downtrodden and kicked in the south
observer | 04.12.2002 14:55
The government of Buenos Aires (B.A.) have created and maintained a unique power over poorer people in this city. Failing to provide any social services or providing only to people under extreme circumstances is proving to be a means of forcing people in this city to work extremely hard and long hours, in subservient working environment in order to survive. Due to the high rate of unemployment it seems that people are willing to bend over to all or any demands and needs.
A common work the poor people undertake is the recycling of goods from the garbage of other citizens. Saleable items such as cardboard and paper, the most common gives the people in this work the title of “the cartoneros”. This form of work means that the government is spared of having to pay for any recycling of material in the city. With a growing drain on the environment by human consumption it is imperative that people in this society begin to recycle the waste it produces and uses. It is an easy, efficient and cost free way of managing this problem for the government of B.A.,
The government is actually consolidating the position of the cartoneros by beginning a campaigntwo months ago to assist and promote the separating of paper and other recyclables for the cartoneros to collect in the streets. The campaign is involves widespread advertising on supermarkets plastic bag´s to magazine´s and billboards asking people to separate thier rubbish into paper and carton´s and the reclyclables from the remainder of the garbage.
The physical nature of this work is extreme. Thte cartonero´s walk long distances, pushing or puling heavy loads, usually working until late at night, and often travelling up to an hour and a half in each direction to enter the city from the outer areas of the province. In total, this means people become physically drained and mentally exhausted, rendering the people unable to search for other work or in fact educate themselves to take on another form of making a living. As well as the physical nature of this type of work, the searching through another person’s garbage as a means of attaining your own existence is particularly demoralising. The reactions and jokes conjured in me of a person as a garbage collector (a respectiable, yet jokeable profession) would be far greater than the pity, disgust and plain ignoring of the cartoneros that I witness others directing toward the cartoneros. When looking at the situation from a broader perspective, the sight and thought of the large numbers of people combing the streets and searching meticulously through the plastic bags of peoples garbage looking for a newspaper or pizza box saddens me. This societal rejection and worthless disregard can be more isolating for a person than a physical deformity. In essence, someone searching through another’s garbage means a physical bodily equality but entirely different class or societally defined classification system. the reaction of the individual to this circumstance is open for large debate and study.
This is only one way to marginalise and ensure that this person or any poor person will stay poor. how difficult it is or would be to develop a positive outlook of people in society that are not coming from this same life experience; to not despise every other person who has a life that is different than this must take a strong willed intelligent and open minded person. As all should know, it is much easier to reject and abuse causes of hardship than to seek a positive change in circumstances.
A positive perspective if one can describe it thus, is that there is existing here a population (the number of which is extremely difficult to determine due to the nature of these circumstances) that the government is not receiving any income from this through taxation of wages, in this work of the cartoneros or in any of the other forms of work undertaken by people here. Begging for money, selling flowers on a street corner, cleaning windscreens busking etc are common forms of existence for people living within thissociety without paying money to the government for the city they are living in. The estimate os those unemplayed in this coutnry is between 50 and 70%, this means several things, but namely people are being hungry, frequenting soup kitchens, and scrounging through garbage on a day to day basis.
The visual impact of the cartoneros and general poverty and poor people in this city is quite astounding, and definetely very obvious to all to see, it is in this hope and through the very frequent mobilisations and demonstrations from the assemblea´s and piquetero movment´s that effective change is happening in this city and is being moved toward positive change, without those bastards ruling the people.
The government is actually consolidating the position of the cartoneros by beginning a campaigntwo months ago to assist and promote the separating of paper and other recyclables for the cartoneros to collect in the streets. The campaign is involves widespread advertising on supermarkets plastic bag´s to magazine´s and billboards asking people to separate thier rubbish into paper and carton´s and the reclyclables from the remainder of the garbage.
The physical nature of this work is extreme. Thte cartonero´s walk long distances, pushing or puling heavy loads, usually working until late at night, and often travelling up to an hour and a half in each direction to enter the city from the outer areas of the province. In total, this means people become physically drained and mentally exhausted, rendering the people unable to search for other work or in fact educate themselves to take on another form of making a living. As well as the physical nature of this type of work, the searching through another person’s garbage as a means of attaining your own existence is particularly demoralising. The reactions and jokes conjured in me of a person as a garbage collector (a respectiable, yet jokeable profession) would be far greater than the pity, disgust and plain ignoring of the cartoneros that I witness others directing toward the cartoneros. When looking at the situation from a broader perspective, the sight and thought of the large numbers of people combing the streets and searching meticulously through the plastic bags of peoples garbage looking for a newspaper or pizza box saddens me. This societal rejection and worthless disregard can be more isolating for a person than a physical deformity. In essence, someone searching through another’s garbage means a physical bodily equality but entirely different class or societally defined classification system. the reaction of the individual to this circumstance is open for large debate and study.
This is only one way to marginalise and ensure that this person or any poor person will stay poor. how difficult it is or would be to develop a positive outlook of people in society that are not coming from this same life experience; to not despise every other person who has a life that is different than this must take a strong willed intelligent and open minded person. As all should know, it is much easier to reject and abuse causes of hardship than to seek a positive change in circumstances.
A positive perspective if one can describe it thus, is that there is existing here a population (the number of which is extremely difficult to determine due to the nature of these circumstances) that the government is not receiving any income from this through taxation of wages, in this work of the cartoneros or in any of the other forms of work undertaken by people here. Begging for money, selling flowers on a street corner, cleaning windscreens busking etc are common forms of existence for people living within thissociety without paying money to the government for the city they are living in. The estimate os those unemplayed in this coutnry is between 50 and 70%, this means several things, but namely people are being hungry, frequenting soup kitchens, and scrounging through garbage on a day to day basis.
The visual impact of the cartoneros and general poverty and poor people in this city is quite astounding, and definetely very obvious to all to see, it is in this hope and through the very frequent mobilisations and demonstrations from the assemblea´s and piquetero movment´s that effective change is happening in this city and is being moved toward positive change, without those bastards ruling the people.
observer
