Marina: I would call it a revolution. I mean it's a revolution also in a sense of rethinking revolution. It was, that they had a total economic crisis, over a long period of the 90s, of privatization; it's very similar to what's taking place around the world now, especially in Europe, we have privatization, privatization, and more austerity measures, and it got to the point where the crisis was so big and the government was afraid that people in Argentina would do what people in the U.S. did in the 1930s, which was to go to their banks and pull all their money out, having no more confidence at all in the government anymore. So, what they did was to freeze people's bank accounts.
Rob: / The government froze the people's bank accounts?
Marina: / The government froze people's bank accounts. So, imagine tomorrow being told that your government doesn't believe you're not going to withdraw your savings, because they've created an economic crisis on speculation and their relationship with loans with the IMF and the World Bank and all of privatization. So, you don't have access to your money anymore, so that was the spark on the 19th and the 20th, where people went into the streets banging pots and pans, it's called the Cacerolazo.
It was this overwhelming sense of crisis. So, it wasn't the "Okay, give us our money back, this is our demand." People went out in the streets by the hundreds of thousands, and eventually by the millions in the different cities. And what the banging the pots and pans turned into was people--not even a chant, it's partly a chant. It's actually more like a song and it's, "Que se vayan todos/que no quede ni uno solo," which is, "They all must go and not even one should remain," and they forced out four governments. You could just imagine the level of anger, frustration, and fear and everything that comes out of this: it was total desperation. And then from there, people began to organize in assemblies and in their neighborhoods, and those assemblies looked very much like what our--it's amazing how much, to go to one of the Occupy Plazas or parks around the U.S., and see hundreds of people or a thousand of people standing in assemblies and making decisions and creating food together. That's what that looks like in Argentina in those first--
Rob: Now, I just want to read a couple lines from your book. You're talking about what happened when they closed the banks. You wrote, "Government buildings were destroyed as were the homes of government officials. Representatives were forced to leave office due to their fear of the rebelling population. These early rebellions remain significant, because they represent in a memory, an imagination of Argentines: the rejection of systems of representation in favor of direct action and other forms of democracy." You wrote, "Millions spontaneously took to the streets, across Argentina, and without leaders or hierarchies, forced the government to resign. And then through continuous mobilization, proceeded to expel four more governments in less than two weeks."
Marina: Right.
Rob: Now this--
Marina: Much more dramatic when you read my words than what I just said, I guess. Yes.
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