Buenos Aires

Small means big in Argentina and big means gigantic. “Tiny” Uruguay on the other side of the River Plate from Buenos Aires is only small in comparison with Argentina itself. It could gobble up about three European states. The river is almost Amazonian in its vital statisticsI (120 miles wide at points). A big ranch here might be half the size of England. Buenos Aires is home to 13 million; it’s the second largest conurbation in South America and capital of the 8th largest country on earth. Yet the total population (40 million) is far smaller than that of teensy Britain. Cattle (54 million) comfortably outnumber humans. Despite everything Buenos Aires has going for it (size, architecture, art, cakes, coffee), it seems oddly cut off both from its neighbours and even the rest of itself. Geography doesn’t help. There’s the vast Rio de la Plata to the east and the titanic pampas (grass, grass and more grass) to the west. Nor does temperament assist. Porteños (people of the port of BA), have little patience for the parochial concerns of the rest of the country, especially as a third of all Argentinians live in the capital anyway. So Celine and I should be forgiven for not having left BA in six weeks because, why bother with the world’s greatest cataracts, the western hemisphere’s highest mountain and lowest-lying lake, still advancing glaciers, when you can spend 48 hours a day eating (cake), dancing and demonstrating?

Nothing is as it should be. So you think they speak Spanish (Castellano) here? The River Plate has a lot to answer for, even giving its name to the language – Rioplatense Spanish. It’s spoken with Castellano speed, French “je’s”, Italian “che’s”, Meditteranean handwaving, Neopolitan lilt and in your FACE! Then there’s Lunfardo, the underworld lingo of Buenos Aires – Cockney rhyming slang x Parisian argot x Kinkering Congs. You get the picture. We’re in South America but where are all her black-haired, brown-eyed people? Porteños look European (as does their beautiful city). This is a country of immigrants. They even outnumber the descendants of the conquistadores. Where are all the indigenous people? There are very few in BA and not even that many in the rest of the country. Their story is the tragically familiar one of genocide carried out both by the original colonisers and their offspring. Whilst in many other Latin American countries , people proudly proclaim their Aztec, Inca or Mapuche roots, most Argentinians’ ancestors came from the boats fleeing southern European poverty, political repression, civil war and fascism.

What kind of political system might such a radical crowd create for themselves? — Peronism. OMiGod! What is it? Right, Left, Centre? Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? Facist, Populist, Socialist, Capitalist, Isolationist? It’s probably all of these and just about every other contradictory description you can think of. All commentaries consulted remind me of those emigmatic statements of Buddhist belief. “There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way”. Yeah. Right. You think you know what it means until you realise you have absolutely no clue. For example, a supporter of General Perόn coined the popular slogan, “To save Perόn, one has to be against Perόn.” Yeah. Right. What?! Fortunately, there are two illuminating adjectives on which all Peronist commentators are agreed:
1) it’s unique
2) it’s Argentinian
Whatever else it may be, it also got schools and hospitals built, gave women the vote and work to workers. Nowadays, politicians like to signal where they stand in relation to Perόn. So there are Peronists of the right AND of the left (and of all permutations in between). I’m glad that’s clarified Peronism for you. Readers should realise that this clarification is unique in its own way. You will find no other definition that dares not to mention the name of You Know Who (Don’t cry for me, Argentina). Nor will other commentaries mention the little known fact that YKW, resplendent in sky blue evening cloak embroidered in gold, had a remarkable resemblance to the BVM.

Buenos Aires’ hey day was before World War 1. The city’s fabulous wealth was laid out in its gorgeous architecture, grand boulevards and fountain-filled plazas. It then stumbled from one economic crisis to another, its beauty showing distinct signs of wear and tear, until in 2000, capitalism did what it’s now threatening to do to the rest of us in the economic north. It collapsed from its own internal contradictions (Marxist analysis) or went belly side up (Barry-Plews analysis). What we in the economic north could learn from Argentina’s catastrophic collapse. But no, we are diligently doing the ostrich thing and hoping that our very own Perόn, otherwise known as the white man’s hope – the impossibly burdened President Obama – will save capitalism from a nose dive from which the only recovery is via a total disconnect of the capitalist apparatus. Ouch. Those heads that wrench themselves out of the sinking sands of bankers’ bonuses will be reading about how a couple of hundred Argentine factory workers stood up to their bosses (who fired them at the first hint of economic melt-down), took over their workplaces despite threats and real violence from the defenders of private property, and formed cooperatives. They succeeded in running the business their bosses pretended had gone bankrupt. The workers found that, freed from the immense burden of management costs, they could run their factories safely and democratically, whilst paying themselves a fair and equal wage, and even turning parts of their workplace into classrooms for further ed, exhibition and cultural spaces for the local communities who had supported them through various battles with the state. [Read Sin Patrόn (Without a Boss) by The Lavaca Collective]. Celine and I went for a cuppa in one of these reclaimed workplaces – The Bauen Hotel – slap bang in the middle of the city, where a waitress, beaming with pride, agreed that it was a great place to work.

You walk round a corner in this, South America’s most European-looking city, and stumble across something that isn’t remotely European or even particularly South American. It’s not really very Argentinian either. But it is Porteño. You see a smartly-dressed couple, their upper bodies zipped together in a still embrace whilst their legs and feet glide through a mind-boggling array of steps, complete with dazzling turns, twists, changes of direction and shifts in weight. Our adviser says that anyone can learn the tango, and fiendishly suggests that, as complete beginners, we should attend a Women’s Technique Class. This turns out to be all fancy foot and knee twiddles (called adornments) and no actual dance steps. Imagine trying to figure out what the Atlantic looks like from studying a dewdrop. The teacher regards our lack of 3 inch stilettos as a serious character flaw (or possibly it’s our substitutes – £5 patent plastic flatties, and in my case, pyjama bottoms masquerading as dance trousers...) The music’s great. Eight strong beats: slide-walk forward for 4, then back for 4, what could be easier? Actually, sky diving, winning the Lottery, seeing a baby pigeon. The more attention you put on walking, the wobblier it gets. Then there’s what you have to fit into those 8 beats. Walking is just what you do to pass the time between frisky kicks, toe taps, heel clicks, thigh slides, knee twirlies and back flips. So we decide to go to a proper beginners class. Steps without the frills. We discover that the word ‘beginner’ in BA means (everyone else) being really good! Beginner’s tango (from my limited experience), means being propelled backwards or sideways (never forwards). It means the inalienable right not to be able to work out from the hand clamped to my back whether it’s backwards or sideways, and it means having absolutely no idea what kind of adornment I am supposed to execute at any given moment, except when dancing with the teacher. With him, for about three seconds, everything magically slides, glides and whirls into place. Celine and I danced some tango. It was magic!

For a country whose history is punctuated with bouts of terrifying violence (the dirty war waged by the dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 saw the disappearance, death and/or torture of some 30,000 civilians), the people follow some very gentle pursuits. Kissing, for instance. Lips to cheek whenever women meet, men and women meet, and yes, even whenever men meet. ‘Do soldiers kiss when they meet reach other?’ I ask an Argentine male. ‘Yes of course. Why not?’ is the reply. Perhaps if this practice were more widely adopted there would be no time for war. Dog-walking is another. Three times a day young, professional walkers think nothing of attaching 14 or 15 dogs to their glove-held mistress lead and setting off for the nearest green space– a happy, waggy, yappy dog plough of the pavements. Then there’s drinking. When the spring sun shines, Porteños, young and old, head to their parks and lakes. When they go home, they don’t leave behind any beer cans or wine bottles because they don’t really do alcohol. They’ve been sipping maté (herbal tea), all day. This is drunk from a specially seasoned gourd through a metal straw. You do not hog your maté. You pass it round. Nor do you get selfish about the straw. The same one is shared with everyone. To get out a hanky and wipe said straw, muttering apologetically about swine flu, would be catastrophically rude. Don’t do it. They say Oink! Oink flu isn’t so bad...

Our bedsit is next door to the hospital where Mercedes Sosa died last month. She was Argentina’s Victor Jara – a folk singer with a big political vision and a huge voice, whose stage, eventually, became the whole world. The dictatorship banned her songs and forced her into exile after death threats and an arrest. There must be something about military uniforms that scrambles the brains, because of course no-one forgot what she stood for, just because she was forcibly absent. She returned to Argentina as the dictatorship began to crumble and the series of concerts that she gave on her arrival packed out the opera house and helped focus opposition to the regime. When she died she lay in state in Congress, whilst thousands of Argentinians came from all over the country to say goodbye. They also accompanied her coffin to La Chacarita cemetery despite shedloads of rain. The story of her life and her music was broadcast on every TV channel and took up miles of newsprint. The funeral, shown on TV was simple, chaotic, huge and homely. Afterwards, the thousands who had come to give thanks for her life showed their love and appreciation by, for once, singing to her. Gracias a la Vida.
(www.mercedessosa.com.ar)