María Elena Walsh was an Argentinian poet, writer, singer-songwriter, playwright, and composer, famous for her children’s books. In one of her most famous songs she invites us to explore is the “reino del revés” or the upside-down kingdom. In this imaginary place unusual things happen, some so unlikely that they turn comical. It is a whimsical, innocent creation, that entertains children by being creative and witty, interpreted by a lady with big blue eyes, nice and friendly with a sweet and sensitive voice. But, as with many things in this life, and in Walsh’s works, not everything is as it seems. The song is also the synthesis of a frustrating national reality, a poetic description of a social order that leaves meritocracy terrifyingly far away. Its author is also an activist for democracy and for equal rights for every gender and sexuality. María Elena Walsh is not just an entertaining voice, but also a sharp mind that observes, critiques and denounces the inequalities of her time.
The period that inspired María Elena Walsh’s interpretations of reality was that of the dark Argentine military dictatorship at the end of 1970 and the beginnings of the 1980s. Times of abuses of power, secret official drive and delinquency, solid institutional instability. A perfect breeding ground for discretion and a consequent lack of meritocracy. Today, 30 years later, the Argentinian scene shows advancements as a democracy: elections are held freely, transparently and regularly, and governments succeed each other in an almost civilized order and manner. But, in relation to the country’s economy and social order, Argentina is sadly still the same upside-down kingdom. The problems of a new age add to prior ones that are still unsolved and, as court records sitting in an office, they are exasperating proof of the impossibility of the system and the following governments to guarantee an efficient public service.
In the Upside-down Kingdom, a thief is the watchman and another one the judge, says the song.
Argentina in 2020 brings us images from lands being occupied by organized groups that have no homes and decide to occupy grounds that belong to others. Magical writings that, inside drawers from the Upside-down Kingdom, change names again and again, without the approval of any public notary nor the consent of the, previously, happy owners. These occupations are also a double thermometer. On the one hand, they reflect the desperation of a group and, on the other, the negligence of the authorities. It is a vicious cycle. A group of citizens is trapped in a terminal mundanity that defies legality and law enforcement. Some law enforcement waits for the always-weak orders from demagogic civil servants. These civil servants present arguments for the fragrant crime as if they felt the imperious need to redefine the concept, to give some clues on the path judges should take. Judges who are members of a corporation that has, long ago, decided to take the veil away from justice and gets lost between diatribes and semantic discussions that society, all their last client and sole reason of their existence, cannot tolerate anymore. A supreme court that acts slowly, as if acting quicker was unjust. An ex judge of court that, gallant to the core and stronghold for equality pour la galerie, gets paid 50 times the minimum wage. The upside-down kingdom seems vague to describe Argentina’s biggest province which, in 2020 and during a pandemic, has its workers confined, without stepping out of their homes, and delinquents roaming the streets.
In the Upside-down Kingdom, two and two equals three, says the song.
The inflation and constant devaluation that the Argentinian currency has suffered since 1983 makes any kind of planning impossible. Neither businesses nor families can make the most basic calculation when it comes to the return of an investment. Private investments are few and scarce, they answer to specific opportunities with high risks and high reward, only attractive to those who do not have much to lose. The consumption is many times incentivized by the necessity to get rid of the accumulated coins in fear of devaluation. Other times, the incentive comes from buying essential goods, food, before their price rises. The savings, when existent, confront the saver with complex and unprincipled dilemmas, such as acquiring foreign currency or properties outside, with the consequent twists and turns that come from exchanges and legal grey areas. In the Upside-down Kingdom of 2020’s Argentina, as in the song, numbers do not match: the poverty rate is at 40%, but civil servants declare that it is lower than in Germany. With that same intellectual impunity, a government explains that a formula that automatically adjusts retirement salaries to inflation is more prejudicial for its beneficiaries than sporadic highs and government discretion. In the Upside-down Kingdom demagogy is queen consort and meritocracy lays locked in the tower.
In the Upside-down Kingdom, a bear fits inside a nut, the song says.
The overwhelming malpractice of the Argentinian governments to conceal their delinquent misdeeds can only be digested in the tone of fiction. During the 80s, a euphoric little dictator, dressed in greens and made braver by a bottle defies the island with more territories in the sea by invading land that is under their ruling and sends inexperienced teenagers to freeze to death for their country. He does so to save face and maintain power. As should be expected, he fails at everything. Years later, a minister of public constructions, manager of the highest budget in the administration, is recorded by security cameras throwing bags with millions of dollars in cash over the wall of a convent, and loading a weapon of war with the same normality with which a civil servant would carry a suitcase. He is imprisoned because such blatant crimes and ones almost live streamed on TV leave no possible escape, at least until now. Does a bear fit inside a nut? Yes, because his boss, who is the boss of a nation, instead of sanctioning him and shedding some light to the shameless scandal, opts for silence and victimization. In the Upside-down Kingdom, a minister of social development, whose budgets grow at the same rhythm poverty does, buys food for those in need, but does so at much higher prices than those imposed by the government itself to sellers of those same products. If this is not hiding a bear in a nut, someone come and explain it to me. There is more: A high civil servant, always generous with the national budget, comes to think that housewives, dedicated to managing their homes and taking care of their children, have a right to receive a retirement. The sheer romanticism of the idea, a noble cause if there ever was one, murders any basic analysis that could warn of the incorporation of 3 million of beneficiaries to the pensions system. A president who is searching for 3 million voters to guarantee a second term is moved by the idea, which seems as tailor made as her thousands of tailleurs, and so she implements it with urgency. The Public Accounts Bodies are taken by surprise and the civil servants in them discover mathematics as an exact science when the deficit grows at the same speed as the beneficiaries multiply. In the Upside-down Kingdom, the treasury approves expenses way over the income and paints the balances red until they look like a Van Gogh. The bear in the nut is populism disguised as social justice. Years later, a government in high alert of the excessive public spending gets working on minimizing the breach between it and the income. Let the initiative be welcome. Understand that, to finance the meanwhile, it is better to borrow. Taking advantage of its good reputation with world powers, it acquires the highest public debt from a country with private investors, by denomination and under foreign law; but they never come across with their cuts in expending, and decides to be indebted to multilateral organisms to finance the payment of the debt that adds to current expenditures. In the Upside-down Kingdom a debt is used to cover current expenditures instead of financing investments.
In the Upside-down Kingdom, a year lasts for a month, says the song.
In this upside-down Argentina arbitrariness and centralism in the decision-making process are such that urgent acts are considered necessary instruments of public management. The presidential system exalts the figure of whoever sits on the Rivadia couch (the republic’s throne) embodying the cornerstone of republican systems: the division of powers. The careerism political forces display accompanies a perverse system in which the president carries the weight of decisions and the responsibility of parties is thus diluted and reduced to minimal tasks such as managing clerkship of the process or operating a television complaints machine in the case of the opposition. Thus, with necessary and urgent acts the nationalization of public infrastructures is approved, while on the other side, in the realm of law, these same decisions are organized in referendums. In the Upside-down Kingdom, the world’s longest confinement is taking place in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the infected numbers rise amongst the highest. And the fault is always someone’s, always of whoever is the head of management, this person bestows themselves the responsibility to “take care” of the citizens. In Upside-down Argentina government decides to stabilize the water and hydrocarbon services since they are considered essential. It is done ten years after a government from the same party privatizes them. The only obstacle being the concession contracts signed for 100 years by an all-paying state, with public funds, naturally. A president euphorically announces nationalizations; labor unions play drumming music and rise signs; other state powers watch, clap, sign and clap again while citizens, eternally naïve and serial financers, believe once more that they will benefit with their government’s decision without being aware that they will pay double this risky move when international courts go against these nationalizations and make the State pay millions in compensation to the businesses. In the Upside-down Kingdom, where 100 years last ten, contracts are stumbles.
Everyone, leave.
The talented ones in the Upside-down Kingdom, young and prepared, are the protagonists of a long and constant exodus in search of the holy grail: stability. They run away, used to the unheard of, in search of the foreseeable. And wherever they go, they find it. It is logical they do, since they do not ask for much more than the basics: economic stability, judicial safety and a meritocracy. In a context that allows the game to be played by the rules fair and square and enjoy the results. It is exhausting, and frustrating. Because this is not fiction, but reality. It is painful, because these are families that cling to their position in the social scale with their own efforts and dedication, only to be the sad witness of a constant social descension.
The Upside-down Kingdom cannot hold on any longer. Argentina demands, once more, a complete renewal of their political class and rulers. Inside the citizens grow a feeling that was already strong during the 2001 crisis and that was reflected in the sentence “everyone, leave”. Then, a leader rose from the public perception and seemed to represent the change but instead guaranteed the perdurance of this inbred and corrupt system. The Upside-down Kingdom must straighten its back and become a republic. The queen of this new system must be meritocracy. And every reform of the system must be created in her image and likeness. Two distinctive elements must guarantee this system: technology and government. Holding technology’s hand, who must make everything democratic and transparent, the end of impunity must come. Only then the song María Elena Walsh wrote would be, forever, just a song.
Translated by Belén González
THE GLOBAL VISION 