Argentine university honours Venezuela's Chavez

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was honoured in Argentina this week with a freedom of press award in recognition of “his unquestionable and authentic commitment to support the freedom of peoples.”

The University of La Plata presented Chavez with the prestigious Rodolfo Walsh Journalism award to pay tribute to the Venezuelan leader’s efforts "to support popular communication by breaking up media monopolies in Latin America."

Claudio Gomez, a journalism professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata said that the faculty’s decision to honour Chavez with the award “does not mean that the university agrees with certain measures his government has taken against critical mass media but it wishes to recognize for example his creation of the Telesur Channel.”

Created in 2005, Telesur is a state funded alternative to the continent's private television stations and covers Latin American and international news. It is considered to be an alternative voice to the massive privately owned media conglomerates, which Chavez highlights ‘seek to control the people.’

“One must fight the media dictatorship. The dominant classes always manipulate the communications media and trick the people through powerful psychological campaigns,” he said during his two hour acceptance speech at the university.

“There is more freedom of expression and press in Venezuela today than during any time in our history,” he claimed, stating that he was proud to receive the award even though “some people say the dictator Chavez doesn’t deserve it.”

The journalism award is named after the journalist Rodolfo Walsh who, after co-founding Cuba’s state-run news agency Prensa Latina, was killed during the Dirty War in 1977 when the military dictatorship in Argentina went about eradicating the country of dissidents.

Those opposed to the university’s choice stressed Chavez’s track record with the media. “He has closed more than 30 radio stations and six television channels,” pointed out Buenos Aires province congressman Jorge Macri. While Silvana Giudici, the head of the Argentine parliament’s commission for freedom of expression, said it was “inconceivable” and “a contradiction” to issue the award to the Venezuelan President.

But the university stuck by its decision to honour Chavez for “his commitment to defending the liberty of the people, consolidating Latin American unity, and defending human rights, truth, and democratic values.”

“You head a profound process of emancipation in Latin America,” said the university’s Dean Florencia Saintout, who announced that a new category of the Walsh award had been created for Latin American leaders committed to giving a voice to the people who are least heard from; adding that she hoped for an open debate about Chavez’s ideas. 

La fiesta de quince - The 15th birthday party

For girls in the US it’s a sweet sixteen party, for those in the UK it’s probably two or three bottles of Vodka Absolut while larging it about town on the night of their eighteenth. Every part of the world has its own customs to mark that first moment of adulthood. In Argentina, like in many other Latin America countries, the age at which young girls celebrate their coming of age is fifteen; and they do it with style.

La fiesta de quince, the fifteenth birthday party for girls, is more than just a big deal in Argentina. It’s the moment every little girl has waited for since she was messing around with her Barbie doll and playing dress-up (or messing around with her Action Man and playing footy; to be politically correct).

Although a trip abroad is gaining popularity, more often than not to that fun-packed destination favoured by middle class Argentines – Florida’s Disneyworld, traditionally the birthday is celebrated with an almighty party, largely reminiscent of a wedding.

And it's a party that parents have planned for their daughter since the day she was born; the crowning moment when their baby girl makes the transition to womenhood. They've scrimped and saved, booked the venue, arranged the music and entertainment, and food, and drink, and the guest list, and the flowers, maybe a mariachi band, the cake, the limousine, the photographer, the cameraman, the decorations; it’s all ready to go, one night to celebrate their daughter’s fifteenth with a bang.

In general, it goes something like this.

The hundreds of invited guests, both teenage friends of the birthday girl and adult family and acquaintances, get to the salon ahead of time where the waiting staff accommodates them all while they anticipate the arrival. The dress code is formal and the salon is decked out with all sorts of bright and colourful decorations.  

As the tension builds, tongues are moistened with free flowing beer and soft drinks until the announcement is made; she is here. It is time for the grand entrance.

Guests red rose-up and line the hall to form an aisle, while the immediate family waits at the end of the line to greet their daughter and sister.

The music starts. A song chosen by the girl - maybe a little Britney or Cristina. And then the doors open. She appears on the arm of her father; the duo's smiles lit up by spotlights.

She’s nervous, apprehensive, perhaps visibly overwhelmed; but she’s beautiful. Her hair and make-up are exquisite, and the dress; the all important dress is glamorous, long and glamorous. Gasps and mutterings can be heard in the crowd ‘Que hermosa que está, es una princesita!’

By the time her father has walked her down the aisle to present her to her family, she is holding all the red roses and is breathing normally again. She is plastered with kisses from every direction as she soaks up the applause. She is fifteen and this is her moment.

Papa retakes her hand and accompanies her to the floor for the first dance with his grown-up daughter. The Waltz. Eyes are directed to the couple as all the men queue up to take a turn spinning the birthday girl round in celebration.

And when the Waltz is concluded, the food is served. Adults drink and chat, family members reminisce, spotty teenagers joke around and seek out a sneaky beer, while little toddlers run all over the place as they play with their new friends.

After a couple of hours of energetic and rhythmic dancing in a typically natural and Latin manner (the way Argentines are so coordinated on the dancefloor is frankly not reminiscent of everyday society and really beggars belief), the ceremony of the fifteen candles takes place.

This is the moment when the birthday girl chooses the fifteen people she sees as having been the most important in her life thus far. She makes a speech about each and presents them all with a candle.

Finally the cake is cut and scoffed, and the real partying begins. Lights dim, cumbia music starts back-up and it’s proper dancing time until the night finally draws to a conclusion somewhere around 6am.

A good old bit of fun-til-the-sun-comes-up has been had by all, and for now the parents can relax until number two daughter approaches that all important age and la fiesta de quince, which in Argentina, marks the end of childhood and the beginning of womanhood.  

Stolen babies and Argentina's Dirty War

Jorge Videla, left and Reinaldo Bignone

Two former dictators of Argentina, along with six other ex-military figures have gone on trial this week accused of stealing up to 500 new born babies from political prisoners during the country’s violent military rule.

Jorge Videla, who ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1981 and Reinaldo Bignone, the county’s leader for the last year of military dictatorship before democracy’s return in 1983, appeared in court last Monday where charges covering 34 individual cases were read to them.

During the trial, officials for the prosecution will present evidence from around 370 people to outline the viciously cruel acts carried out by the regime during Argentina’s Dirty War – a period that Federal Prosecutor Federico Delgado called ‘one of the darkest episodes in Argentine history.’

Activist groups like La Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo) say that the mothers of the children stolen were imprisoned in torture houses, where shortly after giving birth while blindfolded, they were executed and usually dropped from airplanes over the Atlantic or the River Plate. The babies were then given to families sympathetic to the military regime. 

The 85-year-old Jorge Videla, who is already serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity after the amnesty he’d previously received was overturned in December last year, is widely regarded as the mastermind of Argentina’s Dirty War, which lasted seven brutal years from 1976 to 1983.

Videla's real rise to power came in 1975 when pressured by senior military figures and the wealthy rightist elite, President Isabel Perón appointed him Commander in Chief of the Argentine army after her government became increasingly threatened by a left-wing uprising. Videla immediately promoted the use of death squads, asserting that ‘as many as necessary must die in Argentina so that the country will again be secure.’ With his mitts firmly wrapped around power, a junta led a coup one year later.

Videla in the 1970s

The new regime, with Videla at its head, took on the task of ‘stabilising’ society. 

It labelled itself ‘National Reorganisation Process’, and went about eradicating the country of so-called subversives, principally left-wing activists, trade unionists, Peronists, students, journalists and Marxists - a campaign that was known as Operation Condor.

Despite history, Videla still claims today that Argentine society at the time of his reign demanded strength to counter Marxist revolution.

The USA, a country petrified of communism, agreed, and so the Argentine military junta was allowed to carry on its brutal rule without an ounce of international objection from the north. In fact, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information act show that many high ranking US officials, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, gave their full support to the murderous regime and its Dirty War, and the US congress granted more than $US100,000,000 to assist the military dictatorship.

That astoundingly generous US donation was used to torture, kill and illegally arrest the regime’s enemies. Forced disappearances were the chosen method of disposal – no bodies meant wrongdoing was difficult to prove and the method was a popular one in many South American dictatorships.

All in all, the period was a dark and frightful time for Argentines. Many recall today how a halting late night train could leave you in terror at the sound of military boots marching down the aisles as soldiers checked order. While lending a fellow student (who then turned out to have Marxists tendencies), a textbook with your name in it, would more than likely see you join the growing list of the ‘disappeared’.

Photographs of los desaparecidos

It is estimated that 30,000 people went missing during the Dirty War. The majority remain unaccounted for but it is supposed they were tortured and murdered in concentration camps and their bodies dumped out at sea. 

The case of the stolen children is particularly disturbing. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which is a group of mothers whose children disappeared, has identified 102 of the stolen babies to date. The grandson of the group's vice-president Rosa Roisinblit for example, was located in April, 2000. He'd been robbed from his mother after she gave birth to him in the concentration camp where she'd been imprisoned with her husband in 1978.

Jorge Videla and Reinaldo Bignone, who handed power over to the Social Democrat Raúl Alfonsín after Argentina was defeated during the military's last ditch effort to hold on to power with The Falklands War episode, are expected to be sentenced by the end of the year.  

Argentine Oscar glory

After last night's Academy Awards it is a good moment to remember the 2010 ceremony when Argentina became the first Latin American country to win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for the second time, when El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes), walked off with the gong.

Written and directed by Argentine director Juan José Campanella and based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, the film stars Ricardo Darín, a frequent collaborator of Campanella’s and one of the country’s biggest stars.

Darín plays former Federal Justice Agent Benjamin Espósito, who in 1999 sets out to write a novel about a savage and unsolved rape and murder case he worked on back in 1974.

The film flashes effortlessly backwards and forwards between the nineties and the seventies as the story unfolds, inviting the viewer to join Espósito, who inspired by the writing of his novel, re-examines the facts in a quest for the truth.

Intrigue and suspense are balanced throughout by the subtle prospect of romance as Espósito is reunited with his ex boss, Judge Irene Menéndez-Hastings, with whom he was always secretly in love. There is even room for a little comedy back in the seventies sequences where his alcoholic partner Pablo Sandoval, portrayed by Guillermo Francella, entertains with some amusing one liners.

But the film is ultimately a serious one.

After seeing the ‘look in the eyes’ of a childhood friend of the victim, Espósito becomes convinced that he’s got his man, but he's constantly blocked from capturing and punishing him by corrupt colleagues who, rather than punish the true perpetrator, prefer to beat a confession out of two innocent bystanders. The injustice is toe-crawlingly irritating, but is a fine example of the crooked Justice System and excessive violence of 1970s Argentina.

In fact the entire film is one that stirs the emotions with some outstanding performances all round in what is an extremely well directed effort from Campanella, who returned to Argentina to make the movie after a spell directing episodes of Lost and House in the U.S. His 1970s sequences in particular, which include an electrifying aerial shot during a scene at Racing Club football stadium on match day, really do the trick.

No Argentine film made this year's nomination list but El Secreto de sus Ojos was a crowning moment for what is a vibrant national film industry here and the Oscar was a proud moment for everyone involved. If you still haven't seen the film then it is highly recommended that you do so.

 

It’s not inflation, it’s just a sensation

4% annual inflation in the UK, 4.9% in China; figures like that would be a dream year in Argentina where despite official government statistics suggesting otherwise, inflation both last year and this is widely accepted as between 25% and 30%.

Inflation in Argentina is nothing new; in fact the ‘I’ word pretty much sums up the recent economic history of the country and has played a role in several landmark events here. The country’s return to democracy for example, followed a period of time in which the biggest banknote went from 1000 pesos in 1975 to 1000000 pesos in 1981; the financial crisis at the end of the eighties came after annual inflation had topped 5000%, and the 2001 national meltdown saw inflation run rife both before and after the 300% devaluation of the currency.

And despite a few years of steadiness it’s back with a vengeance now.

Charting official inflation against private sector estimates

In 2009, private economists and financial consultants calculated that prices went up by between 15% and 18%. In 2010 they suggested inflation ran at around 25% and this year’s figure is expected to be pushing 30%.

Of course the government does not accept these estimates, (which come from internationally respected firms like Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse) and prefers to stick with its Statistics office, INDEC, which puts official inflation at around 10%. 

'No es inflación, es una sensación.'

Inflation is not a subject any politician likes to talk about; in fact the present Economy Minister Amado Boudou refers to ‘price dispersal’ rather than even mention the word; and the government here will often try to suggest that the whole thing is really just a figment of the imagination. This month it has even tried to shoot down the messenger by sending out questionnaires to private consultancies threatening them with a fine of up to AR$500,000 (US$125,000) if they don't demonstrate how they calculate their inflation estimates. 

But despite political spin, Argentines all over the country are suffering the consequences of rising daily costs and are well aware that in this country, ‘prices go up by the lift and come down by the stairs’; if of course they ever come down at all.

In the last few weeks the price of a litre of Quilmes beer in some small shops in Gran Buenos Aires for example, has leapt from around $AR5.25 to $6.50 (a rise of 24%); while customers of Cablevision and internet provider Fibertel received letters last month stating that, ‘due to the generalised rise in prices, we inform you that from February 1, 2011, the national basic cable television rate will rise by 15.9%.’

Not to mention ever increasing property rents, school fees, taxi fares and the cost of bread and milk.

Other businesses do their best to hide inflation.

Many cafes for example try not to adjust prices, but instead of serving three croissants with a cup of coffee, they serve only two for the same price. While Personal (a mobile network operator) has replaced its 80SMS top up card, which previously sold for AR$10, with a 100SMS card with a value of $AR15. At first glance it might look a good deal, but that extra AR$5 buys only 20 extra messages while before it bought 40.

But whose fault is inflation?

In an opinion poll published in last Sunday’s edition of La Nacion newspaper, 52% blamed greedy entrepreneurs and business owners while 38% blamed the government.

In a rare discussion about the subject, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner defended herself last week.

“We can't continue with the farce of reading the newspaper and seeing shopkeepers and businessmen complaining because prices are going up and then blaming the government,” she said, “I don't sell anything, I don't produce tomatoes, I don't sell cars, I don't produce steel, I don't produce cement.”

Of course it is not the government which ultimately sets private sector prices but when it comes to for example, food inflation (an estimated 40% last year), CFK can surely not deny a certain degree of culpability.

Her government continually fails to address the uncompetitive nature of the food distribution market which is dominated by only two major companies; and it is her policy of heavy export duties on cattle farmers that persuaded many to abandon the beef industry and switch to the more profitable production of soy, leading therefore to the current low supply of beef and the consequent soar in prices. (Argentina’s long and proud history as the world’s biggest consumers of beef is over and the country currently only accounts for 22% of Mercosur beef exports).

And despite asking for help from the IMF to design a new national price index, the president is shying away from tampering with what experts call 'loose fiscal and monetary policies which make rising prices even harder to contain,' while employing the same unorthodox methods to control inflation and stubbornly refusing to face reality. 

She continues to run with the massively underestimated levels of inflation published by INDEC, even though according to last Sunday's poll in La Nacion, the majority of those interviewed have no faith in the organisation, which has lost all credibility since the Kirchners replaced its boss in 2007.

Instead 35% believed inflation last year was more than 30%; a further 26% estimated it to be between 21% and 30%; while 15% of those asked considered inflation at between 11% and 20%.  

As for 2011, 57% expected it to be above 25%.

Argentina it seems is in the midst of a dangerous game. Most salaries are raised annually by around 20% to keep up with the ever increasing prices, which are not only affecting life here, but are making the country increasingly less competitive in international markets.

Sensation or not, inflation is dangerous.

It is something that dominates the thinking of nearly everyone in Argentina, and be it investing in property or buying foreign currency, people will do anything to avoid it; which can often fuel the situation.

One of the contributing factors to the hyperinflation in the 1980s for example, was Argentines’ investments in savings accounts which guaranteed to beat inflation; meaning that when the government printed new banknotes the inflationary consequence was that much greater. 

Presently the Kirchner government has been careful with printing new money and has been reluctant to issue a 200 peso note despite the devaluation of the 100 peso one.

But Argentines know that in the current climate, keeping pesos in the bank is just throwing your money away and they await a real governmental response. With true inflation in the period 2007-2010 totalling 120% according to IPC (el índice de precios al consumidor) drastic measures could be just around the corner.

Julio Cortázar and Rayuela

Cortázar's iconic image

If asked to name a famous Argentine writer, nine times out of ten Jorge Luis Borges is the first to spring to mind. But this week marks the 26th anniversary of the death of one of the country’s other true greats in the literary world, Julio Cortázar.

It is fair to say that in English speaking nations Cortázar has not achieved the level of fame that Borges has. In the Hispanic world however, he is rightly considered a maestro of the written word, and his most famous work, Rayuela (Hopscotch) a masterpiece of ingenuity and originality.

Julio Cortázar was born in Brussels, Belgium on 26th August 1914 while his father, an Argentine diplomat, was stationed there. The family returned to Argentina after the First World War where abandoned by his father, the young Julio was raised by his mother and her family in Banfield, a suburb to the south of Buenos Aires. It was a humble neighbourhood where milk was delivered on horseback, and Julio spent his childhood there reading and reading and reading, as well as writing poetry and short stories.

He went on to study languages and philosophy at university in Buenos Aires, and it was during a career as a secondary school teacher and then professor of French literature at Cuyo University in Mendoza, that he began to successfully turn his hand to writing, publishing a book of poems and various articles under the pseudonym Julio Denis.

His writing career was subsidised by his translations of the complete works of Edgar Alan Poe, as well as works by André Gide, G.K. Chesterton and Daniel Defoe. And then in 1949 his own dramatic poem, Los Reyes (The Kings) became the first original work to appear under his real name.

In 1951, aged 36, his collection of short stories, Bestiario was published and it was in this same year that Cortázar, opposed to the government of Juan Perón, emigrated to Paris, where he would spend the rest of his life.

Established in the bohemian French capital, Cortázar, who became good friends with fellow Latin American writers Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, divided his time between working as a translator for UNESCO and writing.

The short story collections Final del Juego and Las Armas Secretas appeared in 1956 and 1959 respectively and the novel Los Premios was published in 1960. But it was with the publication of Rayuela in 1963 that Cortázar achieved massive accolade.

Speaking in an interview with A Fondo in 1977 Cortázar says that it was while writing a short story called Casa Tomada that the idea of multiple readers of a text who are reading what is written from a totally different perspective to that which he himself had when he wrote it, first occurred to him.

It is this idea that forms the basis of Rayuela.

'The book', said Cortázar 'was an attempt to see the relationship between a novel and its reader in a different way. Though a reader's attitude is in general a passive one in which he reads a novel from page 1 to page 300; with Rayuela I took on the task of writing a book in which the reader has different options, giving him an equality with the writer. The reader can leave parts out that he doesn't like, read the book in a different order if he wants, and basically create a world in which he plays an active role and not a passive one. A reader who is an accomplice to the story.'

The book can be read in a number of ways. The first part is formed of chapters 1-56 and the reader can finish here with a ‘clean conscience’ as the story ends. Or he can continue with the remaining 99 chapters which are referred to as expendable. Here the reader can follow the author’s instructions which after each new chapter send him backwards and forwards through the first 56 chapters in a changed order, 'hopscotching' to experience a completely different story. The whole novel can even be read by only reading odd or even pages, and is often referred to as a counter-novel or anti-novel for its multiple endings. 

In the narrative Cortázar employs Joyce like use of interior monologue in which characters play with the reader’s mind to take them on a journey in which they themselves can control the outcome. It is a stream of consciousness which, influenced by the author’s interest in Zen Buddhism, 'tries to negate daily reality by proceeding with incongruous and absurd episodes in which the serious events are treated with humour and the humorous ones with earnestness'. 

At work in his Paris flat

Despite his long exile in Paris, a city which the Argentine loved from the bottom of his heart, Cortázar remained actively involved in campaigning against human rights abuses in Latin America and leant support to several, mainly socialist states, including Castro's Cuba, Allende's Chile and the Sandinista ruled Nicaragua, places he visited frequently during the seventies. Towards the end of his life he attended a meeting of 'The Permanent Committee of Intellectuals for the Sovereignty of Our America' in Cuba before visiting Buenos Aires after the fall of the dictatorship in Argentina.

Julio Cortázar was married three times but never had children. He died on 12th February 1984 of Leukaemia, continuing to write until almost his last day, and is buried in the Cimitière de Montparnasse in Paris.

‘No one can retell the plot of a Cortázar story; each one consists of determined words in a determined order. If we try to summarize them, we realize that something precious has been lost.’ (Jorge Luis Borges).

Cortázar talking about Rayuela (Spanish only)

'Much of what I have written falls into the category of eccentricity because I have never admitted a clear distinction between living and writing. (From Cortázar's biographical note to Around the Day in Eighty Worlds).