EFE

June 10, 2021 – 11:25 am

This Thursday, Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernandez, spoke again of his controversial phrase on Wednesday when he referred to the origin of Mexicans, Brazilians and Argentines.

His words had a strong resonance on social networks and provoked reactions from the President of Brazil and the Mexican authorities.

“Lito Nebia synthesizes the true meaning of my words better than I do,” the president wrote on Twitter, referring to the Argentine musician who owns the song containing fragments of the suspicious phrase he said yesterday.

In that message, Fernandez used another part of the same piece of music: “I wanted the phrase (Zampa) to speak of us. And from this land we love (Latin America). And it’s a mixture of everyone.”

The origin of the controversy goes back to when Fernandez referred in a speech to the waves of European immigrants who arrived in Argentina in the past, which formed a large part of the country’s social identity.

“Octavio Paz once wrote that the Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships,” Fernandez said.

It didn’t take long for these words to generate heavy criticism on networks, with many users warning that the president had erred in awarding the Mexican Nobel Prize with lyrics that closely matched the song Nybia, which Fernandez himself is a fan and friend of.

In the song “We Came From Ships,” published in the 80s, a prophet sings: “Brazilians come out of the jungle, Mexicans are Indians, but we Argentines are from ships.”

Whereas what Paz wrote is: “Mexicans descend from the Aztecs, Peruvians descend from the Incas, and Argentines descend from ships.”

“I did not wish to offend anyone, in any case, who is offended or invisible, from now on my apologies,” Fernandez wrote on the same Wednesday afternoon.

Despite the apologies, the substance of Fernandez’s sentence was not without reactions in Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, who maintains strong ideological differences with Fernandez, and in Mexico, with his boss, Andres Manuel Lopez ObradorThe Argentine has a good relationship.

First, Brazilian MP Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son, confirmed on Twitter that “the only sunken ship is Argentina,” and questioned whether the phrase was “racist against the indigenous and African peoples who made up Brazil.”

About four hours later, his father posted a photo showing him surrounded by a large group of indigenous people, accompanied by the word “Silva” and the flag of Brazil.

Already today, Bolsonaro directly referred to this issue in front of a small group of followers: “The president of Argentina said that they came from Europe and that we came from the jungle,” he said.

After saying that neither Fernandez nor Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro had vaccines, he revealed that he had exchanged messages this Thursday with former Argentine President Mauricio Macri, who supported his frustrating re-election bid directly and personally in 2019.

“We don’t have a problem with each other or with the Argentine people. To compete with Argentina only in football,” Bolsonaro said.

While in Mexico, the Under Secretary of State for Latin America and the Caribbean, Maximiliano Reyes Zúñiga, considered the Argentine president’s statements “unfortunate”, and said that they “make the ethnic diversity of Latin America invisible”, but he accepted with regret.

“We appreciate the apologies he made later and we reiterate our pride in our roots. All Argentines and Mexicans are from Latin America,” said Reyes Zuniga. (I)