STRATEGICALLY GIFTED

Why is Argentina a country without a destiny of its own?

 

By Sidney Hey

If the capitals in some way reflect the general situation in their countries, when you arrive in Buenos Aires there is no doubt that you can sense a situation that could be seen in Central America in the late seventies and mid-eighties, when political and economic instability was mixed with guerrilla violence. It is true, there does not seem to be such political violence here, although insecurity due to the absence of authoritative leadership and lack of direction and the penetration of drug trafficking seems to be looming large.

What has happened to Argentina? The collapse of its economy can be felt in the streets. The capital city is less than a reflection of its former self. Walking through the streets of the Retiro neighbourhood, the closed businesses, the squalor of the settlements in front of its bus terminal and the rampant crime that lurks around Plaza San Martin and the English Clock, paints a sepia-coloured picture.

There I understood why many businessmen and commercial representatives from other countries were arriving, which I happened to spot when I arrived at Ezeiza after my little holiday with mates in “Horbat”. It's not that I think it's wrong or that I have the moral high ground for this criticism, it's just that it looked like a flock of vultures circling a dying prey; when I saw the situation with my own eyes I understood why.

All this reflects a political weakness that (and let no one doubt it) will be exploited by speculators and the local financial sectors and those who are coming to the country to buy everything for a handful of dollars. I think Argentines have already seen this and it was not so long ago. Those who are over forty years old know this very well. The so-called “Menemist” era of the 1990s, characterised by the hasty and indiscriminate opening up to foreign capital, making Argentines believe that privatisation was the panacea to solve all problems, was a demonstration of what should not be repeated.

But this is a country of stark political contrasts and of course they are not spontaneous. Here one day there is a nationalist movement and the next day its referents have become as liberal as the Lib Dems of London themselves and all depending on where the money comes from. The same is true of their geopolitical positioning.

What we will certainly not find here are British socialist liberals such as Jeremy Corbin or Irish politicians such as former Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who are honouring intellectual honesty even against the most dangerous interests. On the contrary, in Argentina, those who call themselves liberals and democrats support aberrations such as Israeli apartheid and Washington's unjustifiable hegemonist policies, and it is these same people who have been encouraging Israel to be taken as a model to imitate.   

The ideological contradiction was in moving from an elephantine welfare state in the middle of the last century that had been created by Peronism itself to a failed attempt to shrink that state by handing over important strategic sectors to foreign hands. Certainly, the Americans, British and Germans can be very grateful to the Peronist Carlos Menem, because thanks to his privatisation bungling, seconded by the economy minister Domingo Cavallo, they pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars in just a couple of years without making risky, let alone lasting, investments.

On that occasion Argentina did not change its geopolitical weight at all and continued to decline.

Peronism masked in new rags returned alternately in 2003 and 2019, but the problems not only remain the same, but have worsened. The myth that “Peronists know how to manage real power” is now seen to have been just that, a myth. Your president is not a genetic Peronist (even if he claims to be one), although he is not the only one of his kind. Those who claim to be pure Peronist leaders are not pure Peronists either, as they should be almost a hundred years old, and what is least convenient for a country in crisis is a gerontocracy of corrupt first-timers.

It is safe to say that what is called “Peronism” is an empty cardboard box. What can you find inside an empty box? Some direct their Peronist hopes to the one they call “boss”, Mrs Cristina Fernández, but in the prospect of social reality, her followers are much less than some pollsters report. Looking at it from a bird's eye view you can only see a motley crew of “superstars” or “divas” more concerned with the attention they seek to arouse in others than with addressing the severe problems afflicting their country. Such is the degree of atomisation and ideological mutations in this (dissociated) society that it would be very difficult to make a study of anthropogeography. If I were asked for an opinion, I would say that they have no future as an option to be considered.

I do not agree with those who say that several of its exponents, especially the “PRO” of former president Macri and some candidates of progressive radicalism are the “bishops” of some embassies in Buenos Aires, mainly from the USA, Great Britain and in some cases Israel. Indistinctly those who represent the "libertarians" and even the old-smelling classical liberals are intertwined, or better said, threaded with the same thread. There is no doubt that all of them -to different degrees and nuances- have an affinity with each of these foreign actors, but to believe that the governments of these countries designate them as their political agents to operate within the country is a little more difficult to believe. This does not mean that Washington in particular is concerned about the power vacuum that is emerging, especially when the Brazilian government of Lula Da Silva has given clear signs of its geopolitical positioning in favour of the BRICS, and this translates into China and Russia.

Argentina's is just like door frame. Current reality shows an institutional weakness that should not surprise us since the state's foundations are so corroded by decades of degradation that they resemble a necrotic state.

Geopolitically, Argentina is an invisible entity, it is like a big hole in the Southern Cone and today, in several foreign capitals, they are planning to take its place, to inject it with financial funds that in appearance will revive the republic; but it will not be for free. As I was leaving this wonderful country for my quarters on the great island of “Oz”, I said to myself in the form of a question: “See you forever?”