Johnny Grabbed The Skillet
By Antonia Cossio
It’s 8pm and I can tell what time is it by the echoes of ringing pots and pans. This aluminum symphony goes in crescendo, from the kitchens in my neighborhood to the streets. It started off quietly, just one invisible protester, pan in hand, making some noise, wanting to be heard. Now, a few more have joined him, or her, but just a few.
All this thanks to a new decision by President Cristina Fernández that some of my neighbors don’t like. Lately, it seems like some people have a natural reaction to any speech that doesn’t meet their expectations. It goes like this:
Step 1: They listen to the president’s nationally televised speech at around 6 or 7pm.
Step 2: Those who disagree with the president gather at 8pm, right on the corner, ready to make their discontent audible with their best pots and wooden spoons.
Lately, this two–step protest dance seems to summarize Argentine democracy. The president gives a speech, and the people react to it precariously, almost in a childish way. In the end, the only real accomplishment of a “cacerolazo” (as these improvised aluminum symphonies are called), is to release some of the tension and frustration that people feel when faced with news they don’t want to hear. Such was the case last week with the news that the government plans to nationalize our private pension funds.
I don’t mean to say that social demonstrations like the cacerolazo have lost their purpose, or worse, their effectiveness. But the cacerolazo’s technique might be getting old. It almost seems like middle class Argentines pound those pots as if they were pounding their politician’s face with them. It’s like they’re fighting a war on the streets – with frying pans as their swords and napkins as their shields.
It’s true that one of our former presidents, Fernando de la Rúa, was pretty much forced out of power because of a “pot and pan army” revolt on December 2001. And about a quarter of a million people gathered, pan in hand, in the middle of the city just a couple of months ago to protest taxes on farm exports.
But let’s be clear: It wasn’t just clashing pots and pans that changed the farm tax policies, and it wasn’t only banging pots that brought De la Rúa’s administration to its end.
Still, the modus operandi remains – again because it seems that people like to release their frustrations on innocent pots and pans. It seems nowadays that the cacerolazos arise in response to almost any discourse. I suppose it’s a natural kind of Argentine reaction, a way of fighting what we don’t like.
Maybe cacerolazos, or at least the one I heard outside my window last week, have become small, isolated and therefore more like one single movement instead of a full symphony.
(Antonia Cossio, a Buenos Aires-based journalist, writes for www.minutouno.com)
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This, I believe, is a fascinating phenomenon. I experienced my first cacerolazo in Spain four years ago – a persistent group from the barrio trying to save stray cats that were trapped in a local water-treatment facility.
Wikipedia (in Spanish) even has a page dedicated to the phenomenon, listing years in which the first main cazerolazo was registered in various countries – Argentina’s first, according to the ever-reliable (cough) wikipedia, occurred in 1996. (The other countries include Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Spain.) There are even four words to describe the practice in Spanish – cacerolazo, cacerolada, caceroleada and caceroleo.
I don’t know what the average reader of this blog thinks, but I can not imagine this type of demonstration occurring in Anglo-Saxon countries. I would like to think that the lack of skillet-banging in our Anglo streets is due to the fact that political debate in our countries normally involves the fine-tuning of good practice, and is therefore less than controversial. My confidence in this notion is on the wane however, given recent events.
Perhaps the Anglo-Saxon reluctance to subscribe to the cacerolaza craze is the fault of (hold onto your hats!) neoliberalism!! Why not?! It has been the cause of all our other woes recently, why not blame it for our unwillingness to take to the streets wielding saucepan and spoon! Maybe those cunning neolibs took our right to bang pots and pans before we even knew we had the right! They must have done it just before they diluted our labour laws, in particular our right to strike.
Is it, in fact, Anglo-Saxon stoicism which makes skillet-banging seem absurd? Or have we proud Anglo-Saxons just become complacent? Are we now afraid to rock the boat, or worse, agree to do anything that might coincide with the next titillating episode of our favourite sitcom (“Bang saucepans in the street? But Carrie’s got a hot date with Mr. Big tonight!). Is this the same complacency that lead to the re-election of George W Bush and the Australian Prime Minister John Howard, among others? The same complacency that has brought our economies to their knees?
Perhaps the real question for we Anglo-Saxons is not To be or not to be? but To bang or not to bang?