A country of exploiters
Olivia O'Leary
Buenos Aires 'We must now throw the bathpipes at the British,' said the Air Force spokesman in Buenos Aires. He was somewhat distraught at British gains in the Falklands, otherwise he might have remembered that it is the kitchen sink one throws on those occasions. One felt a cer- tain sympathy for him, as one can only feel for a people who get it so hopelessly wrong.
There are times in this city when one seems to be drowning in words. The melodramatic television announcers hardly stop to draw breath; the whining accents of Buenos Aires commentators nag on and on over the radio; with a sense of desperation one settles down to read vast acres of newsprint which may yield one salient com- ment. It is always the same message, either the long legal and historical arguments as to the legitimacy of claims of sovereignty bas- ed on the explorations of 17th century adventurers; or it is the fulsome political denunciations of Britain's disproportionate reaction to the taking of the islands last month. The pre- and post-invasion periods are debated at length. 'But were we right to invade?' is a question which is somehow never answered, because it is never asked.
If you cannot get what is yours by negotiation, you grab it — that is the logic. But what if all countries adopted that at- titude to territorial dispute? I asked a Peronist politician. What, for instance, if the Republic of Ireland were to invade the six counties of the North? 'Well, you would if you could, but you're not strong enough, or maybe you don't really believe your own claims,' he said contemptuously. Machismo is all so simple.
Las Malvinas have become a false god for the Argentinians. In the middle of economic chaos and political mutiny, the taking of the islands may well have been a handy distraction for the Galtieri govern- ment, but the ploy worked because a fatalistic people wanted some unifying cause, some release from the internal savagery of the last seven years.
'There are only two things we don't fight about,' a taxi-driver declared to me gloomi- ly the other day. 'That's football and Las Malvinas. The last time I can remember be- ing happy was in 1978.'
The Argentinians were naive enough to think they would get away with it. Only now are they beginning to realise there was always a price to be paid. 'We didn't think the British would react like this,' complain- ed Nicanor Costa Mendes. 'We didn't think the United States would desert us,' moaned the Foreign Minister. 'We thought Europe would understand,' protested the battalions of European immigrants.
'Did we really think it was only a matter of overthrowing 80 marines and a funny man in a plumed hat?' asked an unusually brave columnist in last week's La Prensa. The popular paper Clarin put it more simp- ly after the shock of last week's successful British landing on the Falklands. 'Since last Friday Argentina knows that war is not a game of football, that there are no goals without death and destruction. Therefore, amidst the din of battle we must think about an honourable peace.'
In Europe both these press comments would sound innocuous enough, but they express reservations that amount almost to high treason in the atmosphere of fervent nationalism created here over the last seven weeks. They also reflect a courage and a thoughtfulness that Argentina's own political and community leaders lack. The politicians have seized on the occasion to shake off the restrictions imposed on them by the military over the past seven years and they are organising actively again. Indeed, the Peronists are somewhat miffed that the Galtieri government has stolen the na- tionalist and anti-colonial platform that they consider belongs exclusively to the heirs of Juan Peron. They have been forced as nationalists to support the nationalist cause and they are ready to scream louder than any military hawk at the first sign of weakness on the sovereignty issue. 'If Galtieri loses these islands now, we'll hang him and the junta in the Plaza de Mayo,' said a wealthy son of Peron, smugly con- templating a return to power as he sliced open a thick and bloody fillet steak. The Peronists are never choosy about their op- portunities.
The smaller Radical Party has tried to preach caution without getting into trouble and as a result they say nothing. After an hour and a half of trying to crack the code to his oblique and meandering rhetoric, I asked a Radical politician for the hun- dredth time if he agreed with the principle of an armed intervention. 'Of course I don't, but they didn't exactly ask my opi- nion,' he snapped. 'It was the wrong way and the wrong time but I can't say that yet. Some day maybe I will, but right now it is suicidal. The thing is done and the public in retrospect has accepted it. The Government needs our support during the war and dur- ing the drawing-up of a peace settlement which is going to hurt more than any of my people realise. In return we, the politicians, may get some move towards a more democratic civilian-led government — and that is a deal we have to make.'
If the British re-take the islands this week, Galtieri must fall, they agreed. But obviously politicians would prefer the
security of a negotiated deal on participa- tion in a new government rather than another military coup which might prove to be even more right-wing. Outright humilia- tion, they feel, would produce the salve consequences in Argentina as the Versailles treaty did in Germany. This thoughtless nationalism, of course, is not helped by what the Argentinians see as the insufferable arrogance of the British, 'They've got to learn that they can't treat major power like this,' British Ambassador Williams was overheard to remark as he prepared to leave his Buenos Aires embassy under the red and white Swiss flag. Just as the principle of opposing unacceptable use of force may have taken second place to Britain's need to defend her honour, the Argentinians for their part have damaged the prospect of world support for their quite respectable sovereignty claims in the euphoria of an armed intervention which was one in the eye for Britain. The British, they boasted, had no monopoly on teaching people lessons.
The Argentinians have all the pricklY sensitivity of a former European colonY which still apes the behaviour of the col- onialists. 'The British think we're just In- dians here,' they protest, trying to prove the sophistication of their own civilisation by pointing to the Paris-like parks of Buenos Aires and the shops full of Italian shoes; 'Don't you think we're very European? they beg the stray visitor. 'We're no banana republic,' they argue. They are an extraordinary mixture of bluster and insecurity. Why was it right for, Britain to take the islands in 1833 an wrong for Argentina to take them back now? they complain with a fine disregard for the irritating requirements of interne' tional law. In the midst of condemning at onialism they admire the determination and even the arrogance which built up the great European empires. In a boys' school in the Buenos Aires suburb of Belgrano last week: at least five senior boys told me that wilt they admired about Britain after footheu ' and pop music was the grandeur of her /01- perial past, the great ambition and oclerear- mination which had allowed her to iMP°s; her way of life on other people. They hat' to be called a Third World or a small coup' try and they dread pity. Though it snits them sometimes to represent themselves as David fighting off the British Goliath, they basically feel much more at home wi"' Goliath. 'What we want more passionately than anything else,' said the editor of a Catholic review last week, 'is a state of ordert; Anarchy is the chronic disease from which we suffer and of which we are afraid. °' must remember that our society is at ' same stage of development as England In the 17th century and France in the 1811; Why did the British choose Charles Because they wanted order. Why do we P° up with the military governments we grtill1; ble about all the time? Because we want state of order.'
From his decidedly conservative political viewpoint an election automatically brings the Peronists back and Peronism, for him, means anarchy. He did not explain that the military establishment have continually undermined the stability of successive Nronist governments, and that instability has been increased by the Peronists' own tleo-fascist streak. But the point really is that the conservatives' only path to power is with the military and by military coup. As one old lady explained sweetly to me the other day: 'I would so love elections, but the problem is that they (the Peronists) would get back in again!' It is the familiar logic. If you cannot get what you feel is Yours peacefully, you grab it. Argentina is a country of inhabitants, of residents, said my Catholic friend, Paraphrasing the Argentinian writer Borges. It is not really a nation of citizens who contribute to the national good, he said. It has yet, despite the ubiquitous blue and white flags and the fervently sung na- tional anthem, to find a sense of nation- hood. It is a country of exploiters, he says, who have not yet left behind the immigrant mentality. Their exploitative nature has led them to cream off the easy pickings in their own economy and leave their potentially rich country underdeveloped and vulnerable. They undermine their own cur- rency by playing the national game of cur- rency speculation. 'The Church and the Army are the only two stable institutions here. Because we belong, we have to stay here. We cannot move on like immigrants when the going gets rough.' Indeed one could argue that the Galtieri government exploited the Falklands crisis for reasons of political survival. The politicians are ex- ploiting the same crisis for the more justifiable reasons of making a deal which could see a return to civilian government. Argentinians themselves are exploiting it for the questionable short-term benefits of a unifying cause, a reason to celebrate, a wallow in self-congratulation.
For the sake of waving a flag over a set of forgotten islands they are risking their shaky economy, whatever political stability they had, their international relations, and the lives of those dark-eyed, slim-waisted young men of whom they are so proud. The only gain they can now make will be an im- provement in the pre-2 April negotiating position on the islands — a gain they have dearly bought. They are paying for an unacceptable use of force. They are paying because they are wrong.
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