A few years ago federal forces, those devoted to guarding the frontier and the maritime territory, began demonstrating, asking for a pay rise. At that time, the government and many other groups related to the left saw this protest as a coup d'état. In a country that has gone through many dictatorships in its recent history, this sounded like a real threat. But the truth is that they just wanted a higher salary and their protests had nothing to do with overthrowing the government. This means that it is not the first time that security forces protest, but it is the first time they take it that far.
Drug dealing has been since the 90’s a growing activity. Argentina has been for a long time a place where drug has been brought and then redistributed to other parts of the world. Recently this has changed and drugs are produced and sold inside the country. With drug dealing on the rise the country is every day a bit less safe and violence related to the drugs business is almost every day on the news.
Marginality is a phenomenon that is worse than poverty. Poverty can be solved with money: marginality cannot. Marginalized people are not even at the lower end of our society, they are out of it, and with little chances to be able to abandon their current situation without help. Marginality is spread all over the country and has been growing this past decade.
These violent episodes might have impressed us, but we were not actually alarmed by the possibility of being once again in the 2001 crisis: we know it is not coming back again
Now let’s put things up together. Drug dealing uses marginality to make their business work. They hide their operations in marginalized areas and they use marginalized population as “soldiers”. Drug dealing can hardly progress if police forces are not involved in the business. Recently in two provinces connections between the maximum authority of the local police and the drug dealing business have been brought up by the press.
As strikes began, police stopped patrolling and many people took advantage of this situation to loot shops. These were not spontaneous events; they were certainly organized by somebody. There are many versions of where looters came from. One of them is that it was the same police, using their connections with organized crime, which encouraged these activities to force the local governments to give them the raise. Another version is that local political leaders, which own small territories and are known as “punteros”, might be disappointed with the government they were supporting until now and are carrying out these actions to obtain more benefits for themselves. However, regardless of the “theory” behind the lootings, these sad events could only take place because there is marginalised population that lives in scarcity. Since they are out of society, they have nothing to lose and therefore are ready to jump into the streets and loot whatever they can. And they have no moral barriers to do it, because as they do not feel part of this society, they are just attacking something that it is strange to them.
These violent episodes might have impressed us, but we were not actually alarmed by the possibility of being once again in the 2001 crisis: we know it is not coming back again. For the last 15 years we have been watching how the State fades out, how it becomes an absent State. And now, for the first time we could understand what would happen if this absent State disappears completely. As police forces walked out many decided to arm themselves and wait for the looters to come. The consequences were obvious: newspapers speak of 12 deaths. Shopkeepers did not want to see all their efforts of a lifetime wasted in one night of loots. They were desperate, as any of us would be in such situation. They protected themselves, because there was no police to do it, there was no State to do it.
A few days ago Boca Junior’s fans gathered themselves at one of the most iconic places of Buenos Aires: the “obelisco”. They were celebrating Boca Junior’s day. But violence is the fingerprint of argentine football and soon the celebration became the scene of violence and destruction. Cars and public transport were not allowed to circulate, shops were vandalised, national monuments were attacked and even the national flag was replaced with the football club’s flag. The government claimed it was not possible to prevent any of this from happening, which once again shows that the State is not even able to protect its own citizens from a few football fans.
The State in Argentina is losing its power; it is fading away and when that happens citizens will find out the way to replace that State. When police forces went on strike, citizens decided to protect themselves. We are facing anomie, an anomie that is true in its very same essence: no law. And when there is no law, violence and survival becomes the only thing to worry about. In the meantime, we are still waiting for the next crisis that is about to hit Argentina.
