Message to the Educational Community—March 31, 2002
In life there are moments (few, but essential) when it is necessary to make decisions that are critical, total, and foundational. Critical, because they lie exactly on the line that separates commitment from hesitation, hope from disaster, life from death. Total, because they do not relate to an aspect, an optional ‘matter’ or ‘challenge,’ or a specific area of reality, but define a life in its entirety and for a long time. More than that, they shape the innermost identity of each individual. They not only take place in time but also give shape to our temporality and existence. It is in this sense that I use the third adjective: foundational. They create the basis for a way of life, a manner of being, of seeing and presenting ourselves to the world and to others, a certain position toward future possibilities.
Today I want to share with you the perception that we are precisely at one of these decisive moments. Not individually, but as a nation. It is a conviction shared by many, including the Holy Father, as he explained to us on our latest episcopal visit to Rome. Argentina is now at the brink of a critical, global, fundamental decision, to be taken by each one of its inhabitants: the decision to continue being a country, to learn from the painful experience of these years and start out on a new road, or to sink into dire poverty, chaos, loss of values, and decomposition as a society.
A Renewed and Audacious Hope
The purpose of this meditation is not to reinforce the feeling of threat, but on the contrary to encourage hope. I would like to expand on the reflections I shared with you a couple of years ago, but now from the specific and decisive experience of these recent months. Hope is the virtue of the arduous yet possible; it invites us, yes, to never stop trying, not in a purely willful manner, but by finding the best way to keep up our effort and use it for something real and specific. It’s a virtue that sometimes pushes us to come forward, shout, and shake off our tendencies toward inaction, resignation, and failure. Yet, at other times, it invites us to keep quiet and suffer, nourishing our interior with the desires, ideals, and resources that will enable us—when the opportune moment, the kairos, arrives—to create more humane, more just, more fraternal realities. Hope not only relies on the resources of human beings but also tries to act in harmony with the work of God, who gathers up our efforts and includes them in his plan for salvation.
Our reflection on hope in the year 2002 has a fundamental difference from the one we shared with you in 2000, in that it comes at the very peak of the crisis, its most acute moment. But at the same time, I think I am not mistaken in observing that this peak is exactly the right moment, the point at which our history assumes a special gravity and the actions of women and men take on new significance. If gestures of solidarity and selfless love have always been a form of prophecy, a powerful signal of the possibility of another story, today their prophetic power is infinitely greater. They indicate the stepping-stones across the swamp, a direction to follow precisely at the point of being lost. Conversely, falsehood and theft (the main ingredients of corruption) are evils that destroy the community. Just the practice of corruption can definitively demolish this fragile construction that we, as a people, are trying to build.
If we give our assent to the word of the Gospel, we know that even apparent failure can be a path to salvation. This is what marks the difference between a drama and a tragedy. Whereas, in the latter, ineluctable fate drags human enterprise toward unmitigated disaster and any attempt to challenge it merely aggravates the irreversible end, by contrast in a drama of life and death, good and evil, victory and defeat are present as possible alternatives: Nothing could be further from stupid optimism, but also from tragic pessimism, because when we find ourselves at this perhaps distressing crossroads we can also try to recognize the hidden signs of God’s presence, if nothing more, as an opportunity, as an invitation to change and action … and also as a promise. These words can take on a dramatic aspect, but never a tragic one. Take note: This is not theatrical posturing, but the conviction that we are in the moment of grace, in the spotlight of our responsibility as members of the community, which is to say, purely and simply, as human beings.
The City of God in Secular History
So, what now can Christian faith tell us about this critical moment, besides placing us on the steep and narrow path of freedom, without predetermined outcomes when it comes to the success or failure of our human endeavors? Allow me to make a sort of journey in time, to stand, almost sixteen hundred years back, beside the window through which a man watched as a world ended, without any certainty that something better would come afterward. I’m talking about Saint Augustine, who was Bishop of Hippo in North Africa during the last years of the Roman Empire.
Everything that Saint Augustine had known (and not only him, but his father, his grandfather, and many preceding generations) was disintegrating. The so-called barbarian peoples were exerting pressure on the edges of the empire, and Rome itself had been sacked. As a man formed by Greco-Roman culture, he was bound to feel perplexed and anguished in the face of the imminent fall of known civilization. As a Christian, he found himself in the difficult position of continuing to place his hopes in the Kingdom of God (which for too long, even then, had been identified with the Christianized empire) without closing his eyes to what was already an inevitable reality, historically speaking. And as a bishop, he felt bound by his duty to help his flock (and Christianity as a whole) not only to process the catastrophe without loss of faith but also to emerge from the ordeal with a better understanding of the mystery of salvation and increased trust in the Lord.
During that epoch, Augustine, a man who had known incredulity and materialism, found the key that could give shape to his hope in a profound theology of history, developed in his book The City of God. In it, going broadly beyond the ‘official theology’ of the empire, the saint presents us with a defining hermeneutical principle of his thought: the concept of ‘two loves’ and ‘two cities.’ In synthesis, his argument is that there are two ‘loves’: self love, predominantly individualistic, which uses others for its own ends, considers commonalities only in relation to its own uses, and rebels against God, and holy love, which is eminently social, aligns itself with the common good, and follows the Lord’s commands. The ‘two cities’ are organized around these two ‘loves’ or ends: the ‘earthly’ city and the city ‘of God.’ The pagans inhabit one of them, the ‘saints’ the other.
But the interesting feature of Augustinian thought is that these cities are not historically verifiable, in the sense that they can be identified with one or another secular reality. The City of God is clearly not the visible Church: Many inhabitants of the celestial city are in pagan Rome, and many members of the earthly city are in the Christian Church. The ‘cities’ are eschatological bodies; only at the Final Judgment will they become clearly visible, like the chaff and the wheat after harvesting. Until then, here in history, they are inextricably intertwined. The ‘secular’ is the historical existence of the two cities. While they are mutually exclusive in eschatological terms, during worldly times—the saeculum—they cannot be properly distinguished and separated. The dividing line is … the personal and collective freedom of human beings.
Why am I mulling over these ancient thoughts of a fifth-century bishop? Because they teach us a way to see reality. Human history is the ambiguous field on which multiple projects are played out, none of them humanly immaculate. But we can consider that the ‘profane love’ and ‘holy love’ of which Saint Augustine spoke flows through all of them. All Manichaeism or dualism apart, it is legitimate to try to distinguish by seeing, on the one hand, historical events that are ‘signs of the times,’ the seeds of the Kingdom, and on the other the actions that—detached from the eschatological finality—only further frustrate man’s highest destiny. That is, by perceiving reality through a theological and spiritual appraisal, from the point of view of the gifts of grace and temptations to sin that free will presents.
With these evangelical criteria in mind, I venture to share with you these reflections on the present reality of our country and, above all, the values at stake in that reality. Values or ‘loves’: that which attracts and moves our desires and energies, directing us toward grace or sin, making us members of one or other city, creating the innermost structure of our historical secular reality and—therefore—the specific path to salvation that God has placed beneath our feet. I shall try to extricate from recent events some fundamental directions that it seems necessary to pinpoint, in order to be part of a community quest for discernment and conversion, as proposed to us by John Paul II.
What Next, after the Cacerolazos Protests?
It may be obvious, but we are all aware that on that (first) night of the pot-banging protest,1 something changed in our society. Not in the leadership, at least not primarily, but in the people. Within families, in the consciousness of every citizen who decided to abandon negativity or private grudges, mere ruminations of bitterness, to recognize their neighbor, their compatriot, united in weariness and rage if nothing else. In a few moments, the street stopped being a zone of passage, a place of otherness, to become a shared space from which to start out in search of other shared things that had been snatched away from us. Contrary to all technological mythology, public space again became the whole square, not just the stage. The same communications media, always omnipresent and at times almost creators of ‘reality,’ found themselves overwhelmed and had to focus on one or two nerve centers, while the people took over everything with their singing and pot-banging, on foot, on bicycles, in cars.
After that came the events we all know about and also the excesses and the various interpretations and readings of the protests. I don’t intend to go into them. I wish only to refer to that moment of collective participation, seen as an indication of intent to reclaim ‘common’ ground, as a starting point for a reading of our deep-rooted reality.
I suggest to you an ‘indirect’ path that traverses the very history of our national being, which, I hope, may be of help: to examine the verses of Martín Fierro, in search of a few key elements that can help us discover something of ‘our own’ so that we can take up our history again with a feeling of continuity and dignity. I am conscious of the risks implicit in the reading I am urging you to share. We sometimes imagine values and traditions, even culture itself, to be a sort of ancient and unalterable jewel, something that remains in a space and time apart, unpolluted by the comings and goings of actual history. Allow me to express the opinion that such a mentality only leads to museums and, ultimately, to sectarianism. We Christians have suffered too much from sterile debates between traditionalists and progressives to allow ourselves to fall into attitudes like that again.
To me, what seems more fertile here is to recognize in Martin Fierro a narrative, a sort of ‘staging’ of the drama of constructing a collective and inclusive sentiment, a narrative that, transcending its genre, its author, and its time, can be inspiring to us 130 years later. Of course, there will be many who don’t identify with an outlawed gaucho, fugitive from justice (and in fact, important figures in our cultural history have questioned the elevation of such a character to the category of national epic hero). Conversely, there will be no lack of people forced to recognize (in secret) that they prefer the Judge or Old Vizcacha, at least in terms of how they understand what is or is not worthwhile in life … and still others will certainly have felt like El Moreno, whose brother was stabbed by Fierro.
There’s room for all. And it’s not a case of installing a new Manichaeism. In a work of this scope, no one is totally good or totally bad. And although José Hernández showed no lack of political or even pedagogical intent in his construction of The Flight and The Return, the truth is that the poem transcended its circumstances to say something that speaks to the essence of our coexistence. It is from this transcendence, from the ‘resonances’ that it is able to create in us, and not from a useless dialectic on anachronistic models, that the poem must be approached.
Martín Fierro, the ‘National’ Poem
I. The Quest for National Identity in a Globalized World
It is a strange thing. Just on seeing the title of the book, even before opening it, I already find suggestive sources of reflection on the core elements of our identity as a nation: The Gaucho Martín Fierro (this was the title of the first book published, later known as The Flight). What does the gaucho have to do with us? If we were living in the countryside, working with animals, or at least in rural towns, in greater contact with the soil, it would be easier to understand.… In our big cities—obviously in Buenos Aires—many people will remember wooden carousel ponies or the corrals in Mataderos as the closest they’ve ever been to an equestrian experience. And is there any need to recall that over 86 percent of Argentines live in big cities? For most of our youth and children, the world of Martín Fierro is much more foreign than the mystical-futuristic worlds of Japanese comics.
This, of course, is closely connected with the phenomenon of globalization. From Bangkok to Sao Paulo, from Buenos Aires to Los Angeles or Sydney, very many young people listen to the same music, children watch the same cartoons, and families get their clothing, food, and entertainment from the same chains. Production and trade move across ever more permeable national borders. Concepts, religions, and lifestyles are brought closer to us by the media and tourism.
However, this globalization is an ambiguous reality. Many factors seem to be leading us to remove the cultural barriers that obstructed recognition of the common dignity of human beings, accepting the diversity of conditions, races, sex, or culture. It has never been more possible than now for humanity to build a multifaceted, supportive world community. But on the other hand, widespread indifference to increasing social imbalances, the unilateral imposition of values and customs by certain cultures, the environmental crisis, and exclusion of millions of human beings from the benefits of development raise serious questions about this globalization. Creation of a supportive and fraternal human family in this context remains utopian.
True growth in human awareness cannot be based on anything other than the practice of dialogue and love. Dialogue and love lead, through recognition of the otherness of others, to acceptance of diversity. Only thus can the value of the community be founded, not by requiring the other to bend to my criteria and priorities, not by ‘absorbing’ the other, but by recognizing the value of what the other is and celebrating that diversity which enriches us all. Anything else is mere narcissism, mere imperialism, mere foolishness.
This must also be read in the opposite direction: How can I create a dialogue? How can I love? How can I build something shared if I let what would have been my contribution be diluted, get lost and disappear? Globalization as a unidirectional and uniformist imposition of values, practices, and goods goes hand in hand with integration understood as cultural, intellectual, and spiritual subordination and imitation. So then, there is no room for prophets of isolation, provincial hermits in a global world, nor brainwashed, copycat passengers in the caboose, admiring the fireworks of the world (of others) openmouthed and applauding on cue. When people join the global dialogue, they bring the values of their culture and have to defend these values against any form of excessive absorption or ‘laboratory synthesis’ that dilutes them in what is ‘common’ or ‘global.’ And—on contributing these values—they receive from other peoples, with the same respect and dignity, the cultures belonging to them. Nor is there room here for messy eclecticism, because in this case a people’s values become uprooted from the fertile soil that created and maintains their being, to be thrown together in a sort of curiosity shop where ‘anything goes; we’ll meet down there in the furnace.’2
1. The Nation as Continuation of a Shared Story
Going back to Martín Fierro, we are able to profitably open our ‘national poem’ only if we realize that the story it tells is directly relevant to us in the here and now, not because we are gauchos or wear a poncho, but because the drama Hernández narrates for us is set in real history, whose passage has brought us to where we are. The men and women reflected in the time of the tale lived here in this land, and their decisions, productions, and ideals shaped the reality that we are part of today and that today affects us directly. It is precisely that ‘productivity,’ those ‘effects,’ that ability to be set in the real dynamic of history, that makes Martín Fierro a national poem, not guitars, Indian raids, and improvised folksongs.
Here an appeal to conscience is needed. We Argentines have a dangerous tendency to think that everything starts today, to forget that nothing pops out of a pumpkin or drops from the sky like a meteorite. We have a problem here: If we don’t learn to recognize and take on board the errors and achievements of the past that gave rise to the good and bad of today, we’ll be condemned to an eternal repetition of the same, which—in reality—is far from eternal, as the rope can only stretch so far.… But there’s more. If we cut our relationship with the past, we’ll do the same with the future. It is high time to look around us … and inside ourselves. Wasn’t there a denial of the future, a total lack of responsibility toward future generations, in the levity with which institutions, property, and even people in our country were treated? The truth is this: We are historical people. We live in time and space. Each generation needs the previous ones and has a duty to those that follow. And this, in great measure, is what it means to be a nation: to see ourselves as continuing the task of other men and women who already did their bit, and as builders of a common space, a house, for those who will come after. ‘Global’ citizens: Reading Martín Fierro can help us ‘come down to earth’ and mark the boundaries of that ‘globality,’ recognizing the avatars of those who built our nationhood, adopting or criticizing their ideals, and asking ourselves why they succeeded or failed, so that we can continue forward on our road as a people.
2. Existence as a People Requires, above All, an Ethical Attitude which Springs from Freedom
In the face of the crisis, it is again necessary to answer the crucial question: What is the foundation of what we call the ‘social bond’? What exactly is it, that thing we say is seriously at risk of being lost? What is it that ‘binds’ me, that ‘links’ me to other people in a place, to the point of sharing a single destiny?
Allow me to put forward a reply: It is a matter of ethics. The crux of the relationship between the moral and the social is found precisely in this space (which is also so elusive) where man is man in society, a political animal, as Aristotle and the whole classical republican tradition would say. It is this social nature of man that is the basis for the possibility of a contract between free individuals, as proposed by the liberal democratic tradition (traditions that are often opposed to each other, as shown by so many confrontations in our history). So, to consider the crisis as a moral problem, we need to refer once again to the universal, human values that God has planted in man’s heart and that gradually mature as a result of personal and community growth. When we bishops repeatedly say that the crisis is fundamentally a moral one, we are not brandishing a cheap moralization, a reduction of the political, social, and economic to an individual matter of conscience. That would be false moralizing. We are not carrying grist to our own mill (given that conscience and morality are one field in which the Church has particular competence), but trying to point to the collective opinions that have been expressed in attitudes, actions, and processes of a historical-political and social type. The free actions of human beings, apart from their weight in terms of individual responsibility, have far-reaching consequences; they generate structures that endure through time and create a climate in which specific values can either occupy a central position in public life or become marginalized from the prevailing culture. And this also falls inside the moral sphere. That’s why we need to rediscover the particular way of living together and forming a community that we have created for ourselves over the course of our history.
From this perspective, let us look again at the poem. Like all folktales, Martín Fierro begins with a description of an ‘original paradise.’ It paints an idyllic scene, in which the gaucho lives at the calm pace of nature, surrounded by his loved ones, working happily and skillfully, amusing himself with his companions and integrated into a simple, human way of life. What does this point to? First of all, the author was not prompted by a form of nostalgia for a ‘lost Eden of gaucho life.’ The literary conceit of painting an ideal scene at the outset is nothing more than a first presentation of the ideal itself. The value to be embodied is not behind, at the origin, but ahead, part of the project. At the origin is the dignity of the Son of God, the vocation, the call to embody a project. The end is being placed at the beginning (which is also a deeply biblical and Christian idea). The direction we give to our community life will have to do with the type of society we wish to form: It is the “telostipo.”3 That is the key to the nature of a people. It doesn’t mean ignoring the biological, psychological, and psychosocial elements that influence the field of our decisions. We cannot avoid carrying the weight (in the negative sense of limits, conditioning, impediments, but also in the positive one of taking with us, incorporating, adding, integrating) of our received inheritance, the conduct, preferences, and values that have formed over the course of time. But a Christian perspective (and this is one of Christianity’s contributions to humanity as a whole) knows how to value both the ‘given,’ which is already in man and cannot be otherwise, and that which springs from his liberty, his openness to new things, concretely, from his spirit as a transcendent dimension, always in accordance with the essence of the given.
That said, social constraints and the shape they have acquired, as well as the findings and creations of the spirit in order to constantly expand the horizon of human endeavor, together with the natural law of our conscience, come into action and take effect specifically in time and space: in a specific community, sharing one land, proposing common objectives, constructing their particular way of being human, of cultivating multiple bonds, together, as a result of so many shared experiences, preferences, decisions, and events. This is how we build a shared ethics and the opening toward a destiny of plenitude that defines man as a spiritual being. This shared ethics, this ‘moral dimension,’ is what enables the multitude to develop together, without becoming each other’s enemies. Let us think of a pilgrimage. Leaving from the same place and heading toward the same destination allows the procession to keep together, regardless of the different rhythm or pace of each group or individual.
Let us now synthesize this idea. What is it that makes many persons into one people? There is first of all a natural law and then a legacy. Second, there is a psychological factor: Man becomes man by sharing communication, relationship, and love with his fellows. In word and in love. Third, these biological and psychological factors are actually manifested, really come into play, in free behavior. In the desire to connect ourselves with others in a particular manner, to construct our life with our fellow humans in a range of shared practices and preferences (Saint Augustine defined a people as “a multitude of rational beings united by agreeing to share the things they love”). The ‘natural’ grows into ‘cultural,’ ‘ethical’; the gregarious instinct acquires human form in the free decision to become an ‘us.’ A choice that, like any human action, later tends to become a habit (in the best sense of the word), to generate deeply rooted feelings and produce historic institutions, to the point where each one of us comes into the world in the bosom of an already existing community (the family, the ‘homeland’), without this negating the responsible freedom of each person. And all this has its solid foundation in the values that God imprinted on our human nature, in the divine breath that infuses us from within and makes us the children of God. This natural law that was gifted to us and imprinted on us so that it is ‘consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age’ (cf. Saint Vincent of Lérin, 1st Commonitorium, chap. 23). This natural law that—throughout history and life—will consolidate, develop, and grow, is what saves us from the so-called relativism of values agreed by consensus. Values cannot be agreed on by consensus; they simply are. In the placatory game of ‘agreeing on values by consensus’ there is always the risk, and foretold result, of ‘leveling downward,’ which means things are no longer built on solid ground and the violent process of deterioration starts. Someone said that our civilization, in addition to being a throwaway civilization, is a ‘biodegradable’ civilization.
To return to our poem: Martín Fierro is not, of course, the Bible. But it is a text in which, for various reasons, we Argentines have been able to recognize ourselves, a platform from which to tell us something about our history and dream about our future:
I have known this land when the working man lived in it
And had his little cabin / and his children and his wife …
It was a delight to see / the way he spent his days.
This, then, is the initial situation from which the drama starts. Martín Fierro is, first and foremost, an inclusive poem. Later, everything comes apart because of a sort of twist of fate, embodied by the Judge, the Mayor, and the Colonel, among others. We suspect this conflict is not just a literary one. What lies behind the text?
Martín Fierro, an ‘Inclusive’ Poem
1. A Modern Country, but for Everyone
More than an abstract epic poem, Martín Fierro is a work of protest with a clear intention: to oppose the official policy and propose the gaucho’s inclusion in the country under construction:
He’s a poor orphan, and he’s the one / who gets crushed by destiny
Because no one makes it their business / to stand up for his kind.
But the gauchos ought to have houses / and a school and a church and their rights.
And Martín Fierro took on a life beyond the author’s intentions, becoming the prototype of the individual persecuted by an unjust and exclusive system. The poem’s verses gave life to a certain type of popular wisdom received from the surrounding medium, which means Fierro speaks not only of the need to obtain cheap labor but also of the essential dignity of a man in his own land, taking care of his destiny through work, love, celebration, and brotherhood.
From here on, we can begin to move forward in our reflection. We need to know where we can rest our hope, the point from which to rebuild the social bonds that have been so bruised by these times. The pot-banging protest was a self-defensive spark, spontaneous and popular (although forcing its repetition over time causes it to lose some of its original expression). We know banging pots was not enough; what we most need today is to find the wherewithal to fill them. We need to reclaim, in an organized and creative way, the leading role we should never have relinquished, which also means we cannot now bury our heads in the sand again, leaving the leaders to do and undo. There are two reasons why we can’t do that: because we have already seen what happens when political and economic power detaches itself from the people, and because reconstruction is not a task for the few but for everyone, just as Argentina is not just the ruling class but each and every one of us who live in this corner of the planet.
So what is the answer? I find the historical context of Martín Fierro significant: a society in formation, a project that excludes an important part of the population, condemning it to orphanhood and disappearance, and a proposal for inclusion. Aren’t we in a similar situation today? Haven’t we suffered the consequences of a country model constructed around specific economic interests, which excludes the majority, generates poverty and marginalization, and tolerates all forms of corruption so long as the interests of highly concentrated power remain untouched? Haven’t we been part of this perverse system, partly accepting its principles—providing they didn’t touch our pockets—and closing our eyes to those who fell outside and under the steamroller of injustice, until the latter practically expelled all of us?
Today we need to come up with an economic and social program, yes, but fundamentally a political project in the broadest sense. What sort of society do we want? Martín Fierro directs our gaze toward our vocation as a people, as a nation. It invites us to give shape to our desire for a society where there is room for everyone: the trader from Buenos Aires, the coastal gaucho, the northern shepherd, the northeastern craftworker, aboriginals and immigrants, insofar as none of them wants to keep everything for himself, ejecting others from the territory.
2. But the Gauchos Ought to Have a School …
For decades, schools were an important means of social and national integration. The child of the gaucho, of the migrant from the interior that arrived in the city, and even of the foreigner disembarking in this land found in basic education the resources that could enable them to transcend their origin and seek a place in the shared construction of a project. Today, too, with an enriching plurality of educational proposals, we should renew the commitment: everything for education.
In recent years, hand in hand with an idea of a country that no longer bothered much about including everyone and was even incapable of imagining its future, the educational institution saw its prestige decline, its support and resources diminish, and its place at the heart of society fade away. The much referred-to case of ‘escuela shopping’4 doesn’t just lead us to criticize certain specific cases we have witnessed. It calls into question a whole concept, according to which society is a market and nothing more. The school thus occupies the same place as any other moneymaking enterprise. And we should remember, time and again, that this was not the idea that developed our educational system and contributed, with errors and achievements, to the formation of a national community.
We Christians have made an undeniable contribution in this respect, over many centuries. It is not my intention here to enter into polemics and differences of opinion that generally consume a lot of energy. I simply wish to draw everyone’s attention, and particularly that of Catholic educators, to the highly important task we have on our hands. The depreciated, undervalued, and even widely attacked everyday work of all those who keep schools going, in the face of all sorts of difficulties, on low wages and giving far more than they receive, continues to be one of the best examples of what we need to opt for, once again: personal commitment to the project of creating a country for all, a project that goes from the educational, religious, or social to the political in the highest sense of the word “community-building.”
This inclusive political project is a task not just for the ruling party, or even the ruling class as a whole, but for every one of us. The ‘new time’ germinates from the real, everyday life of every member of the nation, from each decision in relation to others, from our own responsibilities, from things big and small. And all the more so within families and in our everyday school or work life.
But God will make it possible / for these things to be put right
Though it’s important to remember, / to make a good job of it,
That when a fire’s for heating / it has to come from underneath.
But this deserves a fuller reflection.
Martín Fierro: Compendium of Ethical Civics
Hernández was undoubtedly well aware that ‘real’ gauchos, of flesh and blood, were not going to behave like ‘English gentlemen’ in the new society that was being forged. Coming from another, unfenced culture, used to decades of resistance and struggle, alien to a world that was being built along parameters very different from theirs, they, too, needed to make a considerable effort to integrate, once the doors were opened to them.
1. The Resources of Popular Culture
The second part of our national poem tried to be a sort of ‘manual of civic virtues’ for the gaucho, a ‘key’ to integration in the new national society:
And you must all have faith / in what my tongue declares to you:
so don’t misunderstand me, / there’s no stain of greed in this.
There’ll be no leaking roof on the cabin / that has this book in it.
Martín Fierro is full of elements that Hernández himself had imbibed from popular culture, elements that, together with the defense of some specific and immediate rights, won it the great following it quickly acquired. Not only that, but over time, generations and generations of Argentines reread Fierro … and rewrote it, overlaying its words with their many experiences of struggle, their expectations, searches, sufferings. Martín Fierro grew to represent a country that was determined, fraternal, justice-loving, unbreakable. That is why it still has something to say today. That is why those ‘words of advice’ on how to ‘tame’ the gaucho far transcended the meaning with which they were written and are still today a mirror of civic virtues that are not abstract, but deeply embedded in our history. It is these virtues and values that we are now going to look at.
2. Martín Fierro’s Advice
I invite you to read this poem once again. Don’t do so out of merely literary interest, but as a way of listening to the wisdom of our people, which has been encapsulated in this singular work. Beyond words, beyond history, you will see that what still pulses in us is a form of emotion, a desire to twist the arm of all forms of injustice and lies and carry on building a history of solidarity and brotherhood, in a common land where we can all grow as human beings. A community where freedom is not a pretext for failing justice, where the law does not bind only the poor, where everyone has a place. I hope you will feel as I do, that this is a book that talks not about the past but about the future we can build. I am not going to prolong this already very lengthy message by expanding on the many values that Hernández puts into the mouth of Fierro and other characters in the poem. I simply invite you to look at them in depth, through reflection and—why not?—through a dialogue in each one of our educational communities. Here I will present just a few of the ideas we can reclaim, among many others.
2.1. Prudence or ‘Artfulness’: Acting out of Truth and Goodness … or Convenience
A man is born with the astuteness / that has to serve him as a guide.
Without it he’d go under / but in my experience,
in some people it turns to prudence / and in others, artfulness.
There are some men who have their heads / full up with the things they know:
wise men come in all sizes, / but I don’t need much sense to say
that better than learning a lot of things / is learning things that are good.
A starting point: ‘Prudence’ or ‘artfulness’ as forms of organizing one’s talents and acquired experience. Appropriate behavior, within the truth and good that are possible here and now, or a knowing manipulation of information, situations, and interactions, motivated by self-interest. A mere accumulation of science (usable for any purpose) or true wisdom, which includes ‘knowing’ in the dual sense of learning and experiencing. ‘Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial,’ as Saint Paul would say. Why? Because together with my own needs, desires, and preferences there are those of others. And what satisfies one at the expense of the other ends up destroying both.
2.2. The Hierarchy of Values and the Success-Oriented Ethic of the ‘Winner’
It’s a bad thing to be attacked / either by fear or greed:
So, don’t upset yourselves / over perishable goods.
Don’t offer your wealth to rich men / and never neglect the poor.
Far from inviting us to scorn material goods as such, the popular wisdom expressed in these words considers perishable goods as a means, a tool for personal realization at a higher level. That is why it instructs us not to give to the rich (self-interested and servile behavior that Old Vizcacha’s ‘artfulness’ would recommend) and not be miserly toward the poor (who do need us and, as the Gospel says, have nothing with which to pay us). Human society cannot follow the law of the jungle, where each person tries to grab what they can, whatever the cost. And we already know, all too painfully, that there is no ‘automatic’ mechanism that can ensure equality and justice. Only an ethical choice translated into actual practices, with effective means, can prevent man from preying on other men. But this is the same as postulating an order of values that is more important than personal enrichment, and therefore a type of riches that are superior to material ones. And we are not talking about matters that require a particular religious belief to be understood; we are referring to principles like human dignity, solidarity, and love.
You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. (Jn 13:13–15)
A community that stops kneeling down to wealth, success, and fame and is capable, on the other hand, of washing the feet of the humble and needy would be more in harmony with this teaching than the ethics of ‘winning’ (at any price), which we have sadly learned in recent times.
2.3. Work and the Sort of Person We Want to Be
The law is that we have to work / because we need to buy.
Don’t expose yourself to suff’ring / that a wretched condition brings.
A lot of blood runs from the heart / of a man who’s obliged to beg.
Is any commentary required? History has branded our people with a sense of the dignity attached to work and the worker. Is there anything more humiliating than being denied the ability to earn one’s bread? Is there any worse way of decreeing the uselessness and inexistence of a human being? Can a society that accepts such iniquity, defending itself with abstract technical considerations, provide a path toward the realization of human beings?
But this recognition that we all proclaim never quite materializes. Not only because of the objective conditions generated by the present terrible unemployment (conditions, it must be clearly stated, that have their origin in a way of organizing coexistence that places profit above justice and the law), but also because of a picaresque mentality (also called native wit!) that has come to form part of our culture. ‘Save your skin’ and ‘get away’ … by whatever means is easiest and most direct. ‘Money brings money’ … ‘nobody got rich by working’ … beliefs that have nurtured a culture of corruption that undoubtedly has something to do with these shortcuts, which many have used to try to excuse themselves from the rule of earning their daily bread with the sweat of their brow.
2.4. The Urgency of Serving the Weakest
The stork, when it gets old, / loses its eyesight, and then
all its young children undertake / to care for it in its old age.
You can learn from the storks / with this example of tenderness.
In the ethics of the ‘winners,’ anything that is considered useless is thrown out. This is the ‘throwaway’ civilization. In the ethics of a real human community, in that country we would like and which we can build, every human being is of value, and the elderly have intrinsic value, for many reasons: because of the duty of filial respect already present in the biblical Ten Commandments; because of the undoubted right to rest in the bosom of his community, earned by he who has lived, suffered, and played his part; because of the contribution that only he can still make to his society, since, as Martín Fierro himself says, “it’s from old men’s mouths / that truths come forth.” There’s no need to wait until the social security system, currently destroyed by pillaging, is rebuilt. In the meantime, there are countless small gestures and actions of service to the elderly that are within our reach with a pinch of creativity and good will. And similarly, we mustn’t forget to think again about the real ways in which we can do something for children, for sick people, and all those who are suffering for various reasons. The belief that there are ‘structural’ issues that relate to society as a whole and the State in particular does not excuse us in any way from making our personal contribution, however small it may be.
2.5. No More Theft, Bribery, and Turning a Blind Eye
The carrion bird with its hooked beak / has a taste for robbery,
but a man with powers of reason / will never steal a cent
because there’s no shame in being poor / but there is in being a thief.
This, in our country, has perhaps been one of the most forgotten teachings. But looking beyond it, as well as not allowing or justifying theft and bribery, we would have to take more decisive and positive action. For example, we can ask ourselves not only what things that are not ours we must not take, but also what things we can contribute. How can we present the idea that there is also ‘shame’ in indifference, individualism, withdrawing (stealing) one’s own contribution to society to remain purely within a mindset of ‘minding my own business’?
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise, a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds, and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Lk 10:29–37)
2.6. Empty Words, True Words
If singing is your profession / make sure to sing from the heart.
Don’t tune your instrument / just for love of your own voice,
and make a habit of singing / about things of consequence.
Communication, hypercommunication, noncommunication. How many of our words are superfluous? How much gossip, how much slander, how many lies? How much superficiality, banality, and timewasting? A wonderful gift, the ability to communicate ideas and feelings, which we don’t know how to value or make use of in all its richness. Could we not find a way to avoid all ‘singing’ that is only ‘for the love of talking’? Could we possibly pay more attention to what we are speaking too much or too little about, particularly those of us whose task is to teach, speak, and communicate?
Conclusion: One’s Word and Friendship
Finally, let us quote that verse in which we have seen so clearly reflected the instruction to love in times of difficulty for our country. That stanza that has become a motto, a program, a slogan, but that we need to remember over and over again:
Brothers should stand by each other / because this is the first law.
Keep a true bond between you / always, at every time,
Because if you fight among yourselves / you’ll be devoured by those outside.
This is a crucial time for our country. Crucial and foundational, and for that very reason, full of hope. Hope is as far removed from expediency as it is from faintheartedness. It demands the best of us in the task of rebuilding what we share, what makes us a people. The only aim of these reflections has been to kindle a desire: to put ourselves to work, inspired and illuminated by our own history. To not give up the dream of a land of brothers that has guided so many men and women on this soil.
What will future generations say about us? Will we be able to meet the challenges facing us? ‘Why not?’ is the answer. Without grandiloquence, without messianism, without impossible certainties, it is a matter of once more delving bravely into our ideals, the ones that have guided us throughout our history, and starting right away to set in motion other possibilities, other values, other behaviors.
Almost in synthesis, here is the last verse from Martín Fierro that I will quote, a verse that Hernández places in the mouth of the gaucho’s elder son, as he reflects bitterly on jail:
Because I suppose—though I’m ignorant—that out of all the good things
which were given to proud man / by the Divine Majesty,
Your Word is the first of them / and friendship is the second.
The word that communicates and bonds us, allowing us to share ideas and feelings, provided that we speak the truth. Always. Without exceptions. Friendship, including social friendship, with its ‘long arm’ of justice, is the greatest treasure, the asset that can never be sacrificed for any other. It needs to be nurtured above all others.
One’s word and friendship. “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14). He didn’t build a separate abode; he became our friend. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (Jn 15:13–15). If we begin immediately to value these two assets, the history of our country could be different.
We conclude putting these wishes in the hands of the Lord, with a prayer for the country that the Argentine bishops have offered to us:
Jesus Christ, Lord of history, we need you.
We feel wounded and overwhelmed.
We require your relief and strength.
We want to be a nation,
Whose identity is passion for the truth
And commitment for the common good.
Give us the courage of the freedom of the children of God,
to love everyone without excluding anyone,
with preference for the poor and forgiving those who offend us,
abhorring hatred and building peace.
Grant us the wisdom of dialogue
and the joy of hope that does not disappoint.
You gather us. Here we are, Lord, close to Mary,
that from Luján tells us:
Argentina! Sing and walk!
Jesus Christ, Lord of history, we need you.
Let Yourself Be Possessed by the Truth.
1. The cacerolazos, or pot-banging, street protests started in Chile in the 1970s and spread to Argentina in the 1990s to vent rage for the inflationary prices of food, as well as corruption and injustice. They have continued to appear periodically in demonstrations against injustice and shortages of food, gas, and other necessities.
2. In Spanish, “dale que va … allá en el horno nos vamos a encontrar.” This is a line from the 1930s tango “El Cambalache,” mentioned also in a homily to catechists in 2000, as representative of a widespread mentality among the people.
3. Bergoglio’s neologism, from the Greek “telos,” purpose or objective, and “tipos,” meaning model, mark, or example, the amalgamation of elements that shapes a people.
4. A corruption scandal that occurred in 1990, when the city council sold a school in Buenos Aires to a developer to turn it into a shopping mall and push the children to the second floor. In 2011 it reverted to use as a school.