Mis Amigos Argentinos

Seektheway (Thoughts & Ruminations...) drew attention to a bishop in Argentina who stood up to the national health minister on the topic of legalisation of abortion.

I take an interest in news from Argentina, having had the opportunity to travel to Buenos Aires twice in 2003 on business.

The Argentinos are a resilient lot. I do not want to be presumptious and generalise like I have the nation figured out after eight days in the country. But in speaking with my counterparts who worked in the office of one of the largest engineering firms in Argentina, riding with eyes wide open from Ezeiza airport to the heart of downtown BA, walking through the astounding safety of the Florida 'mall' even late at night (though not deviating too far either to the left or to the right), a picture comes to mind.

They endured the Perons...who are remembered not quite so romantically as Evita would suggest. And most recently, they suffered a stunning devaluation of their currency. International financiers can explain why, and perhaps even claim to justify it. But it set every man, woman and child two steps back. The nation took the hit, across the board, and they still feel it. The people I saw in the restaurants, the business people and the entrepreneurs, were cosmopolitan, western, sophisticated -- but sombre. As if the world had harshly put them in their place, and they were now quietly, somewhat humbly, digging themselves out.

The poor -- well, I did not have to stray too far off Avenue Florida to see them. Our project engineering manager, who was stationed there, told us to be on the lookout for the street people who collected scrap cardboard. They would recycle it and get paid for it. And sure enough, every couple of blocks, there were FAMILIES who scurried around amassing piles of cardboard and boxboard.

The engineering manager remarked to an Argentinian engineer how fastidious these street recyclers were. He saw them taking hoses and washing off the cardboard. How considerate to clean the cardboard off before recycling!

"They are not cleaning the cardboard, Senor John," he was told. "They are wetting it, to make it heavier, so they will get paid more."

Such are the wiles of the street people.

But I digress.

There was ambivalence about President Nestor Kirchner, but he seemed the best of all possible compromises. Now, feeling confident in his reign, the true colours of his social programs are beginning to emerge.

The Argentinian bishops collectively have been active in voicing their opposition to Kirchner. I did not sense I was in an exceedingly Catholic or even Christian country. There is societal, historical acknowledgment of Catholic roots, but on the whole they seem to operate in a relatively secular manner. So it is not as if the bishops have this unspoken mandate to speak on behalf of the people. But they have done so, increasingly so, in the past few months.

Where does this courage come from? Is this a product of the subjugation by the World Bank and IMF financiers, who have kicked the country and broken its spirit, such that the bishops have taken the lead to stand up for the people? Or is it simply the courage to speak the truth when the truth needs to be spoken, no matter who is sitting in the king's chair?

Perhaps Argentina can export this collective resolve to the northern hemisphere, where there are words aplenty on soft issues, but the Bruskewiczes, Burkes and Ambrozics seem to be in the minority?