Revelation 7/12/02
Algo está pasando. Something is happening. I like that feeling, the idea that the world is set in motion, the sense that in today’s chaos there is some direction. I want to believe it, but my inner cynic cautions me: Of course something is happening, something is always happening. Why is this time any different than any other time, and why should we believe this crisis will leave Argentina in a different place, with less turmoil?
A few days ago I found myself at an intersection I had never understood before, a confluence of three five-lane avenues lined by parks that all look the same. To get my bearings I had finally studied a map, marked in my head the angles and bends, where I would be in relation to everything else. When I returned to the point of confusion, the chaos suddenly organized itself and I could see everything, just like on the map, the traffic moving along in its prescribed directions, all the angles perfect, everything in its place.
In the past few weeks, studying Argentine history and economics and living here, trying to feel the pulse of the city, Jeremy and I have come to a similar impasse. If we believe the papers, Argentina is a country in crisis, mired in the worst economic depression in its history and on shaky political ground as well. But in my upper-class residential neighborhood, the bakeries and the malls and the ice cream shops, mothers pushing their baby carriages and teenagers kissing in the park, it mostly feels like nothing is happening. The view is the same from Jeremy’s perch over downtown.
So what’s really going on? What does it mean that half the population is below the poverty line, that 30% are unemployed? Twenty-five years ago, tens of thousands of people were snatched off the street, then tortured and murdered by the military dictatorship. How does today compare?
How does a country show its pain?