Argentina and Spain have a deep common history. In different waves of migration, some in the 19th century and others in the 20th century, thousands of Spaniards sought refuge in Argentine lands to cope with the present and build a future. All of this has led to nearly 500,000 Hispanic citizens living in Argentina today, making it the largest community of Spanish immigrants in the world.
It also happened that many Argentines ended up in Spain looking for a better future. In the years in which the military dictatorship devastated our homeland, many Argentines found refuge in Spanish lands that knew how to welcome them and preserve them from the violence that State terrorism unleashed on thousands of innocent men and women.
All of this was generating an absolute network between Spaniards and Argentines. Culture and art have always united us. In Argentina, we enjoy the singing of minstrels such as Joan Manuel Serrat or Luis Eduardo Aute, while in Spain they enjoy the performance of Héctor Alterio or Ricardo Darín. Here and there, Les Luthiers have left their indelible mark. We never forget the wonderful cinema of Almodóvar and we see with joy the admiration he aroused there Argentina, 1985, the film of the trial of the Military Juntas. We exchange flavors and readings, but above all, we are heirs of the same biographies and we travel common paths seeking a happy future.
What I have said happens in a world in which, after the pandemic, the extreme right expands, spreading violent and anti-political discourse, denying climate change, seeking to put an end to all the rights that have been expanded in an attempt to respect diversity and gender equality and proposing to expel “unwanted” immigrants.
That radicalized right is vociferous in Spain and is the Government in Argentina. They despise the institutions of the republic, disbelieve in the rule of law, deny minorities and mistreat those who do not think like them. In Spain they miss Franco. In Argentina they vindicate the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and the cultists of state terrorism.
I have seen, in Spain and Argentina, the same weapons used to disqualify opponents. A medium spreads a defamation, someone raises the “information” and reports it to a judge who closes the circuit and turns on the persecution machinery by opening an investigation. And there begins a race of expletives, scandal, shouts in the public sphere that only seek to silence the sincere and necessary debates about the direction of our countries and the rights that we still must expand.
Spain and Argentina today suffer, in different dimensions, from the dangerous fascism that is expanding throughout the world. It is this fascist madness that today has left us on the verge of a break in diplomatic relations due to an absurd defamation launched by the Argentine president at a party of Franco’s sycophants that is only possible because democracy exists in Spain.
For Argentina, Spain is our greatest ally in the European Union. It is one of the two countries that invest the most in Argentina – the United States is the other. It is one of the countries that most influences international credit organizations with its vote when Argentina turns to them.
Not measuring the consequences of a distancing of this nature is unacceptable political irresponsibility, and this distancing can only disappear if the person who defamed the president of Spain and his wife categorically rectifies and publicly apologizes for the inappropriateness of his behavior.
I have little expectation that such a retraction will occur. It happens that the ultras only know how to attack whoever crosses their path. They seem impervious to modern civility that demands democratic coexistence.
Meanwhile, those of us who live in Argentina know that the Spanish show us an affection similar to that we show to those who were born on that European peninsula.
Sustaining that affection that binds us, our common culture and the history that is our own is what will allow us to ensure that the brutal whiff of barbarism uttered by an Argentine president is diluted with the passage of time.
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