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I've always wanted to go there!


Being from a country with pretty pictures online, I am frequently asked: “Oh wow, you’re from Argentina? I have always wanted to go there!” by people I meet. I usually respond something along the lines of: “Yeah you should go some time.” But I have never actually lived in Argentina; the longest I have stayed there is for two months. When my parents are asked this very question, their responses are usually: “Yeah we’re from Argentina. You would probably want to stay away, and if you do end up going, don’t stay for too long.” Obviously they came to America, so one would expect them to at least prefer America over Argentina as a place to live, but I’ve decided to do a bit of research into why they see Argentina as such bad place.

From what I have heard my parents complain about, it seems as though their frustration stems from the immense amount of corruption in Argentina and how easily it is all covered up and forgotten. Take Cristina Fernández de Kirchner for example. She was Argentina’s president from 2007 and 2015 after her husband had been president for four years (sounds fishy already). Just a few months ago, she was indicted again on corruption charges. She allegedly ran an illegal association while in office that took money that was supposed to be allotted to public works. A few months before, she was charged for colluding with the Argentinian bank to raise the value of the peso against other currencies. This supposedly made the economy look stronger and she hoped it would help her be re-elected. It ended up costing Argentina $3.5 billion and, worst of all, she didn’t even win. Argentinians courts have also recently reopened a case that accuses the former president of having made a deal with Iran following a bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that would have excused Iranian officials linked with the attack. The case had been open before, but the lead prosecutor was found dead in his apartment just hours before he was set to begin the legal case. At the time, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (the person the case was accusing) was the president and It was reported that Alberto Nisman (the head prosecutor) committed suicide. There is much speculation over whether Nisman committed suicide, given that the president had a motive to have Nisman killed and cover it up and that substantial evidence has been presented that proves that Nisman’s death was a homicide. Kirchner managed to keep the police from investigating and eventually it was out of the limelight.

These are only a few examples of the charges on one president. Corruption in Argentina seeps through almost every institution; One especially relevant one right now is soccer. In the 1978 world cup, Argentina bribed Peru into letting them win 6-0—exactly what they needed to progress to the next round. Argentina actually went on to win that world cup, and in no time the headlines turned from, “El regime corrupto de Jorge Videla,” to “Ganamos la cope del mundo!” The streets promptly filled with ecstatic civilians who were previously worried about their country. It seems as though this was why they bribed Peru in the first place: to distract the people from the state of the country. More recently, the Argentinian national soccer team almost didn’t qualify for the 2018 world cup. Last tuesday, they played a deciding game and won, and thus they qualified. The victory was a sigh of relief for many fans, especially for corrupt high-officials in the country. Qualifying for the world cup means that there will be a lot of distraction in the summer of 2018. Seeing that Argentina won their deciding match last Tuesday, I wouldn’t be too surprised if there was some foul play involved as there was in 1978.

Comments

  1. CCOctober 14, 2017 at 5:01 PM

    I think this is a good example of the "information plus" type of essay we're supposed to write for our next assignment. If you wanted to, I think this topic could be expanded into a full-length paper about your identity, the state of the country you're supposed to belong to, and the unique experiences you're forced to have, simply because you're from Argentina. I had no knowledge of any of the issues you talked about here, so this turned out to be very informative for me.

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  2. Martin DOctober 14, 2017 at 6:01 PM

    I think you could have written a really easy blog post about how you love your country and blah blah blah, but what you did is a lot more fun and interesting. I've heard some stuff about the corruption in Argentina, but learning more about it was interesting. Both Panama and Argentina have had some really corrupt politicians in the past, but it's often overlooked by other countries, because they think of Argentina and other south american counties as paradise. I wonder what happened in 1978?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousOctober 14, 2017 at 7:18 PM

    I agree with Camden: perhaps you stumbled on a topic for essay 3! Well written and informative. I had heard about corrupt politicians in South America, but never really looked into it. I found it especially interesting that a soccer game could distract the entire country from corruption. Lets hope they play fair in 2018...?

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  4. AlexOctober 14, 2017 at 8:05 PM

    Your blog post was very informative and has made me much more aware of the realities of Argentina. I have always been the kind of person who would say “Oh wow, you’re from Argentina? I have always wanted to go there!” but now I might have to think it over more, and do more research and be more aware about the political climate in Argentina.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownOctober 14, 2017 at 10:04 PM

    I learned a lot from this blog post, and I think that you could totally write a really good information plus essay on this. I would love to learn more about the football side of corruption, such as stories in the Argentinian league as well as their international team. I also like the perspective that you bring to this post, showing the darker side of the country that you owe your allegiance to, not just praising mindless nationalism.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownOctober 23, 2017 at 1:26 PM

    I actually interviewed your father subbie year as mandatory practice for the Oral History project. We talked a lot about the corruption in Argentina and he even mentioned the soccer game. I like how you used the title to draw people's attention (almost like clickbait). I'd like to see how you develop this into a full essay.

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