> The New York Times, March 2, 2003
>
> Once Secure, Argentines Now Lack Food and Hope
>
> By LARRY ROHTER
>
> TUCUMÁN, Argentina ˜ A year after the Argentine economy collapsed, the
> authorities in Buenos Aires are boasting about a record grain harvest and
> suggesting that the country is finally on the mend. Yet in recent months, 19
One of the surprising results of my little ethnographic holiday in the world of the Porto Alegre bourgeoisie (ie. my family) was how little they fear a repetition of Argentina in Brazil. No wonder: Argentina is still far better off than Brazil, collapse and all included. There is a great deal of bitterness about this.
In fact, I heard it from a few dentists and businessmen the same story: Argentinians were supposedly much more politically astute than Brazil, because they were motivated into action by things which happen all the time in Brazil, to the -supposed- complacency of Brazilians. They did not regard the MST (or the criminal statelike formations in Rio's favelas) as counterexamples, though a few of the elite PT faithful replied with a straight face that Lula was our action. The things that motivated the Argentinian activists, according to the PoA bourgeoisie were: the falling value of the currency, the bank holidays and inflation. I think they would have also said 'hunger' and 'unemployment' but they simply see these as effects of the foregoing. They don't need to say that it gets wet when it rains.
The MST people I spoke to, on the other hand, thought that while the rebellion in Argentina was impressive, they had nothing to show for their work (unlike the MST, of course). Many also thought that the Argentinians were a bunch of middle class discontents.
I don't want to play into this too much, but the World Social Forum was replete with middle class Argentinian sociologists wearing Hessian bags, the piquetero uniform. Not that there is anything wrong with that...
Thiago
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