Indonesia: How Wahid Won Just after officials at last October’s people’s consultative Assembly in Jakarta started counting the votes, Megawati Sukarnoputri, as expected, raced into the lead. She was soon overtaken, however, by Abdurrahman Wahid, the respected, nearly blind Islamic scholar. His supporters stood and shouted, “Allahu akbar” (God is great). But Wahid didn’t seem to be caught up in the euphoria. I watched him sit impassively in his seat, his head slightly askew, staring blankly into space. Then Megawati bravely composed herself and walked down the aisle to congratulate the winner. Still seated, he grabbed her hand and raised it into the air in a symbolic gesture of mutual victory. Ron Moreau
Crossing Into Kosovo In the dim light of dawn, it looked like a parade. Young soldiers shaved in the rearview mirrors of their Humvees, or polished their guns or scrambled onto their Challenger tanks. It was June 12, and some NEWSWEEK correspondents had rented a car, parked it between two tanks, and waited to roll from Macedonia into Kosovo with NATO.
Just after 5 a.m. we started moving. When the Gurkhas found a mine, the convoy would stop, and we’d stretch our legs and chat, as if at some weird picnic.
In Urosovec, a few days on, an Albanian boy with thick glasses and gap teeth attached himself to a company’s sergeant major. “Hey, what do you wanna be when you grow up?” asked the American. “A politician, so that I can thank NATO,” said the boy. Now, reading about cycles of revenge killings; of Milosevic, still in Belgrade, and of rumblings of more trouble from Montenegro, I often think about that boy. And I wonder whether he still wants to be a politician. Carla Power
Dissonance in Seattle As the protesters confronted the capitalists in Seattle early this month, I tried to listen to all sides. UPS chief James P. Kelly, a former truckdriver, smiled at the coming labor march and said that every 40-package increase in UPS’s overseas volume means an additional job. Later in the week Katie Crawley, a slight 20-year-old, explained that she’d been sitting in peaceful protest when the police pepper-sprayed her face at close range. After 40 frigid hours in two jails, she was searching for the bus station, to begin a 10-hour ride back to her college campus in Montana.
Keith, a burly 40-year-old, sipped whisky in the Space Needle bar as the big labor march got going. Keith had just sold his lawn-care business for a good price; he’d had several Microsoft millionaires as clients. He thought the working folks massing below might have a point. Kenneth Klee
Silence in Deep Space When the first attempt to hear from the Mars Polar Lander failed, no one was that worried. Old hands in the newsroom knew that such failures to communicate happen all the time. Indeed, I had been present at one myself just a year before, when a spacecraft called NEAR suddenly turned a deaf ear to its earthbound controllers during a tricky maneuver. It had soon gotten back in touch. The NASA scientists working the newsroom tirelessly explained what might be happening and what could be tried next. But as the weekend wore on, they were increasingly grim. The flat white line on the screens monitoring the antennae turned to Mars stayed resolutely free of signals whatever the mission controllers tried to do. It’s still flat today. As well as the scientists’ sophisticated cameras and lasers, the lander carried a simple microphone paid for by enthusiasts, mankind’s first attempt to hear the sounds of another world. Somehow, that made the silence even worse. Oliver Morton
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-10” author: “Otelia Rome”
The Iranian government commemorated the 22d anniversary of the taking of the embassy with a 10-day exhibit: “Shattering of the Glass Palace.” An Israeli flag served as a welcome mat. Inside, photographs detailed alleged American misdeeds in Iran, Vietnam, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Another section included the embassy’s document-forgery room and an electronic-eavesdropping center. There was a “lighter” side, too: children’s drawings of America as a demon or skeleton–even games, including a carnival strength meter where you pound Uncle Sam on the head to score points and hear feedback like “Wow, you pack quite a wallop.” I gave it a whack and got “Ouch, I’m seeing double.” More target practice could be had by blasting Uncle Sam in the face with a tennis-ball gun or shooting him through the windows of a Wild West saloon.
Despite the official anti-Americanism, it’s hard to decipher ordinary Iranians’ attitude toward the United States. Today’s youth, who compose nearly 60 percent of the population, don’t seem to hate America with the same zeal. At a reformist rally commemorating the hostage-taking at Tehran University, nearly 200 students chanted “Death to terrorism” and “Death to Taliban-style Islam.” The new struggle–for cultural freedom–can be seen in the streets. Girls layer on makeup and show salacious bits of hair. Unwed couples walk hand in hand. At Golestan shopping mall, teenagers browse through CDs near snack bars selling hot dogs.
Technology has played a large part in this generation’s calls for change. The Internet offers a window to illicit information and breaks the country’s decades-old communication blockade. A teenager at an Internet cafe asked me a few weeks ago to translate Inshaallah–by the will of God–for a Web-chat buddy in Canada. Cell phones and satellite dishes are practically regarded as political weapons by the government. When rioting began after one of the national team’s recent soccer matches, cell networks were shut down and satellite dishes were confiscated.
Not many people were intimidated. After the national team beat the United Arab Emirates the next week, cars pumping techno whizzed through streets trailing huge Iranian flags and kids danced in circles. Not exactly the college tailgate parties I’m used to in the States, but a good time all the same.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-07” author: “James Hester”
These days I often see General Babajan of Bagram airport on CNN. He is usually up in his ruined control tower, wearing pressed fatigues and a Soviet officer’s belt, gesturing grandly toward the Taliban. He looks, in fact, rather impressive. But when I first met him he hadn’t yet become a media star. When I arrived with three other correspondents at Bagram, we found him sitting under a shade tree outside his mud-brick house near the airfield. He was chatting with his officers, sitting on cushions and eating grapes. This was two kilometers from Taliban positions, in a strategic spot that at that very moment was probably being discussed in a dozen situation rooms from the Pentagon to submarines in the Indian Ocean.
That was six weeks ago. I notice now from the TV footage that Babajan and his men have understood that more soldierly conduct is expected of them by the swarms of camera crews now camped out at Bagram, as well as by the U.S. government. But I feel somehow that their heart isn’t in it.
It’s hard to explain, but warfare in Afghanistan is different from other wars I’ve seen. Different because its rhythms are such an integral part of life. Afghanistan is a place where the men commute to war, like neighbors working for rival brokerages. There’s a strange lack of hatred, which sets this conflict apart from Bosnia and Chechnya. Afghans sing when they’re under fire, they eat apples when they’re being machine-gunned. Harvest the grapes, milk the cow, shoot at the neighboring village–it’s all a part of the same cycle. That is, until the United States came with its smart bombs and upped the stakes.
So what happened to the hard-core mujahedin who routed the Soviets? Some joined the Taliban, others the Northern Alliance and some fled to Pakistan. But their generation’s fighting days are over. You see some vets among the young striplings, mostly as junior commanders, magnificent with their long beards and battle-hardened stares. But the Afghanistan they fought for never happened. After the enemy left, the country dissolved into tiny fiefdoms. The muj lost their cohesiveness. Now, if their performance against the Taliban is anything to go by, they lost their guts, too.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-17” author: “Shirley Stackhouse”
Just a few weeks ago, this side of the Salang Pass was still controlled by the Taliban, and strictly off-limits to journalists. Now, the place is flooded with traffic, most of it on foot. After climbing over a massive pile of rubble and twisted shards of metal piping, we stopped to catch our breath (it would take a whole hour to get through the toughest part of the tunnel), and entered.
The daylight just disappeared. In its place was an eerie sight: a wobbly flow of small yellow lights bobbing up and down as far as you could see, as hundreds of people tried to make their way toward the light we had just left. It was impossible to see their faces, and the distortion of the lights made it hard to tell when, or if, we would run into them.
After being in the tunnel for a while, we began to hear the screaming. As entire families waded through the rubble, sometimes slipping where ice covered the track, small children and babies wailed in the darkness. I listened to one voice approaching, crying and snuffling in his mother’s arms as he passed, and then listened again as they scrambled by me. I never saw the boy’s face.
But there was more than just wailing. The tunnel was filled with the sound of coughing as people tried to hack away the phenomenal dust. Our porters kept motioning us to keep to the sides of the tunnel because the center areas had been mined and never cleared. For weeks now the Northern Alliance has been saying the tunnel will be opened for road traffic at any time. It will likely take weeks. Aside from the mines, there are several thousand pounds of debris that need to be cleared away. And every few feet, huge scraps of twisted metal that used to hold electric wiring hang down, swinging through the darkness.
Finally, a spot of white light appeared–the other side of the tunnel–and soon we were in broad daylight again, haggling with drivers and translators to get a cheap ride to Kabul. In addition to the $10 we paid each porter for the two-hour trek, we gave them our flashlights, which they promptly fought over. Eventually, we arrived in Kabul, and entering the NEWSWEEK house on “Street X” was like turning off a Western cowboy flick. The house had everything I hadn’t had for the last three weeks–regular electricity, running hot water, a dinner table. A fireplace! It was wonderful and strange to come here. Last night we had banana fritters for dessert. This morning? Peanut butter.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-01” author: “Britt Winfield”
I met Jalmuhammad, sporting a gray beard and a white turban, on a drizzly morning at the Maslakh refugee camp–one of the largest in the world with an estimated 300,000 inhabitants–10 miles outside Herat. An icy wind swept across the plain where he had been sleeping with his family, using a blanket as a rain cover, for just the past 10 days. His 5-year-old son had frozen to death two nights before. The remaining two children had been sent out into the camp to beg for food. Around him, hundreds of other new arrivals huddled under plastic sheets or blankets. More than 1,000 Afghans, fleeing drought and starvation, joined him each day.
Maslakh, which means slaughterhouse in the local dialect, is overwhelmed. The never-ending misery, mud and stench of excrement are almost intolerable. When I visited the camp, gnawing at the back of my mind was the unceasing desire to get out. The sheer desperation of the inhabitants can be dangerous. As I was interviewing one family, almost 200 people gathered around me, mistaking me for a relief worker distributing aid. They shouted and pushed each other, breaking into fistfights. I panicked as the crowd tugged at my clothes and pulled me around–until camp security, armed with whips and AK-47s, beat people back.
That, unfortunately, is the daily lot of Maslakh’s refugees. Three children and one adult were trampled in a mob scene at the International Organization for Migration’s registration office a few days before my arrival. Corruption, bureaucracy and distrust among aid agencies have fueled the hopeless situation at the camp. The last straw came with American bombs two months ago. Aid activity practically stopped as all expatriate staff were evacuated from the country.
Now they are trickling back to deal with the estimated 100,000 people who are thought to be making their way to the camp. One aid worker, recently returned, told me, “In this situation, I’m glad I’m not a journalist, I can directly help the people.” I had to admit, words hardly seemed sufficient.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-14” author: “Judy Mcomber”
Back inside the coffee shop, the owner eyed four England fans who were sipping tea and talking quietly. “I don’t think they are hooligans,” she whispered. “They look educated and intelligent.” I struck up a conversation with them. Indeed, they were intelligent folks from Britain on vacation to experience Japan and watch a couple of World Cup matches. The owner soon joined in the conversation. “Why such a big fuss about hooligans?” she asked afterward.
Before the tournament began, I had been worried that Japanese people would be so scared to mingle with the foreign fans that they would miss out on all of the exuberant celebrations after each victory. Thankfully, the threat of hooliganism didn’t materialize this year. In fact, the “most high-risk” fans, as England’s supporters were labeled by some of the media, turned out to be some of the most friendly. The night after England’s victory over Argentina in the first round, I strolled through Susukino to check out the scene. The streets had been invaded by Brits, all right. But these were jolly Brits, all drinking beer, singing and dancing. And I was relieved–not to mention pleased–to see so many Japanese youngsters donning red-and-white T shirts, joining the England fans and enjoying the festivities. “I have never received such a warm welcome,” said one intoxicated young man from Manchester. Everybody, it seemed, wanted to jump on that welcome wagon, but not everyone could. As he watched the good times roll, one dismayed young parking-lot attendant lamented his situation. “I want to join those people from England over there so badly,” he said. “But I am on duty.”
It really was a great delight to see the two nationalities joining each other in celebration for three weeks in June. The hooligans stayed home and here, the fans–whether Japanese, British or otherwise–were all just fans. In Osaka, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw several Brits in Japanese summer kimonos, or yukatas. They were cheering with a group of Japanese soccer fans whose faces were painted red and white. Just as the Japanese had anticipated a different breed of England fan, the Brits could never have expected to encounter such wild Japanese fans. After Japan’s first-round victory over Tunisia in Osaka, hundreds of Japanese men and women in business suits and school uniforms jumped into the city’s Dotonborigawa canal. Some even dived in naked. The England fans looked on, bemused. One of them was quoted in a local daily the next morning. “I can see now that there is no difference between Japanese and British supporters when it comes to soccer games.” I have to admit, I agree with him completely.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-13” author: “Mary Shoaf”
President Henri Christophe, a.k.a. King Henri I, ordered the construction of the Citadel in 1805 to protect his black kingdom from the mulattos in the south and the white French at sea. To this day, the mountain fort has never been attacked; many of its 50,000 cannonoballs still lie in tidy piles, unfired.
On the two-hour horseback ride up the steep trail to the fort, I passed groups of teenagers, flirting and teasing each other. A handful of slightly older couples strolled by. The Citadel is ideal for l’amour, explained my guide, Michelet. He, too, had spent several adolescent afternoons here. As we neared the summit, the Citadel entered into view high above the palm-lined track.
The Citadel is one of Haiti’s few prized possessions that has never been taken away. With so few tourists these days (one colleague who had never been to Haiti warned me in all his uninformed wisdom that “they kill tourists there”), it really is in the sole possession of the Haitian people: a little boy with sunglasses “guarded” the old barracks; local teenagers lounged in the shade; one young couple held hands as they gazed at the formidable 360-degree vista, and a young girl named Milose teased her boyfriend as their friends laughed and ran up and down the ancient water reservoirs.
As I stood peacefully atop the Citadel’s roof, all Haiti–and its suffering–lay beneath me. To the north I could see the port of Cap Haitien, once known as the “Paris of the Antilles.” In the past 200 years it has been burned to the ground three times and destroyed twice more by an earthquake and a hurricane. To the east, I gazed at the lush, forested land that Christopher Columbus described as maravillosa. But the Creole proverb warns, “Deye mon gen mon.” (“Behind the mountains are more mountains.”) And beyond these lush hills loom the gray, deforested slopes that Jacques Cousteau, nearly 500 years after Columbus, declared “beyond salvation.” I turned south to face Port-au-Prince, a city ridden with overpopulated slums, riotous political protests and corrupt politicians. Finally, I looked to the west, toward the Windward Passage, where thousands of Haitians hoping to reach a better life in the United States have drowned in the past decade.
Despite the tragic scenery that surrounds it, the Citadel itself re- mains a haven. And despite the state their land may be in, it is representative of the Haitian people themselves. An estimated 20,000 soldiers lugged the Citadel’s stone blocks up the steep, winding hills. Untold thousands of them died. But despite King Henri’s fears of attack, the fort still stands proud and undamaged. Here was a haven for love, friendship, family and happiness amid turbulent politics, corruption, poverty, a desecrated landscape and never-ending oppression. The Citadel was designed to fend off attack from any conceivable direction. The Haitian people seem to have maintained a similar resilience, pride and dignity, a spirit of kindness, respect and love, despite the challenges and hardships they have endured from all directions. And at the Citadel, they can–and still do–enjoy a moment of peace in this often unpredictable land.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-14” author: “Rebecca Davis”
As the conversation progressed, the man announced that he and his wife were about to embark on a tour of Bordeaux wineries. His declaration surprised me. Why would sensible Americans traipse around Bordeaux when there are perfectly good wineries in California, New York–even Ohio?
“Are you in the wine business?” I asked.
“No,” replied my neighbor, smiling. “It’s just a hobby of ours, wine and food.”
It was that way all throughout my week-long stay in Paris earlier this month. Everywhere I looked, seemingly ordinary Americans were gorging on foie gras, agonizing over the proper Burgundy to go withtheir lapin and ordering the stinkiest of cheeses without flinching. Ironically, the only restaurants that appeared to be full of Parisians were McDonald’s and the local equivalent, Quick.
Perhaps this gastronomic aberration simply reflects the relative prosperity of France and the United States at present. But I can’t shake the feeling that the two countries are undergoing some sort of role reversal. Americans take up haute cuisine as a hobby while the French discover the virtues of fast food.
It’s not just food. Consider this year’s World Cup. In 1998, host nation France won and the United States crashed and burned. But this year, during my stay in Paris, the French team was eliminated, sent home from the competition scoreless. Team U.S.A., meanwhile, shocked Portugal and squeaked through to the second round. On the streets of Paris, glum Frenchmen pooh-poohed le football as “just a game,” while American tourists enthusiastically talked soccer and discussed their team’s prospects in the next match.
Not that this is a problem–unless you believe that America’s greatness depends upon its tendency to look inward. According to one theory, it is because Americans refuse to be seduced by foreign foods–or foreign sports for that matter–that we stay focused on building our own country. A friend of mine who espouses this theory once told me that the United States “will cease to be a great power when Americans start caring about food.”
If that’s true, then I’m going to start worrying. Just as soon as I finish my cheese plate.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-20” author: “Stacey Cox”
It is said that Londoners are never more than 40 feet away from a rat or a mouse. Rodents cavort in parks, on the Underground, in the busy streets… even my rat catcher bore an uncanny resemblance to the vermin. But despite living opposite the houses of Parliament, I never truly expected to encounter one in my home.
It’s not just the rats–London’s mice are getting worse, too. In the dark depths of London’s Underground lurks a highly evolved breed of rodent, the so-called supermouse. Over the past hundred years, these tiny supermice have developed smaller ears, making them less sensitive to train whistles. No specific research has been done on them, a fact which has only served to heighten my fears.
Supermouse or no supermouse, the sheer number of “normal” rodents is enough to spook me. There are tens of millions of rats in London, according to the British Pest Control Association. And the pest population is on the rise, a BPCA spokesperson told me. But why? “Milder winters and increased sources of food,” he suggested, with more than a hint of doubt. And they’re not shy, either. Experts claim London’s rodents are also becoming less resistant to poison. Hence, they’re everywhere. I heard about a guy who had a mouse run up his trousers when he was waiting for the train. A few weeks ago, while switching trains myself, a brown mouse ran past me as if he too were transferring to the Piccadilly Line. The next day I saw another mouse miss his train–literally. He went flying off the platform toward his friends below. As for the shy ones, they scare me even more. “You know, for every one you see, there are nine you don’t,” said my rat catcher. Thanks, friend.
While I sweat at the sight of a rodent, it seems that the British, famous for their love of animals, simply consider them part of the scenery–perhaps just another facet of cosmopolitan London for them to appreciate. They “provide a sort of in-transit entertainment for [Underground] passengers,” said a London Underground spokesman. Personally, I’ve had enough. So, I’m making a plea for the Pied Piper of Hamelin to come out of retirement, hop on a plane from Germany and save London. Thanks to the European Union, he won’t even need a work permit.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-06” author: “Randolph Thompson”
On one side of a 300-yard stretch of Calle Venezuela, people overflowed from a dozen little open-front mini-markets called colmados. On the other side, eight discotheques stared back. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, they were already packed. Both the discos and the colmados relentlessly blasted merengue at each other.
My friend Jose and I began our afternoon in the colmados. In each store, several televisions blared out the broadcasts in duet with the merengue: A’s vs. Mariners, Red Sox vs. Orioles, Braves vs. Mets, Cubs vs. Pirates… almost every U.S. major-league game was on one screen or another. Men and women, young and old, sat drinking their sodas and Presidente beer, chatting among themselves when the action paused, or dancing a quick turn between innings.
Suddenly, local hero Sammy Sosa was up to bat, and everyone turned to watch. Swing and a miss! Strike one, and the crowd let out a low murmur. Pitch two: Crack! Before the sound even reached my ears, the colmados were rocking under a tremor of jubilant baseball fanatics.
My surprise at their proud passion really shows how little I had cared for baseball. Apparently, Dominicans are the best baseball players in the world. Ever since a group of Cuban refugees brought the game over in the 1870s, baseball has been part of the Dominican way of life. Leagues were formed in the early 1900s, and today more than 20 U.S. major-league teams have Dominican training camps for prospective players.
The list of Dominican superstars in the United States is endless: Sosa, Vladimir Guerrero, Albert Pujols, Pedro Martinez, Bartolo Colon, Miguel Tejada, Alfonso Soriano, Manny Ramirez… “They’re all dominicanos,” boasted Jose. And there they all were, up on the TV screens in this little shop on the island of Hispaniola in the middle of the Caribbean. No sooner had Sosa’s plate appearance ended with a deep fly ball to left field than the crowd swiveled to watch Alex Rodriguez. Next it was Tejada. When Jose and I had finally had enough of beer and baseball, we crossed the street to the discos for a bit of dancing. “We can always come back for the last innings,” he said. Hey, when in Rome… after all, most everyone else was doing the same. Unlike the cars, jam-packed and stationary up and down the street, the human traffic was flowing freely back and forth across it. “This is how we spend a day of baseball,” said Jose with a smile. “We drink and watch baseball over there, then we dance and live over here,” he explained. “Then, more baseball.”
So, we danced for about two hours, the hypnotizing, energetic merengue driving the blood through our bodies and the disco’s big-screen TV keeping us in touch with Sosa and Co. When we could dance no more, we crossed the street again. In the colmados, beer was still being imbibed, merengue was still roaring and yes, all eyes were still glued to baseball. On that Sunday, I learned why people love baseball. My American friends had always tried to explain that a combination of factors made the game so special. On Calle Venezuela, I found passion, pride, Presidente, a pounding pulse and the common denominator–baseball. Now that’s a great combo. Thank you, Dominican Republic; now I get it.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-29” author: “Lillian Yeager”
Since the Taliban fell, there has not been an overnight lifting of the veil, neither as cloth nor metaphor. “I will take off my chadri [burqa] when the other women do,” said 35-year-old Mina, as she walked down a Kabul street on her way home from the hospital. Despite her opinion that the burqa is “not clothing for a woman, or any human being,” Mina will wait patiently for her time. For now, women are still wearing their burqas. And girls are still studying in the privacy of their homes.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-22” author: “Marilyn Brewer”
But these favors don’t make me feel particularly comfortable as a pregnant woman in Rome. The idea of fertility might still be honored in Italy, but the old idea of the Italian mamma is outdated. After generations of watching their mothers work for free as maids and cooks, modern Italian women want to be something else. As a result, an undercurrent of hostility is brewing among women of childbearing age. They turn away as I pass–especially when I have my toddler in tow. Or they look at me like I’m a traitor: messing up the national average (1.2 children per woman) and pressuring them to procreate. Mothers of only children ask how I can possibly have another. They explain that their house is too small for more children, their own mother lives too far away, or that the responsibility of even one child is almost too much to bear.
Some say Italy’s low birthrate is a backlash against decades of fascism, which pushed women into motherhood. Others blame high unemployment and uncertainty about the future. I suspect there’s another reason too. In Italy, women are still struggling with equality issues that many countries have already addressed. Just try to buy hardware, for instance. “Why don’t you send your husband in,” I’m told as I ask for a specific piece for which I know the exact name and use. A mole wrench, in fact. But more importantly, Italian women are paid the second lowest salaries in Europe. Clearly, these issues have to be addressed before women feel they can fulfill womanly roles, like motherhood, and still be taken seriously. (I always want to explain that I’m American and we’ve come to terms with women’s dual roles.)
Until then, the subtle rebuke of us traitors will grow. In the pediatrician’s waiting room, one mother explains to me that she simply cannot afford a second child. Her 3-year-old daughter, looking lovely in a tiny pink Baby Gucci sweater, agrees. “I don’t want a little sister,” she says, sounding somewhat rehearsed. “How could we ever disappoint her?” asks the mother. “It just wouldn’t be fair.” My son, clad in sale items I picked up on my last trip to the United States, looks confused. “We didn’t consult him,” I explain.
title: “First Person Global” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-09” author: “Taylor Harrison”
It’s a powerful image–the downtrodden lashing out against the forces of globalization–but not a representative one. True, I wouldn’t want to walk through Buenos Aires wearing an INTERNATIONAL BANKER T shirt these days, but that does not mean that Argentines are opposed to globalization. In fact, they practically invented the idea.
An immigrant nation, Argentina has long been famous for picking and choosing the best the world has to offer. Its food is Italian, its cafes Parisian and its military Prussian. As they say, an Argentine is a Spanish-speaking Italian who lives in a French house and thinks he’s British.
Consider that unfortunate McDonald’s. What you couldn’t see on TV was a little section in back called McCafe, a special area where adults could linger over the newspaper and a double espresso. I loved McCafe because it was so profoundly Argentine: a piece of world culture carefully adapted to local tastes.
And take a good look at those protesters. Sure, some of them were pretty scruffy, but wasn’t that a Prada bag I saw? And some Gucci loafers? Appearances count for a lot in Argentina, which outspends most of the world on fashion and cosmetic surgery. With a devalued Argentine currency, all sorts of imported couture might disappear from the shelves. And if that isn’t enough to cause a riot in Buenos Aires, nothing is.
Even in politics, Argentines go for imports. I remember late-night debates in Buenos Aires about whether Argentina should stick with its U.S.-style, dollar-pegged economic model or try something a little more European. The notion that Argentina might do something other than copy somebody else’s plan never seemed to occur to my friends. And so, if Argentina has not achieved prosperity with Parisian cafes and American economics, maybe it’ll try to reverse the strategy. That ought to leave people with plenty of time to hang out at McCafe.
After watching the riots on TV, I called a former colleague of mine in Buenos Aires to make sure she was keeping safe. She told me she had taken to wearing running shoes to work, the better to evade the protesters. “It’s terrible,” she said, summing up Argentina’s worst crisis in more than a decade: “and I had such nice shoes–Italian!”
