Up to now…

Interesting quote from the boss of the Airport Police, Marcelo Sain, not normally thought of as a paladin of the right, on p.20, here.

Up to now Macri’s perspective on the management of security has been much more progressive than that of Ibarra, up to now. He has at least accepted responsibility for it, something which the progressive porteño politicians haven’t done. But I see that he is making no progress with the something that’s very important and that’s a management structure to absorb the police’s leadership of itself. The risk is that the historic tendency of the right will replicate itself; that when they are in power the police run themselves.

The Smoke

Turismo

Mozos que, al escucharte hablar en castellano con acento, inmediatamente deciden comunicarse sólo en “inglés”, cueste lo que cueste.

Bafici Does Not Exist

It’s half past nine on the morning of the 1st of April. Tickets for the Bafici (Buenos Aires independent film festival) are going on sale this morning and as I write these words the festival’s website still has no details of the programme or of what film is to be shown in what cinema. This latter detail is of some importance as there is no central ticket office. I can’t discount the possibility that they might have pasted up a paper version of the programme in one or more of the venues but to be sure I’d have to go there in person and have a look. Doing this would present me with considerable difficulties on a weekday morning as I have a living to make and don’t have servants I could send on my behalf.

The word “festival” implies a certain minimal degree of organisation and a desire to communicate relevant information to the general public in time for them to be able to make use of it that is entirely absent in the case of the Bafici. If you are a student, a critic, privately wealthy or some other kind of insider the festival must be the greatest thing ever. If you are a normal person who likes films but don’t have inside knowledge or connections then you are in serious difficulties as you are going to have to spend an inordinate amount of time obtaining information that should be easily available and then waste even more traipsing around the city buying the tickets from the individual venues. Yes I know, tickets for some venues can be bought on the phone with a credit card but that doesn’t weaken my overall point as the only reason that is possible is that some of the venues are multiplexes that provide this service anyway. It’s nothing to do with the festival.

And the great mystery of this is that it’s the same year in year out. It was exactly the same under the governments of Ibarra and Telerman as it is now under Macri, the suppposed barbarian. A major cultural event is organized with a notable contempt for the necessities of the general public and, because the general public takes what’s dished out to it with bovine resignation, when it’s over everyone congratulates themselves and says how wonderful it all was and what a very cultural city Buenos Aires is.

Public Spaces III

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.