Why not cry for Argentina?

the seemingly never ending saga

Argentina is a perversely fascinating place much like watching a car accident in excruciating and repeated slow motion. This analogy pertains, sadly, because the nation has been through virtual chaos for 95 years. Oh, my.

Most Americans know nothing about the fascinating, if tragic, history of this most peculiar of Latin American countries. A remote outpost under the colonial Spanish system, with Lima as the seat of the Viceroy of Peru, the Spanish arrived not from the ocean but after an arduous journey across the southern Andes.

The indigenous living in what became Argentina were considerably fewer than elsewhere. The indigenous largely remained isolated in their interior communities for most of the early period of Spanish rule. The focus of Argentine ‘settlement’ was what became the bustling port of Buenos Aires, leaving the interior seeming ‘empty but ripe’ for future growth. The Andes provided an imposing border between Argentina and Chile, a explanation for the divergent histories of these two nations.

Buenos Aires, or BsAs (Good Air), offered an outward orientation from both the continent and the central portion of Spain’s empire. BsAs became a port on the important Rio de la Plata, a river sweeping south out of Bolivia, slicing through Paraguay, and ultimately dividing current-day Argentina from Uruguay to the north.

Buenos Aires’ distinct geography made it a prime draw for illegal shipping and piracy to challenge the cumbersome Spanish governing model. The Spanish Crown ensured it collected ‘la Quinta’, the Royal Fifth, of taxes on all shipping by regulating it tightly. BsAs, however, had the perfect location to lure British and other foreigners evading Spain’s monopoly. BsAs had a significant, if informal, link with Britain even before independence in the 1820s, leading to London’s role as Argentina’s primary supporter overseas.

Argentina’s, after freeing itself from Spanish control during the Napoleonic period, concentrated on both greater formal economic interaction with Britain and substantial European immigration. British economic investment paved the way to the rapid expansion of the port in BsAs along with the infrastructure development of the country. This facilitated movement of immigrants into the ‘empty’ interior, followed by the cultivation of wheat and the grazing of massive herds of cattle, both of which were crucial to expanding Argentina’s exports. With technology making chilled shipping possible, Argentina became one of the most important food producers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Its immigrant population mirrored the United States, Canada, and Australia. Northern Europeans originally came in the 1840s and 50s but Spanish, Russians, and especially Italians flocked to the Rio de la Plata as Europeans struggled with political turmoil. Italians were so important to immigration with fully one in every five Argentines with ancestors from that peninsula. Additionally Buenos Aires remains one of the largest concentration of Russian Jews in the world, even well over a century after their arrival. As anti-Semitic pogroms threatened Jews across Europe, some people fantasised of ‘buying Argentina for the Jews’, a suggestion replaced by the reality of the Zionist movement into the Middle East.

The first decades of Argentine history saw many of the same struggles we faced in the United States: should BsAs be the sole focus or governance in the nation or would a more decentralised system be more appropriate? Violence surrounding resolving that question never arose to a civil war but questions about the capital’s oversized role in society (because of both government and those immigrants who arrived but did not want to live in the remote, underdeveloped interior) versus the remainder of the country persisted.

Throughout the century following independence, Argentina was a relatively healthy political system and a growing economy, highly dependent on British investment.

Though Latin America was largely neutral through World War I, the war’s disruption profoundly undercut the region because Britain’s attention and investment went elsewhere. The entire South American region became more isolated and the growth which had sustained them via British investment slowed precipitously. It was a warning for the Great Depression which hit the region as hard as anywhere else around the globe.

Prior to the Cold War, Argentina was an educated nation with ample food for home and export. Frequently compared with Europe for its erudite educational system and beautiful architecture, Argentina was a nation with hope and probability of success if pesky problems would disappear. Indeed, as recently as the beginning of the 1920s, Argentina held a place of global respect as the likely competitor to the United States for leadership in the world—at least in the eyes of many who lauded its resources and resourceful population.

Alas, this was a chimera. Argentina’s first military overthrow of civilian rule occurred in 1930 and, sadly, ended both national predictability and a competitive political party system. Irregular, truncated governing cycles became the norm rather than exceptions. In the 1940s, the concentration of labour led to the creation of the Peronist Movement, a nod to Juan Domingo Peron who organised the workers into a Fascist movement under his name. Peronismo dominated Argentine politics well past his death in 1974 and the Argentine political system stlll craves a Peronist-type single, simplistic answer to complex problems.

The darkest days for this nation were under a brutal military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983 carrying a ‘national project’ to eradicate threats to the nation as the military defined them. This guerra sucia resulted in 30,000 Argentines ‘disappeared’ by the armed forces without any accountability. Even forty years after the civilian rule returned, the military has not fully accounted for horrific crimes such as seizing children of los desaparecidos, then parceling them to other childless families rather than to their relatives.

Argentine politics today are more predictable yet deep political divisions and manifest corruption still roil the nation. The military can no longer step in as it did so often between the 1940s and 80s is hobbled without massive budgets or a genuine national security threat; Argentina’s military is a major player in global peacekeeping because others foot the bill. In 2001-2002, five presidents were in power in a ten day period as the nation confronted massive economic mismanagement and failing confidence, along with breadlines. Major political figures frequently face criminal prosecutions, only to rise again to leadership role as if nothing happened. And yet the people still assume there is a saviour around the next corner.

The objet d’jour is the run off to choose the next president. A extremist right wing libertarian, Javier Milei and his five designer dogs, seeks to become the next in a line of supposed national saviours. As Peron, Carlos Saul Menem, Nestor Kirchner, and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner all proved the seductive power of a ‘saviour’ and the impossibility of simplistic responses. Argentine expectations never meet the needed sacrifices and actions to address the challenges. Milei fits that model as an extremist and oddity so well.

His opponent is the current Economics Minister, Sergio Massa, who confronts a major challenge as inflation stands at 138%. Unemployment is high, Argentina toggles between its ties with new-found friend the PRC and the economically orthodox suggestions from former strategic friend Washington. Massa, if victorious, faces an extremely difficult path to address the long-time structural problems of a state with an aversion to choosing long-term reform to stabilise the economic growth so desperately needed.

I spent considerable time in Argentina years ago. Few days were as blessed as those beginning with strong black Argentine coffee and mezalunas to nourish the soul in the Parisian-like cafes along the broad BsAs boulevards. The military. tried to arrest me as I did dissertation research forty plus years ago but a kind woman saved me. I ate part of my dissertation (true) rather than risk my dissertation draft leading to more problems. But, I found the country full of people with so much hope things could be turned around.

I no longer see, from a distance, that sort of hope. Societies worn down by both the repeated lies about promised successes, the ineptitude in governing, and seemingly pervasive corruption, wears down the spirit. The geography and the nationality are the same a century later but the Argentina of 1923 differed so from that of 2023.

Hopefully Massa, the front runner for the run off vote, can deliver. Others, such as Raul Alfonsin who came after the military dictatorship, tried but could not meet the sky high expectations.

Argentina is a modern heartbreak. Its many resources and its population ought to have prepared the nation for a greater success than it achieved. But, the past is never a precursor for the future so perhaps this time change will result. Then again, Argentina’s experience has indeed been that of history rhyming rather than repeating; more problems not solutions resulted. Sadly, Argentines increasingly blame the foreigners for their fate. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Thank you for reading Actions Create Consequences. Please send me any responses. Thank those of you who subscribe as your support means a great deal.

I realise the whimsy may seem inappropriate but we need more whimsy these days as we see so much confronting the world in this extraordinarily messy time.

Be well and be safe. FIN