LA GENERACIÓN DEL 80 EN ARGENTINA! 1880-1916 — Transcript

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1. 0:01With this video, we are kicking off a
2. 0:03new series of videos in which we will
3. 0:05cover contemporary Argentine history.
4. 0:07In this case, we will be talking about
5. 0:09the well-known Generation of '80. Who
6. 0:10were these people? What model of
7. 0:12country did they have? What were their
8. 0:14political ideals? What was their
9. 0:15project for the country? Why did they
10. 0:17all wear those mustaches? So let's go
11. 0:20on to see what their main political,
12. 0:22economic, and social ideas were. The
13. 0:45Generation of '80 refers to a group of
14. 0:47political leaders. Argentines who came
15. 0:49from the upper class, the very upper
16. 0:52class, and who governed the country
17. 0:54between 1880 and 1916. These leaders
18. 0:57had the primary objective of
19. 0:58modernizing the country by pacifying it
20. 1:01after numerous civil wars and inserting
21. 1:03it into the global economy. As we have
22. 1:06been saying, this regime begins in 1880
23. 1:08with the first presidency of Julio
24. 1:10Argentino Roca, which would extend
25. 1:12until 1886. Let's remember that at that
26. 1:16time, presidencies did not last 4 years
27. 1:18like today, but rather lasted six. But,
28. 1:20who was Roca? Where did he come from?
29. 1:22What was his background? Roca had been
30. 1:27the general in charge of leading the
31. 1:28expedition to the desert or the
32. 1:30Conquest of the Desert, a military
33. 1:31incursion into the south of the country
34. 1:33that sought to expel the indigenous
35. 1:35people from the lands of Patagonia to
36. 1:37take those lands and transform them
37. 1:39into farmland. In 1880, Roca would
38. 1:42become president of the Republic and
39. 1:44would be the most important figure in
40. 1:46Argentine political life until the
41. 1:48first decade of the 20th century. Julio
42. 1:51Argentino managed the country from his
43. 1:53political party, known as the National
44. 1:55Autonomist Party or PAN for its acronym
45. 1:57. His political project was based on
46. 2:01the positivist concepts of order and
47. 2:03progress, and his ideology was
48. 2:04liberal-conservative. How? Yes, I know.
49. 2:09This may seem contradictory, but it is
50. 2:10because in some aspects they were going
51. 2:12to be very conservative and in other
52. 2:13aspects they were going to be very
53. 2:15liberal. We will see that soon. So, the
54. 2:17main objective of this ruling class was
55. 2:20going to be to modernize the country
56. 2:22institutionally and achieve economic
57. 2:23progress. And take my money.
58. 2:26For this, an oligarchic government
59. 2:28would be created. This means that the
60. 2:30government would be in the hands of a
61. 2:32small group of people who, in turn,
62. 2:34were the owners and holders of the vast
63. 2:36majority of the country's land. The
64. 2:40basis of this project and this
65. 2:41political system then was that while
66. 2:43the vast majority of the population was
67. 2:46excluded from political participation,
68. 2:48a small oligarchy had and maintained
69. 2:50power while imposing their model of the
70. 2:52country. That is the conservative part.
71. 2:57But these governments still took many
72. 2:59liberal measures that represented a
73. 3:01great advance for the time, such as
74. 3:03Education Law 1420, which established
75. 3:05that education was public, free,
76. 3:07compulsory, and almost secular, or the
77. 3:09civil registry law. These laws sought
78. 3:13to advance progress so that the
79. 3:15Argentine country and society could be
80. 3:17formed in the European image, because
81. 3:20the idea was for Buenos Aires to
82. 3:22resemble cities like London or Paris.
83. 3:25Hello there, Mr. Frenchman. Yes, of
84. 3:27course.
85. 3:27This will be key to that era. We are in
86. 3:30a Europeanizing conception in which
87. 3:32everything that came from Europe was
88. 3:34considered very good and everything
89. 3:37indigenous to America was considered
90. 3:39bad or backward. Another of the great
91. 3:41characteristics of this political group
92. 3:43is that it remained in power through
93. 3:46electoral fraud. What was this? This
94. 3:49basically means that the upper classes
95. 3:51considered the middle and lower classes
96. 3:53to be inferior, ignorant, and did not
97. 3:55trust that they could vote correctly.
98. 3:59Since the vote was not yet secret as it
99. 4:01is today, but rather voice-voted, it
100. 4:03was very easy to manipulate people's
101. 4:05votes when they went to the polls, as
102. 4:07the person would go, stand in front of
103. 4:08a tribunal, and say out loud who they
104. 4:10wanted to vote for. More or less
105. 4:13something like this. Hello, I'm here to
106. 4:16vote for Roca. Is that okay? Like that.
107. 4:20Yes, Roca. In this way, the ruling
108. 4:23class ensured they would always win the
109. 4:25elections. Furthermore, there were not
110. 4:28many political parties and, in fact,
111. 4:30modern political parties as we know
112. 4:32them today did not even exist. So,
113. 4:34political opposition basically did not
114. 4:36exist. Regarding the economy, these
115. 4:39people sought to insert Argentina into
116. 4:41the world market as an exporter of raw
117. 4:44materials, and in this, they would be
118. 4:46purely liberal. An agro-export model
119. 4:49was implemented. What is this? It is a
120. 4:52way of organizing the economy in which
121. 4:55great importance is given to food
122. 4:56production in the countryside, such as
123. 4:58meat or grains, to sell them to
124. 5:00industrialized European countries that
125. 5:02were going through the second phase of
126. 5:04their industrial revolution starting in
127. 5:06the second half of the 19th century. As
128. 5:10Susana Jiménez explained very well,
129. 5:12there was an expression at the time
130. 5:14that Argentina was the world's
131. 5:16breadbasket. Yes.
132. 5:17If there is a lot of poverty, let
133. 5:18people go to the countryside. We were
134. 5:20always the breadbasket of the world. We
135. 5:26must teach people, for example, the
136. 5:27people from the north, how to plant,
137. 5:29how to keep chickens in the coop. This
138. 5:35means that Argentina sold food and
139. 5:37primary products to industrialized
140. 5:39European countries, especially England,
141. 5:41which would be the main trading partner
142. 5:43at the time, and these countries sold
143. 5:45us very expensive industrialized
144. 5:47products. Now, this model helped
145. 5:51Argentina insert itself into the world
146. 5:53market at the time, but since it did
147. 5:55not contemplate industrialization—
148. 5:57meaning it did not seek for Argentina
149. 5:59to generate industry—Argentina began
150. 6:01to lag behind compared to the
151. 6:02industrialized countries. For this
152. 6:05model to work, basically two things
153. 6:07were needed. On one hand,
154. 6:09infrastructure was needed. For example,
155. 6:11trains that would connect production
156. 6:13points in the countryside with the port
157. 6:15of Buenos Aires or cold storage plants
158. 6:17that would allow for the export of
159. 6:19chilled meat, and on the other hand,
160. 6:21labor, meaning people to work in the
161. 6:23countryside. The fundamental thing that
162. 6:25the leaders sought from this labor
163. 6:27force was that it be cheap. They
164. 6:29resorted to encouraging immigration.
165. 6:30They sought for many people from Europe
166. 6:32, especially initially from Nordic
167. 6:34countries and later from Spain and
168. 6:36Italy, to come to work in the fields in
169. 6:38Argentina. In this way, they sought, in
170. 6:41addition to having people working in
171. 6:43the fields, for Europeans to be able to
172. 6:45pass on their culture and help
173. 6:46modernize or civilize the Argentine
174. 6:48population. Regarding the social aspect
175. 6:51, they were going to try to foster the
176. 6:53formation of an Argentine culture and
177. 6:55nationality. As we had already seen,
178. 6:58especially in the first decade of the
179. 7:0020th century, that is, between 1900 and
180. 7:031910, a large majority of the
181. 7:04population was made up of immigrants,
182. 7:07especially Spaniards and Italians. All
183. 7:10these immigrants brought with them
184. 7:12their language, their cultures, their
185. 7:14religions, their different ways of
186. 7:16seeing the world, and their ideology.
187. 7:18So, society was not unified. The
188. 7:21Generation of '80 saw this as a problem
189. 7:23they had to solve. So they sought to
190. 7:26foster culture and especially education
191. 7:28, for example, the teaching of history,
192. 7:33so that these immigrants would
193. 7:35gradually transform into Argentine
194. 7:37citizens. Another factor of utmost
195. 7:40importance that developed during this
196. 7:42era is the Argentine labor movement.
197. 7:45Many of the workers who came from Italy
198. 7:47or Spain arrived with leftist ideas,
199. 7:48whether they were Marxists, anarchists,
200. 7:50or trade unionists. And upon arriving
201. 7:53here and working in terrible conditions
202. 7:55, they were going to seek to improve
203. 7:56all their living and working conditions
204. 7:58through strikes and general walkouts.
205. 8:01Obviously, the government did not like
206. 8:03this, and its strategy was always to
207. 8:05try to repress the workers. The
208. 8:08Residence and Social Defense laws were
209. 8:11enacted in 1902 and 1910, serving
210. 8:13basically to arrest and deport workers
211. 8:16with leftist ideas whom they considered
212. 8:19dangerous to the social order. To wrap
213. 8:23up the topic, we can say that these
214. 8:25governments laid the foundation for
215. 8:27many aspects of our political and
216. 8:29social life today, such as the
217. 8:31agricultural base of our economy or the
218. 8:33mixed and immigrant-origin composition
219. 8:35of our society. How was this period
220. 8:38going to end? President Saenz Peña
221. 8:47enacted the famous Saenz Peña law in
222. 8:501912, establishing universal, secret,
223. 8:52and mandatory suffrage. This law was
224. 8:56implemented in the 1916 elections and,
225. 8:58contrary to what people of the
226. 9:00Generation of '80 thought, it brought
227. 9:03Hipólito Yrigoyen to the presidency,
228. 9:05the first Radical president in history
229. 9:07in the country's first democratic
230. 9:09elections. Thus, the oligarchic
231. 9:12governments end and the cycle of
232. 9:14Radical governments begins, which will
233. 9:16be the topic we will cover in the next
234. 9:18video. And we'll see you in the next
235. 9:20one. M.