The Governor of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, launched this Friday the carnivals throughout the province and assured that these celebrations “are a break with the previous stage” of six years of crisis and remarked that “all the joy” of this celebration will be “focused on join forces for the reconstruction of the province of Buenos Aires”.
“After two years of the coronavirus pandemic, which come on top of the other four years of absent state policies, of adjustment carried out by the macrismo. This Carnival, like the successful summer season, is the end of one cycle and the beginning of another,” he said. Kicillof al f head an act at the Teatro Argentino de La Plata.
The president was accompanied by the president of the Cultural Institute of the province of Buenos Aires, Florencia saintout, who announced several measures of promotion and assistance to the carnival organizations and murgas of the 135 districts of the province of Buenos Aires.
“There are governments that prohibit the carnival, our government not only does not prohibit it but also promotes and invests in promoting carnivals, to accompany and assist the murgas and to sustain identity at times when one is under attack, where ideas of leaving, dividing, destroying the province appear. And don’t even think about trying to divide the province,” said the Buenos Aires president.
The Governor recalled that in addition to the start of the carnival “Today begins the Night of the Vaccines 2, which was always a party. There wasn’t a single day that we weren’t vaccinating,” highlighted.
For its part, the president of the Provincial Cultural Institute, Florencia Saintout, stressed that “carnival is one of the intangible assets of our people and has to do with identity, with thinking about history, where we are going and it is the signaling of what is unfair, denouncing what does not have to be, through the laughter and that’s why it’s a way of fighting too”.
“It is no coincidence that the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo are here with us, because the history of carnival has to do with the fight for everything they wanted to deny.“, he maintained while looking among those present at the head of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto and the Mother of Plaza de Mayo Herenia Sánchez Viamonte.
He also recalled that each dictatorship “made the effort to break them, to make the carnivals disappear” and after remembering that the last civic-military dictatorship eliminated the carnival holidays and valued that former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner re-established that holiday.
In addition, taking into account two of the central axes of our cultural policy such as identity and the culture of participation, we are going to hold Murgas Festivals and a Provincial Festival. They will be spaces for exchanges and mobilization of local economies. pic.twitter.com/MbKuQwI6Tl
— Florence Saintout (@fsaintout) February 25, 2022
During the ceremony, a Recognition of Popular Joy to Fortunato Andreucci, a murguero from the city of Ensenada, a worker at the Río Santiago Shipyard, who was assassinated by Triple A on March 19, 1976.
Saintout announced the launch of the “Carnival is Culture” program with the carnival policy to work with the 135 municipalities, which It includes the assistance and strengthening of the artistic development of murgas and carnival groups, the presentation of projects to support the making of costumes, the arrangement and purchase of instruments, and the management of shows.
It was also announced that a Provincial Murgas Festival will be created and the carnivals will be incorporated into the Code Province program, the catalog that brings together local artists, playlists, radio productions, content for electronic media that positions local artists and their productions.
