“Cowards don’t make history, teachers do,” he said and he won me over. The teaching staff of Misiones waged a struggle that convulsed the province’s political establishment, mobilized broad sectors of workers, It cracked the story of missionaryism and “woke up” a society that seemed dormant. Reflections, ideas, thoughts and conclusions from the trenches of the communicational guerrilla.
From this humble virtual pasquín we have been covering and propagating the struggle of education workers since they began this year and fundamentally since the beginning of May when things began to worsen. Personally, I joined the fight in January, when we were denouncing that the guarantee and the FONID were working us out: at that time in the assemblies in Posadas we were only around twenty people. In Oberá a handful. In the rest of the locations, no idea.
They were months of struggle in which the steps were taken cautiously and then with voracity, the voracity of hunger that knocked on the door of all the teachers’ homes. The provincial government, being able to resolve the situation quickly, chose to fight a battle that it thought was easy to win because they did not have such a massive and combative reaction. The conquest of the streets and routes through camps and pickets, or through “social visits” to the home of the leaders of the Renovation, the union of teachers or health personnel, organized in true town assemblies, managed to demonstrate to the provincial government that cannot be screwed with people’s hunger. When there is hunger there is no social harmony and there is no peace, no matter how many rented marches they want to organize.
During these months, many sectors, both education workers, health workers and sectors of missionary society, They became politically involved in civil life through a popular struggle. Because that’s really what happened: there was explicit or implicit support that went beyond a salary discussion. The missionary society carried much of its boredom and fatigue towards the Renewal into teaching.. There is no denying the feeling that she was dealing a blow to a completely corrupt and flawed regime. That blow only generated satisfaction and hope in many. The government felt those blows and during the conflict only knew how to insist with a story that only exists on Channel 12.
The cracking of the missionary narrative is a victory that no one expected or sought, because hunger was really what mobilized teaching. But when many colleagues, including myself, began to participate in these assemblies, things began to change and take other paths. The government thought it could wear us down over time and with organization we were able to overcome time and adjustment. But not only that, but the hornet’s nest was stirred. Rovira is afraid was sung for the first time. She went to Rovira’s house! He had to fence it for several days in a spectacle of illegality and nonsense that has rarely been seen in world history.
That moment opened waters in Misiones. It was Saturday, May 25, the best May 25 of your life, when the teaching caravan headed there. On Monday, cuts were expected throughout the province and it was being decided what Posadas would do. On Thursday the 30th, already thinking about the 3rd March to the Legislature, the renewal government went ahead and deployed its apparatus to continue insisting with the story that taxpayers pay but in which they do not participate. Meanwhile, in Posadas and the rest of the towns, the agitation was total. In the provincial capital, contrary to the rented event, thousands of teachers and residents of Posadas marched from the teaching camp to the center. The march stopped for a few minutes in front of Canal 12 and of course the crowd sang a few truths to it.
Those of us who have lived on the Internet for a couple of decades know how to measure how the so-called online street comes, for us, cyberspace. Social networks play a role within the theater of operations of the Renewal but luckily there are five idiots who manage a handful of troll accounts, not counting of course the army of public officials who spam on all the social networks that exist. Within that very stupid scheme was the technical alliance with the team of Santiago Caputo, digital creator of Milei and owner of many paid Twitter troll accounts with a huge reach on the network. Through a phone call it was agreed to hit Lousteau and mention him as the originator of the teaching and police conflict in Misiones: all under the umbrella of the 30MPorLaPaz hashtag.
This process was long, and everyone joined at different times. Many have been there forever, I have been there for a while. That made things mature. I remember moments where they were violated by the use of “inclusive language” or were horrified if one spoke of “popular struggle” as if teaching were not part of the great popular field that is the Argentine People. Teachers who, at the slightest hint of criticizing the national government, tore their clothes defending who knows what, after weeks of assemblies and struggle, changed their way of seeing things. Colleagues who didn’t speak before but then appropriated the word and made your blood boil with what they said! Perhaps another of the victories of this great struggle is that talking about politics is not a taboo topic, that you are not persecuted or classified for wanting to think of yourself as a political subject and therefore, a subject of law. How many times have I read, or have you experienced, that you cannot talk about politics with colleagues? Isn’t teaching a historical story like the missionary one also about doing politics, but in a bad way? I want to believe, hopefully, that this will be an empowerment of the teaching bases. The most different tendencies have coexisted in the camp: independent Peronists, radical militants, militants from different left-wing parties, militants from the libertarian party or Milei! I have no problem with members of any party, because for an Argentine there is nothing better than another Argentine.
The board has been shaken here, there is no doubt. It is not for nothing that Lezcano, in his speech on May 30, already spoke about the next battle: overturning the Motto Law. Mónica Gurina also mentioned it at the assembly that was held in Posadas, on June 8. That same day, the government closed an agreement with the self-convened teachers’ board, who today are the majority in the province. “It was an exercise in direct democracy,” said Ruben Ortíz, of the MPL. And it was: to sign that agreement that we all already know, the approval of all the provincial assemblies had to be obtained. The teachers voted by show of hands. Direct democracy as opposed to the usual give-and-take. Obviously there is something that is happening and will continue to happen. The teaching situation did not end. Nothing is completely closed. We have taken enormous steps and shown enormous organization. They have placed a lot on us and it is time for that burden to be shared. The Law of Mottos is a common cause that can unite the entire people of Misiones. Nothing has been finished, nothing has been said but without a doubt, vox populi, vox dei and the people have already spoken. Remember also: cowards do not make history.
