Esma

Before leaving Argentina, we decided to head out to the museum Esma or "Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos", documenting the countless victims of the “Dirty War” carried out by Argentina's right-wing military regime between 1974 and 1983. Growing up in Sweden, the 1977 disappearance of Dagmar Hagelin became our own part of this national trauma, and the Esma museum definitely brought home its massive scale and utter meaninglessness.

Confusingly, among the exhibition halls, there was one building dedicated to the Falkland Islands or Islas Malvinas as they are referred to down here. Despite the failed 1982 invasion and that 99.8% of the island population has since voted in favour of remaining British, Argentina has not given up on its territorial claims. Considering that it was, in no small part, precisely the loss of the war that brought down the right-wing junta and restored democracy in Argentina, the continuation of nationalist expansionism by the same people who are now mourning its victims left both Anna and me rather bewildered.