The Argentina Independent plans on launching a free, independent, monthly publication in June. In order to remain 100% independent, we are hoping to raise the funds to cover the initial costs of design, printing and distribution via crowdfunding platform Ideame.

And to remind you of all the good things we have done over the course of the past six years as a publication, as well as giving you a reason to support us in our bid to go into print and help us keep doing such things, we will be bringing you a taste of some of the good times each week! This week – a selection of our best content.

If you would like to support us in our fundraising campaign, please visit our Ideame page where you can either make a donation (every cent counts), or help us by spreading the word!

Endangered: Argentina’s Disappearing Languages

Every two weeks, one of the world’s languages dies out, and Argentina is not immune to this mass linguistic extinction. Kate Granville-Jones’ investigated this phenomenon and discovered of the 35 languages spoken in Argentina in pre-Columbian times, now just 15 remain, and one has only two living speakers.

Family members fight to be heard at a protest against family member's deaths in February 2010 . (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

Gatillo Facil and Deaths in Police Custory

“2009 was not just another year. It started with a new Miguel Bru that was Luciano Arruga, and finished with a new Walter Bulacios: Ruben Carballo. Police repression and violence grew to the point of taking the life of someone every 24 hours.” Any student of Argentine history is familiar with the dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s, and the thousands of students, unionists and activists that were “disappeared” by the military regime. A subject which is less-publicised, however, is that state violence and repression did not end with the return of democracy in 1983. As Daniel Edwards discoverd in his 2010 report, federal and provincial police forces continue to routinely use extreme violence and torture against suspects and detainees in their facilities, which often results in the death of the victim.

Guaraní Suicide

After a 2008 report indicated that the Guaraní indigenous group had the highest rate of suicide as a people in the world, Kristie Robinson headed up to community in Misiones, just 15km from the world-famous Iguazú Falls, to meet with Guaraní leaders to talk about the alarming rates of suicide and what is being done to tackle the issue.

Paco in the hands of an addict (Photo: Kate Stanworth)

Paco: Drug Epidemic Sweeping the Streets of Buenos Aires

Anthony Bale’s 2008 article on paco, a by-product of cocaine that is wreaking havoc on the lives of many shantytown inhabitants, brought the stark reality of life in Buenos Aires’ underclass home to many of our readers.

Secret Squats and Silent Evictions: A Response to BA’s Housing Deficit

In 2009 Harriet Hernando’s looked into Buenos Aires’ social housing crisis and the city government’s handling of the situation, highlighting mass migration to the cities and inadequate government policies, as well as violent police crackdown on illegal squatters as the main culprits in the crisis.

A study released today by the NGO One Roof For My Country (UTPMP) found that more than half a million families are living in shantytowns in Buenos Aires. Over the past five years, 90 new shantytowns have formed in the outskirts of the city.

UTPMP defines a shantytown as “a highly crowded area with almost no roads but rather corridors that develop upwards,” which can “make growth difficult.”

More than 120 weapons, marijuana, cocaine and a sum of money in cash were detained by officials during a mass raid operation carried out in different shanty towns west and north of Buenos Aires province, police officials stated.

This morning at 9.30 the Buenos Aires Province Governor Daniel Scioli and Security Minister Ricardo Casal will participate in a press conference along Paraíso and Pedriel streets, in front of the Carlos Gardel shantytown in Morón to discuss the situation.

There were carried out 64 separate operations, in which 600 police officers were involved from Police Headquarters in Pilar, San Martín, Morón, Moreno, Merlo, La Matanza y San Isidro, as was explained by researchers.

During the raids, 83 revolvers, 36 pistols and two home-made weapons of different calibers were detained by police officials.  

In addition to this, a kilo and a half of marijuana was found, 380 grams of cocaine, marijuana plants and around 4000 pesos in cash, which was presumed by police to have been a sum of profit from drug laundering.

Additionally investigators found 108 cars and 82 motorbikes, which were presumed to have been stolen.

As part of The Indy’s on-going villas series, we revisit Laura Mojonnier article on ‘curas villeros’ – priests who have been working out of the capital’s shantytowns for 40 years.

During my first trip to the villas of Buenos Aires, I felt as if I were in another city altogether, if not another country. These overcrowded, ramshackle settlements on the outskirts of the city are not the expat’s Buenos Aires, a city defined by French-influenced architecture, restaurants with two-hour waits, and overpriced month-to-month apartments.

This is the part of Buenos Aires in which Argentina’s poverty is tangible – from the rocky, unpaved mud roads, to flimsy buildings constructed from cinderblocks and scraps, to the depth of the stares that one receives as a tall, blonde white woman walking through the streets with the local Parish priest.

Padre Carrozza walks through villa 31 (photo/Julián Bongiovanni)

While it can be easy to forget about – or never even know about – the villas while living in the centre of Buenos Aires, there is a group of dedicated Catholic priests who have made serving these marginalised neighbourhoods their life’s work. Known as the curas villeros, these clerics have lived and worked in the villas for the past 40 years, becoming de facto community organisers, social workers, and authority figures in the barrios that so many have left behind.

The Situation Today

Today, there are about 20 priests living in the villas, located in the south and southwest of the city. In addition to standard priestly duties like conducting mass, hearing confession, and overseeing funerals, these priests engage in a host of community-building activities, from organising day care services to providing help for paco addicts to offering computer classes.

According to Father Martín de Chiara, who lives and works in Concepción Inmaculada in Barrio Ramon Carrillo, the goal of the priests is to help the villa residents find agency and a sense of meaning in their own lives, despite the obstacles they face.

“We want to support them to study, to have dreams and to realise them, to develop as people, to find meaning in life, to find their path and follow it and be happy,” he said. “We work a lot in prevention of drugs and delinquency, we help adolescents and young people find meaning in their lives so that they don’t turn to drugs or delinquency to escape…Our work is not just religious, it’s also human and social promotion.”

The parishes in the villas become more than a place to worship the Christian god – they are a place to get a home-cooked meal, to learn a trade, or to commiserate with others whose families have been touched by drug addiction.

The Church has also become a place of celebration. De Chiara’s parish, for instance, held a massive party for el Día del Niño in August, with more than 900 neighbourhood children in attendance.

The Dia del Niño party at Father Martín de Chiara's (pictured) parish (photo/Jessie Akin)

In Bajo Flores, the church grounds of Santa Maria Madre del Pueblo Parish function like a fully-fledged community centre. Services include a daycare centre for 72 children; classes that teach computer skills, carpentry, painting, electricity, welding, and sewing; soccer and hockey clubs; a youth band; and a support group for relatives of paco addicts.

With over 40,000 residents in Bajo Flores, there is a lot of need. There are two other chapels in the villa in addition to Santa Maria, and the curas villeros are currently looking to buy another building to expand their activities. They want to increase class offerings and start a live-in care and rehabilitation facility for recovering addicts. (Currently, those looking to end their dependency can come to the Church for breakfast and lunch, a place to shower, a fresh pair of clothes, and to speak to someone to help them enter a local treatment facility).

“Most of the people are looking for a better life,” said Father Gustavo Carrara, one of three priests from Santa Maria. “The difficulty is that they have a lot fewer opportunities.”

In Search of a Better Life

The majority of villa residents are new arrivals to Buenos Aires. They come looking for work from the more impoverished interior of the country or from neighbouring countries like Bolivia and Paraguay. Those who come from abroad are often in search of healthcare: they have a sick family member whose expensive treatment they cannot afford back home. So they come to Argentina to take advantage of the free public system.

But then they often find themselves in financial circumstances that are only marginally better than back home. They commute to the city centre to work in construction and housekeeping, earning just enough to put food on the table. Some cannot find work at all.

Despite dire economic circumstances, Father José María Di Paola, believes that other Argentines could learn from villa residents.

“We believe that the villas have a lot to teach the rest of the city,” he said. “Our job is not to change this fact, but [also] to learn what they have to teach us.”

Known as Padre Pepe, Di Paola has become the leader of this generation of curas villeros, rising to prominence in Argentina after holding a press conference in 2009 after he received an in-person death threat while walking through his villa in Barracas.

Padre Pepe (centre) and Cardinal Bergoglio in Barracas (photo/Julián Bongiovanni)

During her time in the villas, author and journalist Silvina Premat, whose book on these priests – ‘Curas Villeros: de Mugica al Padre Pepe, Historias de Lucha y Esperanza’ – was published this year, said she witnessed a profound sense of community and an application of Christian values that is less prevalent in more affluent neighbourhoods.

“They maintain the values and the experience of faith that has an influence on their daily lives,” she said. “They help their neighbours who are homeless, by giving them food, letting them use the bathroom. This is a solidarity that is lost in the center of the city. Could you imagine letting a homeless man in to use your bathroom?”

Carrara agreed. “It’s a more popular culture, that has great cultural wealth,” he said. “I learned a lot of the people’s faith, of a grand religiosity. Its heart is more religious.”

Perhaps it is this popular religiosity that allows the priests to gain the respect of the villa residents so quickly, despite the recent secularlisation of Latin America as a whole, and Argentina in particular. Where the state has failed them and material wealth has eluded them, the Church has always been there.

“The presence of the state is not there,” Premat said of the villas. “The only people who have an authority are the priests. But they have a religious authority, not a political one. They are known in the streets as “Padre”, not their proper names. That is their identity.”

The Legacy of Mugica

The Catholic Church first made its mark in the villas of Buenos Aires in 1960s, when a group of priests who called themselves Los Sacerdotes para El Tercer Mundo (Priests for the Third World) moved into the impoverished neighbourhoods with an explicit commitment to social justice and political change. The now-legendary Father Carlos Mugica emerged as the movement’s leader, leading the charge for the government to establish the most basic living conditions in the villas, like proper sanitation, potable water, electricity, and gas.

A man holds up a picture of Father Mugica (photo/Julián Bongiovanni)

The tercermundistas were inheritors of liberation theology, a political-religious movement that spread through Latin America in the 1960s. In this time, many Catholic priests saw their role as relieving the poor from their suffering, and addressing the systemic political reasons that such profound inequalities existed across the continent. Mugica himself was a committed Peronist and socialist, calling Marx, Che Guevara, and Freud “grand profits of the Church in our time”.

“They are men that concerned themselves with or are concerned by mankind and by the human condition,” Mugica said. “Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses. Marx probably would not feel this way if he had known people like Torres, Helder Cámara or Pope John XXIII.”

But the mission of this first wave of curas villeros received a major blow when Mugica was assassinated in 1974, most likely by the Triple A, a covert government-backed paramilitary organisation.

The ensuing military dictatorship along with the ascendancy to the papacy of the neo-conservative John Paul II in 1978 forced the tercermundistas to recede into the background along with their radical ideas.

But a smaller, quieter group of priests carried on with the work, rebuilding a sense of order and community in these neighbourhoods that had nearly been destroyed by the military regime as they tried to eradicate the villas.

The curas villeros were given an injection of support with the ascendency of Cardenal Jorge Bergoglio in 1998. Bergoglio vastly expanded the corps, arranged for the priest to live in pairs or small groups instead of alone in the villas, and encouraged the development of a support network in the form of monthly meetings and increased cash for projects.

“Without the help of the bishops and the priests from other neighbourhoods, our work would not be possible,” Carrara said. “There is not a good Church and a bad church.”

Indeed, the international Catholic Church as a whole appears to be more supportive of their work as a whole. In June, Di Paoloa – or Padre Pepe – was one of four men chosen from around the world to speak about contemporary issues facing priests at a Vatican conference in front of Pope Benedict XVI.

One major difference between the two generations of curas villeros is the lack of involvement in politics of today’s priests, perhaps making the contemporary movement more palatable to Church leaders.

De Chiara attributes this largely to the changing times – the 1970s were simply a highly politicized epoch in Argentina.

“I do not identify with a party on the left or the right, I identify with the mission of Christ,” he said. “I believe that Jesus chose the poorest, and I try to do the same.”

Despite the political neutrality, there are more continuities than discontinuities between the two groups.

“Our roots are in the first groups who went into the villas,” said Di Paola. “We continue working in the same places, but with different challenges. For example, in Mugica’s era, there wasn’t paco. It’s the same spirit, the same strength, but the challenges are different.”

Mugica remains a major inspirational figure. His picture is emblazoned on Church relics like the Communion chalice and framed on small monument in the corner of the Santa Maria chapel to fallen curas villeros, including Rodolfo Ricciardelli, Jorge Goñi, and Daniel de la Sierra.

The Priests have not totally given up on an increased government presence within the villas. They routinely petition for more schools and health centres to accommodate the swelling population, for example.

But De Chiara said that today’s priests are careful to recognise the limits of their role.

“The Church can support a transformation, but that is not our job,” he said. “Our job is to support the people. But to create a transformation, that is the job of the government.”

Photo courtesy of PaDelanteDG.com

Pablo Lescano, lead singer of Damas Gratis

Whether it is love or hate, the very name of cumbia villera seems to evoke strong sentiments in Buenos Aires. Often characterised by the language and everyday realities of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods, cumbia villera represents a window between social classes.

The exploding popularity the subgenre enjoyed in the early years of the decade drew the attention of wealthy and middle class porteños to the plight of the city’s poorest residents, but the fame also brought criticism against the controversial themes that characterise many of the songs.

Cumbia was developed in Colombia by African slaves at least 200 years ago as a mixture between Guinean cumbé music and sounds adopted from indigenous groups along the Caribbean coast such as the Kogui and Kuna. Over the latter half of the 20th century, the genre spread across much of Latin America, becoming popular especially amongst the lower classes. Cumbia arrived in Argentina in the late 1980s riding a wave of popularity and immigration across the border from Peru and Bolivia.

Cumbia villera is a subgenre that first appeared in the final years of the 20^th century as Argentina’s economy began to falter. Characterised by low-quality recordings and a heavy use of synthesizers, some of the first cumbia villera groups were Flor de Piedra, Guachín and Yerba Brava. The music stood out for describing many of the realities of day to day life in the shantytowns (‘villas’).

Due to the often-controversial topics of the lyrics, producers were initially reluctant to record the music. As a result, the groups took mix tapes and homemade CDs to radio stations and nightclub DJs. The resounding popularity of the songs attracted record labels and the music took off.

Violence

“The early groups never made an apology for delinquency,” claims Lucho Rombolá, a cumbia DJ for radio station La Tribu. “They were just describing the situations around them.” Songs like ‘Gatillo Fácil’ by Flor de Piedra protest against crooked police and politicians while ‘El Pibe Chorro’ illustrates the plight of a refugee cardboard collector on the streets.

Photo by Thomas Locke Hobbs

Once the record labels became interested in cumbia villera, the focus began to change. As the companies scrambled to catch up with the trend, they began to fabricate groups to curtail to the popular market. Groups were given stylistic makeovers to fall inline with the rougher, urban look of the original groups. The Pibes Chorros – one of the best known of the genre – shifted their focus from traditional, romantic songs to sex and drugs.

“It was actually the recording companies that began promoting the glorification of violence,” Lucho says. Considering the political turbulence of the nation during the 2001 economic crash, some of the violent lyrics appealed to the frustrations of many Argentines who had lost their jobs or life savings.

Drugs

“I don’t like the language, or what the music represents,” says Rosario, a hostel receptionist in San Telmo. Indeed, one of the biggest criticisms of cumbia villera is the glorification of drug use. Band names like Yerba Brava and Flor de Piedra are slang terms for marijuana while one of the latter’s most popular songs, ‘La Jarra Loca’, refers to an alcohol and narcotics cocktail.

“The lyrical content is no different from a lot of rock music,” Lucho notes, however. Carolina Serrano, an employee in a CD store near Once station agrees. “Personally I don’t like the music, but many genres glorify sex and drugs. Cumbia villera comes from a marginalised sector. It may talk about bad things but it is their way of expressing the things they experience in their lives.”

Sex

The sexual lyrics can be the most provoking aspects of cumbia villera. Songs such as Pibes Chorros’ ‘Andrea’ and Damas Gratis ‘Se Te Ve La Tanga’ are used by many people as an example of the negative influence the subgenre has on its younger audience. The lyrics are often degrading, adopting chauvinistic attitudes towards females. The Federal Commission of Radio Diffusion (COMFER) even passed a series of laws regarding the emission of lyrical content in an effort to curb profanity. The groups only made a mockery of the fines imposed against the use of vulgar words by creating new slang terms and metaphors.

Lucho claims it is radio and club DJs that are responsible for popularising songs with sexual lyrics. “It’s what moves the dance floors,” he says. “Nobody wants to listen to the more intelligent songs when they are out dancing with their friends.” The same people who criticise the music go crazy when the songs play in the clubs. “It’s one thing when you are out drinking with your friends,” Carolina says.

Photo courtesy of PaDelanteDG.com

Dead or Alive?

Today, most of the original cumbia villera groups have either disappeared from the music scene or changed their focus. Yerba Brava has switched to romantic cumbia, forsaking their football jerseys and baseball hats in favour of matching suits while Flor de Piedra broke up years ago. Much like rock, disco and even hip-hop in recent years, many people are quick to declare that the time of cumbia villera has come and gone.

Carolina’s colleague Giselle Biele says: “We don’t sell much cumbia villera anymore,” though Carolina is quick to note “But the recording label that owns this store makes us play El Perro now and it’s terrible.”

“Every CD is worse than the last one,” complains Giselle. “The lyrics bother me, especially since I have to listen to them everyday at work.”

Perhaps the best gauge of the continuing popularity of the subgenre, pirated CD stalls around Retiro report older groups like Flor de Piedra and Damas Gratis still sell. “Damas Gratis is the best,” states Cynthia, a 24-year-old CD vendor. “A lot of people still buy the old CDs, and now there are newer groups like El Perro.”

“Cumbia villera may be dead,” Lucho explains, “but there are still groups out there with intelligent, political messages. I’m always on the lookout for new talent.” He also claims immigration is continuing to affect the music as bands and new styles travel across the borders of Latin America. “There are some bands mixing cumbia and reggaeton while clubs like Radio Studio or Mágica Bailables often play groups from Paraguay and Bolivia. Immigration enriches the music.”

In many ways the incendiary reign of cumbia villera continues on a national level. At a free concert celebrating the first patriotic government of Argentina near the Obeslisk on 9 de Julio, Damas Gratis joined such groups as Bajofondo and Patricia Sosa on stage. On a recent home appliance advertisement, football star Carlos Tevez, who doubles as lead singer of his band Vago Piola when time allows, can be seen dancing his signature cumbia steps. While some may proclaim cumbia villera dead, its legacy continues to affect the national consciousness.

You can listen to Lucho Rombolá’s weekly cumbia show ‘Cumbia de la Pura’ at La Tribu every Saturday at midnight. Check his website at www.cumbiadelapura.blogspot.com for more information.

Photos by Kate Stanworth

 

Ten young people from across the globe joined a group of Argentines in greater Buenos Aires to build up walls and break down stereotypes this month. The international group came as volunteers with Subir al Sur, an Argentine organisation that strives to create peace and understanding between diverse people through collaborative service projects.

Cecilia Milesi, president and founder, named the organisation ‘Subir al Sur’, literally ‘to go up south’, to convey the organisation’s goal of inspiring people to think unconventionally.

International volunteers from the Ukraine, Korea, Mexico, Hungary, Germany, the UK and the US came ‘up south’ to meet Argentines from Malaver Villate and reconstruct the community’s cultural centre, the final step in transforming the area from shanty town to suburban neighbourhood.

Residents of Malaver Villate have spent the past 15 years working to rebuild the former shantytown with the help of government funding. They created a network of paved streets and reconstructed nearly all the houses. Today, residents proudly offer to show guests around their well-constructed homes, most of which were formerly made of paper and plastic.

The cultural centre was the final piece of the puzzle. Together, the international volunteers and locals plastered walls, set up electricity, designed a mural, painted rooms, and restored the community’s last shanty house as a meeting room and reminder of the town’s history.

THE REAL GOAL

But according to Milesi, such service projects are just beneficial excuses for the real goal of the organisation:

“On a micro-level, Subir al Sur is about trying to create bridges between people of diverse backgrounds in hopes of destroying stereotypes. On a larger scale, it’s about decreasing the amount of hatred in the world. It’s a small part of the global movement towards peace and understanding.”

The organisation works toward its goal by inviting international volunteers to collaborate with Argentines, not only on service projects, but also in workshops that connect their project with global issues and inspire volunteers to think more deeply about their work.

Photos by Kate Stanworth

 

For example, each of the international volunteers came to Argentina equipped with information about a situation in their home country similar to that of Malaver Villate. Through sharing and discussing their stories, the volunteers broadened their perspectives and analysed the reasons behind poor living conditions in the world. By presenting their own stories, the residents of Malaver Villate were able to reflect on and feel proud of what they have achieved.

“My favourite part of this experience has been sharing our situation with others and letting them see how our home is now,” explains Silvia Azamé, a local volunteer.

CHANGE BENEATH THE SURFACE

Discussion combined with cooperative service allows the international and local groups to benefit in similar but distinct ways.

“The local youth we work with are used to being the beneficiaries of service projects, not the leaders. By putting them in leadership positions, we work towards empowering them,” Milesi explained.

By taking such a leadership position and working with non-Argentines for the first time, Azamé said she has gained experience and understanding that she will apply to other aspects of her life.

Photos by Kate Stanworth

 

“I’ve learned to organise, plan, listen to others, connect with foreigners, and see new possibilities,” she commented proudly during a break from painting the centre. Azamé also expressed her belief that the presence of international volunteers will help broaden the perspective of other residents of Malaver Villate, even if they are not directly involved with the project.

For the international volunteers, the learning experience is somewhat different. Being immersed in a community that is often drastically different than their own, they experience things that challenge them to think in new ways. Yunmi Jang, a South Korean volunteer, said she was challenged by new cultural practices, such as openly expressing emotions, something she says her culture doesn’t permit.

“More than anything, I’ve learned patience. I’ve also learned new practical skills, aspects of several foreign cultures, established otherwise impossible relationships, and broken preconceived misconceptions about Argentine culture. It has been a good learning experience for me,” she explained.

She also learned from living and working with the other international volunteers who came from very different cultures.

As Milesi hoped when she created Subir al Sur in July 2005, these two volunteers left the experience with ‘new ideas, new understanding, and an education in values’. Milesi started the organisation after being inspired by volunteering with similar models in Nepal and India. She wanted to create something that inspired ‘a change in ideals, not just assistance.’

ARGENTINES CHANGING ABROAD

Subir al Sur has partner organisations all over the world that work towards similar goals. Through these partnerships, Subir al Sur is able to send Argentines abroad to participate in similar service activities for only the cost of the flight and a $150 application fee.

In the future, Milesi hopes to further develop Subir al Sur in Argentina and send more Argentines abroad. She hopes to further the programme’s goal through increased participation, because, as she stated, “the problem is not about houses. It’s about people.”

To get more information or volunteer with Subir al Sur, visit www.subiralsur.org.ar, e-mail info@subiralsur.org.ar or call 0054-11-4867-0305.

To learn more about Malaver Villate, visit the neighbourhood blog at www.malavervillate.blogspot.com