The hidden dangers of exaggeration

Political language in Argentina is growing more hyperaggressive with ever greater frequency and intensity. Based on a hunch rather than any scientifically accurate survey, you might say that a moderate (or politically apathetic) third of the citizenry watches the other ideologically overstimulated two-thirds hurling accusations of every kind at each other.

From the ranks of hard-core Kirchnerite militants it is customary for anything sounding conservative or centre-right to be dubbed as “fascist” while the other side goes over the top increasingly often in calling the government a “regime,” qualified (with even greater audacity) as “authoritarian,” “totalitarian” and even “Nazi.”

In the last few weeks innumerable references along these lines have been uttered or written, whose potential dangers deserve attention. Leading politicians such as Eduardo Duhalde, Elisa Carrió, Federico Sturzenegger, Patricia Bullrich and Eduardo Amadeo, among others, have incurred such excesses in their public statements or (as is perhaps only slightly more excusable) in those 140 characters without rational filters known as Twitter.

Continuing a saga begun some time ago by the magazine Noticias, with that memorable cover depicting Néstor Kirchner in Nazi uniform, Clarín newspaper, at a suggestively similar time to the statements of the aforementioned leaders, published an article linking Kirchnerite price controls to those of the Babylonian empire and the Third Reich. More than cheeky.

But for the “creative use” of history, the La Nación editorial that same day (May 27) entitled “1933” takes the biscuit. Among other unfortunate concepts, this invited us to reflect on “certain parallelisms between that reality and Argentina today which obliges us to stay on the alert.” Mutatis mutandi, of course.

The aforementioned coincidental timing of those judgements makes us wonder if it is mere contagion with a concept tossed out by one person “inspiring” others to express a volcanic anger, responding to a tacit consensus tending (beyond any deliberate intent) to erode not only a passing government but an entire institutional system which for all its imperfections permits Argentines to live in freedom, electing and changing their governments through ballots cast without fear.

The DAIA Jewish umbrella grouping has called on the aforementioned persons and media not to turn the Holocaust into a banality via unsuitable comparisons. That is beyond doubt one danger inherent in such statements but there is another and subtler one affecting the faith of Argentines in the health of the democratic system.

The comparison between Kirchnerism and Nazism is only the most absurd extreme of such arguments. Neither the international realities of 1933 and 2013 are comparable, nor are the government decisions involved nor the track records of the respective political leaderships nor anything really. There are therefore other arguments speaking of an “authoritarian” or “totalitarian” government, which, since they are not so obviously ridiculous, have a more dangerous corrosive potential.

One fine point here — from the standpoint of political theory, “authoritarian” and “totalitarian” are not the same thing. The former alludes to a simple tyranny, in which a person or group impose their authority abusively on a population but without institutionalizing it strongly in any way — the latter is not only a “dictatorship” but its consolidation through heavy-handed and complex institutions permitting the state to invade the private life of individuals. The oppressive vision of George Orwell gives us sufficient insight into this concept.

This article does not seek to defend any government. Quite the contrary, it is entirely possible to discern in Kirchnerism a style of leadership with certain excessive features. Its lack of inclination for any dialogue; shunning certain judicial rulings for as long as possible; deplorable inroads into some institutions, such as the INDEC statistics bureau; a general refusal to open up government bills in Congress to any debate for fear of diluting the original intentions of the text, even if the bill might gain in terms of consensus; resorting to emergency decrees to legislate; the use and abuse of state media, etc. etc. etc.

Nevertheless, an “authoritarian style” does not automatically mean an authoritarian government and far less a dictatorship. The continued existence of judicial and legislative counterweights, the vigour of a civil society expressed in many strong organizations and, why not, the limits which the authorities place upon themselves — all this should prevent anybody stopping to think from falling into the above exaggerations.

Although not to be minimized, the faults mentioned above are far from being Argentina’s national heritage. The harassment of far right organizations by the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, the phone-tapping inflicted on a score of journalists and editors from the Associated Press news agency, mass espionage on millions of US telephone calls since 9/11 and the imprisonment without indictment or right of defence of terrorist suspects, among other examples, would then entitle us to talk about the “Obama dictatorship.”

And neither here nor there could anybody survive under a tyrannical government. Mutatis mutandi, of course.

“The government is not republican,” it is often said with somewhat more prudence. There is more room for speculation concerning its “style,” we insist, and even its ultimate intentions but institutions work reasonably well in Argentina and are guarantee against any government going overboard.

Let us recall that in mid-May the Administrative Litigation Court quashed the fines which the Domestic Trade Department had slapped on private business consultants for releasing supposedly defective inflation data. That’s a good example. Firstly, because we are talking about an appeals court which is often accused of being attuned to the government and secondly, because it reveals that certain authoritarian whims end up being contained institutionally.

We could multiply such cases. The most fervent critics of the Broadcasting Law and the judicial reform package, among other measures, call them examples of such authoritarianism. Well, both of them will have to pass through the filter of a Supreme Court, which, as things now stand, offers more than reasonable guarantees.

The discriminatory use of state advertising against critical media has also been judicially reprimanded in the case involving Perfil publishing house.

The argument of a “rubberstamp” Congress did not apply between 2009 and 2011, when Kirchnerism lost control of the Lower House. The attitude of the opposition was in those years as factious as ever and as dismissive of their Kirchnerite rivals as the latter had been before. The genes of an “authoritarian style” do not seem to be the monopoly of any one political party.

Argentina does not live under a dictatorship but a full and vibrant democracy, with problems, tensions and messy errors like in other such recognized democracies as the US. So let us return to the initial question — what is the hidden danger of exaggeration?

In general terms, over and above the specific Argentine case, we can say that a bad government is removed by the majority in due course and according to the proper procedure — with the vote. An irreparably corrupt one, if the political balance of powers permits it, is impeached. A dictatorship is overthrown by any means possible. The old doctrines about the right to resist oppression and even tyrannicide are still to be found in libraries.