Argentina from the Outside

The worst possible scenario for the government has become reality. The Senate finished their vote this morning sometime around 4am. (It was around that hour that I finally gave up listening to speeches for both sides and fell asleep!) The vote divided the Senate down the middle. 36 senators supported each side of the tariff issue. In cases like this, the vice president is the one to decide, leaving Argentines last night with a white knuckle finish. The Argentine vice, someone we haven't heard much about over the last few months, is Julio Cobos. And while Cristina Kirchner is from the Front for Victory (FPV), Cobos is originally from the UCR (the Radical Party, which despite its name is conservative). In fact, Cobos' party kicked him out for running on the ballot with Cristina. And she was making a gamble to ensure more votes and a broader appeal (they won the national elections with 45% of the vote), a strategy which at this point, perhaps the Kirchners are regretting. Cobos was left with the very difficult decision of voting against the government he forms part of and putting the presidency in a very weak position or, voting true to his conservative background (and undoubtedly beliefs). Cobos chose to vote against the proposed tariffs. "History will judge me," he apparently said, when casting his vote.

Curious to see how this was playing out beyond Argentina's borders, I hunted down the report on last night's events on the New York Times website. As expected, it has a definite slant to the right (something I was only able to see clearly in the Times after having lived here for a good period of time). I thought it might be interesting to post some reflections on the "other side" of the slant so you can compare "both sides" of the story. You may need to go through a free sign up process to access this link to the article. (Please let me know if it doesn't work and I can paste the entire text here.)

Writing from Rio de Janeiro (in Brazil, by the way), the Times predictably portrays the president and her party in domineering, authoritarian terms, something they've been doing since Néstor Kirchner was elected (in 2003). It seems that when American interests don't like a foreign power, the default is to portray them with hints of despotism. Here, the Times sets up the opposition between, on the one had, the government (associated with words like "imposed", "angered" and "control") and, on the other "rebellious farmers" who would be "forced to give up more of their profits". The two sides, clearly delineated, there is little room in international media for subtleties or complexities.

"Mrs. Kirchner and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner, who leads the Peronist bloc, have justified the higher taxes as important to redistribute the country’s wealth and hold down Argentine food prices. But the Kirchners have widened divisions in the country by portraying the farmers’ strikes as a political threat, calling farm leaders 'greedy' and 'coup plotters.'"

This paragraph is interesting as it sets up a false opposition. The first sentence is, in my opinion, quite accurate. This is what the entire conflict has been about from the government's point of view. However, one reading the Times would be lead to believe that in fact, the goals of more equitable wealth distribution and regulation of food prices are negative precisely because they increase divisions in the country. In fact, these divisions (in blunt terms, between those who have and those who don't) have been present in greater or lesser degree since practically the creation of Argentina as a country. These are the similar divisions exploited by politicians associated with the right wing dictatorship of the 1970s to justify the disappearance of thousands of dissidents. And the fact that the right may oppose more equitable wealth distribution and regulation of food prices is natural (since it's their pocketbooks being threatened). But the latter does not lessen the value of the former.

Another important detail is the "farmers". An interesting (albeit not surprising) choice of words to describe the agricultural sector opposing these reforms. The situation in Argentina these days has little to do with small family farms. In fact, close to 70% of these "farmers" live off of rents they're paid for their land which is leased out to those who farm it using the latest technology in what are more like large corporate farming operations than anything else. The small independent farmer trying to make a living off of his land is a disappearing breed here. The "farmers" protesting are, for the most part, making windfall profits off of rising international soy and grain prices; the wealthy getting wealthier. Therefore, though it may sound totally out of place to call a mere "farmer" "greedy", the adjective is not entirely unfounded in this case. Add to that the right wing political orientation of many and not entirely implausible connections to the last dictatorship (not to mention the history of this country) and "coup plotters" suddenly doesn't sound so extreme.

Further Reading: If you can read Spanish, here's an excellent article by Alfredo Zaiat explaining how the farming of land has been highly specialized and technological. "Farmers" have long been replaced with something that more closely resembles corporate "food producers".