Character and identity
Bruno, one of the characters in Ernesto Sábato's great novel Sobre héroes y tumbas, says: "We Argentines are pessimists because we have accumulated large reserves of hopes and illusions; and to be pessimists, one must first have hoped for something. We are not, therefore, a cynical people, even though there are many impudent and upstart ones: rather, we are a multitude of tormented individuals, which is quite the opposite, since the cynic can live with anything and nothing interests him. To the Argentinian, everything is important, everything is a cause for concern, for grief, for protest, for resentment. This elusive nostalgia, powerfully evoked by the tango, perhaps finds its raison d'être in a perpetual exile: first that of the Spaniards who left their homeland for an unknown continent; then that of the Indians pursued, massacred, exterminated, mourning their lost freedom; then that of the gauchos, gradually driven out of their land by modernity; that of the immigrants who are homesick. Perhaps because of all this, Argentina has become the country with the highest number of psychologists per capita, 154 per 100,000 inhabitants, or 649 people per professional; well above the world average! And the number is increasing every year... The predominant model is psychoanalysis. Known for their good humor and nonchalance, Argentines are passionate and do not fail to give their opinion on everything. "Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish, who think they are English and who dream of being French," goes the saying. Those who are not very tactile should be warned: you may get a "mi amor" from your first exchange or an abrazo when you signal your departure. In Patagonia, proud of their history and the traditions they still preserve, the descendants of the pioneers who stayed in the Deep South have inherited a unique identity. For a long time, they have lived from the exchange of products within a tightly knit community, far from geopolitical interests, indifferent, even, to the concept of borders. Having undertaken particular life choices in a hostile territory, they have the ability to relativize, to move forward and to rely on the elements that surround them. They live in the moment without being too attached to schedules and organization, kings of improvisation and quilombo (chaos, mess), a belief that invites not to organize, they let things happen and things come in order to experience the best that life has to offer. Isolation is certain, but solitude is less so: any occasion is good to gather and feast, around a mate or an asado.
Place of the woman
On the legislative front, since obtaining the right to vote in 1947, women have benefited from several affirmative action laws, although parity is not yet on the agenda. Argentina became the first country in the world to adopt a minimum quota for women's participation in the legislative branch, although the numbers sometimes struggle to be met in practice. President Christina Kirchner, who is very involved in the cause of women, strengthened the law against white slavery and prostitution in Argentina in 2008 and imposed a law against violence against women in 2010. This law allows, among other things, to register crimes to establish a picture of the situation of violence against women in the country and to provide free assistance to victims. According to the association La casa del encuentro, 277 feminicides were recorded in 2014, some of them aggravated by acts of extreme violence, and 235 in 2015. Following several particularly atrocious feminicides, a spontaneous movement was born in the streets of the capital in the spring of 2015 that protested against violence against women and quickly spread across the continent: "Ni Una Menos" ("Not one more dead"). As for abortion, a first step was taken in March 2012; it was legalized, but only in cases of rape. It must be said that on the Latin American continent the subject of the right to abortion remains very heated because of the still very strong Catholic beliefs. But following the call of the feminist movement "Ni Una Menos" in the spring of 2018, thousands of Argentinian women have punctuated the days of the capital with pro-abortion mobilizations, taking to the streets to claim their rights, green scarf around their neck (symbol of their fight). Thus, since 2018 a debate has been taking place on a possible modification of the abortion law that would allow women to abort freely up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. But the bill, narrowly passed on June 14, 2018 by the deputies, was then rejected by the senators on August 8, 2018 after sixteen long hours of debate: Argentina is missing the historic opportunity to pass legislation that was overwhelmingly demanded by the population. But the new Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, who had openly advocated legalizing abortion during his candidacy, supported a new bill presented to the Chamber of Deputies that was passed on December 11, 2020. The Senate, renewed by one-third since 2018, validates the project on December 30, 2020, putting an end to as many as 400,000 clandestine abortions per year.
Sexual diversity
Argentina has been fighting a long battle for the recognition and rights of homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals. Since 2012, a law finally sanctions discrimination based on sexual orientation, but equality in front of gender and sexual orientation is far from being achieved. Since 2006, the city of Buenos Aires has been a revelation to the gay public, so much so that it is increasingly being dubbed "Buenos Gayres." Statistics from the prefecture show that 20% of the tourists who enter Argentina every year are gay, which means about 500,000 visitors every year. The capital's vibrant nightlife is undoubtedly a factor, as is the attitude of the Porteños, who are among the most open in the South American continent on this subject. The port of Buenos Aires is now on the gay cruise route, the city has its annual Gay Pride and has hosted the Gay Football World Cup. In 2010, in an atmosphere of controversy and waltz-hesitations between the justice and the political class of Argentina, the first gay and lesbian marriages began to be celebrated; Argentina is the first Latin American country to legalize the union between people of the same sex. Of course, there is no need to recall that, as everywhere, the capital and the big cities are more progressive in this matter and the countryside remains more conservative. In May 2012, the Senate approved a gender identity bill that allowed transvestites and transsexuals to declare the gender of their choice to the government.
Justice and Human Rights
There is no need to recall that human rights and Argentina were, not so long ago, two totally antithetical notions. The military dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983 was responsible for at least 30,000 desaparecidos, " disappeared", 15,000 shot, 9,000 political prisoners, and 1,500,000 exiles, not to mention the torture inflicted in clandestine detention centers. The return to democracy was supposed to bring these executioners to justice, and a major trial of the junta was held in 1985. But numerous dysfunctions of the judicial institutions, and especially the laws known as the "Final Point" (1986) and "Due Obedience" (1987), which granted amnesty to the military leaders and ordered a halt to the trials in progress, reinforced this feeling of impunity and contempt for human rights. The Kirchner presidencies are to be credited with the desire to put an end to this feeling of impunity: thus, from 2003 onwards, new trials were opened. Between 2005 and 2009, some 60 convictions were handed down for crimes against humanity and the concept of "crimes of enforced disappearance" ( desaparecidos) was legally recognized.
At the end of February 2010, the trial of those responsible for the El Vesubio detention and torture center began, but the most publicized trial of the year was that of those responsible for the largest clandestine detention and torture center, ESMA. Equally high-profile was the trial of the 85-year-old dictator Videla himself, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1985 and then amnestied in 1990 by former president Menem. The dictator ended his days behind bars, until his death in February 2013. Other trials related to the dictatorship period are still opening today. In November 2017, for example, the Buenos Aires court sentenced 29 people involved in the dictatorship to life in prison.
Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo
The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have been marching every week since 1977 around the pyramid of the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the Presidency. Through this symbolic and non-violent action undertaken in the midst of the military dictatorship, they originally hoped to find their missing children and the babies stolen during the "Dirty War" waged by the military against "subversive" youth. Then, after the return of democracy in 1983, these marches wanted to ensure that criminals were not protected by amnesty and impunity, which was repeatedly attempted by successive governments, including those of Alfonsín and Carlos Menem with the "leyes de Punto Final (1986) y de Obediencia Debida (1987)", and the "indultos de Menem" decrees (1989-1990), also known as "leyes de impunidad". Under the government of Nestor Kirchner, who increased efforts to annul these "laws of impunity", the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo decided to end their annual Resistance March, considering that the government in power had finally heard their demands for justice and for the memory of the disappeared to be honored. Today, they still march every Thursday to honor the memory of those 30,000 desaparecidos. Several groups take part in these marches, including the "Abuelas", who seek to find the babies stolen during the dictatorship, the "Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo", which has become politicized in order to bring to life the revolutionary aspirations of the disappeared, while the "Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Línea Fundadora" prefers to focus on issues related to the desaparecidos, or finally the association H.I.J.O.S., the sons of victims of the dictatorship who want justice to be done to condemn all the executioners.
