From revolutionary impetus to the defense of human rights. Militant trajectories between Europe and the Southern Cone during the Cold War (1966-1990)

Abstract

This paper studies, through a series of trajectories, the passage from a broad political radicalization in Europe and Latin America in the middle of the 1960s to the defense of human rights in the 1980s. We reflect on this phenomenon of young people who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in both directions from the perspective of connected history, in order to discover which were the motivations, reasons and evolution of the values and ideas which guided them. Our hypothesis is that contrary to the major tendency of the cases, some Latin Americans became politicized in Europe before moving to the Southern Cone to collaborate with the revolutionary process that seemed underway, while various Europeans radicalized on the other side of the ocean. Later, both groups sought refuge in Europe escaping from repression. When years passed, the subjective perceptions changed and several of these militants distanced themselves from their youth postulates. This article argues that this process of militant radicalization and reconversion was not exclusive to Latin American actors or scenarios, but rather was the product of the transformation of the global political climate during the Cold War but also by the ideological reflection in a personal level which came after time.