20/8/10
Wars
Working for a company that is seemingly constantly at war with the local national government, even though the war has lulled to a stage of infrequent skirmishes and faraway rumblings in the middle of the night, is an interesting experience. At the same time, the government has chosen to wage a separate and much more present war with a local media conglomerate. This war is a nasty and aggressive scrap, seeing the government wield weapons of conscience and reason, although sometimes these weapons can have contradictory results. This week’s surprise assault was no exception: the government yesterday informed one of the (if not the biggest) internet service provider, part of this media empire, that in 90 days it would cease to exist. The reason? It constitutes a monopoly. The impact of this monopoly-busting action, however, is likely to play into the hands of other monopolies, some local, others very foreign. Fibertel, it must be admitted, provide a lousy internet service, but as a result of this latest action, huge swathes of people, myself included, will have to find new internet providers, overloading the competition to the point where they may not be able to cope. But points have been scored, blood has been shed, the company promised legal action and the war rumbles on.
22/7/10
Schizo
A friend and colleague made an interesting observation in the office the other day. We were talking about how to react in different situations, and the difference between British people and Argentines in terms of how we approach things. From her experience of Brits, she saw that we had entirely different behavioural patterns depending on the situation that we were in: we behave differently at work to how we do at home, we don’t have the same way of treating our friends as our family, we act one way if we are at dinner and quite another if we are in a bar.
Surely the same is just as true of Argentines, I said, to which she agreed, but said that the contrast between how an Argentine reacts in different social situations is barely noticeable when compared to the entirely variable behaviour of a Brit. Her conclusion was that in order to maintain a healthy balance between so many different personalities, we have to be basically schizophrenic.
On the face of it, this seems like a facile observation made from the point of view of a country where psychoanalysis is the norm. I think that she is right, that this an aspect of our national identity, if one can be defined, because we exist in so many contrasting social environments that we have to be able to vary our approach to the realities that we encounter. Our upbringing, childhood, growing experiences and education all lead us to react to things differently - but this is a human trait, surely, not a British one. I think what stands us apart is that we entirely believe, have it written into our being, that our ability to successfully express ourselves and convey meaning is inextricably linked to accurately gauging different situations. Relating to different people in different environments is the goal. In order to achieve this, we sometimes can appear a little schizo.
Surely the same is just as true of Argentines, I said, to which she agreed, but said that the contrast between how an Argentine reacts in different social situations is barely noticeable when compared to the entirely variable behaviour of a Brit. Her conclusion was that in order to maintain a healthy balance between so many different personalities, we have to be basically schizophrenic.
On the face of it, this seems like a facile observation made from the point of view of a country where psychoanalysis is the norm. I think that she is right, that this an aspect of our national identity, if one can be defined, because we exist in so many contrasting social environments that we have to be able to vary our approach to the realities that we encounter. Our upbringing, childhood, growing experiences and education all lead us to react to things differently - but this is a human trait, surely, not a British one. I think what stands us apart is that we entirely believe, have it written into our being, that our ability to successfully express ourselves and convey meaning is inextricably linked to accurately gauging different situations. Relating to different people in different environments is the goal. In order to achieve this, we sometimes can appear a little schizo.
15/7/10
Gay Marriage
After a prolonged and sometimes fraught debate in the Senate, gay marriage is now all but legal in Argentina. Besides the arguments that this is a step forward for Argentina, now one of ten countries that has legalized same-sex marriage, and the only country in Latin America to have done so, the political power plays that have brought this about are also interesting, as pointed out today by The Economist.
On the one hand, CFK still has to prove that her party has power in an increasingly anti-K environment, and picking the controversial but well-supported same-sex marriage bill was a no-brainer: after the first marriages were approved by judges last year, this was always going to snowball into something bigger.
However, what I find more interesting is what this whole discussion says about the role of the Catholic Church in contemporary Argentine society; it really is in a bit of a muddle at the moment. An eroding institution at best, constantly beset by the charges that afflict Catholicism around the world, the Church is often forced to take unpopular and eventually damaging positions due to its very nature. The march of parents and their children to Congress on Tuesday, organized by the Church to demonstrate the integral family unit, came hot on the heels of violent proclamations of “the devil’s work” in Sunday masses. It also severely disrupted traffic, to the point where my taxi driver at the time dismissed them all as anti-human lunatics who should “burn in hell”.
So the Church picked the side it had to pick, and lost. Just. The vote was close, the arguments were tense; the result is undeniable. The fact is, the Church must have known it was always on to a loser, if not now then later, as it has always known ever since the debates about civil marriages, divorce, etc. A colleague today told me that he had read an article comparing the Church’s arguments against civil marriage, divorce and even female suffrage to the arguments employed recently against same-sex marriage, and said that, word-for-word, they were almost identical. Thus the Church, in what remains an officially and openly Catholic country, must face each fresh advance of progress with the same, weary acceptance of inevitability. The Church does not modernize. The Church does not debate. Therefore, the Church will always lose, bit by bit, until it is no more.
On the one hand, CFK still has to prove that her party has power in an increasingly anti-K environment, and picking the controversial but well-supported same-sex marriage bill was a no-brainer: after the first marriages were approved by judges last year, this was always going to snowball into something bigger.
However, what I find more interesting is what this whole discussion says about the role of the Catholic Church in contemporary Argentine society; it really is in a bit of a muddle at the moment. An eroding institution at best, constantly beset by the charges that afflict Catholicism around the world, the Church is often forced to take unpopular and eventually damaging positions due to its very nature. The march of parents and their children to Congress on Tuesday, organized by the Church to demonstrate the integral family unit, came hot on the heels of violent proclamations of “the devil’s work” in Sunday masses. It also severely disrupted traffic, to the point where my taxi driver at the time dismissed them all as anti-human lunatics who should “burn in hell”.
So the Church picked the side it had to pick, and lost. Just. The vote was close, the arguments were tense; the result is undeniable. The fact is, the Church must have known it was always on to a loser, if not now then later, as it has always known ever since the debates about civil marriages, divorce, etc. A colleague today told me that he had read an article comparing the Church’s arguments against civil marriage, divorce and even female suffrage to the arguments employed recently against same-sex marriage, and said that, word-for-word, they were almost identical. Thus the Church, in what remains an officially and openly Catholic country, must face each fresh advance of progress with the same, weary acceptance of inevitability. The Church does not modernize. The Church does not debate. Therefore, the Church will always lose, bit by bit, until it is no more.
14/7/10
Commute 2
A few months ago I posted an entry that talked about a puddle of vomit on a bus on the daily commute and how one unfortunate lady sat in the puddle without realising. To my surprise I found myself on the exact same bus both today and yesterday, and the stain of the long dried sick remained. It suddenly occurred to me this morning, after a fairly long evening in Boedo, that perhaps this was no accident – perhaps some unidentified soul, possibly the driver himself, was marking his territory. Or maybe all the buses have the same stain. Whatever the case, the familiarity of the stain, on the routine commute, made me feel quite at home on a journey that is often long and always tedious. My gratitude pours out to you, unknown vomiter.
8/6/10
Pigeons
Recently, when walking on Tres Sargentos on the way back to work from lunch, I saw an elderly scruffy man with a thick matted beard and a tweed blazer staring intently behind me, who caught my eye and started behaving shiftily, squirming in his seat and looking away. It took me a second to realize what he was doing, but I saw the pigeon on the seat behind me with a surprised look on its face and turned back just in time to see the old chap hiding the laser pen in his sleeve. I then noticed the crumbs around him – so he was luring the pigeons in, and then blinding them with a laser pen. Is that what this city needs? Blind pigeons?
3/6/10
Bicentenary
All is well here after a chaotic bicentenary weekend. The majority of the 9 de Julio has been blocked since this time last week and remains so, due to the mounting and subsequent dismounting of vast stages and television screens. The journey to and from work has been a nightmare as the poorly organised and under-developed public transport system took an unprecedented hit, more akin to a London commute than Buenos Aires is used to. Buses decided to take alternative routes without informing passengers, and if you caught one of those buses and tried to get on and/or remonstrate with the driver, you took your life in your hands. In short, the city wasn't really ready for the big week, and it showed.
The national government had a very public spat over the last week or so regarding the bicentennial celebrations with the city government, or Macri, to be more specific. Macri made a disparaging remark about Nestor, so CFK announced she wouldn't be attending the showpiece re-opening of the Teatro Colón on Monday night because Macri would be there; he responded with a polite but strongly worded letter lamenting the absence of the President; she responded with another letter claiming that she didn't want to cause Macri any 'mortificación personal' through her presence; he immediately responded with another letter etc etc etc. Childish politics, completely out of step with the celebratory context. I then learned that Macri and the anti-government supporters (eg the city of Buenos Aires) would be holding a closing ceremony in a cathedral in the city on the 25th, while Cristina would be holding hers in Lujan. It would have been interesting to see her inciting hatred against people like me LIVE, but I couldn’t.
However, I did make trips to the 9 de Julio on the evening of the 24th and the afternoon of the 25th. More than anything, it was a serious, once-in-a-lifetime event stretched over four days and five nights, and it would have been churlish not to have attended at least part of it. There was a huge parade on the 23rd, which my friend Trevor and his Argentine girlfriend Tami went to, and several massive open-air concerts were planned, but, this being Argentina, as soon as the parade had just passed its peak, the heavens opened and didn't stop thundering from about 4 pm til 7 am the following day. The 24th saw the opening of the Colón after three years of renovations, and I went with a few friends, all of them shorter than I, to see the open air dancing events and light shows. The 9 de Julio was heaving, and we had to push quite far in in order to get an elusive half-decent view for my companions, angering many patriotic souls by putting myself between them and their event. In the end, we could see little, arrived too late, and were left wandering the streets with all the other lost souls; eventually, I walked home.
The 25th was similar. We arrived in the Plaza de Mayo earlier and found it filled with a multitude of political groups and movements, each with their flags and all espousing the 'Viva Patria! Viva!' refrain with various tinges of anti-wealthy/anti-British sentiments. We slid away at some point and made our way to the 9 de Julio to see the stands: each province had provided a stand which encapsulated everything that was unique about their province. The idea was great, but the execution was poor: each stand had a queue of about 100 people waiting to get in, and spilled into the masses of people trudging up the road and pushing into each other. We couldn't even get close to a single one, so we tried the food stalls on the other side of the street, and found most of them to be shut, selling rubbish products or rammed with people. Once in this melee, we couldn't get out without fighting against the current. The current didn't like that one bit and fought back. Eventually we managed to find a way out through the backstreets.
As we floated our way through the backstreets near the 9 de Julio, crowds of people drifted towards and around us clutching flags and marching in the direction we had just come. Their faces were etched with jubilation and determination, and they scowled at us tall whiteys as we passed. It was dreamlike. We obviously weren't supposed to be there, and people treated us as if we weren't there. A famous sindicalista walking in front of us was repeatedly stopped and saluted by the marching workers, but when we got close to him we could hear he was whingeing about the traffic to his companion. We found our way onto a packed subte train and made good our escape to the calm of Palermo.
The celebrations revealed something to me. In many senses, this was a celebration of what it really means to be Argentine: beyond the cultural exports of tango and folklore, football and Che Guevara, beef and wine, being Argentine means crying when you hear the national anthem, is about rejoicing in revolutions and overthrow, and inspiring deep-rooted passion and anger about injustices meted out on an unfortunate population. In this sense, I have never felt as un-Argentine as I did yesterday. Sure, I know most of the words to the national anthem. I love watching them play football. I opine freely about Argentine politics, culture, history, and literature, and claim a deeper knowledge than most about the country. I have a passport and a DNI. But I am not Argentine. The people on the streets yesterday feel something that I can only grasp at, pretend to. I know it, they know it, and when they look at me they know that I do not belong.
On Sunday night I was talking to some middle/upper-middle class Argentines, and they were horrified and disgusted by the amount of money that had been spent on the celebration which could have gone into much more worthy and needy causes, and also by the political grandstanding and manipulation by the ruling classes. Yesterday as I stood in the Plaza de Mayo waiting for my friends and watching flag-bearing groups march into the space, I thought how impressive it was to see so many young people who are politically motivated. My next thought was how naive I had been, and how manipulative and manipulated these people are. Then the Malvinas veterans marched by, there was a standing ovation, and I suddenly felt very British, well-dressed and alone at the wrong time. When we were in the crush on the 9 de Julio, an Argentine asked me whether I was an 'ingles bueno' or an 'ingles trucho' - the ingleses truchos have their own passports and separate queues at airports because 'they think they're special', apparently. Much of the celebration was really quite uncomfortable for me, and I'm glad it's over. Last night saw an incredible light show projected onto the Cabildo, and an official dinner with Lula, Chavez, Morales & Co. all in attendance. Cristina danced. Macri didn't. I was watching the final episode ever of Lost, all nationalism already a distant memory.
Apart from the football, of course. Monday saw the thrashing of Canada by Argentina at the same time as England tepidly dismissed Mexico, but at least England was playing a real team that had qualified for the World Cup while Argentina where basically playing against part-timers. The best part of the Argentina performance was the introduction to the national anthem, played quite brilliantly on the harmonica by an Argentine rock singer. Unless they get their act together, this Argentina team is going to have a harsh awakening in the World Cup, which will do nobody any good.
I think that's probably enough for now.
The national government had a very public spat over the last week or so regarding the bicentennial celebrations with the city government, or Macri, to be more specific. Macri made a disparaging remark about Nestor, so CFK announced she wouldn't be attending the showpiece re-opening of the Teatro Colón on Monday night because Macri would be there; he responded with a polite but strongly worded letter lamenting the absence of the President; she responded with another letter claiming that she didn't want to cause Macri any 'mortificación personal' through her presence; he immediately responded with another letter etc etc etc. Childish politics, completely out of step with the celebratory context. I then learned that Macri and the anti-government supporters (eg the city of Buenos Aires) would be holding a closing ceremony in a cathedral in the city on the 25th, while Cristina would be holding hers in Lujan. It would have been interesting to see her inciting hatred against people like me LIVE, but I couldn’t.
However, I did make trips to the 9 de Julio on the evening of the 24th and the afternoon of the 25th. More than anything, it was a serious, once-in-a-lifetime event stretched over four days and five nights, and it would have been churlish not to have attended at least part of it. There was a huge parade on the 23rd, which my friend Trevor and his Argentine girlfriend Tami went to, and several massive open-air concerts were planned, but, this being Argentina, as soon as the parade had just passed its peak, the heavens opened and didn't stop thundering from about 4 pm til 7 am the following day. The 24th saw the opening of the Colón after three years of renovations, and I went with a few friends, all of them shorter than I, to see the open air dancing events and light shows. The 9 de Julio was heaving, and we had to push quite far in in order to get an elusive half-decent view for my companions, angering many patriotic souls by putting myself between them and their event. In the end, we could see little, arrived too late, and were left wandering the streets with all the other lost souls; eventually, I walked home.
The 25th was similar. We arrived in the Plaza de Mayo earlier and found it filled with a multitude of political groups and movements, each with their flags and all espousing the 'Viva Patria! Viva!' refrain with various tinges of anti-wealthy/anti-British sentiments. We slid away at some point and made our way to the 9 de Julio to see the stands: each province had provided a stand which encapsulated everything that was unique about their province. The idea was great, but the execution was poor: each stand had a queue of about 100 people waiting to get in, and spilled into the masses of people trudging up the road and pushing into each other. We couldn't even get close to a single one, so we tried the food stalls on the other side of the street, and found most of them to be shut, selling rubbish products or rammed with people. Once in this melee, we couldn't get out without fighting against the current. The current didn't like that one bit and fought back. Eventually we managed to find a way out through the backstreets.
As we floated our way through the backstreets near the 9 de Julio, crowds of people drifted towards and around us clutching flags and marching in the direction we had just come. Their faces were etched with jubilation and determination, and they scowled at us tall whiteys as we passed. It was dreamlike. We obviously weren't supposed to be there, and people treated us as if we weren't there. A famous sindicalista walking in front of us was repeatedly stopped and saluted by the marching workers, but when we got close to him we could hear he was whingeing about the traffic to his companion. We found our way onto a packed subte train and made good our escape to the calm of Palermo.
The celebrations revealed something to me. In many senses, this was a celebration of what it really means to be Argentine: beyond the cultural exports of tango and folklore, football and Che Guevara, beef and wine, being Argentine means crying when you hear the national anthem, is about rejoicing in revolutions and overthrow, and inspiring deep-rooted passion and anger about injustices meted out on an unfortunate population. In this sense, I have never felt as un-Argentine as I did yesterday. Sure, I know most of the words to the national anthem. I love watching them play football. I opine freely about Argentine politics, culture, history, and literature, and claim a deeper knowledge than most about the country. I have a passport and a DNI. But I am not Argentine. The people on the streets yesterday feel something that I can only grasp at, pretend to. I know it, they know it, and when they look at me they know that I do not belong.
On Sunday night I was talking to some middle/upper-middle class Argentines, and they were horrified and disgusted by the amount of money that had been spent on the celebration which could have gone into much more worthy and needy causes, and also by the political grandstanding and manipulation by the ruling classes. Yesterday as I stood in the Plaza de Mayo waiting for my friends and watching flag-bearing groups march into the space, I thought how impressive it was to see so many young people who are politically motivated. My next thought was how naive I had been, and how manipulative and manipulated these people are. Then the Malvinas veterans marched by, there was a standing ovation, and I suddenly felt very British, well-dressed and alone at the wrong time. When we were in the crush on the 9 de Julio, an Argentine asked me whether I was an 'ingles bueno' or an 'ingles trucho' - the ingleses truchos have their own passports and separate queues at airports because 'they think they're special', apparently. Much of the celebration was really quite uncomfortable for me, and I'm glad it's over. Last night saw an incredible light show projected onto the Cabildo, and an official dinner with Lula, Chavez, Morales & Co. all in attendance. Cristina danced. Macri didn't. I was watching the final episode ever of Lost, all nationalism already a distant memory.
Apart from the football, of course. Monday saw the thrashing of Canada by Argentina at the same time as England tepidly dismissed Mexico, but at least England was playing a real team that had qualified for the World Cup while Argentina where basically playing against part-timers. The best part of the Argentina performance was the introduction to the national anthem, played quite brilliantly on the harmonica by an Argentine rock singer. Unless they get their act together, this Argentina team is going to have a harsh awakening in the World Cup, which will do nobody any good.
I think that's probably enough for now.
20/5/10
Taxi: Scientology
Barely one week later, taking a taxi on exactly the same route, I had an experience that would have been sinister if it weren’t so ridiculous. I often get into taxis without looking at them, as cars mean almost nothing to me, although bumper dents and scrapes are normally a good clear indicator to avoid. If I’d taken greater notice of the car, then I probably wouldn’t have got in. It was vintage, not in the classic car sense but in the ‘really-old-about-to-fall-to-bits’ sense. It’s true that the way that cars look from the outside say a lot about the owner, but it’s also true that in Buenos Aires almost none of the drivers actually own their taxis. Anyway, in I got.
No seatbelts, always a good sign. Not much of a door handle either. The little face precariously perched at just the right height peered through the rearview mirror at me. He was a owl-like, with thick glasses and a high-pitched voice; I think he was sitting on the Yellow Pages and that he had blocks attached to his shoes so he could reach the pedals.
“Eh? Where you going?” I gave him the address and he looked totally blank, whereupon I explained how to get there. He blinked a few times, smiled in satisfaction, and on we went.
He explained that he had only been driving for a few weeks, that he had been a victim of the financial crisis and its effect on US companies: he had worked as an IT technician, able to rid systems of bugs in a jiffy (or so he claimed), employed by a secretive US firm. Or he couldn’t remember their name. Anyway, one weekend they disappeared. On Friday, he’d bid them all goodnight and have a nice etc, and on Monday they had vanished without a trace. Recounting the tale, he lifted a gnarled, clenched fist in rage, but didn’t have the energy or the anger to pull it off.
I nodded in sympathy, and we drove on, him muttering about the fairness of life, the lack of justice in this world, and his grasp of the English language in the same breath. The English phrases would rise from his mire of disillusionment like bubbles in a viscous pool:
“something unintelligible stupid bankers something something scum of the world VERY NICE WEATHER, NO? something angry miserable souls WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA…” etc etc.
Finally, forced to stop by a traffic light, he asked me if I would like some computer assistance. I made polite noises, but he heard none of them, producing a flyer with his contact details, and then surprised me by asking, as he handed over the small square paper:
“Have you got any disorders? Any bad dreams, anxiety, anger issues?”
I blanked, with no idea what to say. He continued.
“Because if you have, I can get rid of them too. I’m a Scientologist, you see.”
I was left flabbergasted. Scientologist? I hadn’t been expecting that. I looked down at the paper he had just put in my hand and, sure enough, there it was. An entire list of his services. The top half of the square talked about his IT prowess and offered a 15% discount on your first ‘hard-drive purge’, while the entirety of the bottom half focused on his ability to cure all ailments through his Scientologist methods. Text space had obviously been an issue for the flyer, and the two halves had merged into each other somewhat, so the 15% off deal could equally be for ‘getting rid of unpleasant memories’ as well as ‘hard-drive purging’.
The rest of the taxi journey involved a spirited defence of Scientology, about how it wasn’t a cult but rather was a psychological practice essential for curing deep-rooted mental ailments. Or something. He started reeling off success cases as we neared home. The cases themselves were pretty harrowing, but having managed to get to a stage where I couldn’t take anything he said seriously, it was hard to fully engage with the dark tales he recounted me with. Not wishing to hurt his feelings, I got out one block early and wished him well in his multifaceted career before collapsing in incredulous giggles.
No seatbelts, always a good sign. Not much of a door handle either. The little face precariously perched at just the right height peered through the rearview mirror at me. He was a owl-like, with thick glasses and a high-pitched voice; I think he was sitting on the Yellow Pages and that he had blocks attached to his shoes so he could reach the pedals.
“Eh? Where you going?” I gave him the address and he looked totally blank, whereupon I explained how to get there. He blinked a few times, smiled in satisfaction, and on we went.
He explained that he had only been driving for a few weeks, that he had been a victim of the financial crisis and its effect on US companies: he had worked as an IT technician, able to rid systems of bugs in a jiffy (or so he claimed), employed by a secretive US firm. Or he couldn’t remember their name. Anyway, one weekend they disappeared. On Friday, he’d bid them all goodnight and have a nice etc, and on Monday they had vanished without a trace. Recounting the tale, he lifted a gnarled, clenched fist in rage, but didn’t have the energy or the anger to pull it off.
I nodded in sympathy, and we drove on, him muttering about the fairness of life, the lack of justice in this world, and his grasp of the English language in the same breath. The English phrases would rise from his mire of disillusionment like bubbles in a viscous pool:
“something unintelligible stupid bankers something something scum of the world VERY NICE WEATHER, NO? something angry miserable souls WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA…” etc etc.
Finally, forced to stop by a traffic light, he asked me if I would like some computer assistance. I made polite noises, but he heard none of them, producing a flyer with his contact details, and then surprised me by asking, as he handed over the small square paper:
“Have you got any disorders? Any bad dreams, anxiety, anger issues?”
I blanked, with no idea what to say. He continued.
“Because if you have, I can get rid of them too. I’m a Scientologist, you see.”
I was left flabbergasted. Scientologist? I hadn’t been expecting that. I looked down at the paper he had just put in my hand and, sure enough, there it was. An entire list of his services. The top half of the square talked about his IT prowess and offered a 15% discount on your first ‘hard-drive purge’, while the entirety of the bottom half focused on his ability to cure all ailments through his Scientologist methods. Text space had obviously been an issue for the flyer, and the two halves had merged into each other somewhat, so the 15% off deal could equally be for ‘getting rid of unpleasant memories’ as well as ‘hard-drive purging’.
The rest of the taxi journey involved a spirited defence of Scientology, about how it wasn’t a cult but rather was a psychological practice essential for curing deep-rooted mental ailments. Or something. He started reeling off success cases as we neared home. The cases themselves were pretty harrowing, but having managed to get to a stage where I couldn’t take anything he said seriously, it was hard to fully engage with the dark tales he recounted me with. Not wishing to hurt his feelings, I got out one block early and wished him well in his multifaceted career before collapsing in incredulous giggles.
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