My day began promptly at midnight. I was standing in the Plaza de Mayo, the historic center of Buenos Aires. Fireworks were exploding just above the president's house, the Casa Rosada. The occasion was the 54th Peronist Loyalty Day, the annual pep rally for Argentina's ruling party. I was there to cover the event for the Buenos Aires Herald.
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StumbleUponMarcelo and Ruth were there, too. Marcelo is a colleague from the Herald. He was there to set up interviews with Peronist bigwigs. Ruth is Marcelo's girlfriend and was there to enjoy the show. For the record, I had also asked a woman along, but she declined. Not to worry; I've grown accustomed to failing in certain areas where Argentine men--let's be fair--really excel.
We were at the front of the crowd, in a cordoned-off area for the press and special guests. Behind us, as far as the eye could see, was a sea of Peronist flags and banners, shimmering in the floodlights. The pressure was really on the party hacks to bring out the faithful: The presidential election is only one week away. About 70,000 people turned up.
On either side of the Casa Rosada, there were giant video screens showing images of Juan and Evita Perón in their heyday. As the fireworks died down, the band struck up the "Peronist March." Marcelo, a good political junkie, tried to lead Ruth and me in a chorus.
"He's a little loco," Ruth said.
The music switched to one of Argentina's more humiliating political ditties: "He who doesn't jump is a Radical (i.e., a member of the opposition)." Suddenly, the Plaza de Mayo was full of pogo-ing Peronists. In front of me, a man dressed as a gaucho was dancing by himself and yelling into a cellular phone.
I felt one of my periodic attacks of "what the hell am I doing here" coming on. You see, I am a lawyer by training. Just over a year ago, I took a leave from a big Manhattan firm to work for an Argentine company. That was the plan, but I ended up as a journalist with the Buenos Aires Herald, the English language newspaper of Argentina. The next thing I knew, I was staring at a dancing gaucho. Life, very occasionally, is like that.
At about 12:15 a.m., the Peronist presidential candidate, Eduardo Duhalde, delivered the keynote speech. Short, chubby, neckless, and with a lopsided grin permanently fixed on his face, Duhalde brings to mind Buddy Hackett, circa 1965. He hit all the big Peronist issues for this year: cutting taxes, salaries for housewives, a law forbidding companies from firing anyone. Duhalde has also intriguingly pledged to abolish weekly cabinet meetings. Granted, I've been in the country only a year, but careful observation tells me that weekly cabinet meetings are not Argentina's big problem.
Peronist Loyalty Day, by the way, commemorates the events of Oct. 17, 1945, when a massive rally in the Plaza de Mayo forced the military regime to release Juan Perón from prison. This year's rally was scheduled for the wee hours of the morning, so as not to conflict with the afternoon's playoff between the country's two most popular soccer teams, River Plate and Boca Juniors. No Argentine politician can attract a crowd during a soccer game. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to get four for bridge during a match.
When the rally ended, I bade farewell to Marcelo and Ruth and hopped a colectivo bus. Back at my apartment, I listened to BBC World Service and got a few hours sleep. Later (still Sunday), I went to the Herald, where I checked the wire services, chatted, ate lunch, and wrote my story about Peronist Loyalty Day.
Then it was back to my apartment, where I had to show the place to prospective tenants. Oh, that's the other thing about this week--it's my last in Argentina. After 14 months, I'm moving back to New York. The small world of English-language media in Argentina has given me a once-in-a-lifetime chance to break into a new profession. But sooner or later I'll have to try my luck as a writer in the United States. So I'm leaving, but not until I see the elections through.
Nobody wanted the apartment.
At dusk, I went for a run in Palermo Park with Julio, the arts editor of the Herald. Julio was very excited because River had defeated Boca in the soccer match. We ran two laps around the lake before I gave up. It had been a long day. I limped on to a colectivo that happened to be packed with drunken River fans. They started singing, "He who doesn't jump is for Boca," and suddenly I was surrounded by pogo-ing soccer hooligans.
What the hell am I doing here?
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The Fraymaster adds:
Cristina Guzman, of Diputada de la Nacion, writes:
I have read your article on Slate concerning the Argentine political campaign, and your chronicle of the speeches in Rosario on November 20th. I was deeply shocked by some your remarks regarding the speech of the Alliance's candidate for vice-president, Mr. Carlos "Chacho" Alvarez.
You say that the "average Argentine will tell you that excessive U.S. influence is responsible for economic stagnation and a general moral decline." This is not true. I have been a national representative from one of Argentina's poorest provinces for five terms. I also lead a traditional local party that supports the Alliance, and I must say that it is rare to hear from the public that "excessive U.S. influence" is responsible for our economic and moral ailments. People in Argentina are very aware that economic and moral problems are due to dramatic failures by Menem's administration, and are not so naïve to think that what is happening in our country is because of "excessive U.S. influence."
You also say that when Alvarez made a plea for preservation of our cultural identity, "The crowd gave a such bloodthirsty roar that I found myself thinking: 'Taxi! U.S. embassy, and step on it!'" As a joke, I find this quite amusing. As an assessment of facts, I find it inaccurate. To defend our right to cultural identity is by no means a call for "Yankee go home," beyond the fact that Argentina has also attracted an unprecedented flow of investments from France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Chile and other countries besides the U.S. Telling the American public that the Alliance or its candidates are calling to combat the U.S. or its companies seems to me as a total lack of seriousness.
The Alliance is a pluralistic coalition, made up from the common goal to stop the failures of Menem's administration to give political credibility and long-term social sustainability to market reforms. We are aware that globalization is here to stay. It is a ruthless misinterpretation to suggest that Alvarez or the Alliance is against U.S. investments. To defend the right to our own cultural identity cannot be seen as an antagonistic feature in any way.
Moreover, preservation of our cultural identity should be seen as a sign of political development, since lack of identity often leads rulers to embrace models or patterns which uncritically taken, will lead to deception. (By the way, this is what happened to President Menem, who recently stated that "our teachers have let us down.") The Alliance will foster the way to profound changes in the polity, but not by the way of idiotic nationalism, but by the way of self-aware openness, giving juridical stability and political and social sustainability to market reforms. The American public should know this, and should not be misled by the subjective impressions of an accidental journalist.
And this reader writes:
I enjoy seeing this often unnoticed part of the world in a publication I enjoy immensely. Sadly, previous mentions of Argentina in Slate have mostly included passing sneers at nazi-harbouring and Evita Perón--which I dare say is more than the country is about--and a spot-on analysis by Paul Krugman of Peronist candidate Eduardo Duhalde's appeals to the Pope for economic deliverance. I'm pleased to say that according to polls, Duhalde's big mouth and sloppy economics will cost him badly, and he may be heading for the most resounding defeat of the Peronist party ever. But I guess we'll find out on Sunday.
(10/21)