Relaciónes

While Argentina certainly has a distinct culture, which I have tried to share with you, the cultural exports of the US are quite abundant.  People here love our music, television and movies.  Cafés and clubs play almost exclusively American music, of which 80’s rock is probably the most popular. The Simpson is at times playing on three different channels at once (with some pretty hilarious dubbing). Without fail, every time I tell someone that I’m studying Criminology they ask me if I like CSI more than Law & Order.

It seems that because the people here have such a favorable opinion about our culture they acquire from this a favorable opinion of the people. I find this to be pretty silly. I wouldn’t say that our television or music (Especially 80’s rock) is particularly representative of our people or culture. I think one could draw some pretty strange conclusions about the US based the fast food and the abundance of crime related TV shows.

“Muy Amable, muy abierta.”

This is Estrella on the right. (The girl on the left is Yen, another student who helps me with my interviews). Estrella is from southern Argentina but moved to north to go to school. Yen and I asked her about what she knew about American and it’s people. She told me that her and her friends love to meet people from other cultures. She told me that people from Argentina are generally very open to foreigners for this reason. Estrella has never been to the US but she has met students from the US and thinks they’re very open and conversational. She also mentioned that she loves McDonalds Weird right? Apparently it’s considered to be international and therefor exotic.

On a political level things are going well between the US and Argentina. That’s Cristina and Obama who recently met in France during an international economics conference. Things have in the past gone through some turbulent periods as the US has supported, or not supported different leaders with varying degrees of respect for human rights. This was especially prevalent in times when the US supported the Argentine dictators solely because they harbored anti-communist sentiments. People were (understandably) unhappy that the US would support a dictator who did not respect the rights of his people just because he was against communism. Thankfully, things have progressed in both countries to the point that human rights have taken a priority.

La Elección

This is Agentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She just won her second term in the presidential election here on saturday with 55% of the vote. The second place politician, Hermes Binner, only received about 17% percent. That’s a huge margin of victory. I was really interested in this election because in talking with my host mother and professors I got the idea that nobody was very happy with her as a president. How could a someone so unpopular receive such a high percentage of votes? Or was my sampling just wrong? Perhaps I just talked to many people who, by coincidence disliked her? To find the answer to my questions I decided to walk around the school and the outdoor mall to ask Rosarios what they thought about the election.

“La verdad es que no me interesa mucho.”

This is Walter. I thought he’d be a good person to interview because he works for the city, maintaining the parks around town. I actually tried to interview his entire crew but he was the only good sport in the bunch. Walter was without doubt, a fan of Cristinia. He said that he trusts her word and that he simply knew more about Cristian than the other candidate. He has a good point. Not only was Cristinia the incumbent, her husband was also the president before her so she has a great deal of name recognition. Binner on the other hand was running for the first time and simply didn’t have much name recognition. Walter said he wasn’t terribly interested in politics and didn’t see any reason to learn about a new candidate when he was content with the old one.

“Sí, ella tiene un buen recurso de palabras y ella es carismática pero dudo que ella vaya a hacer las cosas que dice.”

Guadalupe here couldn’t have been less in agreement with Walter. Guadalupe recently graduated from college and is currently worker as a server in a restaurant. She told me that she voted for Binner because she has doesn’t trust Cristina’s word. Guadalupe told me that Cristina is a skilled orator and because of this she’s won over many fans. Her ability to debate is highly acclaimed. She’s has a reputation of being about to talk to anyone, anywhere and convincing them that’s she’s right. Gaudalupe thinks this is problematic though, because she doesn’t think that Cristina actually follows through on the things she says. It’s a dangerous combination of consistently not doing what she says but being able to convince people that she’s working on it or that someone else is responsibly for impeding her work.

“¡Ella ha levantado el país!”

This is Esteban. Esteban is in his 60’s and (happily) retired. I came upon him reading La Capital (which is the most popular newspaper in Rosario) so I though he might have an interesting opinion about the election. Esteban had conflicting opinions about Cristina. He likes what she’s done in the last several years after the economic crisis and believes that there has been more jobs for more people since she took power. Although, he doesn’t like her policies on what we in the US would call welfare. I don’t know how much you all know about welfare but it’s a highly controversial topic anywhere you go, but especially in a place like Argentina where Socialism on Peronism (a political party which certainly emphasis social programs for the poor) have strong support. The problem, according to Esteban is that Cristina provides money for the poor depending on whether they have job, go to school or have kids. So the people that are receiving the most are uneducated, unemployed and have several children. To Esteban this seems backwards. We should we give money to people who contribute nothing to society by taxing those that do? He asks.

“No parece democratico, Peronismo controla todos.”

This is Emilia, Cecilia and Josefina. They are all studying international studies at a university near by. Cecilia (middle) didn’t vote while Emilia and Josefina both voted for Binner. They both agreed with Guadalupe, Cristina is a great speaker but they don’t trust her to follow through on her words. They said they didn’t have confidence in the current system because voting is obligatory. Basically they believe that because Cristina is part of a political party that believes in providing a lot of financial aid to the poor, and because voting is obligatory by the law, all the poor people (there are many) vote for her because it means they receive more money. So instead of the candidate with the best policies or most experience, the person who makes the most promises to the poor will win the majority vote. They brought up another interesting point, that the welfare is not well controlled. Instead of giving poor people medical care or money for food, they just receive cold hard cash, with which they can do as they please. The common belief (I want to emphasis that this is what has been related to me, not fact or my personal opinion!) is that people take this money and use to to by conveniences like TVs instead of using it to better themselves or become self reliant.

So of the six people I interview 2 voted for Cristina, 3 voted for Binner and 1 didn’t vote. Six people is of course not representative of the population at large, but I hope it gives you a bit of an idea as to what some people in Rosario think about the election. Also, I forgot to ask Cecilia what happens when you don’t vote, but my host mother tells me that they restrict your passport so you can’t leave the country. It’s a bit ironic right? Don’t take part in our political process and we’ll hold you captive in the country!