I read the editorial and found it quite haunting. It is as though Argentina had a nervous breakdown. I guess countries, like people, can lose the will to go on, can stop believing in the myth of themselves, constructed or otherwise.
Maybe like people, countries that suffer such a collapes, need to take some time out and rest and recover and rediscover themselves. Arthur -----Original Message----- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 4:44 PM To: Lawrence H. de Bivort; Carmen Lopez Cc: Keith Hudson; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Argentina down and out See below for a very interesting commentary on the situation of Argentina. It appeared in today's Globe and Mail. Ed Weick > Greetings, > > Given Argentina's excellent resource base and well-educated population, it > would seem that its economy should be in good shape, so I am inclined to > agree that the problems you describe must be structural and political. It > is tempting to assign all such problems to 'corruption', but the reality > is that it is diffficult to organize a country. Governments are complex > and often saddled with incompatible responsibilities. The very > organizational design of a government can be obsolete, with the > consequence that those government functions that affect the economy cannot > operate effectively. The 'language' with which the economy is operated can > easily be defective and based on an 'old' language--e.g. the language that > addresses the roles of individuals--that now impedes its development. > > What to do? I doubt that there is any organization outside Argentina that > can recommend effective economic policies or do the job for the > Argentinians. So Argentinians must take the lead and act in their own > interests. Perhaps if you can begin with an effective > structural/functional analysis, the root problems of the economy will > become obvious. I would recommend a full objectives-leadership-functions- > structural-communications-culture-support systems assessment and design > initiative. It would be an interesting piece of analysis/research for you, > and it seems you have the right skills to begin it, without the long > participation and vested interests that might skew your analysis. It would > result in a deep understanding of the economy, a list of modifications > that should be made to it and to its management organizations, and a 'map' > of the most useful intervention points. > > I look forward to your further thoughts on this. > > Lawrence de Bivort > -------------------------------------------------------------- No money, no vision, no faith Argentine society effectively no longer exists, ALBERTO MANGUEL argues, because it no longer believes in its own integrity By ALBERTO MANGUEL Thursday, December 27, 2001 - Print Edition, Page A15 One of the commonplaces of baroque literature declares that nothing is as it was: The traveller seeks Rome in Rome and all he sees are its ruins. The great Francisco de Quevedo concluded: "That which is solid has vanished / Only the transient remains and lasts." The ruins of sacked cities of Argentina -- the looted supermarkets, the burnt cars, the shattered windows, the broken remains of trends and fashions -- are the oppressive present; in the past lies a country we once agreed to call Argentina. I was born in Argentina, but did not actually live there until the age of 7 when my family moved back in 1955, after the fall of Juan Peron. I left again, for good, in 1968, just before the beginning of the military dictatorship. I remember those 13 years with astonishment. In spite of the persistent economic degradation, in spite of the regular military coups which brought out the lumbering tanks into the street next to our school, in spite of the gradual sale of all the national industries, Argentina was in those years an extraordinary place of immense intellectual richness and invention. There was a style of thought unique to this society, capable of broaching (in the same idea) the great metaphysical questions and the realities of grassroot politics. A peculiar humour permeated all social transactions: irony tinged with melancholy, playfulness and gravitas. Argentines seemed to possess the capability of enjoying the smallest casual offering and feeling the most subtle moments of sadness. They had a passionate sense of curiosity, a keen eye for the revealing notion, a respect for the intelligent mind, for the generous act, for the enlightened observation. They knew who they were in the world and felt proud of that identity (which Borges called "an act of faith"). All that is now lost. What happened? Essentially, Argentina stopped believing in itself. Every society is an invention, an imaginary construct based on the agreement between individuals who have decided to live together under common laws. These laws are a belief system: Lose faith in the system and the notion of society disappears, like water in water. The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, the Marseillaise, the motto Liberdade o morte, the infamous Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles, the Canadian True North Strong and Free, are ritual incantations to lend sound if not sense to our beliefs. Written on the stone slabs of Hammurabi, recited by the elders of the orixas, or deities, engraved over the door of the temple at Delphi or printed in the thousands of registers of the law courts of today, these common agreements that order our lives together are like the Red King's dream in Alice in Wonderland: Wake him, and our illuminated society will go out, bang, like a candle. In Robert Bolt's play A Man For All Seasons, Thomas More's son-in-law angrily says: "And do you think you'd be able to stand in the wind that would blow?" More couldn't know it, but he was talking about my Argentina, whose decent citizens are trying to stand in a country of razed laws, not knowing how long they will be able to keep their heads up in the gales. There exists a frame of mind, which we have (erroneously) called Machiavellian, that leads us to believe that anything is permissible for the sake of self-aggrandizement, including the breaking of the law. Greek tyrants, Roman caesars, popes and emperors possessed it; it has sparked wars, justified atrocities, caused unspeakable suffering; in the end, it has always led to the collapse of the societies within which it became rooted. In Argentina, it began at the very dawn of the republic, with the slaying of the young revolutionary Mariano Moreno. It became official in the 19th century with the tyranny of Juan Manual de Rosas, acceptable with the oligarchs and landowners of the early 20th century, popular with Peron. Finally, with the military dictatorship, it undermined every aspect of society, ignored every legality, made torture and killing everyday government weapons, infected both language and thought. By the late eighties, this frame of mind had become so ingrained that it was feasible for president Carlos Menem to pardon the foulest of the junta's criminals and for most Argentines to justify, in some ingenious way, the crapulous dealings of their government. Thanks to the military, in Argentina of the nineties, it became impossible to use the words "honesty," "truth," "decency" without a tinge of irony. President Fernando de la Rua's task was hopeless. To restore balance to a society that effectively no longer exists because it no longer believes in its own integrity is a trick no magician can perform. It is as if the members of the audience refused to enter an implicit contract of respect and suspension of disbelief with the performer, as if they decided not to sit and watch a rabbit being pulled out of a hat, and tried instead to run away with both the hat and the rabbit, certain that if they don't, the magician will nick them both first. Under such circumstances, no performance can take place and the theatre might as well fold. The famous tango Cambalache (Junk Shop) foresaw it all in 1935: "No one cares if you were born honest," it sings. And then: It's all the same: the one who slaves All day and night like an ox, The one who lives off others, The one who kills, the one who cures, Or the one who's broken the law. During his long regime, Peron liked to boast that, like Uncle Scrooge, he could "walk on the gold bars in the Treasury House"; once he had fled, there was no gold left to walk on and Peron appeared on international financial lists as one of the richest men in the world. After Peron, the thefts continued and increased. The money lent to Argentina, several times, by the International Monetary Fund (that modern incarnation of the sin of usury) was pocketed by the same well-known ruffians: ministers, businessmen, industrialists, congressmen, bankers, senators. Their names are familiar to every Argentine. The IMF's refusal to lend more was based on the safe premise that it would simply be stolen again (thieves know one another's habits all too well). But the fact that there remains nothing left to steal is no consolation to the hundreds of thousands of Argentines who are starving. Starving: in a country known, barely a few decades ago, as "the bakery of the world." The question asked now is, of course, what next? What possible solution is there for a country bankrupt financially and morally, with the same lot of corrupt politicians fighting over what is now nothing but bare bones, with a murderous military waiting in the wings, with no justice system, no economic program, no efficient industrial activities to speak of? What can Argentina expect, when the interim President, a native of the town of Calafate, who a few days ago replaced Mr. de la Rua, closed his inaugural speech by dedicating his short mandate (until March) "to the Christ of Calafate"? In the Argentine national epic poem, the gaucho Martin Fierro, in order to escape the unjust system that has betrayed him (the system that recruited him into the army and reft him of his land, his house and his family), becomes a deserter and the acknowledged hero of the Argentine imagination. But for the Argentines of today, there is nothing left to desert, there is no "other place." The country imagined by my ancestors, the extraordinary country that educated me and made me who I am, no longer exists among its ruins. Argentina is no longer, and the bastards who destroyed it are still alive. Alberto Manguel is an anthologist, essayist, novelist and translator. His book Reading Pictures: A History of Love and Hate, was nominated for a 2001 Governor-General's Award in non-fiction.
