Orwell in ArgentinaDark clouds are gathering in Buenos Aires.
MARCOS FALCONE
9.9.2022
On September 1, a crowd gathered outside the Buenos Aires home of Argentina's vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (also known as CFK). They were there to signal support after a prosecutor asked for 12 years in prison for Kirchner following a corruption scandal that took place while she was president between 2007 and 2015. As CFK left her car and approached the building where she lives, a Brazilian man named Fernando André Sabag Montiel pointed a gun to her head. It misfired: Nobody was injured in the incident and crisis was averted. What came next, though, was deeply troubling.
Just as Argentines were recovering from the shocking news of the assassination attempt, the government decided to use it to go on the offensive against its political opponents. At midnight—despite the lack of any indication that the attack was politically motivated—President Alberto Fernández declared a national holiday for "reflection," contended that "hate" and "political violence" must be fought, and called for the masses to mobilize "in defense of democracy." In a message he forced all TV and radio stations in the country to broadcast, he accused the opposition, the media, and even the judiciary of being hateful. The implication was clear: Those who opposed him were at least partially responsible for the attempted assassination.
The day after the incident, Twitter users began reporting that public employees were being forced to sign declarations supporting the vice president and opposing "political violence." Supporters of the Fernández administration began harassing online influencers who do not generally comment on politics, attempting to bully them into joining the government narrative. Finally, and even more worryingly, officials began calling for the passage of a "law against hate" that would criminalize, among other things, "offensive" speech on social media.
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The sudden preoccupation with political violence comes at a convenient moment for the current administration. Recall that Kirchner stands accused of corruption; Argentina's economy is a mess; and opinion polls show that both the president and the vice president are deeply unpopular. To blame the opposition, sans evidence, for the assassination attempt against CFK reeks of a desperate attempt to change the subject. But it is also worrisome. Could the government be setting itself up for impunity? Sen. José Mayans, an ally of Fernández and Kirchner, is now demanding that corruption trials be suspended "in exchange for social peace"—an indirect threat to the judiciary.
The government's reaction to the assassination attempt is about more than distracting attention from corruption, however. The incident has provoked a resurgence for the relato—literally, a story or narrative, and the word commonly used to describe the Orwellian framing with which kirchneristas continuously seek to build an alternate reality where everything goes right or, if something does go wrong, their enemies are at fault. In 2015, that fairytale tried to convince Argentines that poverty was higher in Germany than at home. (In reality, even without taking into consideration purchasing power differences, during that time poverty was never below 27 percent in Argentina and above 15 percent in Germany). Today, the same fairytale blames businesses for the 100 percent annual inflation rate that Argentina is fast approaching. State truths, such as the one that says that opposition-driven "hateful" discourse is causing political violence, are not to be questioned: This seems to be the motto of the current regime.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/09/09/orwell-in-argentina/
