As Buenos Aires approaches Spring, the weather is improving rapidly. This week has seen the temperature rarely drop below 20 degrees Celsius, remarkable when considering that officially until September 21st we are still in Winter. With the improved weather, certain unmistakably human and Argentine societal traits are becoming more apparent: girls are wearing fewer clothes, people are happier, and there are more mini-revolutions on the street on a daily basis. And, with the start of the new school and university term, several high schools and universities have been taken over by their students.
[Why doesn’t this happen in Blighty? Is it because we live in a police state where students are terrified of taking over classrooms for fear of being pelted by rubber bullets? No. And in the US, students don’t take over classrooms: they shoot each other. The Argentine version is long-term, non-violent and nationwide.]
Yesterday from the office I heard the explosions first. Mini-fireworks. Sounds like mortar fire. I looked out of the window with a weary sense of anticipation: who could it be today? The cooks? The teachers? The parents? One simply never knows. But no. It was a group of about ten people standing next to a yellow building, identified as a possible customs building, waving indecipherable flags and generally having a rather good time. It was hot, sunny – why not organize a protest?
The relentless grind of demonstration on demonstration on a daily basis is at first intriguing but quickly boring. The results are almost the same every time: nothing ever happens. I suppose the reason this doesn’t happen in the UK is that, while we exist in a democratic state and are all perfectly content to air our opinions and aware of our civil rights, protest just isn’t in our blood.
Blood.
Yesterday two events occurred to remind the people of this great city that reality, beyond the people power, is still there just behind the pantomime backdrop, waiting for its chance to re-establish the balance of power.
Someone was run over crossing the road. Or riding a bike; it wasn’t clear. What was apparent, and there for all the world to see, was the blood stain stretching from the middle of the wide and busy road all the way to the pavement. What had happened to this person was unknown; the outcome was all too evident.
And then a nightclub roof in Palermo collapsed last night. 50 people were dancing; two were killed, which isn’t really a bad return when compared with the Cromañon disaster. But it is bad enough, and real enough. Ours is a city that never sleeps.
10/9/10
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.
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