The Flask

The world that's leaving, the world that's coming

About the passing of former Argentine president C. Menem, a soccer player named Luque and the one Larry Flynt. 

It is interestingly painful -yet, still mysteriously interesting- how one can see the world as we knew it for many for decades slowly fading away to make way to new things -a new world-. And the most interestingly painful thing is that one can actually put faces and names to that world that's leaving. Such faces and names are the ones of persons who -for better or worse or for better and worse- left a legacy or even many legacies and have just passed away.

Recently, I've personally lost too many of those beloved people who one can consider "old patriarchs," mentors and mother-father-like figures who were elemental during different stages of my life. Also, many influential figures recently departed this world. They were directly or indirectly influential. Many people don't know them while many more do. Many don't even know yet how influential they were, are and will keep on being.

The most interesting thing for human beings is to have the ability to learn about many historic characters as possible, not only about those who directly affected their lives but about those who affected many people's lives, even in the other side of the world they live in. Such thing universally project humans to a next level of possibilities of accessing to more -and better- knowledge. Very recently, just some days or one or two days before this article was published, three influential persons died, they left this world in which one way or-and another, they left impactful legacies.

It was on a snowy, freezing cold Sunday early morning that I learned about the passing of Carlos Menem, a former Argentina's president whose name -for all the right and wrong reasons possible- will forever be paired with the last decade of the still recently past century.

A determinately bright personality he ran for president as a rural chieftain-leader and, once he reached the pinnacle of power, he governed as a neoconservative, but also a flamboyantly lightly popular, Armani-Cavalli well dressed, on-top-of-the-world kind of president.

During his first mandate, he was able to pair the Argentine peso with the U.S. dollar to bring a sense of brief stability, but such policy was stubbornly kept and, eventually, during his second mandate as president, the lack of currency exchange and gold value power, plus a substantial devaluation made the "one peso equals one dollar" policy unsustainable. It was the beginning of a crisis that would bring Argentina's economy to the brink of total collapse. But such collapse would happen by the end of 2001, when Fernando De La Rua was president and Menem almost cashed in the fact that such breakdown happened "after he left power" to try and get in the mix to run for president again. He would find that his political power and capital was no longer as strong as it once was during his golden years of the early '90s.

His former political ally and then turned into ideological opponent Eduardo Duhalde became the president in a time of sheer emergency, his tenure made room for the Kirchners to rise to power.

The following 12 years, First Nestor and then his wife Cristina Kirchner, by then both seasoned politicians, would govern the country of Argentina. For some pundits and political analysts, the base for such situation was set by former president Carlos Menem, but beyond all, there's the character, the grit and the determined personality that makes a leader one. Leaving any controversies aside, Menem was a consummate leader.  

Menem had to build up character since the get-go. He was born in a faraway little town of an Argentinean province, Anillaco, in La Rioja, the son of Syrian-Lebanese Muslim immigrants. He grew strong into old Peronist ideals, got elected governor of his province and even got incarcerated when in 1976 a military dictatorial government was installed in Argentina. He spent 5 years in prison. When democracy was reestablished in Argentina, he easily won another term as governor of his La Rioja province. In the meantime, he built up what would become his in-power persona; the chieftain leader who would charm the popular masses while at the same time seducing key players within the highest structures of power.

His time in power brought controversy, praise and sheer negative criticism, corruption and opulence, but it certainly didn't go by unnoticed. His first noticeable intervention in the international scene happened during his first visit to the United States, when he learned that U.S. military personnel were captured in Syria. It seems that Mr. Bush was suddenly addressed about the complex diplomatic entanglement right when he was conferring with Mr. Menem. President Bush told president Menem about the dire situation, to what Menem calmly and with a secure, firm tone of voice responded, "I can help you solve that problem." He did; he talked to the Syrian president -then Assad Sr.- got family members to visit their relatives and helped secure their release. Bush Sr. got immediately enchanted by Menem's leadership skills and told him, "I will never forget this, my good friend. Your actions were determinant and fundamental. I'm greatly thankful," the then U.S. president told Carlos Menem. From then on, they became close friends. Menem was among the first world leaders to go to war against Saddam Hussein along with his U.S. counterpart. A then reemerging, U.S.-backed Argentine military sent the navy forces to help blockade Hussein and liberate Kuwait along with the U.S. forces. Menem was the only Latin-American leader to back Bush Sr.

Even after leaving the White House, Mr. Bush Sr. would visit Menem for fishing trips and to play tennis. I personally remember spotting Mr. Bush walking around the Argentine presidential residence during Menem's second term when I was a journalist-correspondent covering government and political affairs along with other journalists-correspondents mounting guard outside of the Argentine presidential palace.

As mentioned above, Carlos Menem's administration was plagued with controversies. He can be counted among those controversial figures who have been in power "for better or worse and for better and worse." His presidency represented the second one in the renewed democratic republic after many years of dictatorship. His predecessor, Raul Alfonsin, passed the torch to him in an event that for many represented the consolidation of democracy in a battered country. Also, it brought brief breezes of projected unity. Eventually, politics would be politics. Divisions arose, problems, controversies and more marked the last half of his tenure as president. Menem would be as flamboyant as charming with both those in the highest positions of power and the part of the loyal lower classes that somehow kept on believing he was holding the "man of the people" ideals high. But one thing was undeniable; his style was beyond any protocols, or, better said, he established new protocols. He structured new rules. He could make hid official driver stop the presidential car to answer questions or answer a call from a press room himself skipping the protocol of having his press secretary as the middle person.

I remember vividly when I was about to finish my thesis to get my B.S. in journalism and needed to secure at least 3 outstanding interviews. Once I had my first two, I decided to mount guard outside of the presidential residency. I knew the president used to roll down the presidential car's window during the Buenos Aires' warm days of November, as I saw him do so on TV. So, one given weekday I saw there were not too many journalists outside the front gates of the presidential residency, I made way and, with just a notebook and an old hand recorder I approached him, who was in the car with his window down; "Mr. president, I swore to myself that for my journalistic thesis I would interview you. I just need to ask you two or three questions, if you don't mind. I swear I will be brief."

"Don't ask me just three questions, ask me four or five my friend," he responded.

"Stop the car for a couple of minutes please!" he ordered his driver.

Needless to say, I had my interview and my thesis became an article that I believe can still be found at the library of the University of the Argentine Congress.

Agree or disagree with the guy, he was determined to leave his imprints. He would do it and kept on doing so, with controversies, problems and unresolved issues that are now history's territory. He was human, and as famous -or infamous- humans do, he didn't walk this earth without missteps.

Same you can say about Larry Flynt. Lots of people can point fingers at him and his entourage, his ways, his style and what he created and represented. Now, one thing you cannot say is that he wasn't transcendent. See, for us journalists who love to tell stories -and even risk it all to do so- the journalistic styles you can find in articles or interviews published in magazines such as Larry Flynt's Hustler or Hefner's iconic Playboy became intellectually formational. Whoever missed the great literary pieces published by such magazines because of the sheer aspect of the sensual -and s****l- style of such publications' graphic presentation, truly missed a lot. That's why I encourage you to read masterfully written literary pieces such as Truman Capote's interview with Marilyn Monroe, published by Playboy magazine, or an article about Jerry Rubin published by Hustler magazine.

It doesn't matter if you agree or not, even of you hate or love these kinds of characters, you must know -and understand- that they left a legacy that impacts us -all of us- by serving many purposes, being the fundamental one that we learn from such legacies.

In the case of Leopoldo Luque, he was a soccer star, the kind that reached the top of the world by winning a World Cup in 1978. He was part of that group of Argentine players whose mission was to play what's arguably the most popular and prestigious sports event in the world that was then celebrated in his country, but organized by a military junta that was governing with an iron fist. He won that cup, and during those days, Mr. Menem, the president who died just a day before him, was a political prisoner. Eventually, Luque would become a symbol of the national team and an advocate for players' rights and an outspoken supporter of democracy.

In the case of Mr. Menem, he was buried along with his son who died in a helicopter accident back in 1995, in an Islamic cemetery of the outskirts of Buenos Aires. It was interestingly comforting to see that in the country in which I was born, a former president who embraced the Catholic faith when he was a kid can be buried in an Islamic place of rest while his farewell included Muslim rites and prayers during his burial while previously, Christian-Catholic rites and prayers were performed during his funeral. Leaving everything else pertaining his life aside, such thing, this interfaith farewell, can be part of a legacy too.

© Marcelo F. Palermo – For AHN- ANS