Vicente Palermo
08/17/2021 8:42 PM
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 08/17/2021 8:42 PM
I have the impression that, despite the rivers of ink, and some excellent articles, something is missing to analyze in the "Olivosgate" (assuming that the information we have about it is complete, which is quite doubtful).
There is a consensus: it is serious that the President of the Republic violates the law, and bitterly ironic that he transgresses the law that he has set at his discretion.
It is what he has done and has done it knowingly and carelessly.
Then he has repeatedly and blatantly lied.
There are no extenuating circumstances and for all this he must be held accountable, a task that falls to both Parliament and the Justice.
It is impossible, in my opinion, to disagree with this approach.
Which is enriched by aggravations that show an absence of personal mettle and political leadership, such as the exemption of responsibilities (which he throws at Fabiola) and as the frivolity of having turned Olivos, in the midst of a pandemic, almost into a field of amusement, through the reiteration of illegal actions.
This makes some of us ashamed and all of us multiplies our indignation.
So far, pacific point;
Even the hosts of the ruling party show fissures in their defensive wall and even those who do not admit any criticism "because the President has already apologized," show a pathetic lack of conviction.
However, I believe that these events must also be analyzed from another angle.
I maintain that the worst part of the episode is not having violated the quarantine rules by organizing a birthday or not preventing it, or the fact that the President participated in it, but the photos.
Of course, photos are everything from the point of view of public verification of these criminal acts, but that is not what I mean.
The photos make it clear that the President, who smiles at us happily and happily from both of them, did not act maliciously.
And this lack of treachery, of caution, is a coin with two very different sides.
If in one of them you can see clumsiness, recklessness, in the other you can read the perversion of someone who tells us that he has nothing or wants to hide, not even the outrages he commits.
For me, this is the most authentic face, the most expressive of the caste mentality that dominates among those who occupy positions in the current government believing themselves to be its owners.
Thus, the photo is not so much a "proof" as a failed act;
Fernández - a conspicuous member of that caste - is showing and expressing with him what, repositioned in his presidential role, he could not and should not express.
So much so that later he will deny, while he can (fake news) or will try to discharge his responsibility.
But the failed, solid, unappealable act will continue to be present.
Our president has a side of weakness, of vulnerability, a crack through which one of his internal demons escaped, not organizing birthdays, but documenting that excess for everyone, transforming a banal party into a symbol, turning cholulism and narcissism in an indelible reading of power (it should be noted that this was not the only failed act; also the delivery of a CD with information on the movements of people in Olivos, at the doors of the Casa Rosada, was).
To extinguish his semblance of a failed act in the photograph, our fragile president, instead of his painful lament, should have continued what the act expressed, and do it with dignity, with his forehead high.
Instead of that bland recognition (almost a parochial, routine confession), he could have said:
“Friends, colleagues, subordinates, fellow citizens (in that order): dear Argentines;
As a university professor, I must point out that modern republics are of two kinds.
The representative republics and the mafia republics.
It is important that you understand this distinction.
“In representative republics, the rulers, who have been elected by the citizens, are slaves of the law, they are owed to the law from the beginning to the end and it is within and in accordance with the law that they govern, they do so in the service of citizens, at their own service or - as is the most common - both.
"In the mafia republics, please understand, although the rulers are elected by the citizens, they are not slaves of the law, but they use it when and how they need it to achieve their objectives, they are indisputably above the law, even when the law is, as necessary, above the citizens. The use of the law, and not the rule of law, is the hallmark of the mafia republics and includes, naturally, the discretion to alter it whenever necessary and, above all, the competence to decide to whom it should be applied and to whom. do not.
“The state of exception is nothing more than an important but not essential condiment, present in the mafia republics, and we can say the same about the concept of impunity. Perhaps, dear Argentines and Argentines, you should find out once and for all: we live happily in a mafia republic.
"The photo that the most concentrated media, excuse me, the hegemonic media have just spread, more exactly, the fact that we have made it possible for this photograph to exist, only confirms in what fortunate political regime we live. I expect from you an enthusiastic adhesion and If this is not possible, a comprehensive resignation.
"Our conception of justicialism shows how we have adapted it to the times: in the modern Argentina of justicialism, all men are equal, but some are more equal than others."
If Alberto Fernández had expressed himself in these terms - or similar ones - he would have shown a political courage that he unfortunately lacks.
Telling the truth has its consequences.
Hide it uselessly too.
Vicente Palermo is a political scientist and writer.