On the eve of destruction, perhaps ...

By James Neilson As the recent fate of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and that unpleasant sham that called itself the “German Democratic Republic” reminded us, nation states can die. One day they are there and look solid enough, the next they have been consigned to what Leon Trotsky called the rubbish heap of history. Though the remaining body parts may then be cannibalized to feed some newer and, perhaps, more promising example of the breed, once they have departed something, even if it is only a complicated network of loyalties that provided a framework in which people live their lives, is lost for ever. For the last year or so, Argentina has been edging nearer to the queue that is awaiting its turn outside the knacker’s yard where “failed states” are broken up. Some suspect it will soon barge its way towards the front. Last week, a former president of Uruguay, no less, titillated Spaniards with an article in El País in which he posed the question: Does Argentina still exist or has it already left us? Being an optimist at heart, towards the end of his article Julio María Sanguinetti did find some reasons for hope of which the most encouraging was the allegedly splendid quality of Argentina’s “human capital.”

The trouble is, people have been going on for decades about just how exceptionally bright they think Argentines are, but this belief — which, as might be expected is popular among Argentine intellectuals — has surely contributed a great deal to the collective debacle by making too many of them assume that the country’s plight is none of their doing or that, seeing they are so clever, they will find it easy to wriggle out of any hole they may have fallen into while their eyes were fixed on the stars. In any case, even were it to be proved beyond doubt that Argentina really is home to an astonishing number of Übermenschen that would be no consolation at all: the Titanic would have gone down just as fast if every single passenger had been a PhD.

For several months now, the country has been drifting about in choppy waters with the weather getting steadily colder and the icebergs closing in. It has just narrowly avoided a debt default, which is just as well, but in doing so it set course towards what many think looks like nasty social upheaval: trying to balance the books is not compatible with splurging on welfare. Should it crash into it, all hopes of economic recovery would have to be put on hold indefinitely, thereby darkening still further the horizon before much of the population. Then Argentina would be on its own in a world in which most countries are striving to get one over on their “competitors,” the top nations are not feeling very charitable and investors are uninterested in places which according to the natives could blow up at any moment.

The events in Salta were ominous not because they told us anything new about the desperate state of that province and of most others, but because many people decided that the time had come to exploit the unrest. Politicians such as Elisa Carrió and Carlos Ruckauf, agents provocateurs wearing balaclavas who to the dismay of more peaceful protesters trash shops and bank windows, plus a considerable number of what are known as communicators, are in their different ways doing their best to revive the mood of the early 1970s when many took it for granted that violence was justified by the sheer awfulness of it all. Together, they are preparing a noxious brew by pouring into the cauldron increasingly large quantities of nationalist sentiment, hatred for capitalism and utter contempt for politicians, especially for the President.

Carrió, who according to the pollsters is currently the most admired politician in the country, roundly declared that in her view blocking highways was perfectly legitimate, though she did soften her posture later on by admitting that she thought shooting at gendarmes sent to open them again was wrong. Would paralyzing all road transport as well as shutting down the airports help the penniless and jobless, most of whom have no skills a prospective employer might find relevant? Perhaps it would for a while if it led to a huge transfer of income from the rest of the population to those at the bottom of the economic heap, but the end result of that would be to impoverish virtually everybody, reducing most of Argentina to the level of its most wretched parts.

Those who back the pickets — do the piqueteros suspect that the name they have adopted is yet another tribute to “globalization?” — say that money or, even better, well-paying jobs and plenty of opportunities should be given to middle-class folk as well, but it is hard to believe that they really think that would be possible. Here inequality is not just a matter of a few hundred fat cats confronting millions of outcasts, it also has to do with the attempt by a huge middle class to maintain a way of life that is no longer viable: any more egalitarian arrangement would require a great many people to give ground. The populist pretence that it is merely a question of levelling up makes no sense.

Rather more sinister than the statements of well-heeled politicians worried about their image and those intellectuals who like to combine running with the poverty-stricken fox and hunting with the bourgeois hounds are the activities of those individuals who calculate that middle-class fear of the down-and-outs can be put to good use. They have already found it all too easy to convince their compatriots that Fernando de la Rúa’s government is so pathetically weak and indecisive it would be quite unable to handle a bout of serious unrest. Should things start to get really unpleasant, they could demand its replacement by a far tougher administration, repeating in a more thorough fashion the manoeuvre that led to Domingo Cavallo taking over the management of the economy. Had the “progressive” wing of the Alliance supported the card-carrying Radical Ricardo López Murphy, there would have been no need to bring in the superstar of Carlos Menem’s first term, but faced with the choice between governing the country and moving back into opposition, it opted for the easiest course.

How would the Radical and Frepasoite progressives react if asked to choose between making a show of force and letting the country sink into anarchy? In much the same way, no doubt. Many would give free play to their indignation by cursing De la Rúa for his inhuman cruelty and accusing him of violating every law on the books. Should he finally decide to quit, they would then congratulate themselves on their own high-mindedness without asking themselves whether it were truly wise of them to leave the door open so someone like Ruckauf, who would arrive accompanied by many who made the Process what it was, could take his place and the backlash against troublemakers of all kinds could start in deadly earnest against a climate of economic panic which by then would be even worse than it was a quarter of a century ago.

This is a gloomy scenario, but even if, as at times seems quite feasible, what is in store for us is economic collapse and a dictatorship with some democratic trappings, that would not mean the end of Argentina as such, only the demise of the kind of country that until not so long ago most people here and abroad assumed would soon surmount its basic problems to become a highly respectable and on the whole enviable member of the international community. Were large regions dominated by people of a particular ethnic group or religious persuasion, a breakup would be fairly likely, and although it is conceivable that if the worst comes to the worst secessionist movements could arise in Patagonia or even Buenos Aires, as yet there are few signs that this may be about to happen. Even so, the urge to throw in the towel by clinging to the United States is clearly behind much talk about the rival merits of “dollarization” or the Mercosur, while emigration offers a tempting “solution” to those with the right abilities or connections.

Sanguinetti thinks Argentina could get back on its feet soon enough if only it came to terms with its true situation because it has the necessary “human capital” and a great many “centres” or “focal-points” of modernity. No doubt he is right. All the ingredients for a vigorous and decent society are there. What is lacking is the ability to mix them properly. Perhaps that will be found before it is too late, though the country may have to be put through the wringer a couple of times more before the fanciful old illusions have been squeezed out and it can finally start moving ahead on a course which holds fewer dangers than can be seen crowding the immediate future right now.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 02, 2001