Mordisquito. Discépolo and Peronism.

ne of the fundamental facets to understand the "Discepolian" universe is its political compromise, its Peronist militancy. One of the factors that caused his depression and an end divorced of the intellectual elite was, precisely, this essential aspect of his poetic proposal related to social conflict. Enrique Santos Discépolo died criticized by his peers, who turned their backs on him because of his ideology.

He defended with conviction, irony and vehemence, what he thought was a breakthrough in the political and social fields, the government of General Juan Perón.

The radio was the vehicle he used to broadcast his ideas, in his famous micro program ¿A mí me la vas a contar?. We transcribe, below, the last text read by Discépolo on November 10, 1951, the day before the elections that resulted in an overwhelming triumph of the team Perón-Quijano:

«Well, you see, I tell you this once and for all. I did not invent Perón. I tell you this once and for all, so that I put an end to this bona fide effort that I’m carrying out to help you in freeing you a little from so many lies. The truth: I neither invented Perón, nor Eva Perón, the miraculous. They were born as a response to bad governments. I neither invented Perón nor Eva Perón nor their doctrine. They were brought, to defend themselves, by a people that you and your friends had buried after a long way of misery.

«They were born from you, because of you and for you. That’s the truth. Because I neither invented Perón, nor Eva Perón. They were brought by this wild fight of ruling, they came because of the complete absence of social laws that were in accordance with the times. They came because of your enormous despise towards the poor classes whom you massacred, from Santa Cruz to Vasena’s, because they asked for a minimal respect of their dignity as men and a salary that allowed them to keep their families away from starvation. Yes, from starvation and from the terrible promiscuity of their huts where they had to stack either their longings or their disgust. No. I neither invented Perón, nor Eva Perón. You created them! With your intolerance. With your cruelty. With the same cruelty of that candidate for president that killed workers in his mill because they stepped a bit noisily on the road stones at the hours of siesta.

«Yes, I know it bothers that I remind you of that. It’s clear, but let’s finish this once and for all. Because I neither invented Perón, nor Eva Perón. The lack of justice presiding in the nation brought them. Because by force of making a style of so much outrage, it ended up seeming correct the most infamous thing. Of course, you were not reached by that injustice. You probably had, like a man that I knew, a salary as babysitter to cover his expenses, that he collected every month and he was paid officially, and a wage for going out with the Klan. I remember the Klan. And you, too. That sinister mafia that went out only to terrorize people and killed, sometimes by beating, sometimes by shooting and sometimes with a truck to have more fun. No, memory bothers us. But I neither invented Perón, nor Eva Perón. They came because of the dullness that ruled the country. Look, had you been in the Tragic Week like I and many others were, on Cochabamba and Barcala, and had you seen die first those five, and later hundreds and had you seen Jews slaughtered because of a "glorious" institution that filled us with shame, you would have never again joined that party to which you belong because of pride and maybe due to ignorance of so many criminal events that started to get ready the arrival of Perón and Eva Perón. In a miraculous rich country, on and under the earth, there were people starving. Teachers were mocked at instead of making us cry because they were not paid during a whole year. No! And everything was sold! And everything was surrendered! I know that you hate to hear it repeated so many times, but it is also sad to think that you don't want to hear it. Recently, in a speech I heard that you said about a government of 1918: "Already then workers enjoyed..." Enjoyed what? They were fucked up!, that is not the same thing. And, yes, Mordisquito, they were fucked up!

«Ours is a history of civism full of disillusions. No matter what political color ruled us, we always were in difficulties. We wanted to enjoy but finally we were enjoyed. All of us! Always! A strange worshiping, the one you have for the assholes, made the country go back a hundred years. Because you have the mystic of the assholes and follow their cult like a religion. The sillier he is, the clumsier and more credulous you are. You like to hear people you don't understand at all, those who talk clearly seem vulgar to you. I was also cheated like you and, why not confess it?, I was more touched by an asshole than by a man with talent. The asshole has presence, has a long story, the one that nearly always begins with a great-great-grandfather that was a pirate. I was also embarrassed by the assholes when I was a kid. Now I'm not! Only when I was a kid. But not now, Mordisquito! Free yourself from the assholes. The failure —for not saying infamy— of the assholes was what brought Perón and Eva Perón as a defense. But I wasn't the one who invented them. Perón was brought by fraud, injustice and the pain of a people that had an abundance of white flour but once they had to invent a Radical bread with wholemeal flour to avoid starving. You didn't even remember it. Ay, Mordisquito, how absent-minded self-pride makes you!

«I leave you with your conscience. Perón is yours! You brought him! And Eva Perón too! Because of your bad behavior. The only thing I still have to do is to thank you because of the enormous good that you unintentionally did for the nation. I thank you because of him and for her, for the fatherland that was waiting for them to start its true way towards the future it deserves. You cannot cheat me, Mordisquito! So long, yes. See you.»