In few places have whole societies seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the people of Argentina. In the early 20th century, many European countries lagged far behind Argentina in income, education and standard of living.
Human beings do not always take reversals of fortune gracefully. Still less can those who were once on top quietly accept seeing others leaving them far behind economically, intellectually, and socially.
Argentinians have for decades been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the rest of Latin America, and even the world, while everything they see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise. Worse yet, what the whole world sees with their own eyes tells them that Argentina has made few contributions to human advancement in our times.
Even the Argentine food industry was largely developed by foreigners. After food, Argentina’s most prominent export has been its most capable and competitive people.
Those who look at the world in rationalistic terms may say that Argentina can use some of its vast agro industrial wealth to expand its own educated classes and move back to the forefront of regional achievement. They did it once, why not do it again?
All sorts of things can be done in the long run, but you have to live through the short run to get there. Moreover, even the short run, as history is measured, can be pretty long in terms of the human lifespan.
Even if Argentinians set such goals and committed the material resources and individual efforts required, they could not expect to pull abreast of the more developed countries for generations, even if the rest of the world stood still. More realistically, it would take generations, as it took rich countries generations to be where they are now.
What will happen in the meantime? Are millions of proud human beings supposed to quietly accept inferiority for themselves and their children, and perhaps their children's children?
Or are they more likely to listen to demagogues, whether political o intellectual, who tell them that their lowly place in the world is due to the evils of others -- the British, the Americans, the IMF?
If Argentinians disregarded such demagogues, they would be the exceptions, rather than the rule, among people who lag painfully far behind others. Even in the West, there have been powerful political movements based on the notion that the rich have gotten rich by keeping others poor -- and that things need to be set right "by all means necessary."
These means seldom include concentration on self-improvement, with 19th-century Japan being one of the rare exceptions. Lashing out at others is far more immediately satisfying.
Against this background, we may want to consider the question “Why do they hate the rest of the world?” Maybe it is because the alternative to hating us is to hate themselves.
Che, comentenmelón y sandía también.
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