I’m 18 years old. I’ve just finished High School and I’m entering my first year at university to get my degree as Licentiate in International Relations. My goal is to analyze and manage, both theoretically and empirically, contemporaneous international relations so as to grasp the influence they have upon domestic and external affairs in Argentine politics. And when realizing the ominous logic of the country’s political, economic and social functioning, I cannot help saying that it has to be an action of politics against anti- politics. The voices of argentine people joined together in vast numbers in direct protests against national political leaders now in government and the most outstanding feature of this ultra conservative policy is to turn a deaf ear to these demands. Same as it tries to destroy citizens’ active participation; it also seeks to weaken to a maximum the possibilities of politics.

How could we call this anti policy but terrorism of state? Can’t we talk about a systematically organized repressive action practiced by those in charge of respecting the law? It seems absurd that these are the words of a "daughter of democracy", as all of us who have been born during 1983/84 are, when the dreadful stage of the last argentine dictatorship was brought to an end. Nevertheless, we do not understand what political stability means yet.
Here, on the basis of the legitimate despair of many people, there are those who wish that we lose our way to put an end to democracy and politics.
The state has to defend society from any abuse of authority in the unlawfulness that is produced against it. What a country can not bear is the constant bleeding of public disorder without an immediate revolutionary goal. What a nation can not bear is the downfall of public power and of it’s own economic vitality, sustaining restlessness, worry and anxiety.

The struggle in defense of the rights that the state has taken away from us is our challenge as argentine citizens. We must press for the state to guarantee us the rights that it supposedly recognizes through juridical instruments. We Argentine people can not afford fear or tiredness to paralyze us. We must not lose our ability to feel astonished, even if we always have to see more of the same thing. We must understand, as it is wonderfully stated by Ernest Sabato, that "only those who are capable of putting up with UTOPIA will be apt for the DECISIVE STRUGGLE, that of recovering as much of humanity as we have lost".

It is very difficult to multiply, to put into practice definite projects that help to contribute towards the construction of a participative democracy in the adversity imposed by our social environment. It is very difficult to talk peace to an unemployed head of family that has not been able to take a single peso home for a long time. To a boy that works all day long in the street only to see his desperate father spending all he has earned in buying alcohol. To an adolescent completely incredulous… But it is our goal, and in my voice I try to bring together all my companions’ voices in this project, to work and to raise awareness, since we understand that it is a shared responsibility trying to achieve an Argentina more democratic, more peaceful, with more justice.

Yamila Baldoma
Human Rights Workshop / Normal N° 1 School
Human Rights Course / Educating Cities Latin America
Rosario, Argentina