Alidad Vassigh

Photograph of Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden walking side by side in the Filoli Estate in the U.S. state of California

Why The World Still Needs U.S. Leadership — With An Assist From China

Twenty years of costly interventions and China's economic ascent have robbed the United States of its global supremacy. It is time for the two biggest powers to work together, to help the world.

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — The United States is facing a complex moment in its history, as it loses its privileged place in the world. Since the Second World War, it has been the world's preeminent power in economic and political terms, helping rebuild Europe after the war and through its growing economy, aiding the development of a significant part of the world.

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Its model of democracy, long considered exemplary around the world, has gone through a rough patch, thanks to excessive polarization and discord. This has cost it a good deal of its leadership, unity and authority.

How much authority does it have to chide certain countries on democracy, as it does, after such outlandish incidents as the assault on Congress in January 2021? The fights we have seen over electing a new speaker of the House of Representatives or backing the administration's foreign policy are simply incredible.

In Ukraine's case, President Biden failed to win support for the aid package for which he was hoping, even if there is a general understanding that if Russia wins this war, Europe's stability would be at risk. It would mean the victory of a longstanding enemy.

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Photograph of Javier Gerardo Milei making a speech at the end of his campaign.

Ideas

The Demagogue's Biggest Lie: That We Don't Need Politics

Trashing politics and politicians is a classic tool of populists to seduce angry voters, and take countries into quagmires far worse than the worst years of democracy. It's a dynamic Argentina appears particularly vulnerable to.

-OpEd-

BUENOS AIRES — I was 45 years old when I became a politician in Argentina, and abandoned politics a while back now. In 1987, Raúl Alfonsín, the civilian president who succeeded the Argentine military junta in 1983, named me cabinet minister though I wasn't a member of his party, the Radicals, or any party for that matter. I was a historian, had worked as a lawyer, wrote newspapers articles and a book in 1985 on science and technology with chapters on cybernetics, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.

That book led Alfonsín to ask me to join his government. My belated political career began in fact after I left the ministry and while it proved to be surprisingly lengthy, it is now over. I am currently writing a biography of a molecular biologist and developing a university course on technological perspectives (futurology).

Talking about myself is risky in a piece against 'anti-politics,' or the rejection of party politics. I do so only to make clear that I am writing without a personal interest. I am out of politics, and have never been a member of what Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni calls la casta, "the caste" — i.e., the political establishment.

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Photo of Alberto Fernández and Xi Jinping

Geopolitics

How Argentina Has Become China's Foothold In Latin America

China has become one of Argentina's most important trading partners and is increasing its military bases in the country. As China seeks to challenge the liberal world order, Argentina risks rifts with other key allies.

-Analysis-

BUENOS AIRES — There was a media furore worldwide in February over the sighting and subsequent downing of mysterious Chinese balloons by the U.S. coastline. The unnerving affair naturally raised a question mark in countries beyond the United States.

Here in Argentina, currently run by a leftist administration with leanings toward Russia and China, we might pertinently wonder whether or not the secretive Chinese base set up in the province of Neuquén in the west of the country in 2015-17 had anything to do with the communist superpower's less-than-festive balloons. It is difficult to say, of course, given the scarcity of information on the base, but the incidents are an opportunity to revise China's presence in Argentina.

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Ideas

From Arrabal To Me — Chance, Forgetting And The Engines Of Creativity

A bit like the playwright Fernando Arrabal who launched an artistic project of decades after spotting a several disjointed phrases, our columnist reflects on the anodyne coincidences that led him to write these words.

-Essay-

MADRID — In art, everything is fortuitous. And so too in the piece you are reading...

In the 1960s, the Spanish playwright and artist Fernando Arrabal founded the Panic Movement, named after Pan, the Greek god of nature — and pranks. The inspiration for the artistic departure came to Arrabal when he placed two books on a big table and opened them at random. The first phrase to catch his eye was "the future acts," and then in the second book, "through coups de théâtre."

Thus a fortuitous adage, that "the future acts through coups de théâtre" or dramatic turns, became a creative spark and strangely presaged the exuberant "chaos" of the riots of May 1968.

Arrabal wanted at the time to distance himself from Surrealism, a current with which he is associated and which is equally fond of disorder. With the help of the Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and the cartoonist Roland Topor, he duly turned a post-war period still weighed with conservative torpor, into creative years.

Arrabal, who is 90 and lives in Paris, liked to startle his Catholic compatriots, painting himself in the company of Jesus at the Last Supper. He once scribbled 'I shit on the fatherland' (me cago en la patria) on one of his books.

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Geopolitics

Geopolitically, "Latin America" Does Not Exist

The election in Brazil of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) is being hailed by some as the confirmation of Latin American around a shared leftist project, yet even the left can't agree with itself. It's a story that goes back centuries, and can only change with a commitment to move beyond ideology.

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — In 1826, the liberator and then president of (a much larger) Colombia, Simón Bolívar, convened the Summit of Panama, in Panama City, with the aim of uniting the recently liberated provinces of the Spanish empire. Bolívar's guest list excluded the United States and imperial Brazil. In spite of good intentions, the summit proved an utter failure.

There was no Latin American integration then, nor is there today, 200 years on, as the continent remains fragmented and divided. In geopolitical terms, there is no Latin America.

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Society

Her Mad Existence: The Ultimate Collection Of Evita Perón Iconography

Seventy years after her death, displays in Buenos Aires, including a vast collection of pictures shown online, recall the life and times of "Evita" Perón, the Argentine first lady turned icon of popular culture.

BUENOS AIRES — Her death in 1952 at the age of 33 helped turn the Argentine first lady Eva Perón — known to millions as Evita — into one of the iconic faces of the 20th century, alongside other Argentines like the singer Carlos Gardel, the guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and soccer stars Maradona and Messi.

Evita, née María Eva Duarte, became for many the defender of the poor — and to her detractors, the mother of Latin America's brazen populists — as she pushed for civil rights, gender equality and social programs for the poor in her time as first lady of Argentina in the mid-20th century.

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EL ESPECTADOR

The Pandemic Has Changed The Meaning Of Work And Free Time

Bill Gates is among those predicting that the shift toward remote work will last beyond the COVID-19 crisis. But what if, to compensate, people start making more of an effort to mix and mingle?

-OpEd-

In a marvelous reflection on the post-modern world and the individual, human condition, the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman cites the example of a young man who aspired to having 500 friends on Facebook.

Bauman observes that at 86, he still hasn't found that many friends, but suggests that the word friend likely means different things to him and to the young Facebook user. Bauman wants authentic human bonds, in a living community. The online community, he says, depends for its existence on two gestures: connecting and disconnecting. And both are just a matter of clicking the right button. Add friend? Click. Remove friend? Click.

The philosopher's reflections focused on the blessings and curses of human ties in the real world versus the virtual, online realm. But now there's an entirely new factor to consider: a painful pandemic that will reshape the world, and our relations.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently tackled the topic of COVID-19, and the lasting impact it may have on the world, in a conference organized by the New York Times. And one of his predictions is that 50% of business trips and 30% of office days will be eliminated.

Offices will never go back to how they were.

That's a very different scenario from the one that people envisioned just last year, when things were still "normal." In a piece published Jan. 24, 2019, Spain's El País called business travel a "rising asset" and cited Bogotá, along with London, New York, Sao Paulo and Mexico City, as one of the world's best cities for corporate events.

But then COVID-19 came along, and many executives made their homes an office. Remote work means it won't be easy to justify a business trip now, which will surely reduce the number of flights crossing the skies every day. Bad news for the airlines, but as far as climate change is concerned, it's actually a rather favorable development. Airports, long trips, jet lag, hotels and constant separation from loved ones will no longer be part of the routine of corporate directors.

Also during the pandemic, many people moved to places far removed from city centers. They were looking for quiet places, surrounded by nature and often cheaper. Moving forward, everything indicates that more people will return to the countryside and picturesque villages where the norm is to appreciate the small things in life. This will likely reduce the population density of big cities and in the long term, redistribute the population in many countries.

Sunday morning on Wall Street — Photo: Billie Grace Ward

Gates believes that the shift to remote working will be a lasting one, and that offices will never go back to how they were. He expects that as a result, people will feel more of a need to socialize. In the meantime, though, we're still having to deal with the virus. Vaccines will take time to distribute and apply, meaning that the disruptions to normal life will continue. We can also expect that most people will continue being cautious with elderly parents and relatives.

In 2020, most countries imposed social distancing. Borders were closed. People moved apart. And our houses, in addition to being homes, doubled as offices, classrooms and everything else. The silver lining was that the concept of home recovered its beauty, sense and essence. And yet, it's also clear people want to reach out and touch each other again. After staring at a screen for hours on end, people want to look each other in the eyes, the way they used to.

Gates said he hadn't anticipated facemasks would be so controversial, or that the Trump administration would take such an extremist attitude to the pandemic. He acknowledged that there is strong antipathy in the United States to using facemasks, but said he isn't sure if it's because of the government's political posturing, or due to a vigorous attachment, among American people, to personal freedoms.

Those kinds of unpredictable behaviors — in the name of freedom or under other pretexts — could occur elsewhere in the world too. Only time will tell. Either way, let's hope that whatever happens, whether in relation to Bauman's ideas about human bonds or Gates's post-pandemic predictions, we'll be ready to see and experience the changes — in person.

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Buenos Aires police detain a suspect on March 22 after the national quarantine began.

CLARIN

Coronavirus Profiteers: With The Virus Come The Vultures

While we see a general boost in solidarity, a small minority is looking to profit from the COVID-19 tragedy, feeding on a weakened and distracted society.

-Analysis-

BUENOS AIRES — When tragedy strikes, as it has with the COVID-19 pandemic, the vultures are always quick to descend. These scavengers come to feed off a society that is ailing, threatened or defenseless. They are a minority, for sure, but there are still far too many.

The first of these vultures tried to flout the mandatory confinement. The old Argentine society — the one that existed before the virus and is giving way to a new, yet-to-be-understood reality — hates abiding by rules. It admires countries where people respect the rule of law, but doesn't like to follow those same laws here, its own territory.

Years ago, during the dictatorship and in order to organize automobile traffic, someone thought of limiting circulation on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to cars with an even number plate. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays would be for cars with odd number plates, and on Sundays, anyone could drive. But right away, exceptions and exemptions began to emerge. Doctors, professors, sewerage operatives, accordion players, civil servants, soldiers, diplomats ... Everyone found an excuse not to comply, and so, within a month there was no telling who was supposed to drive when.

Disobedient civilians are placing lives at risk.

In that case, the civil disobedience wasn't really a matter of life and death. Our lives, after all, were already in the hands of a dictatorial junta. But today's disobedient civilians, not to mention all the people who are just plain idiots, are placing lives at risk.

The second wave of vultures infected — and yes, that is the right word — the social networks with the sinister trend of fake news, lies, fraud, magic recipes against contagion like washing in your urine or chewing a piece of garlic while fasting and the like ... There are the tasteless memes too — from all those irrepressible funnymen who think they're as clever as ever.

The third wave of vultures also swooped in on the back of Internet. An increase in home working and banking operations online, alongside an overflow of malicious mails, have proved a boon to hackers and all those who are keen, as always, to steal personal data or harm hospital, media or security systems. In more prosaic form, common criminals have also sought to enter residential blocks and flats, using fake IDs to pose as telecom technicians, doctors, ambulance drivers, healthcare workers or firemen.

While the vultures scavenge, the majority of people are of a very different mindset.

The rest of the scavenging pack is to be found in politics. Some will estimate the final death toll and use the pandemic to settle old scores from their time in government, or bring out their tattered old political IOUs. Others blame the pandemic on a particular social sector in a bid to consolidate their populist discourse. Yet others will try to piggyback on the appreciation being shown to medics and nurses, presenting their achievements as those of a government they hardly represent.

Curiously, while the vultures scavenge, the majority of people are instead of quite a different mindset. We're seeing an unusual, if not unprecedented, revaluation of certain overlooked professions: supermarket cashiers, shelf stackers or bank employees refilling ATM machines, trash collectors, carers in old people's homes, doctors and nurses who risk their lives on an invisible front line.

Indeed, a big chunk of society is applauding and singing to them from their balconies, belting out the national anthem, in some cases. These are expressions of gratitude, but also fear. Not that the vultures care. They feed on corpses.

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Bolsonaro is virtually the only world leader still downplaying COVID-19

EL ESPECTADOR

Bolsonaro, The Political Cost Of Downplaying Coronavirus

The Brazilian president may be risking his political future by taking the viral pandemic lightly.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said in one of his more controversial declarations, going against World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, that he was asking state governors to end the quarantine regime and closure of schools and shops to "minimize the risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic." This is at a time when virtually every other national and regional government is asking their citizens to keep themselves isolated.

The president said there was no reason for confining the entire population as older people were the ones particularly at risk from the coronavirus. The virus, he said in typical fashion, would cause no more than a "slight flu," and Brazil"s warm climate and youthful population protected it against the pandemic. Bolsonaro then blamed the media for whipping up collective hysteria among a traumatized population.

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The city of Sorocaba, Brazil, decreed a dengue epidemic on Jan. 31

Peru

Coronavirus And Us: Why We Ignore Other Infectious Diseases

The level of media attention given to the coronavirus compared to other maladies says a lot about the economic and political power of the countries affected.

-Analysis-

LIMA — The World Health Organization (WHO) has played a vital role in coordinating international actions against a range of infectious diseases such as the spread of the H1N1 or swine-fever virus a decade ago.

The task of responding to a transnational threat in a world governed by nation-states, while not being a state, has required WHO to weave together an institutional network and series of governmental processes that are followed by most sovereign states to provide a generally effective authority for confronting an international health threat.

Of course, when we talk about exercising government functions, we inevitably are also talking about politics. And as we know, political decisions tend to run on the negotiating power of the actors involved.

Let us consider the following for example. While there is ample media coverage of the spreading coronavirus in our region, the following development received far less coverage: In 2019, the Western Hemisphere saw more than 3 million cases of dengue fever, the largest number to date and well above the previous high of 2.4 million registered cases in 2015, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which acts as WHO's regional office.

It's also worth noting that in 2015, some 1,400 people died of the illness in this hemisphere. In 2019, in spite of the increase in registered cases, the intense work done by countries to restrict the disease's lethal impact ensured a much lower death rate, 0.05% of all cases.

In 2017, Peruvian hospitals faced dengue cases — Photo: El Comercio/GDA via ZUMA Wire

We should highlight three points from this. First, according to this last estimate, more than 1,500 people died of dengue fever in 2019 on the American continent, while there were just 23 cases of coronavirus infection on the continent up to Feb. 18, 2020. None of these were in Latin America and the Caribbean and none had led to a patient's death.

Diseases spread through food cause 420,000 deaths a year, mostly in poorer countries.

Thus the level of media coverage is completely out of proportion to the relative gravity of this public health problem, at least so far. It's also worth noting that, in the case of dengue, collaboration of regional states had duly kept down dengue's mortality rate. The achievement then was due to collaboration between states, not the cooperation of international agencies (public, private, national and international), which had acted successfully against the spread of H1N1.

The third (and paradoxical) issue is that while WHO is tasked with coordinating international efforts on healthcare, it plays a relatively minor role against infectious diseases that mostly affect poorer populations in countries that are not world powers. This is even more the case with diseases spread through food, which WHO reports cause 420,000 deaths a year worldwide, and are concentrated in poorer African and Asian countries that have very little influence in the international system. The World Health Organization must work to truly live up to its name.

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CLARIN

Slow Vegetarianism: Take Your Time And Use Your Brain

Going vegetarian or vegan is not just to stop eating meat, but a progressive rejection of the globalized food industry.

BARCELONA — The warnings have been piling up for years: researchers are encouraging the public to eat less meat, both to protect the environment and their health. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) qualified red meat as "probably" cancer-causing and processed meats as "carcinogenic to humans," prompting social alarm and a sustained reduction since in meat consumption worldwide.

Spain's Agriculture Ministry, which gathers food consumption statistics, found that meat-eating in Spain fell by 2.8% in 2018 compared to 2017, as part of a steady decline over the previous seven years. In the United Kingdom, a study carried out by Sainsbury's supermarkets found that 91% of Britons were actively reducing meat consumption, not just for health but also ethical and environmental reasons.

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Alidad Vassigh

Twenty years of costly interventions and China's economic ascent have robbed the United States of its global supremacy. It is time for the two biggest powers to work together, to help the world.

The Trump factor

A series of international failures

The fear of China's power

Trashing politics and politicians is a classic tool of populists to seduce angry voters, and take countries into quagmires far worse than the worst years of democracy. It's a dynamic Argentina appears particularly vulnerable to.

The best of our bad options

Generalization as a weapon

China has become one of Argentina's most important trading partners and is increasing its military bases in the country. As China seeks to challenge the liberal world order, Argentina risks rifts with other key allies.

Trade imperative

Challenging the world order

The need for public debate

A bit like the playwright Fernando Arrabal who launched an artistic project of decades after spotting a several disjointed phrases, our columnist reflects on the anodyne coincidences that led him to write these words.

Manic but kind

Science in the work of writers

Last thoughts on Arrabal

The election in Brazil of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) is being hailed by some as the confirmation of Latin American around a shared leftist project, yet even the left can't agree with itself. It's a story that goes back centuries, and can only change with a commitment to move beyond ideology.

EU as model

Lula and AMLO

Seventy years after her death, displays in Buenos Aires, including a vast collection of pictures shown online, recall the life and times of "Evita" Perón, the Argentine first lady turned icon of popular culture.

The many phases of a brief life

An immortal icon

Latin American businesses and governments are seeing the marketing and export potentials of an incipient liberalization of marijuana laws in the region. But to really cash in, it must be an investment in more than simple commodity crops.

Latin America knows the pitfalls of commodity-only business

In Colombia, studying if cannabis can treat Alzheimer's

In Argentina, AI innovation to boost plant quality

Mexico, ripe for marijuana growth

High returns

Bill Gates is among those predicting that the shift toward remote work will last beyond the COVID-19 crisis. But what if, to compensate, people start making more of an effort to mix and mingle?

While we see a general boost in solidarity, a small minority is looking to profit from the COVID-19 tragedy, feeding on a weakened and distracted society.

The Brazilian president may be risking his political future by taking the viral pandemic lightly.

The level of media attention given to the coronavirus compared to other maladies says a lot about the economic and political power of the countries affected.

Going vegetarian or vegan is not just to stop eating meat, but a progressive rejection of the globalized food industry.

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