As I write this, a quarter to six on Friday afternoon, the flow of traffic in the centre of Buenos Aires is being reduced to a state of chassis because a disreputable TV evangelist has been given permission to erect a large stage at the Obelisk and hold a concert cum prayer meeting. Hundreds of thousands are expected to attend.
It’s impossible to avoid drawing the conclusion that permission was granted for this event because the government of the city finds Palau’s authoritarian political convictions congenial and difficult to imagine, say, an Umbanda ceremony being allowed to turn the city arse over tit at six o’clock on Friday evening.
María Esperanza, with whom I have crossed swords before on this theme here and here, draws from this event the conclusion that if the rich and well connected are allowed to trample all over the rights of the general citizenry then the less rich and powerful and on down to the dirt poor and marginalised should be allowed to do the same. She couldn’t be more wrong. In an unrestricted race to appropriate public goods for private ends the likes of Palau would always come out far, far ahead of the cartoneros.
The conclusion I draw is twofold: firstly that Macri’s government is turning out to be as base and venal as I predicted it would be here and here, and secondly that access to public space by private individuals for the purpose of making money in the city of Buenos Aires must be subject to much stricter controls that it is now. If this isn’t done it’ll be the poorest who’ll pay the biggest price both, for the city government’s soft line with its pals and the pretensions of pseudo-progressive playpen anarchists.
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