Love (1): Political Culture

On Wednesday of last week, every business in the province of Cordoba closed for the day so that a census could be conducted. All citizens were supposed to remain in their homes and wait for someone to come to their door.

The governor of Cordoba, Juan Schiaretti, organized this provincial census because his administration believed that INDEC, the national organization that conducts censuses every decade and estimates the rate of growth for the intervening years, was underestimating the actual population of Cordoba. This would mean that this comparatively wealthy province, a net-donor to the national government’s coffers, was getting short shrift on federal monies disbursed from Buenos Aires.

This was no theoretical exercise. Schiaretti, upon finding that he couldn’t balance his province’s budget, cut some (or all) of the pensions that had been held in the province’s pension fund. Understandably, this action was met with protests in July and August, parts of which became violent. It’s unclear who was behind the violence, but it is clear that the governor was, in part, responsible for his situation. He had been a vocal opponent of President Cristina Kirchner’s proposed taxes on agricultural producers, the controversial taxes that were voted down in a dramatic late-night Senate session in July. Had the tax hike passed, the additional revenue available to Cordoba might have obviated the need to cut these pensions.

I’m not totally certain of all the details here, but the preliminary census results came out two days ago. There are officially 3,216,993 people in Cordoba Province, a number that is 123,000 lower than what INDEC had estimated. So in addition to the complaints people had about the cost of the census, the questions that were asked, the way in which it was conducted, and the fact that not all workers were paid for the forced holiday, the basic goal of the census was undermined by its unanticipated results.

So although I'm heading back to a country in the midst of a heated presidential campaign, I will miss the lively public political culture here.

Love and Hate (Intro): The Trick Question

A few months ago, back when we were living in Buenos Aires, an Argentine asked me:

“So, what don’t you like about Argentina?”

This, I now know, is a trick question. Argentines are famously proud of their country, and Portenos even more so. The correct response, I have since learned, is something along the lines of “I love Argentina; the best things about it are the food and the people.” Had I been speaking in Spanish, I likely would’ve stuck to these standard talking points. But at that particular moment, against my better judgment and ignoring the plaintive look on my girlfriend’s face, I let fly a list of complaints (in English), a litany that had been brewing for weeks.

I thankfully can’t remember what I said then. I remember backpedaling intensely afterward, trying to undo the damage that my ignorant, arrogant North American invective, had done.

Since I’m about to leave Argentina for an extended stateside-stay, I’d like to throw caution to the wind and tell you a few things I will and won’t miss about living here.