The messages seem simple, but they are far from it. Sergio Berni, the security minister of the province of Buenos Aires – Argentina’s most populous and wealthy district – broke into a street protest this Monday afternoon to negotiate with those who were blocking traffic and, if possible, restoring order. He did it as he usually does: “beautifully,” as we say in these countries. He advanced without a guard and with his chest puffed out. But everything went wrong. They nearly lynched him, deepening the shadows that hang over the country’s present and immediate future.
First the hard data: Another bus driver was murdered in a suburb of Buenos Aires early in the morning; That is, the diverse urban belt that encircles the mighty city of Buenos Aires, a region that combines wealth and extreme poverty. They shot and killed Daniel Barrientos just days from his retirement and his angry companions blocked one of the metro area’s busiest streets to vent their pain and demand solutions. And by then was Minister Berni, who realized too late that the situation was extremely dangerous. A group of police officers had to rescue him from the violent, beaten and bloody circle. He ended up in the hospital.
However, the hard data leaves out the causes of a tinderbox that, thanks to all the gods, didn’t end in the worst possible way. They range from a hopeless economy, runaway inflation, rising poverty, entrenched insecurity, and rampant violence to a thinning political climate, a weak and declining national government, and upcoming presidential elections. A powder keg, in short, waiting for a spark.
Each of these factors could separately explain the aggression. But the problem in Argentina is that even this exhaustive list does not exhaust the causes. For example, let’s remember that those who attacked Minister Berni were not unemployed. They have jobs, decent wages – at least for grim Argentine jobs – and pension contributions. But every day they drive through the conurbano without knowing how their day will end. will it be quiet Or do they end up in the hospital? Or like Barrientos?
The aggression also revealed the tiredness of many Argentines with empty phrases and the lack of concrete answers from officials and political leaders who promise everything and deliver little or nothing. That’s why they reacted like the colleagues of the murdered driver. They didn’t even want to listen to an official who would repeat what they are already fed up with without later fulfillment.
But sticking with Berni would of course mean focusing on the episode instead of watching the sea in the background. Inflation tops 100% a year and almost 40% of Argentines are poor – a percentage rising to two in three boys, according to Unicef - and the outlook isn’t rosy either. Too many see a bleak future while feeling that political leaders live in a parallel dimension, enriched or obsessed with maintaining or expanding their stakes of power.
The lynching that never happened is just the last link in a disturbing chain. A month ago, angry neighbors broke into a house where drug dealers were selling drugs, fed up with the police and political inaction or corruption. It happened in Rosario, the third largest and richest city in Argentina. And seven months ago, the current vice president – and for two decades an unavoidable political reference in the country – Cristina Fernández de Kirchner miraculously survived an attack by a mental patient who believed that a bullet could solve the national problems.
In the minutes after the attack on Berni, the bus drivers chanted: “Let them all go, don’t leave a single one.” The same song hundreds of thousands of Argentines sang against the politicians of the time in late 2001, when Argentina registered five presidents in two weeks and flirted with the abyss. Two decades later, the country is again teetering between frustration and tiredness.
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