By way of LLP I came across an open letter from Graciela Casabé, the former Director of the Buenos Aires International Festival in which she wails about municipal employees associated with the Festival having been asked, by the newly-installed government of Maurcio Macri, to leave their offices and await reassignment to other tasks The letter reflects the outrage produced in a member of the city’s bureaucratic cultural elite who has had control of what she regards as the private plaything of her collaborators and herself – the Festival – taken away from her. This accounts for the loose talk about “unprecedented violence” and the general shrill tone. So far, so unremarkable. I want to comment on something else.
The letter is addressed,
To the Theatre Community, International Artists and Invitees, those involved in the Buenos Aires International Festival during the last 10 years, the Institutions, Cultural Attaches, Embassies, the press and the public in general.
What do the Embassies, Cultural Attaches and foreign artists have to do with the cultural politics of Buenos Aires? What kind of role does Casabé think they ought to have in deciding how the city’s democratically elected government spends its cultural budget?
I have no idea of her personal political views but I would be very surprised if they differred much from the bien pensant consensus that holds that all or most of the ills of Latin America are caused by the intereference of rich northern countries in its affairs. So what does she expect? The sending of an Anglo-French Expeditionary Force to overthrow Macri’s government and reinstate herself and her pals? As I made clear at the time of the election, I have no time whatever for Macri but he was freely and fairly elected and he’s entitled, subject to the general restictions of employment law, to assign municipal employees wherever he likes. If the people of the city don’t approve of his actions they’ll have the chance of expressing their views at the next elections for the legislature in a couple of years time and the chance to get rid of Macri himself for good two years after that. Meanwhle, it ill behoves those in disagreement with his cultural policies to go bawling for sympathy to foreign governments.
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