajado en el Ocean Hotel el Diputado Atalá después de su brillante conferencia sobre el Segundo Plan Quinquenal,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 2 June 1953. “Nuestra colectividad y el Segundo Plan Quinquenal del General Perón,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 28 January 1953. “La colectividad siriolibanesa y la difusión del Segundo Plan Quinquenal,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 30 April 1953. “Regreso del señor Ibrahim Hallar,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 15 May 1953. Elena, Dignifying Argentina, 281. Archivo General de la Nación, Comisión Nacional de Investigacion, Comisión 45, Caja 18, Exp. 102277. “La edición del 2o Plan Quinquenal fue traducido al idioma árabe,” La Bandera Árabe, 11 January 1954; Assalam, 27 October 1953; El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 26 November 1953. “El misterioso amigo de Perón,” Mundo Árabe, 31 October 1955, 5. Jorge Antonio: El consejero de Perón, a television program directed by Román Lejtman and written by Ximena Sinay, broadcast on America 2, March 2006. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 14. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 37. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 15.

198 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

99

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110

Notes to pages 103–10

Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 16. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 43–4. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 48. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 37. Lejtman and Sinay, Jorge Antonio. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 62. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 37. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 64. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 71. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 84. Pigna, “Entrevista”; see also Camarasa, Última noche. Lejtman and Sinay, Jorge Antonio. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 102–3. Sáenz Quesada, La Libertadora, 286. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 107–8. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 51. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 133–4. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 103. About Yankelevich’s trajectory during Perón’s first two administrations, see Rein, Populism and Ethnicity, chapter 5. In 1954, as Perón was negotiating with US oil companies, the Petroargentina oil company was launched, a partnership of the Texasbased Atlas with Jorge Antonio and Víctor Madanes. See Rapoport and Spiguel, “The United States, Argentina,” 186–7. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 75. On Blackie (Paloma Efron), see Pomeraniec, Blackie. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 152–3. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 54. Pigna, “Entrevista.” Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 46. Galasso, Perón, 616. Pigna, “Entrevista.” Granados, Jorge Antonio,” 157. About the bombing of the Plaza de Mayo, see Cichero, Bombas. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 169. Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 41. Granados, Jorge Antonio, 194. Jorge Antonio’s efforts in Spain were necessary because Franco was initially uneasy with Perón’s plan to take up residence in Spain. See Rein, Franco-Perón Alliance, epilogue.

Notes to pages 110–16

199

111 Menem made a stopover on his way to Syria, where he was to be wed. Jorge Antonio’s mediation secured him three days of meetings with Perón; Lejtman and Sinay, Jorge Antonio. 112 “Vandor, Framini, Iturbe, Delia Parodi, Lascano, Perón, and myself were all on the airplane. We made it to Rio de Janeiro,” in Pigna, “Entrevista.” About Operación Retorno, see Hendler, 1964. 113 Lejtman and Sinay, Jorge Antonio. 114 Granados, Jorge Antonio, 59–60. 115 Granados, Jorge Antonio, 60. 116 Antonio and Ventura, Jorge Antonio, 72. 117 Granados, Jorge Antonio, 59. 118 In 1964 an internal report circulated among the members of the World Jewish Congress warned about Jassen’s anti-Semitic activities in Latin America. Among these was the dissemination of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 119 Granados, Jorge Antonio, 215. 120 Pigna, “Entrevista.”

c ha p t e r f o u r 1 Salazar and Valeros, eds., Notas, 417–18. 2 Mercado and Roja, Famaillá, 97–100. 3 Asfoura, Inmigración, 8; Ortiz de D’Arterio, Migraciones internacionales, 37. 4 Budeguer and Saleh de Canuto, El aporte, 31–32; Hyland, “‘Arisen,’” 558. 5 Valverde, “Integration and Identity,” 322. Homssi, “Aproximación,” 23. 6 Garrido, “Población,” 44. 7 Asfoura, Inmigración, 13. 8 Asfoura, “Árabes en Tucumán,” 266. 9 Calvo, Palacios de Cosiansi, and Naessens, “Espacios culturales,” 4. 10 Asfoura, Inmigración, 11; Homssi, “Aproximación,” 21; Garrido, “Población,” 44; Salazar and Valeros, Notas, 262. 11 Budeguer and Saleh de Canuto, El aporte, 78, 83–4, 86, 90, 98. 12 Hyland, “Arisen,” 555. 13 Erimbaue and Homssi, “Inmigración árabe,” 89–90. 14 Salazar and Valeros, Notas, 264–5; Silberman de Cywiner, “Comunidades,” 8; Calvo, Palacios de Cosiansi, and Naessens, “Espacios culturales,” 3. 15 Homssi, “Aproximación,” 27–8; Asfoura, Inmigración, 13.

200 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40

Notes to pages 116–28

Jozami, “Aspectos demográficos,” 70. Hyland, “Arisen,” 558; Pucci, Historia, 97. Homssi, “Aproximación,” 29; Homssi, La inmigración, 67–8. Homssi, “Aproximación,” 29; Budeguer and Saleh de Canuto, El aporte, 70. Vitar Mukdsi, “Testimonios orales,” 186. Hyland, “Arisen,” 564; Budeguer and Saleh de Canuto, El aporte, 34. Budeguer and Saleh de Canuto, El aporte, 50–1. Guiérrez, Lichtmajer, and Santos Lepera, Entre los cañaverales. For examples of this, see Zanatta, Perón y el mito. Piliponsky, “El integralismo católico,” 134. Santos Lepera, “La Iglesia Católica,” 4, 6. Piliponsky, “El integralismo católico,” 135–6, 145, 152; Santos Lepera, “La Iglesia Católica,” 7–8, 12–13. Pereyra, “Sociología y planificación,” 113. Rubinstein, “El estado peronista,” 328, 332; Gutiérrez and Rubinstein, “De la hegemonía”; Rubinstein, “Las cosas.” Rubinstein, “El estado peronista,” 332–3, 335, 339–40, 363; Rubinstein, Los sindicatos azucareros, 154–5; Rubinstein, “Las cosas,” 2, 9–10; Gutiérrez and Rubinstein, “De la hegemonía,” 6. Silva, “Las políticas,” 14. Girbal-Blacha, “Economía,” 117–18. “3 años de gobierno,” El Eco de Oriente, 4 June 1949; “El primer trabajador argentino,” El Eco de Oriente, July 1945. “Ampara al pueblo la nueva constitución,” El Eco de Oriente, 19 March 1949. “La colectividad sirio libanesa y el plan,” El Eco de Oriente, 6 April 1953. “Los árabes de Tucumán apoyan el 2º Plan Quinquenal,” El Eco de Oriente, 20 April 1953; Archivo de la Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de San Miguel de Tucumán, Acta núm. 34. Archivo de la Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de San Miguel de Tucumán, Acta núm. 31. “Visitó nuestro diario el Intendente Municipal de Tucumán, Señor Luis S. Taglioretti,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 5 August 1949. “Rindieron homenaje al Eco De Oriente las Escuelas Argentinas Para Obreros,” El Eco de Oriente, 4 February 1952. “Con gran entusiasmo y brillo celebróse en Tucumán la independencia de la República de Siria,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 30 April 1948; Archivo de la Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de San Miguel de Tucumán, Acta núm. 530.

Notes to pages 128–33

201

41 “Es un verdadero documento histórico el discurso pronunciado por el Ing. Storni,” El Eco de Oriente, 8 March 1948. 42 Ibid. 43 “Adquirió gran trascendencia la inauguración del edificio propio de la sucursal de Tucumán del Banco Sirio Libanés del Río de La Plata,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 14 July 1948. 44 “El Mayor Carlos Domínguez es un decidido admirador de la colectividad sirio libanesa, cuyas cualidades reconoce,” El Eco de Oriente, 13 April 1946. 45 “Los sirios-libaneses ofrecieron una demostración al Senador Nacional Don Luis Cruz,” El Eco de Oriente, 5 November 1951. 46 Archivo de la Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de San Miguel de Tucumán, Acta núm. 33. 47 “Declaraciones sobre nuestra colectividad formuladas por el Gobernador de Tucumán,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1954. 48 “Garantía de dinamismo, honestidad y unión partidaria es la fórmula Riera-Del Río proclamada por el Partido Peronista,” El Eco de Oriente, 4 February 1950. 49 “Los sirio libaneses en la campaña electoral,” El Eco de Oriente, 11 March 1950. 50 “La colectividad ante Riera,” El Eco de Oriente, 24 June 1950. 51 “La Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de Tucumán agradece al Gobernador de La Provincia,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 6 August 1951; Archivo de la Sociedad Sirio Libanesa de San Miguel de Tucumán, Actas núm. 611, 645. 52 “Nuevas adhesiones recibió el peronismo,” La Gaceta, 16 February 1950; “Realizó ayer nuevas asambleas el Partido Frente Obrero,” La Gaceta, 23 February 1948; “En Villa Lujan,” La Gaceta, 4 February 1950; “Partido Peronista,” La Gaceta, 15 February 1948; “Recorre la provincia el candidato peronista,” La Gaceta, 19 February 1950. 53 “Los candidatos a legisladores del laborismo,” La Gaceta, 17 January 1946; “U.C.R. Junta Renovadora,” La Gaceta, 5 February 1946. 54 Juzgado Federal de Tucumán, Secretaria Electoral, Elecciones 1948, 57. 55 “En Villa Luján” and “Prosigue con entusiasmo la campaña del peronismo,” La Gaceta, 2 March 1950; “Nuevas adhesiones recibió el peronismo” and “El candidato peronista visitó 2 departamentos,” La Gaceta, 21 February 1950. 56 “Prosiguió ayer su campaña el peronismo,” La Gaceta, 15 February 1950. 57 “En una entusiasta asamblea se ha constituido el Centro Peronista Descendientes de Sirios-Libaneses,” El Eco de Oriente, 6 November 1948.

202

Notes to pages 133–4

58 “Constituye una verdadera pérdida para el Partido Peronista y para la comuna de Tucumán el fallecimiento del Sr. Asad,” El Eco de Oriente, 15 April 1950; Archivo de la Municipalidad de San Miguel de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones, May 1948-February 1949; Juzgado Federal de Tucumán, Secretaria Electoral, Elecciones 1948. 59 “Trabajan activamente en Villa 9 de Julio,” El Eco de Oriente, 20 November 1948; “El Concejo Deliberante de Tucumán cumplió su deber” and “Se refiere a una necesidad del barrio del señor M. Assad,” Trópico, 7 May 1948. 60 “El eje central del peronismo nacional,” El Eco de Oriente, 12 March 1949. 61 “En una ordenanza se concreta el propósito de bautizar a dos calles tucumanas con los nombres de Siria y el Líbano,” El Eco de Oriente, 2 July 1949. 62 “Le fue rendido un homenaje a la memoria de don Miguel Asad,” El Eco de Oriente, 16 April 1951; Archivo de la Sociedad Sirio libanesa de Tucumán, Carta de la Comisión de homenaje a la memoria del ex concejal don Miguel Asad a Nallib Nadra, 10 April 1951. 63 Tucumán, Sus bellezas y sus personalidades (Tucumán, Ediciones Ilustrada, 1953), 86. 64 Archivo de la Municipalidad de San Miguel de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones, May 1948–February 1949. 65 “Se evocará el nombre de la patria lejana en calles de Tucumán,” El Eco de Oriente, 12 March 1949; “El monumento de homenaje a los próceres será en breve una realidad para Tucumán,” El Eco de Oriente, 2 July 1949; “Fue homenajeado el intendente municipal,” El Eco de Oriente, 3 September 1949. 66 “En una entusiasta asamblea se ha constituido el Centro Peronista Descendientes de Sirio-Libaneses,” El Eco de Oriente, 6 November 1948. 67 “Es objeto de agasajos el cónsul general del Líbano,” Trópico, 15 April 1949. 68 “Los árabes de Tucumán apoyan el 2º plan quinquenal,” El Eco de Oriente, 20 April 1953; Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Acta núm. 693. 69 “Partido Laborista Tucumano,” La Gaceta, 24 February 1946; “Proclamación en El Mollar,” La Gaceta, 29 October 1951; Archivo de la Legislatura de la Provincia de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, 1950–51. 70 Archivo de la Legislatura de la Provincia de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, 1947; Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, 1949–1950; “Diputado por Trancas,” El Eco de Oriente, July

Notes to pages 135–7

71

72 73 74 75 76

77 78

79 80 81

82

83

84

203

1946; “Ambas cámaras legislativas eligieron sus autoridades,” El Eco de Oriente, 17 April 1948; “Resulta interesante el panorama político de renovación de las autoridades,” El Eco de Oriente, 14 January 1950. “Nuevo directorio del Banco de La Provincia,” El Eco de Oriente, 16 June 1952; Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Carta de Nallib Nadra a Antonio Fajre, 21 July 1950. Archivo de la Legislatura de la Provincia de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Senadores, 1946-47. Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, 28 March 1949, 1376. Budeguer and Saleh de Canuto, El aporte, 67–8. “Proclamara a su candidato el 12 el laborismo,” La Gaceta, 10 February 1946. Archivo de la Legislatura de la Provincia de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones Cámara de Diputados 1947; Juzgado Federal de Tucumán, Secretaría Electoral, Elecciones 1948. Archivo de la Legislatura de la Provincia de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones Cámara de Senadores 1948, 1950–51. Morales Sola, Amado Juri, 30, 32, 43, 59, 120–1; Boletín Oficial de Tucumán, 30 September 1950, 7410; Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Carta de Nallib Nadra a Amado Juri, 9 June 1950; Carta de Amado Juri a Nallib Nadra, 16 June 1950. “La e. de policía fue bautizada con el nombre del Gral. San Martín,” El Eco de Oriente, 21 August 1950. Cortes Navarro, “Historia,” 13. Tucumán, sus bellezas, 124; “Dr. Alfredo A. Falú,” El Eco de Oriente, 10 February 1945; “Prestó juramento el Dr. Alfredo A. Falú,” El Eco de Oriente, 17 March 1945; “Regresó el Doctor Alfredo A. Falú,” El Eco de Oriente, 22 September 1945; “Se ha constituido en Tucumán la Unión Cívica Radical Irigoyenista,” El Eco de Oriente, 21 November 1945. “Asesor letrado de la comuna,” El Eco de Oriente, 31 July 1950; Archivo de la Municipalidad de San Miguel de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones 1948–1949; Boletín Municipal de San Miguel de Tucumán, January 1947. “Fue nombrado Procurador del Tesoro el Dr. Falú,” El Eco de Oriente, 9 June 1952; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, 1 October 1952, 4890; “Un descendiente de nuestra colectividad ha sido designado Ministro Fiscal de la Provincia de Tucumán,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 July 1955. Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Acta No 31, Acta núm. 32, Acta núm. 33, Acta núm. 577; Carta de Alfredo Falú a Nallib Nadra, 11 August 1949.

204

Notes to pages 137–44

85 “Ministro de Salud Publica Doctor Nalla Salim,” El Eco de Oriente; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, 18 February 1948, 1046. 86 Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, 30 September 1950, 7410; Decreto Nº 782 (23 May 51), 3328; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, 1 October 1952, 4890. 87 Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Carta de Nalla Salim a la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, 12 December 1946; Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Carta de Nallib Nadra a Nalla Salim, 9 June 1950; Carta de Nalla Salim a Nallib Nadra, 15 June 1950. 88 Tucumán, sus bellezas, 166; “Convencional por Tucumán,” El Eco de Oriente, 30 October 1948. 89 Archivo de la Legislatura de la Provincia de Tucumán, Diario de Sesiones del Senado 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949–50; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, Resolución 15 February 1950; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, 30 September 1950, 7410; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, 1 October 1952, 4890; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, Decreto 124; Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Tucumán, Decreto 183. 90 “Destacada actuación del Doctor Maxud,” El Eco de Oriente, 12 March 1949; “Convencional por Tucumán,” “Nuevas adhesiones ha recibido el Dr. Maxud,” Trópico, 28 October 1948. 91 Extraordinarios relieves adquirió la brillante demostración ofrecida por la Asociación Libanesa de Tucumán en honor del M. de Hacienda Dr. Alfredo D. Maxud,” El Eco de Oriente, July 1946. 92 Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Carta de Emilio Saad a Alfredo Maxud, 31 May 1946. 93 Archivo de la Sociedad Siriolibanesa de Tucumán, Acta No 577, Acta No 525; “Enlace Gettar Maxud,” El Eco de Oriente, 20 December 1947.

c ha p t e r f i ve 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Tasso, Aventura, 87. Vezzosi, Influencias, 144. Tenti, “Loreto,” 130–3. Tasso, Aventura, 127–38. Desarrollo rural en Santiago del Estero, 1920–1945, 4. Lami Hernández, Ilustres santiagueños, 96–7; Tasso, Aventura, 104. Espinosa, “Indagando,” 68; Tasso, “Migración,” 326, 328; Tasso, Aventura, 97, 121–2, 147; Jozami, “Aspectos demográficos,” 63.

Notes to pages 144–56

205

8 Desarrollo rural en Santiago del Estero, 8; Vezzosi, “El Diario,” 291; Robles Avalos, Los orígenes, 94; Tasso, Aventura, 23, 181. 9 Tasso, Aventura, 123, 194. 10 Hernández, Ilustres, 16, 25; Tasso, Aventura, 213. 11 A.T. Martínez and Vezzosi Martínez, “Cultura, economía.” 12 Tenti, “Estado y políticas,” 129. 13 Vargas, “Primer peronismo,” 93–4; A.T. Martínez and Vezzosi Martínez, “Cultura, economía,” 325–7; Vezzosi, Influencias, 111–12; Schnyder, “Repensando,” 165. 14 Lida, “Los orígenes.” 15 Zanatta, Perón y el mito. 16 Salas, “Carlos Juárez,” 94. 17 Martínez, “Prehistoria del peronismo,” 82–4. 18 Erbetta, “Tras las huellas,” 95, 97. 19 Schnyder, “Repensando,” 168; Salas, Carlos Juárez, 29, 64. 20 Tasso, Aventura, 152–3. 21 Vezzosi, “Influencias.” 22 Vezzosi, “El Diario,” 291; Vezzosi, Influencias, 133, 141, 192. 23 Avalos, Los orígenes, 156, 195. 24 “Fúndase en Santiago el Partido Radical Revolucionario,” La Gaceta, 2 February 1948; “Llegó el Secretario General del M. R. R. Dr. Pedro L. Gelid,” La Hora, 23 March 1949; “Proclama sus candidatos el Part. Peronista, esta noche,” La Hora, 7 April 1949; “La actividad política: Partido Peronista,” El Liberal, 31 October 1951; “Nuevas autoridades del C. Peronista,” La Hora, 31 July 1952; “Proclamó candidatos en La Banda y Clodomira el Partido Peronista,” El Liberal, 29 October 1951. 25 Tenti, “Proyectos modernizadores,” 3, 6–7. 26 “Personal policial designó la Intervención Federal,” La Hora, 21 March 1946; “Juramento de fidelidad a la constitución prestan los J. Políticos,” La Hora, 18 August 1949; “Prestaron juramento a la constitución ayer los jefes políticos,” El Liberal, 19 August 1949; “Aceptó la renuncia de varios jefes políticos la Intervención Federal, Hoy,” La Hora, 2 April 1949; “Tomó posesión de su cargo el nuevo Jefe Político de Loreto,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 5 December 1951; “Delegados gremiales,” El Liberal, 11 October 1951. 27 “Partido Peronista,” El Liberal, 10 April 1949; “Satisface plenamente la obra que realiza el Interventor Municipal de Añatuya,” La Provincia, 29 July 1947; Expediente 33/1949, Cámara de Diputados, Archivo de la Legislatura de Santiago del Estero.

206

Notes to pages 156–8

28 “Es candidato a Diputado Provincial el Sr. Jorge,” La Hora, 5 October 1951; “Nuevas autoridades del C. Peronista” and “Los electos,” El Liberal, 18 November 1951. 29 “Un periodo ininterrumpido ha realizado nuestra Honorable Legislatura casi todos los diputados han justificado el acierto del pueblo elector,” La Provincia, 29 July 1947; “Comando Táctico de Frías,” La Gaceta, 8 October 1951; “Nomina completa de los candidatos del Part. Peronista,” El Liberal, 9 October 1951; “Partido Laborista,” La Hora, 11 February 1946; Registrador núm. 150, Cámara de Diputados, Archivo de la Legislatura de Santiago del Estero. 30 “Don Elías Gubaira de Estación Herrera,” El Eco de Oriente, October 1945; “Fijan su posición política los Sres. Allub, M. de Oca y Otros,” La Hora, 10 January 1946; “El Laborismo local ha proclamado sus candidatos,” La Hora, 2 February 1946; “Designó miembros de la C. de Hacienda el P. Peronista,” La Hora, 2 February 1948. 31 “El Ministro de Gobierno Doctor César Carubin radica su más honda satisfacción en sentirse descendiente de libanés,” El Eco de Oriente, October 1945. 32 “El banquete servido en honor del Doctor César Carubin,” La Unión Libanesa, 3 December 1945. 33 Tasso, Aventura, 151–2; Vezzosi, Influencias, 120, 122; Rafael, El árabe, 51; “Aclara versiones sobre el pacto del laborismo local el Señor Rosendo Allub,” La Hora, 15 February 1946. 34 “Resultados hasta 4 mesas del circuito centenario,” La Hora, 27 February 1946; “Finalizó hoy el escrutinio en el Distrito Capital,” La Hora, 28 February 1946; “Fue reelegido presidente de la S. Sirio-Libanesa de Santiago del Estero, el Señor Rosendo Allub,” El Eco de Oriente, 6 January 1945; “Los señores Rosendo Allub, Carlos Montes de Oca y otros formulan una declaración política,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 7 February 1946; “Los sirio libaneses se dedican también a las grandes explotaciones rurales alentadas por su inquebrantable espíritu de empresa,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1945. 35 “Importantes declaraciones fórmula para ‘La Hora’ el Sr. Rosendo Allub,” La Hora, 16 February 1946. 36 “Se acrecientan los prestigios merecidos de D. Rosendo Allub,” El Eco de Oriente, October 1945; “El Diputado Nacional Don Rosendo Allub,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1951; “El proyecto del Diputado Don Rosendo Allub en defensa de la industria forestal,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 22 March 1946; “El Diputado Nacional electo Señor Rosendo Allub presentará en el parlamento un proyecto relacionado con la i.

Notes to pages 158–61

37 38

39

40 41 42 43

44

45

46

47

207

Forestal,” La Hora, 1 March 1946; “Con la activa participación del Diputado Nacional Don Rosendo Allub fue resuelta la crisis política en Santiago del Estero,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 13 November 1946. “Don Rosendo Allub deja aclarada su verdadera situación en su brillante actuación como legislador santiagueño,” El Eco de Oriente, 17 March 1945. “Don Rosendo Allub Diputado Nacional electo por la vecina Provincia Santiago Del Estero,” El Eco de Oriente, 2 March 1946; see also “La prensa de Santiago del Estero destaca conceptuosamente la elección de Don Rosendo Allub como Diputado Nacional,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 21 March 1946. “Una figura consular Don Rosendo Allub,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 27 November 1945; “El Sr. R. Allub resultó electo por la cantidad de sufragios más elevada,” La Hora, 6 March 1946. “Buen comienzo,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 26 October 1948. “El Diputado Nacional Don Rosendo Allub,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1951. “El Diputado Nacional Don Rosendo Allub,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1951. “Inaugurará su magnífico edificio en Tucumán el Banco Sirio Libanés, el próximo 9 de julio,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 10 April 1948; “Delegaciones del interior que asistieron al homenaje ofrecido anoche en Les Ambassadeurs al Presidente de La República y a su digna esposa,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 31 August 1950; “El Excmo. Señor Ministro del Interior, Don Angel G. Borlenghi será agasajado en el Club ‘Honor y Patria,’” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 29 October 1946. “El Diputado Rosendo Allub ofreció una cena a la comisión de presupuesto,” El Eco de Oriente, 13 November 1950; “El Diputado Nacional Don Rosendo Allub ofreció una cena al personal de la Comisión de Presupuesto y Hacienda de la Cámara de Diputados,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 6 October 1950. “Ayer viajó con destino a Santiago del Estero el Señor Rosendo Allub,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 29 September 1953; “Inauguración de un gran edificio para estación de servicios autorizada por Y. P. F. en Sgo. del Estero,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 6 November 1952. “Fueron trasladados a Santiago Del Estero los restos del Señor Rosendo Allub,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 3 September 1959; “Honró el gobierno de El Líbano al extinto Rosendo Allub con meritoria condecoración,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 1 September 1959. “Tuvo digna celebración el 10 aniversario de la independencia de Siria,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 25 April 1955.

208

Notes to pages 162–8

48 “Cómo se festejó el día de la liberación de Siria en el interior,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 11 December 1952. 49 “Declaraciones del Gobernador de la Provincia Señor Francisco Javier González al ser entrevistado por nuestro director Señor Emilio Constantino,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 12 January 1954.

e p i l ogu e 1 Sáenz Quesada, La Libertadora; Spinelli, Los vencedores vencidos. 2 “Una hora de dolor para la Argentina,” La Bandera Árabe, 24 June 1955. 3 “El General Perón no se retira del poder,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 2 September 1955. 4 Bianchi, “Catolicismo y peronismo,” 37; Caimari, Perón; Loris Zanatta, Perón y el mito. 5 “La Revolución Libertadora,” El Misionero, 19 September 1955; “El discurso programa del Excelentísimo Presidente Provisional de la Nación General de División Don Eduardo Lonardi,” El Misionero, 28 September 1955. 6 Martos, Balancing Act, 290, 298. 7 “Dimisión y solución,” Assalam, 20 September 1955. 8 “Nuevo gobierno provisional,” Assalam, 23 September 1955. 9 “En medio de una de las más grandes manifestaciones se hizo cargo del gobierno el Gral. Eduardo Lonardi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 26 September 1955. 10 “La confianza en el nuevo gobierno, dentro y fuera de la república,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 28 September 1955. 11 “Hoy se hace cargo del gobierno provisional del país el Gral. Eduardo Leonardi,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 22 September 1955. 12 “En casa de cristal y no de espaldas al pueblo,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 18 November 1955. 13 “La tragedia y el dolor de un gran pueblo,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 20 September 1955. 14 “Hermanos ayer, hoy y siempre,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 26 September 1955. 15 “El nuevo gobierno argentino,” La Bandera Árabe, 3 October 1955; “Dentro y fuera del país, la labor del gobierno provisional es muy bien juzgada,” La Bandera Árabe, 10 October 1955. 16 “Un decreto ley esperado: Amplia amnistía,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 29 September 1955. 17 Ibid.

Notes to pages 168–77

209

18 “El General Aramburu,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 15 November 1955. 19 “Hoy se hace cargo del gobierno provisional del país el Gral. Eduardo Lonardi” and “Las declaraciones del Almirante Teisaire,” El Diario SirioLibanés, 6 October 1955. 20 “Por lo visto no bastó un botón para muestra,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 16 September 1955. 21 “El dinero del pueblo no debe servir para la propaganda de un gobierno,” El Diario Sirio-Libanés, 23 November 1955. 22 Wornat, Menem. 23 Tarruella, Envar Cacho El Kadri. 24 Sylvestre, Intrigas. 25 Wornat, Menem. 26 Sanz, Maten, 30. 27 Sanz, Maten, 30; Lutzky, La explosión, 113. 28 “La conexión de Menem con los árabes,” El Universal, 23 July 2002, http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/24642.html. 29 “amia : confirman el procesamiento de Menem y Galeano por encubrimiento,” Centro de Información Judicial, 22 March 2010. 30 Sylvestre, Intrigas. 31 Schers and Slutzky, “Argentina.” 32 Escudé, Foreign Policy; Miranda, “El cambio externo”; Ornela, “Los gobiernos.” 33 Huser, Argentine Civil-Military, 125. 34 Huser, Argentine Civil-Military, 138; Diamint, “Diez años.” 35 Botta, “Argentina e Irán.” 36 El País, 21 September 1991 and Zanoli, “El retiro.” 37 Carrancio, “Las repercusiones,” 152. 38 Botta, “Argentina e Irán,” 160; Lutzky, Brindando, 128; Fabani, “Los gobiernos,” 51. 39 Clarín, 11 June 2000. 40 Página/12, 26 July 1999. 41 Fabani, “Los gobiernos,” 7. 42 Cisneros and Escudé, Historia general. 43 Fabani, “Los gobiernos,” 57, 62. 44 Clarín, 26 March 1996. 45 Fabani, “Los gobiernos de Menem,” 62. 46 Bermudez, La pista siria, 136; Carrancio, “Las repercusiones,” 149. 47 Botta, “Argentina e Irán,” 160. 48 Morandini, El harén, 159-60; see also Lutzky, Brindando, 104. 49 Escudé, La Argentina, 9.

210

Notes to pages 177–81

50 Carrancio, “Las repercusiones.” 51 El Día, 26 September 2000. According to Imam Mahmud Hussein, who directs the Centro de Altos Estudios Islámicos de Buenos Aires, the cultural centre housed within the mosque “is not the only such [facility] in the world; at least of the ones I know, there is a similar one in Rome and another in Madrid. This one might be a little larger.” 52 Fabani, “Los gobiernos,” 58. 53 La Nación, 30 October 1999; Página/12, 13 November 1999. 54 Hyland, “Solemn Expression.” 55 “Porqué se hará una mezquita en Buenos Aires,” Al-Istiqlal, 1 April 1950; “Una mezquita,” Al-Istiqlal, 15 April 1950. 56 “Bajo el cielo de un barrio porteño, Caballito, la primera mezquita elevará su grave cúpula,” El Laborista, 5 May 1950; “Tendrán en pleno Caballito una gran mezquita los fieles de Alá,” La Razón, 6 May 1950; “Fue colocada ayer la piedra básica de la mezquita de Buenos Aires,” La Prensa, 7 May 1950. 57 Rein, “The Tortuous Road.” 58 Clarín, 28 August 2000. 59 Página/12, 13 November 1999. 60 Página/12, 26 September 2000. 61 Página/12, 13 November 1999. 62 Clarín, 28 August 2000. 63 Carrancio, “Las repercusiones.” 64 Gasulla, El negocio político. 65 Página/12, 13 November 1999; Clarín, 25 September 2000. 66 Clarín, 26 September 2000. 67 Civantos, “Ali Bla Bla.”

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Index

Agrupación Peronista de Descendientes Árabes, 52, 65 Al Istiklal, 85, 88, 93 Allub, Rosendo, 6, 16–17, 69, 73, 150–1, 153–4, 157–61, 206–7 Amado, Elías, 68, 70–1, 192 Antonio, Jorge, 16, 99, 101–11, 170, 197–9, 212, 216, 218, 220 Antun, Elías, 101, 102 Arafat, Yasser, 171, 176 Aramburu, Pedro Eugenio, 17, 108, 164, 167, 209 Arias Cuenca, Francisco, 81 Arslan, Emir Emin, 28, 180 Asad, Miguel, 133–4 Asís, Jorge, 37 Asís, Ramón, 6, 70, 154, 192 Asociación Cultural Panislámica, 115 Asociación de productores de la Industria Forestal (apif ), 144 Asociación Libanesa de Socorros Mutuos, 115 Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (amia ), 58, 171–2, 177, 209, 219 Asociación Panislámica, 31 Asociación Patriótica Libanesa, 42 Assad, Hafez, 171, 175, 177 Assalam, 85, 90, 142, 166

Atalá, Luis, 56, 62, 69–70, 87–8, 97–8, 100, 191–2, 195–7 Ateneo Khalil Gibran, 119 Azar, Jorge, 146, 153 Azize, Moisés, 24, 32, 57 Azzaman, 6, 82 Baaclini, Ernesto, 127–9, 133–4 Baaclini, Nagib, 72, 96, 118, 126–7, 130, 133–4, 159 Banco Sirio-Libanés del Río de la Plata, 31–2, 57, 68, 96, 129 Bandera Árabe, 64, 96–7, 165, 167 Barrios, Américo, 65, 81, 83 Bavio, Ernesto, 54–6 Benítez, Antonio, 98 Bestani, Simón, 66–7, 73 Bilal, Mohsén, 34–5 Brazil, 45, 47, 174 Cámpora, Héctor, 53, 109, 161 Caras y Caretas, 36 Carubin, César, 156–7 Castro, Juan, 144, 150, 153, 157, 161 Centro Peronista Descendientes de Sirios-Libaneses, 59, 134 Cereijo, Ramón, 56, 106, 108 chain migration, 20, 113–14, 117

228

Index

Chamoun, Camille, 49–50, 77, 79–80, 82–3 Chibene, Jorge A. See Antonio, Jorge citizenship, 3–5, 9–12, 25, 30, 86, 130, 153, 159 Club Sirio-Libanés Honor y Patria, 32, 53, 55–6, 129, 161 Constantino, Emilio, 17, 72, 159–60, 166–7 corporativism, 5 Cruz, Luis, 122, 124, 129–30, 137–8 Curi, Jorge, 61 De la Rúa, Fernando, 180–1 Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (daia ), 58, 126, 166 Diana, Pablo, 27 Diario Sirio-Libanés, 17, 54, 60, 62, 67, 70, 72, 85–6, 88, 90–3, 96–7, 100, 129, 142, 158–60, 162, 165– 6, 168 Domínguez, Carlos, 121–3, 128, 138 Duarte, Juan, 69, 105 Eco de Oriente, 71, 85, 88, 94, 96, 118, 119, 126–7, 130–1, 133–4, 136, 142, 156, 158–9 Egypt, 42, 76, 175 El Despertar Árabe-Argentino, 63–5 El Misionero, 30, 88, 165 ethnicity, 4, 12, 14–15, 31, 139, 157, 159 Fadul, Esther M., 69, 87–8 Fajre, Antonio, 134 Falú, Alfredo, 136–7, 139 Falú, Eduardo, 37 fascism, 29, 48 Favio, Leonardo, 37 Federación Obrera Tucumana de la Industria Azucarera (fotia ), 121–3

Fiad, Jorge, 117–18, 132, 135 Fundación Eva Perón, 52, 82 Guraieb, José, 83, 119 Hallar, Ibrahim, 46, 98, 179 Hotel de Inmigrantes, 21, 25 Hoyos, Alejandro M., 27 Israel, 49, 75, 77–8, 80–3, 175–7 Jassen, Raúl, 111 Jatar, Alejandro, 80 Juri, Amado, 75, 130, 132, 136 Justo, Agustín P., 29, 40 Kairuz, Gabriel, 53, 68–9 Khouri, Malatios, 82–3, 100 Khuri, Jorge, 94 La Aurora, 142 Lahoud, Raphael, 53, 78 Láinez, Manuel, 41 Las Estaciones, 142 Lebanon, 21, 23, 54, 64, 76, 78, 80, 82, 94, 100, 113, 115, 128, 133, 143, 153, 157, 175 Lonardi, Eduardo, 17, 109, 164–8 López Rega, José, 101, 110–11 Mainar, Manuel, 67–8 Malek, Abdul, 61 Manzi, Homero, 68 Marón, Cayetano, 6 Marún, Alfredo, 68 Marún, Victor, 67–8 Matrajt, Sujer, 81 Maxud, Alfredo, 59, 128, 138–9 melting pot, 4, 6, 20, 26, 41 Menem, Carlos S., 6, 8, 17, 37–8, 110–11, 164, 169–82

Index Menem, Eduardo, 170–1 Menem, Munir, 170–1 Mercante, Domingo, 67–9 Mittelbach, Aristóbulo, 149–52, 154–6, 158 Molinari, Diego Luis, 54, 75 mosque, 17, 22, 31, 164, 178–80 Moussawi, Abbas al-, 177 Muse, Simón, 55 Musi, Antonio, 127, 132, 135 Nacusi, Salomón, 68 Nadra, Nagib, 135 Naguib, Mohammed, 81, 83 Naim, Teófilo, 6 Naschbe, Habib, 21 Nasser, Gamal A., 83, 111 Názar, Félix A., 71, 73 Obeid, Leonardo, 6, 69 Organización Israelita Argentina (oia ), 48, 51, 58, 60, 64, 81 organized community, 5, 13, 40, 51, 58 Patronato Sirio-Libanés, 29, 32, 57 Paz, Hipólito, 54 Perón, Eva Duarte, 10, 43, 45, 47, 52, 61–3, 67, 80, 82–5, 87–8, 93–4, 102, 105–6, 118, 127, 132, 136, 151–2 Perón, Juan Domingo, 3, 5, 10–13, 16–17, 29, 31, 37, 39–53, 45, 48, 52, 58–64, 66, 68–70, 73, 75, 77–8, 80, 82–3, 89–90, 93–5, 101, 104–7, 109–11, 121–6, 129, 132, 136, 146, 148–52, 155, 158, 160–71 populism, 4–5, 8–9, 15, 124–5, 179 populist movement, 4, 8–9, 59, 61, 148

229

Remorino, Jerónimo, 42, 56, 70 Revolución Libertadora, 17, 87, 164–6, 168 Richa, Elías, 42, 83 Riera, Fernando, 121, 124, 130, 136–7 Romero, Julio, 7–8 Saadi, Vicente L., 6–7, 69, 71–3 Sabaté, Jorge, 52–3, 65–6 Saer, Juan José, 37 Salim, Nalla, 130, 137–8 Sapag, Felipe, 7 Sarmiento, Domingo F., 35, 142, 181 Sarquis, Elías, 37 Sarquis de Dantur, Delia, 61, 87, 94 Siri, Emilio, 53 Sociedad Cumplimiento del Deber, 141 Sociedad de Mujeres Fatah el Chakri, 141 Sociedad de Solidaridad Arabe Argentina, 65 Sociedad Sirio-Libanesa, 59, 61, 141–2, 145, 150, 153, 157–8, 160 Syria, 12, 15–16, 23, 28, 30–1, 34, 49, 54, 76, 78, 80, 100, 119, 127, 133, 137, 140, 142, 161–2, 170–1, 175, 177 Takla, Philippe, 54 Tarbuch, Assam, 65 Tesorieri, José, 98 Teubal, Elías, 55, 78 Teubal, Ezra, 55, 78 Teubal, Nissim, 55 transnationalism, 33, 34, 64 transnational ties, 30–4, 49, 53–5, 115

230

Index

Unión Libanesa, 61, 85, 88, 93–4 xenophobia, 41, 181; and xenophobic attitudes, 4, 14, 20, 25–6, 29 Yaser, Juan, 46 Yoma, Alfredo Karim, 172, 174 Yoma, Emir, 171, 176 Yoma, Zulema, 170 Yrigoyen, Hipólito, 8, 40, 68, 146, 153, 165 Yunes, Américo, 15