Eugenio Magdalena
Nov 3 · 4 min read

The 2010 Literature’s Nobel prize winner, chose a suggesstive title for his letter:

From D.Mario Vargas Llosa: My Translation of his letter from Spanish to English.

Yes, I cry for you, Argentina”.

The great writer, 2010's Literature Nobel Prize laureate, D.Mario Vargas Llosa. Photo:https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*LeL6JrForxVX-2C8.jpg

Last month, my wife Isabel shared with me the open letter the distinguished writer D.Mario Vargas Llosa (D.MVL)wrote in Spanish, referring to a theme (Argentina) very close to my heart, as I lived in Buenos Aires for two years, learned to love Argentina during my stay there, and shared completely D. MVL’s views about that country.

Buenos Aires: 5 of May Avenue, and The Obelisk, emblems of Argentina’s capital. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*0tO8EkbUG5Ubg_QZ.jpg

For those reasons, I decided to translate and publish the translation of his letter in medium.com, as I think the subject will be of interest to English-only speakers as well:

Yes, I cry for you, Argentina”.

“Argentina, a country which was already a democracy, when ¾ of the European countries were not; a country that was one of the most prosperous on Earth when L.A. was a continent of hungry, backward people.

Argentina’s flag. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*Vt_savrfwosPfkYH

The first country in the world that completely eradicated illiteracy was not the United States, it was not France, it was Argentina, with an educational system that was an example for the entire world. That country, which was a vanguard country: How can it be the impoverished, chaotic, underdeveloped country of today?

What happened there?

Was the country invaded?

Were the Argentinians immersed in some sort of a very long, terrible, war?

No, the Argentinians did that to themselves. For half a century, they have always chosen the worst options for their country.

But, how can that be understood?

A country with educated people. Absolutely privileged, with just a few inhabitants populating a very large territory blessed with all-natural resources.

Why are not they the first country on Earth?

Why haven’t they got the living-standard of say, Sweden, of Switzerland?

Because the Argentinians did not want to.

They have elected instead to be poor.

They have followed shoddy “caudillos”, trash’s “saviors”, raving lunatics unhinged by their own hatred to anything different to their own craziness. They have elected to live under dictatorships, inside the most atrocious form of mercantilism.

Ex-Presidents of Argentina. From the left, Raul Alfosin (1983–1989), Carlos Saul Menem (1989–1999), father of the parity of the Argentinian Peso with the USA $ (?), Fernando de la Rua (1999–2001), who was forced to resign amid violent street protests against the infamous “Corralito”, an authentic robbery to the Argentinian population, committed during his mandate. De la Rua was eventually substituted by various extremely short-term interim Presidents until Eduardo Duhalde ( Jan.2002-May 2003) assumed the Presidency designated by a Peronist Argentinian Congress, he later called for an election won by Nestor Kirchner (2003–2007), who was elected and finally replaced by his wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007–2015). Please, notice that with the exception of Alfosin, de la Rua, and Macri of course, albeit he is not in the photo above, all the rest of ex-Presidents are Peronist. Cristina Kirchner — in spite of many pending corruption charges against her — is now Argentina’s new Vice President-elec, but it is said that she wasn’t sure of the effect the corruption scandals associated to her name would have on the voters, so she ran for the VP position instead, and decided to work for the Presidential candidature of Alberto Fernandez, a “friendly” old-time associate of her and her dead husband. Photo: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XBfgEqxpxH1SevYt8OFZdJANQMGdMaa 254TFn-qpp4q3ea2tRWZ3NxtKl0vfv7W4XNRB4Z=s152

The Argentinians are obviously responsible for that.

For me is terrible what has occurred in Argentina.

The first time I went there, I was marveled. A country of middle-class people with no poor, in the L.A’s sense of poverty.

How could a diabolic couple like the Kirchner have arrived at the Presidency of Argentina?

The Kitchener couple: Both Presidents of Argentina. Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*uiQh78Mmw0tEjqj9

Such a demonic couple, manipulators, populists to the extreme, evidently corrupt like the Kirchner, governing that country?

At least, one of them is not there anymore!

We hope that the one remaining is not able to continue sinking that, one-time, great country.!

Nevertheless, judging by her infernal, very close relationship with the deranged, pariah, beast, troglodyte, from the dearest, now extinct, the Republic of Venezuela, everything appears to indicate that now “little Cristina” will get even closer to that scum, apprentice of dictator, who already had provided more than enough financing to her mandate, at the expense of the noble, but inexplicably inert Venezuelan people.

The recent electoral triumph, as elected VP, of who evidently wants to appear ‘messianic’: Cristina Fernandez de Kitchener. (the reader must know that Alberto Fernandez (to her right, in the photo), Argentina’s President-elect was Chief of the Cabinet during the entirety of Nestor Kirchner’s Presidency(!)). Photo: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*I5miq7mqLpnes5_J

What political degradation!

What intellectual degradation!

Argentina and Venezuela, or two extraordinary countries tore apart by a pair of unhinged demons!!!

4 years ago, Cristina Kirchner observed smiling, while Maduro — who went to Argentina to help Cristina Kirchner to win the election — mocked who, notwithstanding, would be the eventual winner of the 2015 electoral contest, and is currently Argentina’s President and now reelection candidate, Mauricio Macri. Photo:https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/0*AbKgK-SEXnaA2T93.jpg

And That’s why I question myself: How is that possible?

Mario Vargas Llosa

Madrid, Spain

Eugenio Magdalena

Written by

Eugenio is a disabled Economist (UCAB, Caracas), cursed a post-graduate Diploma in Marketing (Strathclyde University, Scotland, UK), and an MBA (England, UK).

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