On December 10, the inauguration ceremony of the new Argentine president, Javier Millay, will take place. Coincidentally, I will be in Buenos Aires that day, not to watch and idolize Argentina's eccentric new leader in the streets, but for business reasons (the commonsense columnist? is a wonderful experience but I don't forget that I'm a musician).
Preparing for this trip over the past few weeks has made me even more interested in today's Argentina.
Exactly 40 years ago, in 1983, the military dictatorship fell and democracy was established.
A Parliamentary Democracy desired by the Argentine people and dominated by bipartisanship with a major center-right party and a center-left counterpart (descendant of Peron) alternating in power for the past 40 years. They could not have imagined, 2-3 months ago, that a politician like Miley could break their rule and be elected president of the Republic. He was an outsider that no one took seriously in the struggle for power.
And with an electric saw as a symbol – it would be suitable for a poster of a Hollywood movie with the title perhaps “The Terminator” – and with extreme, subversive, provocative slogans, Miley, a neoliberal economist, with dubious scientific papers, commentator-warrior of political shows on TV, with strong presence - since the time of the corona virus quarantine - on social media and surrounded by well-coordinated numerous groups of influencers, use of outrageous language, rock and roll appearance, unusual hairstyle (reminds a little of Johnson, a little of Trump) fascinated a large part of the youth and not only, to which he introduced himself as an anarcho-capitalist!
Another thing that apolitical youth and disappointed citizens did not want...
"Anarchy" moreover, the prospect of deconstruction and the destruction of every existing situation, always attracts and fascinates the young - and in a sense it does well, just after every deconstruction some new construction must be proposed - the disappointed and the permanently angry.
Thus Millay, with strong subversive and provocative language, declares, against the system, against the state, against institutions, against castes (political, economic, etc.), against the national currency, against the central bank, against the welfare state, against in public spending, in short against... everything that made up the political system of the country in the last forty years.
The changes in power of the traditional parties failed to give way to the economic problems, inflation in the last year had exceeded 140% and 40% of the population was below the official poverty line. In 1974 only 4% of the population was considered below the poverty line. And Javier Millay making the comparison shouts "No more decadence".
He proposes the abolition of the national currency and its replacement by the dollar, measures and shock solutions, because as he states there is no place for moderation, mildness, half measures.
He proposes the legalization of gun ownership, the legal commercialization of body organs.
He proposes the privatization of almost everything... an extreme neoliberalism that Argentines know very well, because they lived through it in the 90s with disastrous results for them.
The use of diplomatic language does not obscure him; he harshly stated his willingness to distance himself from Brazil (he called President Lula a "corrupt communist") and from what he called communist China, Argentina's two main trading partners. He declares himself a friend of Israel and Ukraine.
Millay is considered to be in the same ideological current of the extreme right as the VOX party in Spain, Meloni in Italy, M Bolsonaro in Brazil; to many he reminds Trump (at least in the careless hairstyle), eccentricity and theatrical swagger style. Of course, it remains to be seen what he will be able to do from all that he proposes, because his party elected only 38 MPs out of 257 in the parliament...
The majority of Latin American countries have had left-wing governments in recent years, the future will tell if the election of Miley will change the balance.
In Argentina, the pattern that works in Europe was repeated, where the new poor masses, the new "proletariat" do not vote left but far right.
Is he another populist, like Jose Antonio Cast in Chile or like Geert Wilders (another one with a Trump headdress, same hair – same mind?) in the Netherlands who won the recent parliamentary elections, head of the far-right party?
The social crises in recent years have brought the far-right to power in many countries of the world and at the same time highlight the complete inability of the left to attract the impoverished masses who traditionally belonged to it or hoped for its ideas.
The issue is not whether the far-right leaders who come to power are populists but that their left-wing opponents are in most cases equally populists.
Populism is not only characteristic of the right, but also of the left.
What is particularly remarkable in the case of the Netherlands is that the history and course of this country is synonymous with openness to the world and the free movement of people, ideas and goods.
It is the forerunner of world maritime trade, a Dutchman laid the foundations for international trade law and free maritime movement.
Geert Wilders wants to close his country's borders and organize a referendum on whether or not the Netherlands should stay in Europe. He is also like many other leaders of the European extreme right against the immigrant Islamic waves. Provided, of course, that he will be able to implement his program and form a government in alliance with other parties, because he does not have the necessary majority.
So what happened? Did the Dutch in turn become far-right or fascist like a few months ago the Swedes, like the Hungarians, like a part of the French where Le Pen is often the first party, like the Italians with Meloni?
I do not think so.
The Dutch, like most Europeans, are overwhelmingly democrats. But this cannot negate the fact that throughout Europe there is a concern and often fear in relation to immigration. And what bothers Europeans the most is not the number of immigrants but the combination of the quantity with the different culture and religion of the immigrants which creates assimilation problems, because the immigrants themselves are not in the mood to assimilate.
Umberto Eco said that a possible change in the morals of the European continent creates justified nightmares for the average European. They fear for the European way and model of life based on the ideal threefold democracy-freedom-security and which an uncontrolled Islamic immigration could shake. And this widespread feeling in European countries is not unfounded.
The average European fears an anti-colonialism because there is an essential difference between the settler and the immigrant. The former carries with his baggage the model of his society with the aim of reproducing it, while the classic immigrant is content to seek a better life in a society to which he must adapt.
A few years ago these concerns and questions were considered to be expressed mainly by the far right, today they are concerns and questions of almost all Europeans who express them without prejudices and brackets.
Failure to accept reality leads to dead ends.
European societies remain deeply democratic with demands from the political power of their states, they want democracy, social state, social consensus, security. And when they feel that these important achievements of theirs may, if not be lost, even shrink, then they react.
Not against the immigrant but the way immigration is done.
They feel that the traditional humanitarian slogan of European civilization "we can all live together" needs readjustment without prejudice, as the ruling Social Democratic Party of Denmark rightly put it. "If we want to maintain our high standard of living, our welfare state, our high wages, our benefits, the rate of flow of immigrants must be drastically reduced."
Courageous political decisions are needed, with consent and trust in the democratic European institutions so that someone else does not appear with an electric saw or various other tools in our neighborhood, in our space, in our environment.
There is always the optimistic perspective; those who flaunt and use them frivolously and too easily often injure themselves...
*Cover photo: La Nación, Argentina
