Daniel Divinsky, beyond Quino and Fontanarrosa: his meeting with Alfonsín in exile and his time at Radio Belgrano

And one day Daniel Divinsky, the man from Ediciones de la Flor, the one who believed in Joaquín Lavado (Quino) and his Mafalda, the one who had Roberto Fontanarrosa in his stable, and so many others, including Rodolfo Walsh, passed away.

However, hardly anyone will mention its relationship with Raúl Alfonsín's victory in 1983.

But let's go back to 1977. That summer, the editor was imprisoned at the mercy of the Executive Branch. His ordeal landed him in the Federal Coordination Office and Caseros Prison in Buenos Aires. Finally, after 127 days, he was released and departed for the Venezuela of democratic exemplarity that was a beacon in the region. Soon, he joined El Diario de Caracas, which was revolutionizing the market under the leadership of another Argentine, Rodolfo Terragno.

In 1982, Alfonsín, accompanied by his friend Germán López, arrived in Caracas and held several meetings with the large exile community. Empanadas, wine, music, long nights, and in-depth discussions marked these gatherings, from which some emerged more hopeful than others.

There, a relationship was born that grew politically as the campaign progressed, when Divinsky became the factotum for a series of requests from non-radical intellectuals and cultural figures urging people to vote for Alfonsín.

There you could meet Quino himself, the theater director María Herminia Avellaneda and her colleague, Cecilio Madanes; the filmmaker Oscar Barney Finn; the inventor Ladislao Biró; the actresses Graciela Dufau and Perla Santalla; the heart surgeon René Favaloro; the former rector of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) Hilario Fernández Long; the lawyers José María Monner Sans (father and son); the singer Susana Rinaldi; the painter Josefina Robirosa; and the writers Juan José Sebreli and Héctor Tizón, among others.

This core of intellectuals, most of whom had been exiled, were silent architects in the last two weeks of October to garner votes from spaces traditionally refractory to the UCR. The Working and Coordination Group was the name they adopted to present their final text, entitled "Alfonsín with All" (with a lowercase letter).

“ Since Yrigoyen and Perón, there hasn't been a phenomenon of political attraction like that of Raúl Alfonsín ,” he began by pointing out in one of his paragraphs. And then he lashed out, with a call to vote: “ Voting for the presidential candidates of a party that, beyond the fantasies of its leaders, is known to have less than 3% of the vote means renouncing the right to vote ,” referring to the lists that weren't going to obtain the threshold necessary to have a voter (voting was still done in the Electoral College).

With the arrival of democracy, and as a result of the symbiosis that was built with that group, the first Secretary of Public Information, Emilio Gibaja, called the editor to take charge of the direction of Radio Belgrano (one of the many media outlets intervened by Peronism in 1973 that the dictatorship did not privatize, and the democratic restoration of 1983 inherited).

Although Divinsky wasn't a radio man, the station soon became a pluralistic space that stirred the hornets' nest of metropolitan broadcasting. With freedom, a slew of newcomers, and the fresh scent of the Alfonsinist spring, Radio Belgrade was one of the nicknames bestowed upon it by the far right, who couldn't tolerate its programming, which featured Enrique Vázquez, Rogelio García Lupo, Ariel Delgado, Annamaría Muchnik, Eduardo Aliverti, and Martín Caparrós, among many others.

Last April marked the fortieth anniversary of the attack that blew up their transmission plant. "The unemployed workforce" couldn't bear the sales of the Nunca Más Report, the effective start of the trial of the Juntas, or the continued democracy. The country was slipping from their grasp, and Ramón Camps promised, from prison, that "when he got out" he wouldn't hesitate to sign the order for Alfonsín's execution.

"We can't restore democracy by engaging in McCarthyism," Gibaja responded when criticized for his programming. The official had been imprisoned and tortured for his role as a university reform leader during the difficult years of the early Peronist regime, ample argument to defend the plurality of voices.

"It's a young radio station, a different kind, with a lot of opinions, where they express themselves in a new way. A country not used to that language and style. For the first time, a radio station is criticizing other media outlets; this isn't usual. Before, there was a tacit agreement not to attack each other, not to intervene. That's why Belgrano is so vulnerable and so attacked," he emphasized in an uncomfortable interview with Somos magazine. His defense of the Divinsky administration was unwavering.

Uruguay 1237 generated original listening clubs, was a hotbed of activity at the door, and grew with very good audience levels, and its great architect was Daniel Divinsky.