Delfina Argento She has the luck that, for the moment, her two colleagues did not have: a judicial protection restored her right to work in the San Telmo Fairafter being disqualified on Sunday, March 1 through an expeditious measure urged by the head of the Buenos Aires government, Jorge Macriwho described the three stallholders as anti-Semitic. It’s Sunday, and on the way Time the fairgrounders agree in pointing out that Macrismo deploys its worst strategies to appropriate public space.
That day, a guest craftswoman – a ceramicist – rudely asked her neighbor to bring out a flag of Palestine which he had hung up in his post. The tension escalated to such an extent that Dolphin. “In my role as delegate I approach, ask you to please lower your tone and explain that here we don’t treat each other like that“recalls the young 36-year-old dressmaker, who has been supporting herself for eight years by selling lingerie and different clothes (sports, bed and going out) that she makes with her hands and offers in Defense at 700one of the many fairs that has at Dorrego Square as the epicenter, where the so-called Antiques Fair in the ’70s.
“This fair has a particularity. The 700 is a space that was recovered after a fight when he City Government “He wanted to take us out in 2019,” he says proudly. Assumptionwho works in stoneware ceramics and ceramic jewelry. Beyond the fact that they are regulated by CABAin this section of the street Defense The stallholders themselves demand that all products be handmade and that there is no resale.
“A group was consolidated made up of remnants from different blocks that wanted to ‘clean up’ and we put together something very organized, very assembly-oriented that precisely addresses institutional violence and we work a lot on the differences”.
The chase
“The woman started yelling at us that we were ‘terrorists’, ‘murderers’, ‘shitty black women’ and ‘crazy women’,” he adds. Dolphinwho, fearing being physically attacked, summoned an officer who was in the area. “There she says ‘I’m going to call my boss,’ which surprised us because we don’t have bosses. Then more people showed up and stayed with her.”
Marcelo He makes toys and instruments with natural elements such as wood, pumpkin and cane. He has had his position on the block for almost two decades. Defense at 700between Chili and the San Lorenzo Passage. “First there was a tumult and a murmur, until they raised their voices. I approached because we have all known each other for a thousand years,” he says. “The companion lowered the flag, but several of us told her that she was not committing any crime, it was a flag like any other.” According to what the fairgrounders reconstructed, the invited craftswoman was participating in the event for the third time. San Telmo Fair and in all of them he had had some kind of problem with colleagues.
Finally, the woman decides to leave. At that point, the anger that had been generated was such that other stallholders on the block were singing at the moment she left the space, while the sequence was recorded by one of the ceramist’s companions. That video of less than a minute and a half was enough for the legislator Waldo Wolff assured that he had filed a criminal complaint because “a woman was attacked because she was Jewish”. Jorge Macri reposted an official statement in which it warned: “All those responsible for this incident have already been identified and We have proceeded to cancel their permits so that they cannot be part of the Fair again.”.
“We didn’t kick her out, much less because of her religion. We weren’t even aware that she was Jewish. A week later the three women who appeared in the video were dismissed,” he says. Dolphinone of the disabled ones.
It was an automatic dismissal, without the due right to defense, to a trial“without letting us tell what happened,” says the young woman, who is divided between the south of the suburbs and the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Boedo where you live. In addition to being a dressmaker, she studies law at the UBA and music teachers in Avellaneda. Each of the victims presented an amparo and the case fell to a different judge.
Dolphin was fortunate that the Court 8 It gave rise to the precautionary measure until the issuance of a final sentence. The measure was appealed by the General Directorate of Permits and Fairs. Meanwhile, the fairmen of 700 every Sunday collect funds to give funds to the two women who are still unable to go: «The colleagues have not been able to come to work for 7 weeks. It’s a lot. We live from this. It is our livelihood. Not being able to work at any fair in the City destroys your finances and emotions. It’s distressing«. «
The dispute over public space
elsa he works metal with his hands. Next year she will celebrate 40 years as an artisan. His position is opposite that of Dolphin. Both are some of the figures who have been at El 700 for years, the space of the enormous San Telmo Fair in which the operation is collective, supportive, and they imposed a rule on themselves: that all the fairers produce products made by themselves, in an artisanal way.
For elsalike many of her colleagues, what happened to her three companions (Delfina, Rita and Marta) “It should not be seen as an isolated event. Beyond the fact that this could be an ideological issue, what happens is progress in the dispute over public space. Let’s see who is going to keep it, the poor or the rich.“, he says in reference to the actions of the government of Jorge Macri that has already dismantled (or seeks to do so) other fairs and productions in public spaces. In addition to the operations against homeless people.
“There is an advance by the government on all the people who work on the streets. There is something called gentrification, which occurs when a place becomes fashionable like San Telmo, where People with greater purchasing power come and displace those who were already. “That is what the entire fair is suffering from,” he describes. elsa.
And it highlights that in this process, real estate agencies become a key actor, but also the gastronomic establishments that advance on the sidewalks and streets. “That is the plan that the government of the City of Buenos Aires for Saint Elmo and The Mouthwhere the Caminito Fair”, he concludes.
