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In this paper we study the Jewish feminist program expounded by the American theologian Judith Plaskow in her book Standing Again at Sinai. Focusing on her most important contributions, we summarize the project of a Jewish feminist theology capable of renewing the central categories of the Jewish religion (God, Torah, and Israel). This project is a fundamental part of a feminism with social and political implications. ; En este artículo nos acercamos al programa judeo-feminista expuesto por la teóloga americana Judith Plaskow en su libro Standing Again at Sinai. Centrándonos en sus aportaciones más importantes sintetizamos el proyecto de una teología judeo-feminista capaz de renovar las categorías centrales de la religión judía (Dios, Torah e Israel). Este proyecto es parte fundamental de un feminismo con implicaciones sociales y políticas.

Marx has a threefold objective in "On the Jewish Question": to respond to Bruno Bauer's views on the same issue; to give us his own standing on the matter of the political emancipation of Jewish populations in Germany and the rest of Europe, while at the same time defining what political emancipation means for each citizen, no matter the religion, in a modern State; and lastly, to show us how political emancipation is not enough and how actual freedom (political plus social) is accessible to all once a new, final and imperative kind of emancipation is obtained: human emancipation. This paper will be divided into two parts: the first one will try to briefly review and explain Marx's text. Particular attention will be given to the differentiation between political and human emancipation and its implications. In this section, Marx's views on Judaism will be clarified by analyzing them on their proper socio-historical context. In the second one, an interesting and, hopefully, appropriate exercise will be put into consideration: taking into account Marx's concerns regarding the possibility of inclusion of a religious minority into the public spheres of a secular State, the Jewish question of 19th century's Europe will be altered into the Muslim question of 21st century's Europe. According to Yoav Peled the main difference between how Bauer and Marx confront the issue of Jewish emancipation is that the former one considers the problem as a theological one, while the latter does it as a sociological one (1). Bauer affirms that not only the Jews are longing for political emancipation, meaning being recognized by the State as equal citizens; but also the rest of the Gentile population is awaiting such recognition. The State cannot emancipate Jews if it still has not emancipated the rest. The Jewry cannot obtain full citizenship if there are no citizens. In order to attain political emancipation the State has to become a secular one, not to recognize any religion as its official one and to extend freedom of religion to all of its citizens. Religious freedom would require religion's removal from the public sphere and its "ostracism" into a private creed. This privatization of religion would eventually abolish it. Nevertheless, Bauer does not consider the Jews capable of becoming free because he does not consider Judaism able to become a private creed. Bauer characterizes Judaism as a religion of law not as, like Christianity, areligion of faith. Being a religion based on actions and not on beliefs would completely be opposed to freedom of religion, to its own removal from the public sphere. Judaism could not become free because there is a chance that its laws would contradict the laws of the State. Marx, instead, affirms that Jews (and Christians), in order to be really emancipated do not have to abandon Judaism in a theological way, but have to do it in a sociological manner. Political emancipation as stated by Bauer is not the final possible form of emancipation, but it is the last possible form of emancipation within the framework of the prevailing social order. For example, according to Marx the citizens of the United States of America, which at the time was the best case of a modern secular State, still practiced, and needed to practice, their religious beliefs as private creeds. Then, Bauer was wrong; religion survived the test and did not disappear after political emancipation. As reported by Marx this happened because when religion is expulsed from the sphere of public law to that of private law, religion becomes the spirit of civil society and the essence of differentiation which leads to, and presupposes, inequality. Political emancipation divides the human being into two antagonistic spheres: the individual, who is egoistic by nature and based in inequality and corresponds to civil society; and the citizen, who is based in common solidarity and equality and complements with the State. This separation can only be overcome by human emancipation. Human emancipation is the final and real kind of reachable and desired emancipation by all human beings. Human emancipation would erase all deficiencies that are found in civil society: private property, insecurity and religion. Human emancipation would, then, end social inequality. Only then, humans would achieve real and total freedom. Only when the individual and the citizen would synthesize their antagonisms in the species-being would humanity be free from all its social and political constraints and a truly democratic State would appear. (2)Marx's views on Judaism have been defined as anti-Semitic by several critics; but it is not the case (3). First of all, Marx was a strong advocate for political emancipation to the Jewish communities in Europe, especially in Germany, and he believed, in opposition to Bauer, that the Jewry was fully capable of becoming citizens in a secular State by privatizing their creed. Although, it has to be said that Marx, like Bauer, considered Judaism to be a religion based on laws; he did not directly consider the case if Judaism could withstand the transformation to a private form. Orthodox Jews, for example, would not become suitable for citizenship in the modern secular State. Because Marx could not resolve this argument in a direct form he chose to solve it by taking Judaism in its socio-historical context instead than in a purely theological way. To Marx Jews have embodied the mercantile spirit in a natural economy dominated Europe (4). Jews did not choose to be merchants or entrepreneurs: feudal society limited them to those kinds of activities. They could not legally own land or be members of any corporate guild. Jews could only deal with money or goods exchange(5). Then, Jews could only be considered as bourgeois, as capitalists, as financiers. Even if, like Marx says, the Jewish mercantile particularity had already generalized through the Christian world and there was no economic basis for distinguishing between Jews and Gentiles, which allowed the Jews to practically self-emancipate by the "Judaization" of society; the general public was still perceiving Judaism as a synonymous of "merchants"(6). It is rather interesting to note that in 1850 half of all entrepreneurs in Berlin were Jews and that in 1861 58% of the Prussian Jewry was engaged in commerce and credit, while only 2% of Christians was similarly employed (7). When Marx calls for the abolition of Judaism, he is calling for the abolition of the economic activity that was a reflection of the Jews social-historical role in society; he is calling for the end of the mercantile/capitalist elements that produce social inequality. The abolition of Judaism means the abolition of all religions through the correction of the secular defect of civil society(8). Finally, Marx's views on the political emancipation of a religious minority and of social emancipation as the only way to end all inequalities and distinctions could be helpful in order to understand the current Muslim Question that is concerning much of Europe. The Muslim question is significantly different from 19th century's Jewish question. Jews were asking for the State's recognition of the same basic constitutional rights that Christians already, or were about to, benefited from. Additionally, liberal-secularists, like Bauer, were concerned about Judaism's capability to remove their religious practices from the public sphere and privatize them. According to them, it was essential for the survival of the modern secular State that its citizens should exclude their religious distinctiveness from all of their public interactions with the State or with other fellow citizens. Today, Muslims in Europe enjoy all of the individual and social rights that are recognized in each of the European Constitutions; meaning political emancipation is not an issue. It is Islam's interactions with the secular, and almost irreligious, European public spheres that has become on of the most fervent debates in the last few years. Such debate extremely overcomes the purpose of this article, but a few points should be taken into account regarding the Muslim question and the relevance of Marx's work on the matter. Marx, just like with the political emancipation of the Jews, would not have been able to directly confront the possibility of a real privatization of Islamic beliefs, because he would have faced the same issue that arose in the Jewish question: Islam, like Judaism, is a religious of laws. As it has been said, a religion of laws will almost certainly contradict the laws of a secular State and would not be able to refrain from interrelate with the public sphere. For example, teachers wearing a Muslim veil or turban in public schools; Muslim women wearing burqas in public facilities; the introduction of Sharia law in order to legalize social relationships within Muslim communities and in their relations with non-Muslim communities; etc., are challenges to the secular State. Several European countries are juggling between the right of freedom of religion and absolute secularism(9): France chooses to ban burqas in public spaces; the Netherlands to expel teachers from public schools that insisted in wearing veils or turbans in class; Italy to reform family law in order to stop "honor killings" among Muslim families; etc. But like with Judaism, Marx would overcome Islam's inability to privatize its creed by arguing that such incapability is a symptom of the antagonism between civil society (the individual egoistic man) and the State (the solidary citizen) and that will never be surpassed until human emancipation is obtained. Interestingly enough, while during the 19th century Jews were an equivalent to bourgeois and entrepreneurs, Muslims of the 21st century, on the other hand, are identified with other kinds of socio-economic characterization. Muslims are identified either as proletarians or as lumpenproletarians. Remarkably, the occupational standing of 84% of Muslims living in Germany is either blue or white collar; compared to just 40% of non-Muslims Germans (10); 20% of young non-Muslim French are unemployed compared to 50% of young French Muslims(11); 9% of non-Muslim Dutch are unemployed, while 30% of Dutch Muslims are jobless(12); 10% of non-Muslim Belgians live below the poverty line, while 60% of Muslim Belgians are poor(13); 15% of non-Muslim British households are in poverty, but that percentage ascends to 55% when Muslim British households are considered(14). In Europe 80% of Muslim men are employed in low-skill/low-wage jobs and in routine manual and service occupations, only 45% of non-Muslim men are employed in the same kind of jobs(15). Finally, when the Human Development Index is taken into account and it is divided among the Muslim and non-Muslim population in the European countries it is evidenced that the standard of living of Muslim communities is significantly lower than that of the rest (16). This brief and expedited socio-economic context of Muslims in Europe would be employed by Marx in order to circumvent Islam's inability to privatize its creed: Muslims, although they live in modern secular States and enjoy political emancipation, persist in carrying on with their religious practices in public spaces, and sometimes in opposition to public laws, because they are suffering social inequality; they are suffering from not attaining human emancipation. Of course, all human beings lack of human emancipation, not only Muslims in Europe, but it is Muslims' special socio-economic situation in Europe that creates a secular deficiency from political emancipation and prevents their religion's transformation into a private creed. Jews did not have political emancipation and were, in their majority, entrepreneurs, which gave them a better socio-economic standing and allowed them to privatize their religion once political emancipation was conquered. Most of European Muslims, in contrast, are proletarians and, in worst cases, lumpenproletarians (17)and even if they enjoy political emancipation they find themselves in a position characterized by an extreme social inequality, that does not allow many of them to privatize their creed (18). Only through human emancipation and social equality they would be able to negate their religious differentiation; because in a true democratic State, a communist State according to Marx, communism itself would act as a religious belief and manner of living. That is, perhaps, how Marx intended to accomplish the abolition of all religions: by the emergence of a new politically and socially equal "religion for all human beings", that of communism.(1) Peled Yoad; "From Theology to Sociology: Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx on the Question of Jewish Emancipation";History of Political Thought; Vol. XIII, No. 3, Autumn, 1992. (2) Marx borrows the concept of species-being from Feuerbach. It seems to be implied in the text, although it is more possible to be influenced by later Marx's texts, that revolution is the mean to obtain human emancipation; the mean that those who suffer from social inequality will use in order to end that suffering. Once human emancipation is reached then the democratic/communist State is at hand. Again, this is not actually said in On the Jewish Question. (3) See Flannery Edward, Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2005, pp.154-157; and Lewis Bernard, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1999, pp. 112.(4) Peled Yoad; "From Theology to Sociology: Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx on the Question of Jewish Emancipation"; History of Political Thought; Vol. XIII, No. 3, Autumn, 1992, pp. 475. (5) It was this image of the "financial Jew", embodied in the Rothschild dynasty, which begot the western anti-Semitic wave of the 19th and 20th century. See Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Benediction Books, New York, 2009; Ferguson Niall, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Penguin, New York, 2009; Ferguson Niall, The House of Rothschild, Penguin, New York, 2000; Landes David,Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses, Penguin, New York, 2007.(6) Actually, the word "Judentum" came to be a synonymous with commerce.(7) Sorkin David, The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840, Wayne State University Press, New York, 1999, pp. 108-9.(8) Peled Yoad; "From Theology to Sociology: Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx on the Question of Jewish Emancipation"; History of Political Thought; Vol. XIII, No. 3, Autumn, 1992, pp. 481.(9) For more about the interaction of Muslim minorities and political liberalism in a Rawlsian version see Benhenda, Mostapha, "For Muslim Minorities, it is Possible to Endorse Political Liberalism, but this is not Enough", Journal Of Islamic Law and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 2, May 2009, pp. 71-87. The article concludes that almost all Muslim minorities could and will endorse political liberalism, but many will not be able to do it because of a religious normative prohibition to reform their doctrine.(10) "Muslim Life in Germany", Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, German Government, http://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/EN/Migration/Publikationen/Forschung/Forschungsberichte/fb6-muslimisches-leben,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/fb6-muslimisches-leben.pdf(11) "Muslims in Europe", Open Society Institute; http://www.soros.org/initiatives/home/articles_publications/publications/muslims-europe-20091215/a-muslims-europe-20100302.pdf(12) Ibid.(13) Ibid.(14) Ibid.(15) Ibid.(16) For example, the HDI of Spain, Italy, Great Britain, France, Germany and Sweden are: 0,955; 0,951; 0,947; 0,961; 0.947 and 0,963 respectively; while the HDI of their respective Muslim communities are: 0,841; 0, 848; 0, 830; 0, 850; 0, 860; 0,912. Available at the European Social Survey http://ess.nsd.uib.no/ (17) Loïc Wacquant would call them "urban outcasts" or marginal. See Wacquant Loïc, Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality, Polity, Cambridge, 2007; Wacquant Loïc, Prisons of Poverty, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2009; Wacquant Loïc, Los Condenados de la ciudad. Gueto, peripherias, Estado, Siglo XII Editores, Buenos Aires, 2007.(18) Certainly they are more religious than Christian and Jewish Europeans because they are perceived as a marginalized minority and in fierce competition with non-Muslim proletarians. It is civil society that enforces religious differentiation on them.*Estudiante de Doctorado, New School for Social Research, New YorkMaestría en Estudios Internacionales, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos AiresÁrea de Especialización: Procesos de formación del Estado moderno, sociología de la guerra, terrorismo, genocidio, conflictos étnicos, nacionalismos y minorías.

¨The actions taken by the Armed Forces are not a mere overthrow of a government but rather the final closing of a historical cycle and the opening of a new one in which respect for human rights is not only borne out by the rule of law and of international declarations, but is also the result of our profound and Christian belief in the preeminent dignity of man as a fundamental value.¨ (…) ¨It will be the objectives of the Armed Forces to restore the validity of the values of Christian morality, of national tradition and of the dignity to be an Argentinean; (…) a final solution to subversion in order to firmly found a reorganized Argentina on the values of Western and Christian civilization by eradicating, once and for all, the vices which afflict the nation. This immense task will require trust and sacrifice but has only one beneficiary the Argentinean people¨ (1). With these words the military junta addressed the Argentines after taking over the government through a coup d'état the 24th of March 1976. Already in this first official communication it is possible to find the strong messianic discourse where the armed forces were fulfilling their holy mission to protect the Christian-national identity of the country.For the first time in the history of Argentina catholic-nationalism, as a nationalist ideology, had an absolute control of the State and was backed by the entrepreneurship and by important sectors of the middle class.(2) The military junta, leaded by Jorge Rafael Videla, was the perfect embodiment of a permanent alliance between religion and fatherland. The armed forces were compelled, being the institution that gave birth to the nation, to fulfill a decisive role in the "holy mission" to morally regenerate the country. This would have allowed Argentina, and therefore all of the Western-Christian civilization, to not just vanquish communism but, also, all of its roots like liberalism, democracy and agnosticism. The military, alongside the Argentinean Catholic Church and its supporters, were convinced that the final battle of the "third world war" was taking place in Argentina. Generals Ramon Camps and Menéndez would even call the "Argentinean theater of operations" as third world war, where they thought the international subversive movements were playing a pivotal role (3). This extremely eschatological feeling was completely different from other similar Cold War scenarios in other developing countries. In Argentina the "final showdown against international communism" syndrome was exacerbated by this alliance between the sword and the cross that would fight communism in order to make a "healthy" society possible, which would lead the way to the regeneration of the "atheist infected" western world. This expectation was the pillar of messianic spirit that justified the extermination plan.But the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (National Reorganization Process), as the military junta denominated the period that begun with the coup d'état, was more than an extermination plan; it aimed at a total "restoration" of society. The speech given by Lieutenant Jorge Eduardo Goleri at a book burning gathering in Córdoba in April 1976 clearly shows what the Junta was aiming for: "God's will requires that the military preserves the natural order manifest in the Western and Christian civilization to which Argentina is integral, but the East had organized a massive international conspiracy to subvert that civilization by restructuring society in accordance with the seditious and atheistic doctrine of communism. We are facing the imminent doom of our way of being Christian under the assault of subversion"(4).The Junta regarded itself as the creative agent of historical destiny(5). In their eschatological mindset they were analogous to the Messiah. They saw themselves as the mythological/biblical Hero that defended the most sacred/holy interests and appeared when a series of afflictions required his abilities of salvation. The Hero needed a nemesis in order to act and what better foe than international communism. But the latter was constructed in a Manichean, epical and apocalyptical manner. The myth of the Hero was opposite to the myth of a "Metaphysical Enemy". The former would engage in a Mythological/Holy War against an invisible but encompassing "Evil". Violent acts from left-wing guerrilla groups, which the Junta labeled as terrorism, perfectly ascribed that ontological description. Communism, with its terrorist offspring, was foreign, atheist and ideological. The military, then, had to combat it not just in the streets or countryside; but in the people's minds, and souls, as well. Guerrilla fighters were just the armed side; the roots of communism, meaning of terrorism and anti-Catholicism, were to be found in individuals that had ideas contrary to the Juntas' weltanschauung. They were ideas that opposed the catholic foundations of the nation and the society that it embodied.The Junta's adversary was an essentially ideological foe as General Videla stated to a British journalist: "A terrorist (read communist or atheist) is not just someone with a gun or a bomb, but also someone who spreads ideas which are contrary to Western and Christian civilization" and he continued, "…Subversion is all action that seeks the alteration or the destruction of the people's moral criteria and form of life, with the end of seizing power and imposing a new form based upon a different scale of values"(6). The guerrilla was not the most dangerous enemy; because in military terms it was already defeated before the Junta took power. The nemeses were communism, liberalism and democracy, ideologies that advocated an "Anti-Christian Revolution" that subverted the catholic foundations of the country(7). Accordingly, the subversive was guilty of the most serious crime against the Augustinian concept of "Common Good". In this latter sense, the battle against that invisible, but spiritual, Evil was a conflict inside each one of us. Like Massera said: "…the Third World War is not only fought in battlefields but, more importantly, in the believer's soul" (8). This Holy War mobilized the Junta as a "warrior-savior", as a modern crusader fighting for God and freedom from foreign atheist ideologies. This, in part, self-perceived holy mission strengthened the Junta's self-image as Christ's vicar, as crusading defender of Christianity and its Natural Order from the "pagan agents and antinational beings of the Antichrist"(9). Not surprisingly, the military profession was defined by Monsignor Bonamín as a profession of religiosity. Consequently, it is no wander that before the armed forces toppled Isabel Peron's government, they asked for the Catholic Church benediction the night before the coup(10). The Argentinean Catholic Church was as deeply as it could possibly be involved in this crusade. The Crusade's sanctification by the ChurchAfter Videla and Massera were blessed by the heads of the Argentinean Episcopate the night before the coup, Parana's Archbishop and military Bishop Adolfo Tortolo announced that the Catholic Church would positively cooperate with the new government (11). The Church was actively supporting and legitimizing the imminent armed forces' putsch. This probably did not surprise the future Junta's leaders. In December 1975, just three months before the coup d'état, Tortolo had called for the military to inaugurate a "purification process" and his subordinate Bonamín had stated, during the mass in front of future Junta leader General Viola, that Christ wanted the armed forces to be beyond their function in the future (12). The vicars of Christ on Earth were actually telling the military what were their Lord's orders. This symbiosis between the sword and the cross continued even after the first accusations of human rights violations against the Junta. On October 1976, Tortolo declared that he did not know of any evidence that proved that human rights were being violated or abused. In 1977 he went even further by affirming that the Church thought that the armed forces were acting accordingly to the special demands of the present juncture; meaning that the military was fulfilling its duty (13). The same with Bonamín's declarations regarding the role of the armed forces: "…it was written, it was in God's plan that Argentina did not have to lose its greatness and it was saved by its natural custodian: the army"; "…Providence has given the army the duty to govern, from the Presidency to the intervention in a trade union"; and finally "…the anti-guerrilla fight is a battle for the Republic of Argentina, for its integrity, but also for its altars (…) This fight is a fight in morality's defense, of men's dignity, ultimately a fight in God's defense (…) That is why I ask for the divine protection in this dirty war to which we are committed to." (14)The vast majority of the Argentinean Catholic Church favored and strongly supported the military junta's government and repression. Only four of the eighty-four clerical members of the Argentinean Episcopate publicly denounced the regime's repression (15). However, the Church was not just backing the Junta because it legitimized its sacred duty to defend the fatherland or because it identified itself in the Junta's messianic mission; but because Church also had to deal with its own internal enemies. The Argentinean Catholic Church was, perhaps, the most conservative Latin-American national Church. It was strongly in disagreement with the three most important progressive movements inside the Catholic Church: the Second Vatican Council, the Third World Priesthood Movement and the Latin-American Episcopal Council of Medellin. The Theological Liberation Movement that spread through Latin America during the 60s and 70s was extremely popular among young Argentineans. Several priests identified themselves with the Movement and tried to bring change to the Argentinean Church through their communal and pastoral actions among poor sectors. Additionally, several Montoneros' members were former catholic school's students that had radicalized, in part, because of their experience with the Theological Liberation Movement. The Catholic Church, then, supported, or did not protest too much against, the "internal cleansing" done by the military; like the killing of Father Mujica, Angelleli and four Palotines clerics among other cases (16).Lastly, the Catholic Church was involved in a much sinister way with the Junta's actions. The heads of the Argentinean Church knew about the repressive methods being used by the security and armed forces and chose not to condemn them. They considered them as necessary sacrifices for the Common Good. Nevertheless, several clerics went further by assisting and taking an active part in the implementation of torture and other repressive mechanisms used by the Junta. More than two hundred prelates participated in four different ways: offering confession/absolution to the victims before being executed or thrown into the sea; assisting the torturers by playing the "good cop" role; being themselves the torturers; and, by confessing and spiritually assisting the torturers and other victimizers (17). The priest Christian von Wernich is, maybe, one of the best examples of the fusion between the cross and the sword. Not only he assisted the torturers in their tasks, he even was involved in the kidnapping and torture of several desaparecidos and in the infiltration of exiled groups in New York (18). He, among others like Archbishop Plaza, Fathers Astigueta, Castillo and Perlanda López that also assisted torture sessions, justified the repressive methods, not considering them sins, by legitimizing their, and the military, behavior under the Augustinian and De Vitorian doctrines of "just war". The support of the Catholic Church for the fight against subversion and its blessing was a pivotal element in the implementation of the plan of extermination and its suppressive mechanisms. The repressive methods, chosen by the Junta, were not void themselves of a messianic and divine nature. Divine and Redemptory Violence The three main types of violent acts that reflected the Junta's Messianic crusade, which were an integral part of their repressive methods, were: torture, thevictim's throwing into the sea and the appropriation of the victims' children by families deemed proper by the military. These violent means, chosen by the perpetrators to perpetually annihilate the ideas that were subverting the Argentinean Catholic traditions, were constructed under the discourse of "love" in two different ways: firstly, the kind of love upheld by Thomas Aquinas where the authority could legitimately kill evil-doers when the formers were motivated by charity. The crusading Junta envisaged that the repressive methods it used had a transcendental value. That type of violence was constructive rather than destructive, insofar as it was able to eradicate evil in order to create good (19). Love was considered the reason for an act of violence, for a punishment that redeemed the sinner, disregarding whether the latter survived the penitence. General Ramón Camps, commenting of how the detention centers perfected the victims through torture, said: "It is love that prioritizes and legitimates the actions of soldiers. The use of force to put an end to violence does not imply hate since it is nothing other than the difficult search for the restoration of love. In the war we are fighting, love of social body that we want to protect is what comes first in all of our actions" (20). Massera and Videla also referred to the dictatorship's repression as an "act of love" or "work that began with love"(21). All these statements reflected how the just war's discourse of Christian charity was in their minds by giving love a pivotal place.Secondly, there was another, and more complex, kind of love in the Junta's Christian-inspired crusade, which contrasted with the former metaphysical type and appeared exclusively in the torture tables of the detention centers, and should be labeled as sexual love. The torture sessions were filled of sexual symbolisms and discourse. The eroticism present in the torments was the exteriorization of the torturer's sexual -religiously repressed- desires into the body -the sexual surrogate totem- of the tortured. Consequently, the act of torture symbolized the act of sex(22). Like Jacobo Timerman perfectly put it, the Junta's violence was the emotional and erotic expression of a militarized nation (23).An expression orchestrated by the use of the picana. The latter was the preferred torture instrument used by the torturers for many reasons. Historically, it was first used by the nationalists during Uriburu's dictatorship and it was extremely effective in administering the desired amount of pain. However, symbolically, thepicana represented, better than other torments, the rawest manifestation of the Junta's conception of power related to "love's twofold sense". Considering torture as a Christian act of love, the picana was the necessary instrument to get a confession from the torturer that would eventually get him redemption. But thepicana had to fill a "void space". According to the perpetrators the victims were atheists (then they were not Argentines), which meant that in order to get any kind of absolution they had to, somehow, recognize and accept the Word of Christ. The Word would fill the empty victims; but first the picana would have to fill them with the will to "repent" and "convert". Once the tortured had received several electric shocks, they would receive and recite the Word by being ordered by the torturers to deliver Catholic prayers (24). Through these confessions the Junta's self perceived role of being the vicars of Christ on Earth was realized every time. They had defeated the atheist enemy but, employing Christian charity, they also had won the battle for the subversives' souls. Redemption was offered to anyone, even the irrecoverable cases. Even if their bodies were deprived of life their souls were saved. One of the ways that the ones not redeemed during confession were granted spiritual salvation was by the purifying power of water. By throwing them into the sea alive they were bestowing them a new, or first, "baptism" (25). It was the perpetrators' holy mission to redeem the victims' souls in life or in death. The picana, when considering torture as a sexual act, was also a phallic symbol. The torturer would make use of the picana-phallus to inflict pain and, at the same time, through the victim's screams and spasms satisfy his own repressed sexual desires. The perpetrator would systematically use the picana-phallus in the erogenous parts of the body. The body of the tortured would then transform into the sexual object of the repressor's desires. A sinful object that had to be purified with repent or conversion but only after the torturer's sexual desire had been satisfied (26). Symbols of divine violence can be found in other examples of torture sessions during the Junta's dictatorship. The torturers would yell at the captives, and would also made them say, "Viva Cristo Rey" and would make them thank God for another day by make them recite prayers before sleep. The picana was sometimes referred as "giving holy communion" as well as water-boarding was named "baptism". Among the many names that the torture chambers were given by the perpetrators there were: "the confessionary" and "the altar" (27). The latter clearly reflects the idea of sacrifice embedded in the repressors' minds. Regarding the victims' religious creeds the torturers would make a distinction between the recoverable and irrecoverable cases. Among the former ones there would be victims that had a catholic background because they had gone to catholic schools or because they knew how to recite prayers (28). Nevertheless, being catholic was not synonym of survival. The irrecoverable Catholics would only have their souls saved, but not their lives. Amid the desaparecidos there were an important proportion of Jews. About 1% of the Argentine population was of Jewish origin, but 20% of desaparecidos shared the same religious background (29). The Junta believed in an international communist conspiracy that, like the Nazis before, was leaded by the Jewry. Being Jewish meant being a Bolshevik. Additionally, the Junta's Messianic trope further propelled the kidnapping and execution of the community that, according to them, was responsible for Christ's crucifixion (30). Lastly, the appropriation of the desaparecidos children by the military was, perhaps, the most sinister of the Messianic-inspired repressive acts done by the military., The kidnapped pregnant women that gave birth in captivity, after being tortured regardless of their condition, were deprived of their children. The newborns were appropriated by families that would rise according to Catholic tradition. Motivated by Christian charity and its doctrine, these children would avoid the atheism, Judaism or wrongly conceived Catholicism that their parents would have offered them. These newborns were, according to the Junta, truly "innocent" and deserved to have the chance to live a proper life in genuine catholic families. Concluding RemarksThe Messianic ideology during the dictatorship was present not only in the Junta's ideology, but also in its discourse and repressive methods. Even if not everything that happened during the military regime can be explained through the catholic-nationalist ideology, the latter provides the essential motivation for the government. It is difficult to imagine that the magnitude, and chosen methods, of the repression would have been the same without the Messianic trope. By comparing the level of Argentinean repression to other military regimes of the Southern Cone in the same period, the distinction is remarkable. Not only the repressive mechanisms used by the Argentinean dictatorship were distinct, and more sadist and cruel, than the Chilean, Uruguayan and Brazilian cases, but the amount of Argentina's desaparecidos dwarfs those cases.Additionally, the Argentinean Catholic Church was the only one to completely back the regime and its repressive methods. In Chile, for example, the heads of the Church were divided in supporting Pinochet. Ultimately, the majority of the Church would condemn the Chilean regime. Regarding the political leadership, there are no religious discourses that serve as justification for the regimes in the other Southern Cone's dictatorships. The military juntas of those countries never legitimized their governments or their respective coup d'états in God's will or the salvation of Christian-Western civilization. National security and the fear of communism were their justification. Even if the regimes were ideologically justified, these were never of a religious nature like in the Argentinean case. It is probably the catholic-nationalist ideology, matured in the 30s, augmented by the international communist conspiracy typical of the Cold War that prompted the Junta in Argentina to completely wipeout what they perceived as atheist and foreign elements in society. Without a Messianic military that was ready to fight a crusade in order to restore order to the nation and without the blessing and active support from the Church, the repression would not have had the size and the horror that it had. The armed forces were fighting what they thought was the last crusade of the 20th century against the atheist forces of communism. The "Third World War" was already happening to them. Winning it was more than strategic, it was a holy mission. (1) Excerpts from a radio announcement made by the Junta after taking control of the State. Cited in Loveman, David and Davies, M. Thomas; The Politics of Antipolitics: The Military in Latin America; University of Nebraska Press; Lincoln; 1978; pp. 177. (2) See Novaro, Marcos and Palermo, Vicente; La Dictadura Militar; Paidos; Buenos Aires; 2003. (3) See Clarin, June the 26th 1976. Cited in Novaro, Marcos and Palermo, Vicente; La Dictadura Militar; Paidos; Buenos Aires; 2003; pp. 93. (4) Cited in Frontalini, Daniel and Caiati, Maria C.; El mito de la guerra sucia; CELS; Buenos Aires; 1984; pp. 90. Note how the East is viewed as the geopolitical source of "evil" similar to the Nazis' fear of the East. (5) See Graziano, Frank; Divine Violence. Spectacle, Psychosexuality, & Radical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty War"; Westview Press; Boulder; 1992; pp. 120.(6) See CONADEP; Nunca Más; Eudeba; Buenos Aires; 1984; pp. 342. (7) See Castro Castillo, Marcial; Fuerzas armadas: Ética y represión; Nuevo Orden; Buenos Aires; 1979; pp.120. (8) Massera, Emilio; El país que queremos; FEPA; Buenos Aires; 1981; pp. 44. This concept of an internal and spiritual struggle is common to all religious fanatic ideologies. For example the original significance of Jihad was that of the soul's struggle against temptation. The concept would later evolve to holy war. (9) As subversives were defined by Ramon Agosti. Cited in Verbitsky, Horacio; La última batalla de la tercera guerra mundial; Legasa; Buenos Aires; 1984; pp.16. (10) La Nación, March the 25th 1976; cited in Mignone, Emilio; Iglesia y Dictadura; Colihue; Buenos Aires; 1986; pp.25. (11) See Mignone, Emilio; Iglesia y Dictadura; Colihue; Buenos Aires; 1986; pp.25. Additionally, Tortolo was Videla's private confessor. (12) Ibid; pp. 25(13) Ibid; pp. 26-28. (14) Ibid; pp. 30-31. (15) See Novaro, Marcos and Palermo, Vicente; La Dictadura Militar; Paidos; Buenos Aires; 2003; pp. 99 (16) Ibid; pp. 97(17) See Mignone, Emilio; Iglesia y Dictadura; Colihue; Buenos Aires; 1986; and CONADEP;Nunca Más; Eudeba; Buenos Aires; 1984; pp. 342-360. (18) See Mignone, Emilio; Iglesia y Dictadura; Colihue; Buenos Aires; 1986pp.179-188. (19) Graziano, Frank; Divine Violence. Spectacle, Psychosexuality, & Radical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty War"; Westview Press; Boulder; 1992; pp.152(20) See Camps, Ramón; Caso Timerman: punto final; Tribuna Abierta; Buenos Aires; 1982; pp. 21. (21) CONADEP; Nunca Más; Eudeba; Buenos Aires; 1984; pp. 348. Additionaly, it is interesting to notice how Carl Schimitt's political theology theory is translated into the Junta's discourse. In this sense, the Junta's actions would be a Schimittian case of politics not being able to be dettached from religion. This, in turn, would contradict several secularization theories. See, Schimitt, Carl, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignity, Chicago Univertisty Press, Chica, 2006.(22) Interestingly, Saint Augustine described copulation in such a dreadful way that it seemed like an act of torture. See Foucault, Michel; Historia de la Sexualidad: Vol. 1, La voluntada del saber; Siglo XXI; Buenos Aires; 2008; pp. 37. (23) See Timerman Jacobo; Preso sin nombre, celda sin número; De la Flor; Buenos Aires; 2002; pp. 17. (24) See CONADEP; Nunca Más; Eudeba; Buenos Aires; 1984; pp. 347-360; and Graziano, Frank; Divine Violence. Spectacle, Psychosexuality, & Radical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty War"; Westview Press; Boulder; 1992; pp. 166. (25) It is rather interesting to note that throwing victims alive into the sea or rivers was a common killing method used by other strongly catholic Messianic inspired authoritarian regimes or groups. The falangistas would throw communists, anarchists and socialists (and whoever they thought was not catholic enough) to the rivers during the Spanish Civil War. The Algerian French and later the OAS would throw FLN suspects to the Mediterranean during the Algerian War of Independence. Even in Argentina, during the 1930s, the nationalists were talking about pushing the communists into the sea. A more detailed research should be conducted on this issue. Probably the Spanish Inquisition's torture methods, involving boiled water or a pool where the suspected heretics would drown, clearly influenced all of these cases into using natural sources of water to purify their sacred lands from the nonbelievers. (26) For more on torture as a sexual act and the picana as phallus see Graziano, Frank; Divine Violence. Spectacle, Psychosexuality, & Radical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty War"; Westview Press; Boulder; 1992; pp. 158-190. (27) CONADEP; Nunca Más; Eudeba; Buenos Aires; 1984; pp. 26-50. (28) Many tortured victims remember how the torturers were clearly surprised to see the formers wearing crosses after making them take out their clothes. In some of these cases the torturers would say to the victims that their life would be saved because they were Christians but had lost their way and it would be the repressors' task to show them the right path. (29) See Novaro, Marcos and Palermo, Vicente; La Dictadura Militar; Paidos; Buenos Aires; 2003; pp. 115. (30) During the trial of torturer known as Jorge "El Tigre" Acosta a witness remembered him saying, after killing a captive while torturing him, that he was happy that he had died because he was going to be freed but he did not want a Jew to walk freely in Argentina; all Jews were guilty because they had killed Christ. See Diario Perfil; "Juicio al Tigre Acosta por el asesinato de Hugo Tarnopolsky"; May the 12th 2007. *Estudiante de Doctorado, New School for Social Research, New YorkMaestría en Estudios Internacionales, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos AiresÁrea de Especialización: Procesos de formación del Estado moderno, sociología de la guerra, terrorismo, genocidio, conflictos étnicos, nacionalismos y minorías.E-mail: guere469@newschool.edu