In the run up to the World Cup, the compañeros of Argentina’s Evita Movement were getting prepared too. The soup kitchens and community centers of the Evita Movement work nationwide to improve the lives of unemployed workers. They run a cooperative, which includes a popular market. This work continues as normal. But work to raise the awareness of social issues within like academic institutions and to organize protests has stopped temporarily. It’s the World Cup, and Argentinians believe their team will win. So what can these activists and community workers gain from this enthusiasm and how can Argentina's confidence about football translate into social change?
The Evita Movement grew out of the Unemployed Workers Movement (MTD), which emerged in Argentina after the famous pickets and protests in Tartagal in1996. With the arrival of Néstor Kirchner in 2003, Evita became a broader political movement, influencing economic and social policies that affected the unemployed and employed workers in the region. It played a significant part in politics in that part of the country and Kirchner gave the movement a platform it had not enjoyed previously.
Sport is a powerful integrator in many places in the world, but football has a special place in the hearts of Argentines. And so does Peronism. The Evita Movement evokes the time of President Juan Perón, who led the country from 1945-1955, and his wife Eva Duarte, affectionately known as Evita. There is a famous photo of Evita kicking the first football at a children’s a game, and some schools still hold Eva Peron Championships.
Argentina’s first game at the 2014 FIFA World Cup is tonight. One Evita Movement activist, Leticia Caferatta, who lives and works in the La Tranquila slum in St. Martin, north of Buenos Aires, posted a photo of the Argentinian team on her Facebook page. She hoped the photograph of Lionel Messi and team would encourage people to watch the match together on a large television screeen she has set up alongside a dusty, unpaved road at the heart of the neighborhood, home to 423,000 inhabitants. Not only are most of the streets unpaved at La Tranquila, there are no sewers either.
For those who come to watch the match at La Tranquila, there is the promise of a huge feast with music and food. "It's a strategy to reach more kids and young people to get involved in the community”, says Gildo Onorato, secretary of the Evita Movement. Football is Argentinians’ favorite sport, Onorato said, uniting people and fueling big passion. Even though the World Cup means big business and FIFA signifies a multinational economic powerbase that very few La Tranquila’s residents will ever benefit from, they cannot resist the pull of the blue and white, Argentina’s team colors. “I want good results for our national team too,” says the organizer.
I asked Onarato what, from his perspective, Brazilian activists and protesters will gain during the World Cup, when all eyes are on the country. How will their demands be amplified? He said it was important to look at Brazil as one of the emerging and rapidly growing economies of the world, one of the so-called BRICS. The old American-European power structure is changing, with the economic “engine” shifting. Yet, despite Brazil’s large growth and greater opportunities to distribute the benefits among the country’s people, severe economic tensions and structural problems have not been resolved. “Brazil is a great model of inclusion,” he said, but it’s also tied to a system where the interference of multinational companies is rife and unchecked. “FIFA is a transnational, working in alliance with other economic powers”, he says, and the obligations and demands it places on World Cup host countries has an impact on the social balance. This has not gone unnoticed in Argentina.
“It seems to us a good thing that Brazil is recognized as a regional and world power,” he said. But the reality is marked by huge contradictions. And these contradictions are beginning to be revealed clearly in the protests Brazil has witnessed in recent weeks and months. People are voicing their complaints over the huge expense of the World Cup, because now it seems to be about economic gain rather than enjoyment of the game or its power as a social adhesive, he says. He also said he was important to realize that there are some people who have taken to the streets out of a desire to stop particular political parties gaining ground, or to lash out at Dilma Rousseff ahead of elections.
Less than a month before the World Cup, 2000 soldiers from Brazil’s Navy and the Army occupied da Maré, a prime spot in Rio de Janeiro where 130,000 live in a group of favelas called Complex 15. They will remain there until July 31, when the big event is over, according to a report published in Argentinian local street paper Hecho en Bs As. The paper, which covers social and political issues affecting some of Argentina's most vulnerable communities, including the homeless, also reports on similar issues around the world, and certainly in South America.
Another policy that drives the Evita Movement is the National Campaign Against State Violence, which tracks complaints of police abuse and violations against people’s human rights. The group has campaigned against police repression dating back to the repressive tactics of Argentina’s dictatorship, which lasted from 1976 until 1983. I asked Gildo Onarato if there were any comparisons between the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 1978 World Cup, held in Argentina during the dictatorship.
During the 1978 World Cup, he said, the military dictatorship commanded such power that the outside world had little idea about the human rights violations taking place in Argentina. But today, not only is Brazil a functioning—iif imperfect—democracy, it has a strong tradition of social inclusion. And people are hearing about what’s going on, about the clash of interests between the big business of football and the reality of the lives of local workers who watch and enjoy that football. Everybody knows.
During the World Cup and the Summer Olympics, which Brazil hosts in 2016, about 200,000 people are expected to face eviction from their homes. Argentinian workers and homeless movements have been in touch with their Brazilian counterparts, with a recent Evita Movement delegation traveling to Brazil in recent weeks to find out about the strategies employed by the Brazilian Landless Movement (MST).
Onorato explains that these compañeros are part of the Confederation of Workers of the Popular Economy (CTEP), which includes rural and urban sectors, the cooperative sector, occupied factories and other organizations working with people currently out of work. "We want an agricultural model that is more equal,” Onorato said. Much of Argentina’s wealth is concentrated among a few landowners. Internal migration is becoming widespread, an exodus of poor farmers is taking place. “The development of technology in agribusiness expels workers from rural populations", Onorato says.
"We find that the return to productive land is necessary. In that sense the MST in Brazil can give us many lessons.” They can learn a lot from their neighbors. And, while all eyes are on the World Cup—and those protesting against its costs and Brazil’s inequalities—Argentinians will witness Brazil’s most pressing problems hitting the headlines. The Evita Movement and other activists feel they just might be able to learn from this too. While people around the world are paying attention to those who have been dsplaced because of big business, it could be time to re-energize their campaigns.
For further coverage of the World Cup, see:
“Iran Can Beat Any Team in the World”: Interview with Ciro Blažević
Nigeria’s Front Line: A Challenge for Team Melli
Team Melli: The Road to Brazil
The Drama of Defending Iran: Team Melli’s Goalies
Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Argentina and the Memory of 1990
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