Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
TPS Parte 2
TPS Parte 2
Another form taken by the fight for a decent job in Argentina at the end of the 20th. – beginning of
the 21st. century was the movement for recovered factories.
Learning how to work without a boss was one of the greatest challenges faced by workers who struggled not to lose their
source of employment and to recover the companies put in bankruptcy by their former owners.
In Argentina in 2001, the free market capitalist model underwent a crisis that ultimately provided the opportunity to take a
new path where hours spent working were also a part of a worker’s own life and an exercise in self-organization. Self-man-
agement meant experimenting with new ways of working, discovering the power of collective responsibility and solidarity
among workers. But this process was not simple (indeed, its complexity demands constant rethinking): many spent months
camping out in the street, occupying factories in precarious condition and receiving no wages. They often faced and resisted
eviction orders and police repression. Or they were evicted from the factories once they had gotten them up and running
again, and forced to struggle from behind barricades.
The Brukman textile factory was one of the first, and ultimately one of the most symbolic, factories occupied in the city of
Buenos Aires. It was seized on the eve of the events that took place on December 19 and 20, 2001, and hence the name cho-
sen by those who decided to keep it operating, “Cooperativa 18 de diciembre” [December 18 Cooperative]. In May of 2002,
just five months after the popular uprising in December, the workers were still inside the Brukman factory. Thus, several of the
assemblies and other neighborhood groups in the city decided to commemorate May Day at the gates of this factory, which
was on its way to being recovered by the workers and becoming (along with the Zanón tile factory in Neuquén province) an
emblem of the struggle for the expropriation of companies abandoned by their owners.
That May Day at Brukman, the TPS produced the first print from the “Primeros de Mayo” [May Days] series. Its slogan, which
OTRO PRIMERO DE MAYO EN LUCHA / 1ro de mayo
2002 / Afiche impreso en la puerta de la fAbrica unified the struggles of the two groups of workers, was: “Brukman and Zanón: nationalization under worker control.” This
recuperada “18 de diciembre” (ex Brukman) durante moment evidences the solidarity between the incipient urban assembly movement and the new experiences of liberated
el acto de conmemoraciOn del DIa del Trabajador work in a scenario of social unrest that went beyond the habitual boundaries of fragmented spheres of social protest.
uego de la recuperación de la fábrica por parte de los trabajadores, en abril de 2002 los Para Arte y Confección, el TPS produjo una serie de etiquetas para ropa, dedicada a la lucha de las
obreros de la textil Brukman fueron violentamente desalojados (en diciembre de 2003 obreras de Brukman. Los asistentes a las jornadas y los eventuales transeúntes podían colaborar
conseguirían la expropiación a favor de los trabajadores). Luego del desalojo, su lugar con el evento y con el fondo de huelga adquiriendo estas serigrafías de pequeño formato.
de resistencia fue la calle. Durante los ocho meses que estuvieron acampando frente a
las puertas de la empresa, recibieron el apoyo de cientos de organizaciones sociales, asambleas, After the recovery of the factory by the workers, on April 2002 the workers of the Brukman textile
were violently evicted (on December 2003 they obtained the expropriation in their favor). After the eviction, the site of their
movimientos estudiantiles, colectivos de artistas y, en especial, de otras fábricas recuperadas.
resistance was the street. During the eight months that they camped at the entrance to the factory, they were supported
by hundreds of social organizations, assemblies, student’s organizations, artists’ collectives, and especially workers from
other recovered factories. This show of support led the seamstresses from Brukman to do solidarity work for other causes.
A fines de mayo de 2003, artistas y colectivos, muchos de los cuales actuaban en red desde enero
de 2002, decidieron producir un acontecimiento que le diera mayor visibilidad al conflicto y que In late May of 2003, artists and collectives, many of which had been acting in conjunction since January of 2002, organized
an event that would give the conflict greater visibility and be an experiment in production, debate and cultural exchange.
sirviera como experiencia de producción, debate e intercambio cultural. Arte y Confección-Semana
Arte y Confección-Semana Cultural por Brukman [Art and Manufacture-A Week of Culture for Brukman] was one of the many
Cultural por Brukman fue una de las muchas acciones de apoyo que recibieron las obreras y significó activities undertaken to support the workers; it was important to forging bonds between artistic practices and social strug-
gles. Arte y Confección also entailed an effort that went beyond simply producing a work of art or an image. It required sum-
un punto destacado en el proceso de vinculación entre práctica artística y luchas sociales. Arte y
moning artists, working out a program of events, procuring the necessary equipment and infrastructure, holding meetings,
Confección también supuso un esfuerzo que fue más allá de producir una obra o una imagen: con- engaging in political and aesthetic debate, and planning and installing the actual interventions, all of which were carried out
with intensity and dedication. In late May 2003, the camp plaza was the seat of a large art show, a cycle of conferences, and
vocatoria de artistas, confección de la grilla de programación, procuración de equipos e instalacio-
festivals of documentary films, music and theater.
nes necesarias, reuniones, discusiones políticas y estéticas previas, planear el montaje general de That experience entailed blurring the limits between the groups involved which, in turn, gave rise to new formats: in September
of 2003 four handkerchief-bandanas with images by Arde! Arte, Etcétera and the TPS were made to help raise strike funds.
las intervenciones fueron algunas de las tareas en las que muchos pusieron intensidad y dedicación.
These items were printed using the TPS’s printing matrices and sewn by Brukman workers. The two handkerchiefs printed by
A fines de mayo de 2003, la plaza del acampe fue sede de una gran muestra de artes visuales, un the TPS included many of the prints that had been made until that point in the context of the struggle to recover the factory.
For Arte y Confección, the TPS produced a series of clothing labels dedicated to the struggle of the Brukman workers. People
ciclo de charlas, un festival de cine documental, otro de música y disciplinas escénicas.
who attended the event and passersby could support the event and make a contribution to the strike fund by buying these
Luego de esta experiencia, nuevos soportes se produjeron por las transferencias y dilución de lí- small-format prints.
mites entre los grupos actuantes: en septiembre de 2003 cuatro pañuelos-bandanas, realizados
con imágenes gestadas por Arde! Arte, Etcétera y el TPS para colaborar con el fondo de huelga,
son impresos con matrices del grupo de serigrafía y cosidos por las obreras de Brukman. Los dos Brukman es de la/os trabajadoraS/es /
pañuelos del TPS recogen buena parte de las estampas realizadas hasta el momento en el marco Brukman es nuestro / Abril 2003 / En apoyo a los
trabajadores de la Cooperativa “18 de diciembre”
de la lucha por la recuperación de la fábrica. luego del desalojo de la fAbrica
Cultura obrera / 1ro de mayo 2003 /
ConmemoraciOn del Día del Trabajador,
impresa en la puerta de la fAbrica recuperada
“18 de diciembre” y en el acto realizado
en la Plaza de Mayo
Buenos Aires subway workers are a point of reference in the combative grassroots union movement.
One of their greatest achievements is the recovery of the 6-hour workday for jobs performed in unhealthy conditions, a
measure that had been done away with during the privatizations that took place in the 1990s. The recovery of the shortened
workday was the victory of a group of young workers who, at the end of that decade, started to change the history of the end
of the history of subway tunnels. This victory did not come easy: the progressive mayor of Buenos Aires vetoed the measure
passed by the Buenos Aires City Council. The workers protested to no avail, until they decided to bring the subway system to
a halt with an unprecedented strike in April of 2004. The end result was 600 new steady jobs, an improvement in working
SubterrAnea huelga / abril 2004 /
Imagen realizada en apoyo a la huelga conditions for subway employees and in service for riders.
de los trabajadores de SubterrAneo Heartened by the impact of their struggle, in October of 2003 the delegates of the subway union gathered other work-
y su cuerpo de delegados, en lucha por ers –both employed and unemployed– for a series of gatherings to debate possible solutions to the problems facing
la reducciOn de la jornada laboral each sector. This led to the creation of the Movimiento Nacional por la Jornada Legal de 6 horas y Aumento General
de Salarios [National Movement for the 6-Hour Workday and Raise in Salaries], whose main focus was the redistribu-
tion of work time.
The demand for steady employment is another of the rallying cries of organizations of unemployed workers that struggle
every day against social palliatives and setbacks that the machine-like employment market imposes on them. The Mov-
imiento Nacional por la Jornada Legal de 6 horas y Aumento General de Salarios articulated this concern by demanding the
reduction of the workday for all employed workers.
In an era when employment flexibility, informal employment, widespread unemployment and a legally established 8-hour
workday are the norm, this is perhaps the most radical and ambitious initiative to be carried out by a group of workers in
recent times.
In the words of its leaders, the struggle of the subway workers is geared towards preventing “work from reducing the workers’
humanity”; this is an inspiring struggle that speaks of the need for time for creation, leisure and a vital life. The Movimiento
Nacional por la Jornada Legal de 6 horas faced this challenge and enriched, from the pages of its newsletters and banners,
this creative collective imaginary: past struggles and victories brought to the present by workers who dare to conceive and
fight for another future.
The convergence of different groups of delegates, grassroots labor organizations, social movements and art groups that led
to MNJL6HAGS was formally presented at the Federación de Box [Box Federation] in October of 2004. The images printed
during that event and the first banners made by the TPS projected the imaginary and desires that the day’s events put forth:
questioning the current social distribution of work time. The problematic of work goes beyond the sphere of trade unions,
and awareness of this revitalizes the movement’s ability to face the challenge of social emancipation.
In another act of grassroots activism, in late 2009 the Cuerpo de delegados de Subterráneos de Buenos Aires [delegates
of the Buenos Aires Subway Workers’ Union] requested that the Department of Labor recognize its organization, the Asoci-
ación de Trabajadores del Subte y Premetro [Association of Subway and Tram Workers]. Its aim was to gain independence
from the union that historically represented it, the Unión Tranviarios Automotor (UTA) [Tramway and Auto Workers’ Union].
Thus, they attempted to consolidate the autonomy and unity of workers, and to combat union bureaucracy and its repeated
betrayals and anti-worker dealings.
Huelga subte / abril 2004 / Imagen realizada LA CONDICION PARA LIBERAR AL HOMBRE / 2004 / Ilustracion para
en apoyo a la huelga de los trabajadores de el primer boletin del Movimiento POR LA JORNADA DE 6 HORAS, llevado
SubterrAneo y su cuerpo de delegados, en a serigrafia para ser impreso en el lanzamiento de la campaña
lucha por la reducciOn de la jornada laboral en la Federacion de Box
JORNADA REDUCIDA /
REDISTRIBUCION /
EL TIEMPO ES EL
ESPACIO / 2004 /
IlustraciONES para
el primer boletin del
Movimiento POR LA
JORNADA DE 6 HORAS,
llevado a serigrafia
para ser impreso en
el lanzamiento de
la campaña en LA
FEDERACIoN DE BOX
l ciclo de la transformación neoliberal del Estado iniciado en los ‘90 implicó para los tra- For workers in the public sector, the free market transformation of the State in the 1990s meant
frozen salaries, fewer opportunities for steady jobs, jobs without benefits and unlawful contracts that provided for unstable
bajadores de la administración pública congelamiento salarial, suspensión de concursos
work conditions, and the loss of basic rights. Health and education were two of the public sectors hardest hit by the deficit
para cargos estables, precarización y contratación irregular en condiciones de inestabili- reduction policies imposed by international credit organizations, with the complicity of the Menem and De la Rúa adminis-
trations. State budgets for essential services were reduced. Public services suffered from constant deterioration: underpaid
dad y pérdida de derechos laborales básicos. Salud y educación fueron dos de las áreas
workers, fewer personnel, less infrastructure, longer working hours, and more demands on workers.
públicas que más sufrieron las embestidas de las políticas de reducción del déficit impulsadas por Later, after nearly 13 years of frozen salaries, the devaluation of the national currency and the subsequent economic recovery
following the 2001 crisis led State workers back to the struggle for fair wages. The intense battle waged by non-medical
los organismos internacionales de crédito, en complicidad con los gobiernos de Menem y De la Rúa.
workers at the Hospital Garrahan, one of the most emblematic pediatric hospitals in the country, was one of the most visible
Los presupuestos de las áreas de servicios esenciales fueron reducidos. Se generó una ecuación signs of this new trend. Members of a commission of the Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado [Public Employees Union]
– including nurses, orderlies, lab and radiology technicians, instrumentalists and sterilization techs, administrative and main-
de deterioro extremo del servicio público: trabajadores mal remunerados, menos personal, menos
tenance personnel– used the assembly as a way to get organized and make decisions. As a result, they were responsible for
infraestructura, más horas de trabajo, intensificación del ritmo laboral. Luego de casi 13 años de one of the largest labor conflicts in 2005: twenty-four strikes in four months nearly led the hospital to be taken over by the
workers’ assembly. In addition, there were threats of mass dismissals that jeopardized the workers’ legitimate right to strike.
sueldos congelados, la devaluación de la moneda nacional y la recuperación económica posterior
With demands that included an increase in base salary to the equivalent of the family shopping basket and an annual raise
a la crisis del 2001 precipitaron la reactivación de la lucha por la recomposición salarial en el ámbito based on seniority, the Garrahan workers lifted the historic flag of defending public health and tried to recover part of what
had been taken away from public sector workers in previous years.
del Estado. La intensa lucha del personal no médico del Hospital Garrahan, uno de los más em-
blemáticos hospitales pediátricos del país, fue uno de los exponentes más visibles de esta nueva
situación. Enfermeros, camilleros, técnicos de laboratorio y radiología, instrumentadoras, adminis-
trativos, personal de esterilización y mantenimiento nucleados en la comisión interna de la Aso-
ciación de Trabajadores del Estado (ATE), utilizando la asamblea como método de organización y
toma de decisiones, protagonizaron uno de los conflictos laborales de mayor trascendencia del año
2005: 24 jornadas de huelga en cuatro meses, hospital prácticamente tomado por la asamblea
de trabajadores, amenazas de despidos que estuvieron al borde de vulnerar el legítimo derecho a
huelga. Con su reclamo por un salario básico igual a la canasta familiar, un incremento anual por
antigüedad, el reconocimiento profesional de los enfermeros y la incorporación de más personal,
los trabajadores del Garrahan levantaron la histórica bandera de la defensa de la salud pública y
trataron de recuperar parte de lo que se le sustrajo al empleado estatal en los años pasados.
The level of organization and development at recovered factories has increased in recent years
and several of the factories have been definitively expropriated to workers. On June 19, 2009, a group of the recovered tex-
tile factories -including Brukman- came together for its first fashion show. Held at the Hotel Bauen (a hotel in downtown
Buenos Aires that has also been recovered by its workers), the show consisted of garments made entirely by the recovered,
self-managed factories. TV actors joined factory workers on the catwalk, modelling shoes, men’s suits, sportswear and work
clothing. This “Fall-Winter Collection” proudly displays its unique label: 100% Dignity + 0% Exploitation.
El Bauen ES DE TODOS / Junio 2005 / En apoyo a los trabajadores del Hotel Bauen
Tierra, libertad / diciembre 2003 / Estampa La resistencia / octubre 2003 / Imagen realizada a partir de un poema
realizada para la primera serie de musculosas de Diana Bellesi, para ser impresa durante una lectura de poesias en el
producidas junto al MTD de La Matanza Instituto Goethe de Buenos Aires
oetas y escritores también formaron parte del entramado post 2001. En espacios asam-
ntes de la serigrafía estuvo el dibujazo (práctica habitual de reunirse en una mesa a dibu- blearios y de lucha política se organizan peñas, muestras de arte y tertulias de poesía. Allí,
jar los motivos que luego serían impresos). Esas reuniones dieron decenas de imágenes, poetas y escritores reconocidos comparten escenario con vecinos que se acercan con sus
frases y consignas. De ese “archivo” salieron los estampados de la primera serie de mus- manuscritos, entre rondas de música y baile.
culosas, producidas en pequeñas tiradas a partir de 2004 junto al taller de costura La Diana Bellesi fue una de las poetas que participó en las lecturas organizadas por la Asamblea de San
Juanita (emprendimiento de trabajo no explotado del Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Telmo. En octubre de 2003, Bellesi invitó al TPS a realizar imágenes a partir de textos suyos, que fue-
de La Matanza). La iniciativa iba en la búsqueda singular de autogestión de la producción del TPS. ron estampados en afiches durante una lectura de la poeta en el Instituto Goethe de Buenos Aires.
Al grupo siempre le interesó el debate sobre sus propias reglas de obtención de recursos económi- Su poema “La resistencia”, en versión gráfica del TPS, formó parte de la producción de aquella jor-
cos. Esta producción significó uno de los primeros pasos en este sentido, al mismo tiempo que las nada. Al año siguiente, la imagen-texto es reversionada para la conmemoración del 1º de Mayo y es
imágenes encontraban nuevos soportes, totalmente afines, de circulación. impresa en remeras y nuevos afiches en la Plaza de Mayo, durante la marcha del Día del Trabajador.
Before making the silk screens, dibujazos –get-togethers organized to draw the motifs that would Poets and other writers also formed part of the post-2001 scene. Informal gatherings of musicians,
later be printed– were held. These gatherings yielded dozens of images, phrases and slogans. This “archive” was the origin as well as art shows and poetry readings, were held in the seats of assemblies and grassroots political organizations. Amidst
of the images for the first series of silk screened tank tops, produced starting in 2004 in small number in conjunction with La music and dancing, recognized poets and writers shared the stage with neighbors who showed up, manuscripts in tow.
Juanita sewing workshop (a non-exploitative employment project of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados de La Diana Bellesi was one of the poets who participated in the readings organized by the San Telmo Assembly. In October of
Matanza [Matanza Neighborhood Unemployed Workers’ Movement]). 2003, Bellesi invited the TPS to create images based on her texts; these images were printed on posters during a reading she
The initiative was akin to the TPS’s concern with production based on self-management. The TPS had always been inter- gave at the Goethe Institut of Buenos Aires. The TPS’s graphic version of her poem “La resistencia” [Resistance] was one of
ested in the debate surrounding how it obtained its own economic resources. This project was an important first step in the the items produced for that event. The next year, a new version of that image-text was produced for the May Day march on
direction of independence, while it also provided the images with new, and wholly befitting, supports for circulation. the Plaza de Mayo, where it was printed on t-shirts and posters.
El otro lado de las cosas / Un decir / octubre 2003 / Imagen realizada
a partir de un poema de Diana Bellesi, para ser impresa durante una
lectura de poesías en el Instituto Goethe de Buenos Aires
n 1972, en el marco de una muestra llamada Arte e Ideología, los artistas Víctor Grippo y
Jorge Gamarra, junto al trabajador rural A. Rossi, construyeron un horno de barro, y con-
vidaron al público el pan allí cocido. El horno se erigió en la Plaza Roberto Artl, ubicada
en pleno centro porteño. La Policía Federal del entonces presidente General Lanusse se
encargó de demoler la subversiva construcción artístico-alimentaria.
“Construcción de un horno popular para hacer pan” habla desde un poder-hacer edificador, desde
lo básico y posible de una vida digna, desde la experiencia de producir el propio sustento sin media-
ciones del mercado, desde el poder de las propias manos. La impresión serigráfica cita esta acción.
Tres décadas después, los movimientos de desocupados construirían cientos de hornos de pan y
bloqueras –instalaciones productoras de bloques/ladrillos para la construcción.
In 1972, in the context of an exhibition entitled Arte e ideología [Art and Ideology], artists Víctor
Grippo and Jorge Gamarra, along with rural worker A. Rossi, built a mud oven and offered people the bread baked therein.
The oven was constructed in the Plaza Roberto Artl, in downtown Buenos Aires. The federal police under the command of
President General Lanusse demolished the subversive artistic-nutritional construction.
Construcción de un horno popular para hacer pan [Building a people’s oven to make bread], as the work was called, speaks
of constructive power-action, of the basic possibility for a decent life, of the experience of producing one’s own sustenance
without market mediation, of the power of one’s own hands. The TPS’s silk screens make reference to that action. Three
decades later, the movements of unemployed workers built hundreds of bread ovens as well as bloqueras where concrete
blocks and bricks for construction are manufactured.
a consigna “Luchas obreras hacen la historia” será impresa en un mismo día, el 1º de Mayo
de 2006, en dos espacios públicos cargados de significación para la clase trabajadora. Pri-
mero, en el acto del Movimiento Intersindical Clasista realizado en la Plaza Lorea, y luego,
en la Plaza de Mayo, en la manifestación convocada por una coalición de agrupaciones
piqueteras, sindicales y partidos de izquierda.
La Plaza Lorea, a principios del siglo XX, era el lugar elegido por los trabajadores anarquistas para
realizar sus mitines del Día del Trabajador. El 1º de mayo de 1909 se produjo allí la llamada Masacre
de la Plaza Lorea: una feroz represión policial con caballos, sables y disparos de revólver mató a
ocho obreros e hirió a cuarenta más que reclamaban, en simultáneo con obreros reunidos en otras
ciudades del mundo, “reducir legalmente a 8 horas la jornada laboral”.
La Plaza de Mayo, escenario de innumerables manifestaciones que signaron la vida política del
país, es un símbolo histórico de resistencia popular. Situada frente a la Casa de Gobierno, es y ha
sido a lo largo del tiempo un punto de encuentro de las luchas y reivindicaciones de los trabaja-
dores argentinos.
The slogan “Workers’ struggles make history” would be printed on May Day 2006 in two public spaces
highly significant for the working class. First, at Plaza Lorea in the context of the protest by the Movimiento Intersindical
Clasista [Inter-Union Class Movement] and then at the Plaza de Mayo, at a demonstration called by a coalition of piquetero,
union and leftist organizations.
In the early 20th century, Plaza Lorea was where anarchist workers would hold their rallies on May Day. On May 1st 1909,
it was the site of what is called the Plaza Lorea Massacre, where mounted police armed with swords and guns killed eight
workers and injured forty others as they demanded, along with workers gathered in other cities around the world, “legally
reducing the workday to eight hours.”
The setting of countless demonstrations that have marked the political life of the country, the Plaza de Mayo is a historical
symbol of resistance. Located in front of the Casa de Gobierno, the seat of the national government, it is and has been a
gathering point for Argentine workers’ struggles and vindications.
On May 20, 2010, a few days before the grand celebration of the Argentine Bicentennial, a column
of colorful banners arrived to the Plaza de Mayo. In the hands of a range of groups of demonstrators, these banners had
traveled great distances across Argentina and expressed an array of cultures and lifestyles, some of them hundred or even
thousands of years old. Startled, the residents of Buenos Aires watched the march come in: wiphalas, sicuris, ponchos,
Mapuche flags, banners from a range of indigenous communities flooded the Plaza de Mayo, an image in no way reminiscent
of the ones found in school textbooks. “Native peoples didn’t live and inhabit in the past: they live and inhabit now,” said one
of the demonstrators, mocking the tone of a poorly informed teacher.
The Marcha de los Pueblos Originarios [March of the Original Peoples] made its presence, its struggles and its demands,
both historical and current –including the possession of its territories– felt. Their condemnation of the intense and brutal
foreignization of the land and of the abuse of resources warns of the danger not only of the destruction of the environment
but also of the disappearance of self-sufficiency in food production. Currently, politically controversial laws are being studied
to minimally protect glaciers and forests. These bills attempt to respond to immediate needs like preserving the “water fac-
tories” in the Andes, as well as native mountains and soils threatened by mining and the advance of the soy crop (two keys
to the extractive “development” model that takes us back to the eras of feudalism and the conquest).
In 1992, the first LGTTTB (Lesbian, Gay, Transvestite, Transexual, Transgender and Bisexual) Pride march
was held in Buenos Aires. Only 250 people attended, and many of them wore masks for fear of being identified and subse-
quently losing their jobs. Almost 18 years later, the consequences of the LGTTTB movement struggle are evident: at dawn on
July 15th, 2010 the Argentine Congress sanctioned the law that allows marriage between people of the same sex. The joy is
immense and it has strengthened the vigor to also achieve the implementation of a law for the gender identity which allows to
put in the document the name and the sex chosen, and a law against discrimination in the whole country, as well as the aboli-
tion of the Infringement Codes, which still explicitly criminalize travesties and homosexuals in ten of the Argentine provinces.
las 6.30 de la mañana del 25 de agosto de 2009, en una casa de Rosario sonó un teléfono
celular. Gustavo Fares se despertó sobresaltado. Quizás pensó en desgracias, pero del
otro lado de la línea le explicaron que no era una emergencia: lo llamaban de una radio de
Buenos Aires para decirle que su caso iba a ser utilizado por la Corte Suprema de Justicia
para despenalizar la tenencia de marihuana para consumo personal. Gustavo no entendió de qué
le hablaban, pero después cayó: aquellos tres porros por los que había estado preso hace cinco
años volaron lejos”.
Así comienza la nota que Sebastián Hacher escribió en la edición especial que la revista de cultura
canábica THC editó en formato de periódico el 26 de agosto de 2009, para celebrar el fallo Arriola,
mediante el cual la Corte Suprema sentó un antecedente de jurisprudencia que abrió la puerta para
la discriminalización de los usuarios de marihuana.
Esa hojita de cinco puntas, probablemente surgida en la habitual ronda de dibujo, mate y otras
yerbas que en el TPS dió en llamar “dibujazo”, fue impresa más o menos por la misma época en que
Gustavo Fares era procesado, y simboliza la reivindicación de un hábito social y cultural.
“At 6:30 am on the morning of August 25, 2009, a cell phone rang in a house in Rosario. Gustavo Fares
woke up with a start. He might have expected bad news, but the person on the line said it was not an emergency: they were
calling from a radio station in Buenos Aires to tell him that his case would heard by the Supreme Court in the interest of
decriminalizing the possession of marijuana for personal consumption. At first, Gustavo didn’t know what they were talking
about, but then he remembered those three joints for which he had been arrested five long years ago.”
Thus began the article that Sebastián Hacher wrote for the special newspaper-format edition of the cannabis cultural mag-
DIFERENTES DESEOS
azine THC put out on August 26, 2009 to celebrate the Arriola decision. After hearing that case, the Supreme Court estab-
/ Noviembre 2003 /
Marcha del orgullo lished jurisprudence that made way for the decriminalizing of marijuana possession for personal use.
LGTTTB (LEsbico, Gay, That five-point leaf probably came about at the common get-togethers to draw and have some mate and other herbs that
Travesti, Transexual, the TPS came to call dibujazo. It was printed at around the same time that Gustavo Fares was tried, and it symbolized the
TrangEnero, Bisexual) vindication of a social and cultural habit.
Representative or delegative democracy, whose formula consists of voting every two years for
candidates and their promises or political parties and their agendas, has, in Argentina, almost always led to the deception
of the majority. The Argentine Constitution states that “The people shall not deliberate or govern except through their repre-
sentatives,” clearly limiting the possibility for the population to express itself.
After the spontaneous chant “They all must go, not even one left!” in early 2002, hundreds of independent spaces that ques-
tion the mandate in the magna carta came into being, opening up a process that, while subject to a backlash, is ongoing.
Direct democracy, which many consider ideal but impossible, was a notion central to the most politicized social sectors; the
people do, in fact, deliberate and want to decide.
In the 2003 presidential elections, the very leaders who had been responsible for or allied with the economic debacle present-
ed themselves as the saviors of the country. The response of many social movements was a resounding call to ignore them.
a democracia representativa o delegativa, cuya fórmula es votar cada dos años a can-
didatos con sus promesas o a partidos con sus programas, ha sido en nuestro país una
encrucijada en la que las mayorías terminan casi siempre decepcionadas. “El pueblo no
delibera ni gobierna, sino por medio de sus representantes”, marca la Constitución Nacio-
nal, poniendo un claro límite a las posibilidades de expresión de la población.
Luego del espontáneo Que se vayan todos, que no quede ni uno solo, a principios de 2002 se cuen-
tan por cientos los concurridos espacios de autoorganización popular que ponen en cuestión el
mandato inicial de la carta magna, abriendo un proceso que, si bien tuvo un importante reflujo, aún
sigue abierto. La democracia directa, para muchos ideal pero utópica, apareció como un planteo
central de los sectores sociales más movilizados; el pueblo deliberaba y quería decidir.
En las elecciones presidenciales de 2003, los mismos dirigentes que habían sido responsables o
cómplices de la debacle económica y la injusticia, se presentan como salvadores del país. La res-
puesta desde muchos movimientos sociales fue un llamado a ignorarlos.
El 19 y 20 ya
votamos / Vote
basura / Elegimos
no elegirlos
/ Objecion de
conciencia /
Marzo-abril 2003
/ Contracampaña
en el marco de
las elecciones
presidenciales
n enero de 2001 se realizó en Porto Alegre el primer Foro Social Mundial (FSM). Esta ini-
ciativa -llevada adelante por militantes del Partido de los Trabajadores (PT) de Brasil y
la Asociación para la Tasación de las Transacciones Financieras para la Ayuda al Ciuda-
dano (ATTAC)- inauguraba el ciclo de los Foros Sociales que se repetirían en distintos
lugares del mundo, incluyendo un capítulo en Buenos Aires.
El FSM nace como contracara del Foro Económico de Davos y como corporización propositiva
del movimiento de movimientos que había tomado forma en 1999 en repudio a la reunión de la
Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) en Seattle. La resistencia al neoliberalismo
capitalista ya había demostrado capacidad organizativa para expresar su repu-
dio a las cumbres imperialistas; era hora de organizar una propia reunión
Elegimos no elegirlos / Nada de importancia / Marzo-abril 2003 /
Contracampaña en el marco de las elecciones presidenciales que expresara la multiplicidad de voces y luchas.
In January of 2001, the first World Social Forum (WSF) was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Organized by
activists from the Brazilian Workers’ Party and the Association for the Taxation of the Financial Transactions for the Aid of
Citizens, this initiative was the first in a series of Social Forums held around the world, including Buenos Aires.
The WSF was conceived in response to the World Economic Forum held in Davos Switzerland and as a possible embodiment of
the movement of movements that had taken shape in 1999 against the meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seat-
tle. Resistance to free market capitalism had already deployed its organizational ability in protests against imperialist summits;
the time had come to organize a meeting of its own to express the multiplicity of voices and struggles involved in the movement.
Figures like Lula, Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales (presidents of Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia respectively) and representatives of the
Zapatista movement were crucial to the WSF. The entire theoretical and political spectrum of leftist and progressive move-
ments was manifest in an array of events and roundtables. There was mass participation in the first WSF: its debates and
leading figures were of interest to tens of thousands of activists and radicals working for social change. The WSF also served as
a political and social platform that helped give rise to a number of governments in Latin America that broke with Washington
and the models it imposed, expressing perspectives at odds with the policies propagated by international financial organisms
and multinational corporations.
In 2010, Porto Alegre once again hosted the Forum, this time its tenth edition.