To what extent does Timernam's work help us to understand the

Timerman and Nationalism

11 .18 .10

Prisoner without a Name

The most important way in which the book Prisoner without a Name by Jacob Timerman , can help the reader to understand the repression in Argentina in the 1970s is by showing how the military and the people alike used a sense of nationalism , a wild and burning desire to save the nation , to rationalize their terrible actions and the entire cultural phenomenon of repression that sprang up at the time . This nationalism was a way of justification for what happened , leading

people to believe at least in their own minds , that the things that they did were not wrong , no matter how horrible they looked on the outside . By using nationalism as the basis for this belief , they were able to convince themselves and others that they were just doing what was in the best interests of the country and the rest of the people . With this in mind they felt that they were serving a higher goal , a higher purpose , and that they could , therefore , do anything to accomplish that goal . This helped to absolve the people of their feelings of guilt and spurred them forward into the anger and violence that followed , as they believed that these actions were justified

The first instance that can be used to show this nationalistic fervor is when Timerman speaks of how many of the groups used poems and essays to spur themselves to violence , thinking that they were embracing the ideas...