Thousands mobilize in Buenos Aires against budget cuts to higher education and to preserve the public university system, reports Peoples Dispatch.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei decided to keep public university funding at the same levels as 2023 despite inflation. (Ilan Berkenwald via Flickr)
By Staff Writer
“We do not want them to take away our dreams – our future does not belong to them,” the president of the Argentine University Federation (FUA), Piera Fernández de Piccolini told an overflowing Plaza de Mayo during a march in defense of public universities on April 23. Hundreds of thousands at the Plaza chanted: “The country is not for sale!”
The protest, organized by student groups and educators’ unions, was also supported by labor unions and left parties.
The protest was called after Argentina’s President Javier Milei decided to keep public university funding at the same levels as 2023 despite inflation, a move that has de facto reduced the value of the budget by 80 percent.
Milei has criticized public universities as hotbeds of socialism and indoctrination, claiming that “the cognitive dissonance that brainwashing generates in public education is tremendous.”
Massive demonstrations took place across Argentina as people protested President Javier Milei’s decision to implement heavy cuts in public spending, especially for public universities. pic.twitter.com/Qb2S1iX2Xz
— DW News (@dwnews) April 25, 2024
With Milei freezing the budget for higher education, teachers, students and members of the public mobilized to highlight the plight of higher education institutions nationwide.
According to the National Interuniversity Council, the budget is not enough to cover expenses beyond the middle of the year and some faculties have started to reduce enrollment, cut electricity, and even limited the use of elevators for people with reduced mobility.
Public universities are already in crisis in Argentina. Stefan, one of the 2.5 million public university students in the country, told Tiempo Argentino:
“We study in the dark. There is no money for reagents, the laboratories are out of materials. They have the logic of business. Education is not a business.”
Piccolini agreed. “Education is a fundamental human right because it reduces inequality,” he told the crowd.
“Students work and take care of their families. Scholarships are fundamental. Progresar and Manuel Belgrano scholarships suffered cuts. Universities lack the budget to support their own scholarships. A country that does not invest in education renounces its sovereignty. The public university is going through a critical moment. We are grateful for the support of society as a whole. Public universities support democracy, production and social ties… The government’s announcements were absolutely insufficient.”
The rally was also addressed by human rights leaders, trade unionists and academics.
Taty Almeida, of the human rights organization Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a group that fights disclosure about the 30,000 citizens detained and disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship, said there was a renewed militancy in the country among the young and old.
“This is a political march, but not partisan,” she said.
“The president criticizes the unions for marching. Of course they march because union members also send their children to university and public schools.”
On April 24, a day after the march, Milei took to Twitter to denounce the participation of unions and the broad coalition evident the mobilization.
“This is how yesterday we saw the same old faces of those who want Argentina not to change to defend its privileges,” he said.
“Massa, Cristina, Lousteau, Yacobitti, the CGT, the CTA, complicit radicalism, and all the other actors of the political class who oppose any change because they have been the main beneficiaries of the old regime.”
“They do not defend education. They defend their privileges and use society to do so.”
Almeida is also a struggling teacher, as well as a human rights activist.
For her, education is not a privilege. “I come as a mother, but also as a teacher, because I also fell into public education. We must defend the right to education, which is a human right,” she said.
This article is based on reports from Tiempo Argentino and El Grito del Sur.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Milei is Zelensky 2.0; Argentina is the latest example of western meddling in other countries’ politics and hampering people’s sovereignty and power.
The line that connects these “dotted countries” is supremacism, especially cultural and racial. leaders in Argentina like Ukraine sees themselves superior to; in Argentina indigenous people are still discriminated and land evicted, in one of the whitest country in SA, same is in Ukraine where people of different races/ethnic groups are “second class ” citizens, discriminated and their languages and heritage downplayed if not repressed. Of course, US, Canada and Australia lead the group.
But there is another line that connect such countries, Israel. Those countries have a common plan, the unipolar world dominated by US, each country has its own role in the region to stop China/BRICS advance
And of course, the people of those countries are to suffer greatly… Still, I wonder why China hasn’t done more to help Argentina’s economy in previous years, true that she can’t be everywhere and time was rough, but still… Argentina was ready to enter BRICS
You have to remember that this is the country that a few years ago had people throwing sacks of money over convent walls.
Well, now we know what Libertarianism looks like. This was of course hailed throughout the Oligarchical Press as a victory of a Libertarian candidate in Argentina.
I was once a Libertarian. Back then, to join the party, you signed a statement renouncing violence against others to achieve your goals. They viewed the ‘state’ as a force of violence being applied to people. Turns out they were against the same uses of the police and military that I was against, so we tended to show up at the same protests.
We can add Libertarianism to the long list of political words that don’t mean what they used to mean. As now apparently Libertarianism includes large police forces in riot gear directly using violence to force the people’s compliance with government orders. This modern politics where Libertarians support the Police and Progressives support the Military all seems rather upside down, and the only real thing to learn is that they are all probably lying.
One of these days people are going to figure out that “Freedom” does not include large police forces. A sure sign of a Liar is a politician who says the two go together. A political movement that supports Freedom also supports emptying the prisons.
Wow, these government villains just keep crawling out of the woodwork – where’s the pesticide when you really need it?