Hundreds of thousands of Argentines took over the Obelisk to celebrate with the world champions
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The Argentine people have a long history of popular celebrations and demonstrations of massive scope that are the antecedent of the indescribable party that took place this Tuesday with the arrival of the “Scaloneta” after winning the Soccer World Cup in Qatar.
After 17 years of exile, Perón returned to Argentina
On November 17, 1972, a cycle of persecutions and dictatorships began to end; After 17 years of exile and ban, Juan Perón returned to Argentina.
On a rainy day, from very early that morning the crowd gathered at the Ezeiza airport, despite the military checkpoints that prevented them from advancing, to meet again with the leader who was returning to the country.
From that reunion arose “the Day of the militancy” that is celebrated until now in homage to the fidelity of those masses to the founder of Peronism.
John Paul II’s first visit
A decade later, a religious visit again summoned crowds.
John Paul II, who was canonized by Francis in 2014, visited Argentina twice; the first, in 1982, days before the end of the Malvinas war.
That trip lasted 31 hours and constituted an “unprecedented event” in Vatican diplomacy: it was organized in record time to show an assessment after the visit that the Pontiff had made to Great Britain just two weeks before. The visit, in any case, had been scheduled long before the war.
Arriving in Buenos Aires after a brief stop in Rio de Janeiro, the Pope cleared up any doubt about his central objective in the pilgrimage: pronounced the word “peace” 39 times in the middle of the rain on June 11in what was a historic speech as soon as he got off the plane at the Ezeiza airport.
The streets were filled with young people who lived it throughout the entire journey.
The second visit of John Paul II took place in 1987, for the III World Youth Days, and there the Pope took his message to nine cities in the country.
“There are two ideas, but only one people”
Before that, in 1983, the return of democracy after the bloody dictatorship, with the arrival to the presidency of the radical Raúl Alfonsín, summoned another historic celebration.
The October 30, 1983 marked a before and after for Argentina and its political system: on that historic day, Alfonsín won the elections.
But 4 days before, at the close of his campaign, he had gathered more than a million people in front of a stage set up in the Buenos Aires Obelisk.
“There are two proposals, two ideas, but only one people,” the UCR candidate then stressed to the crowd.
“He brought us the cup, fulfilling his dream”
In ’86 the festivities came hand in hand with soccer. The team led by Diego Armando Maradona won the World Cup in Mexico and when he arrived in the country he went to the Casa Rosada.
They were received by Alfonsín, who took the trophy in his hands and was immortalized in the photos of that time. Then, alone the players greeted the crowd from the mythical balcony of the Government House that there was the Plaza de Mayo and its adjacencies.
“A Bicentennial with the people in the streets”
Closer to our time, it was the Bicentennial celebration that once again brought together a concentration rarely seen, a crowd that occupied the entire center of Buenos Aires with its axis on 9 de Julio Avenue.
According to a UBA study on those festivities, On the closing day of the Bicentennial of May 1810, 4 million people were mobilized and more than 6 million during the five days that the activities lasted, organized under the management of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Without party distinctions, hoisting Argentine flags, and without any type of incident being recorded, the popular festival managed to bring together families, groups of friends and even strangers in the streets who shared those unprecedented days, united by a common slogan of national unity.
“We wanted a Bicentennial with the people in the streets. I appreciate the patriotism, the joy with which millions have taken to the streets to celebrate, to laugh, to share”, said the then President, when inaugurating the Gallery of the Latin American patriots at Casa Rosada.
There were present leaders of the region that at that time governed several Latin American countries, such as Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), José ‘Pepe’ Mujica (Uruguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Evo Morales (Bolivia ), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay) and Sebastián Piñera (Chile).
Today those festivities seem surpassed by the mass of million Argentine men and women who already flooded the streets on Sunday and that this Tuesday even exceeded the day of the victory against France.
The number of fans who want to express their joy and thank the players of the National Team, difficult to measure, shows Argentina starring in a historic event with a popular celebration never seen before.
“We experience the immense happiness of all the Argentine people, with total pride because these players took Argentina to the highest level in the world and touched the hearts of all of them,” the intellectual Alejandro Grimson, doctor, confided before Télam’s consultation. in Anthropology and former presidential adviser.
“I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen this amount of people at the Obelisk, of the multiplicity of the Argentine people in all their forms, in all the neighborhoods that I got to visit on Sunday, and I know from my friends that throughout the country people went out to celebrateAlexander Grimson
“In ’86 we all took to the streets, there was a kind of claim, recovery of national pride. And today, after so much bastardizing about the country and the National Team, once again people are fully reunited with Argentina”said Grimson when comparing both world celebrations.
However, He assured that this celebration surpassed any other.
“I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen this amount of people at the Obelisk, of the multiplicity of the Argentine people in all their forms, in all the neighborhoods that I got to visit on Sunday, and I know from my friends that throughout the country people went out to celebrate. An enormous happiness is seen in all the country”, concluded Grimson.
Photos: Telam.
