(To the right, Eva and Juan Perón)
Eva Perón described the challenge facing her
fellow Argentinians more than sixty years ago in ways that could still apply
today. “What is happening to our people is a drama, an authentic and
extraordinary drama for the ownership of life,” wrote the nearly mythic wife of
Argentine leader Juan Perón in her posthumously published book Mi mensaje (My Message),
“ … of happiness … of the pure and simple well-being that my people have been
dreaming about since the beginning of history.”
Later in her book, she declares, “All the people have to do
is decide that we are the masters of our own destiny.”
Labor South has
been following the unfolding “drama” in Argentina since last November, when
voters went to the polls to choose between the Perónist Daniel Scioli and the
neo-liberal Mauricio Macri for president. Twelve years of Kirchnerismo—the
pro-worker, neo-Perónism of the late Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina—were
coming to an end, and the election was key to the future of Argentina.
Macri won the election, and now just three months later,
people are in the streets demonstrating against the resumption of neo-liberal
“austerity” principles that helped ruin the Argentine economy in 2001 and which
are still wreaking havoc in Greece and other European economies. It’s the same
old free-trade-at-all-costs, corporate-worshipping philosophy that further
enriches the rich at the expense of working people.
According to labor leaders in Argentina, Macri has overseen
a 500 percent hike in electricity rates and a 10-to-15 percent decline in wage
purchasing power. Some 40,000 public and private workers have been fired or
seen their jobs discontinued since Macri took over in December.
Half of the 22,500 now-jobless workers in the private sector
had construction jobs.
Macri has even cracked down on demonstrations as seen with a
recent police confrontation with young demonstrators in Bajo Flores. Reports
say 11 were injured, including young children.
Macri, former mayor of Buenos Aires, has vowed to
restructure the nation’s finances to meet its indebtedness to international
lenders, and, of course, the neo-liberal mantra for meeting such goals calls
for reduced government programs and, in turn, reduced worker wages and benefits
as well as resistance to the unions that try to protect those wages and
benefits.
The pro-worker spirit within the complex legacy of Perónism is still alive and well in
Argentina, however. Most of the country’s governors as well as majorities in
both houses of its Congress are not in Macri’s camp or that of his so-called
“Cambiemos” (“Let’s Change”) coalition. More importantly, Perónism
still lives in the streets of Buenos Aires and the country as a whole.
“Perón taught us that the people’s happiness comes first, that a
country cannot be made great if its people are not comfortable,” Eva Perón
wrote so many years ago.
Those words still live, just as the spirits of Eva and her
husband also do.
