president Kirchner, cumbiero

ONE. Los Pibes Chorros — a band whose name is the Argentine slang for “kid theives” — are pretty raunchy. Not the kind of thing you’d listen to with your mom.




The Pibes [Listen to a Pibes 20-second clip] are one of the most popular bands in the relatively new genre of “cumbia villero", the Argentine shantytown’s twist on the traditional Columbian cumbia. The bands — and a good part of the fans — are kids from the most marginal neighborhoods in Argentina, brick-and-mortar shantytowns called “villas” that stretch for acres and acres in and around Buenos Aires. Between the poverty and violence and drugs, these are the neighborhoods the police would prefer not to enter. The houses are an anarchy of cinderblock and cheap red bricks, a maze of narrow alleys in place of roads.

The best cultural analog of villas in the States would be the inner city, the ghetto. And cumbia villera would be gangsta rap. If you can imagine.

In such an atmosphere, you’d hope music could be some kind of catalyst, speaking from the experience of poverty with a vision of change. But most cumbia — again, like most US rap and hip-hop — is unapologetically apolitical. It is useful, primarily, as a distraction. Like a drug, cumbia helps villeras forget the pain and struggle of their daily lives. And in its glorification of drugs, crime, and sex, it distracts from and discourages political participation and organization.

As Mariano Narodowski, professor of Education at the University of Quilmes, argued, “[For cumbia,] power isn’t about capitalism or in imperialism: it’s about money, drugs, or sex. There’s no political project to defend more than their own subsistence. There is no revolution, only grin and bear it.”


TWO. President Néstor Kirchner does not have an easy job. Being president of Argentina is always hard — only one elected president in like 50 years has finished his entire term. But after fifteen years of crushing job losses, steadily increasing inequality, ballooning national debt, and a 3:1 currency devaluation, what kind of masochist wants to be President of Argentina?

But Kirchner has turned out to be a quite likeable masochist. In his first months he built legitimacy and won favor with the public by attacking long-smoldering political issues: principally, he purged the military leadership and the supreme court, and pushed for new trials for the (previously absolved) murderers and torturers of the last dictatorship. His clumsy demeanor and defiant talk toward adversaries — including the IMF and creditor countries (Spain, France, Germany, the US) — spawned talk of the new, geek-cool “K-style”. For the first time in 10 years, more Argentines are moving back into the country than leaving.

And led by newly profitable exports, especially in soy and other agricultural products, the Argentine economy is bouncing back. Each month the newspaper is filled with stories of record tax receipts, rising consumer spending, and even figures that suggest falling unemployment. This year, for the first time since the collapse of the peso, the traditional Argentine summer vacation regained its luster. The trendy Argentine beach towns were again packed with trendy Argentines, followed by the paparazzi; others returned to the ever-fashionable Punta del Este; and once again there were more Argentines than Brazilians on the beach in Florianopolis.

But even with all this good feeling, something is missing. A recent report showed that the average Argentine income is 25% less than an average family needs in order to stay above the poverty line. Moreover, the average income of the poorer half of Argentines is 45% below the poverty line. Despite all this talk about economic recovery and decreasing unemployment, “more than 65% of the families consulted didn’t perceive any decline in the levels of poverty.”

The structural changes in the Argentine economy mean that economic growth does not mean relief for the millions in poverty. They mean that a job does not necessarily, or even usually, mean being able to provide a decent life for your family. They mean, as economist Julio Nudler wrote, “there is champagne for some and cold pizza for the rest, and no progressive government can do anything about it.”

Previous administrations, ones with less “K-Style,” bowed to pressure from unemployed groups and gave small welfare plans (of 150 pesos per month, about US$50) to tens of thousands of poor families, palliatives in lieu of permanent solutions. President Kirchner, instead, has drawn a line in the sand, firm about not giving more welfare plans while taking them away by the thousands. Just as he blasts the IMF, he launches tirades at unemployed organizations, calling their protests “repression and extortion"; his interior minister remarked that the unemployed protesters should “disappear” — not the best choice of words given Argentine history.

On Kirchner rests the hope of a country, both poor and middle classes, betrayed since the return of democracy by president after president. But instead of confronting the harsh economic reality, his administration’s answer to the poor — more than half the country — is that he’s working on it. That better times are just around the corner. And that for now, you should quietly grin and bear it. In that, his advice and the message of the Pibes Chorros are not so far part.

previously there was Barry Schwartz clears it all up
afterwards you have Garzón against terrorism?

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