temaiken

friday, about 300 folks from the MTD La Matanza, the cooperative, and the neighborhood of La Juanita went to Temaiken (a large zoo located in Escobar, the north of the province of Bs. As.) it was a political event, paid for by the Coalición Cívica, for Toty to announce his candidacy for diputado nacional in the elections coming up in october. despite it's being a campaign stop, it was a unique opportunity for people, especially the children, of La Juanita to get to go to Temaiken, a spot normally reserved for the upper eschelons of Buenos Aires society (as given away by it's location in Escobar and expensive entrance fees). most of the day was filled with leading the children around to see the different animals (there were about 150 kids under the age of 12 -- a bit of craziness!). favorites included the white tiger, the huge shark and a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch. at the end of the day we all crossed the street to a large comedor where Toty and the other politicians gave their speeches and we all ate free pastries and coffees (we'd all already been given free lunch and free gifts -- yay peronism!)

it is interesting (and disturbing) to see the MTD go from being an autonomous organization, not accepting government plans or working with the government in any way, to having one of their key members running for nacional office with one of the larger (and not exactly leftist) political parties. there are many possible explanations for this turn of events -- specifically, the closure of the panadería by local government officials (claiming it did not meet the health code standards) made the MTD realize the importance of having people in or having contacts with the local government (i don't understand how this is translated into having someone run for nacional office tho). more generally,a friend explained to me, it has to do with the worsening political/economic climate (i.e. Macri winning, high inflation, etc) and people losing hope in some of the more autonomous and horizontal forms of organizing and going back to the traditional political methods. in his speech annoucing his candidacy, toty claimed he wants to open up a space that he and others from la juanita have normally been excluded from (formal politics) and show that working class people can run for office and serve in government. he defended the strategy of bringing children to a political event like this (some might just see it as an opportunistic photo-op) by saying that the MTD always does everything with and for the children (which is a fair thing to say -- look at the kindergarten). another weird aspect of toty's candidacy is the alliance with elisa carrió and the Coalición Civíca. Carrió is running for president and is one of the leading anti-K(irchner) figures, and while her party (the Coalición Cívica) includes some socialist movements, social movements and NGOs, her speech made her come across as anything but a leftist. (My favorite line was along the lines of -- "we are all poor, if we are not poor materially, we are poor spiritually". Also a lot of talk about how equality of opportunity is more important than equality of resources. i.e. bullshit.)