A CASE OF THE MISSING BLACK PLAYER ON THE ALBICELESTE

Story written by Patrick Kamanga. 

A CASE OF THE MISSING BLACK PLAYER ON THE ALBICELESTE

Retired footballer Jorge Ernesto Trezeguet, Afro-Argentine father of David Trezeguet former French player

During the recently concluded FIFA World cup in Brazil, the Latin American region and indeed the American continent was richly represented sending a strong contingent that included Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, the U.S.A and hosts Brazil.

Being an African, I as well as most fans of the beautiful game noted that the one apparent feature among these teams that obviously stood out was the racial consistency of their squads. Some of the teams featured many players of colour with some teams such as Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras even drawing as much as half their squad members from their black population.

The unique oddity in that sense was Argentina which conspicuously lacked one single player of African descent.

That fact has never occurred to me as strange the many times I’ve watched Argentina play over the many subsequent World cup tournaments that I’ve witnessed but with the large representation from the host continent, one would have had to be blind or inherently ignorant to miss this obvious fact.

Why is Argentina unique? How come no black persons have ever prominently featured in their illustrious football history or on the mainstream of modern Argentina for that matter?

The current situation is stark deep in history.

Courtesy of the cruel and inhuman Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the capture and supply of Africans slaves was first done by the Portuguese with the Spanish, French, the Dutch, Americans and English traders following suit which guaranteed their colonies in the Americas a constant supply of free labour for the cotton, tobacco and sugarcane plantations from the 1500’s until the abolition of Slavery and the Slave trade in the mid 1800’s.

The sheer numbers involved were staggering with 1 out of every captured 5 persons that left the shores of the African continent making it to the eventual destination with most perishing in the “middle passage” across the Atlantic. It is estimated that 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic.

The Ports of Buenos Aires and Rio Di Janeiro were the main points of entry and centers for distribution of the human cargo in South America. Their numbers were so great that by the beginning of the 18^thcentury people of African descent were the majority in the American continent with their numbers greater in South America than in the North. Subsequently it is estimated that in the early 1800’s half of Argentina’s population was black.

With this historical account explaining the huge African presence in the Americas, the conspicuous absence of a black population in modern Argentina is therefore truly baffling.

Out of Argentina’s current population of 41 million only 1 million or less than 3 percent identify themselves as “black” or of “African descent”. This is either due to a concerted effort to wipe out “blackness” off the nation’s collective conscience or due to tragic historical events that decimated Argentina’s black population. 

The Argentinean Tango dance, Afro-Argentina's gift to the world

To illustrate how much Afro-Argentine culture contributed to modern day Argentina, historians have rightly credited Argentina’s most famous gift to the world, its national dance the Tango, as having been created by African slaves in Buenos Aires similar to “Capoera” in Brazil.

In a case of art imitating life, early paintings of the dance form depict African slaves as the innovators of one of the world’s most celebrated dance forms.

With the majority of slaves that made it to Argentina having been acquired in Congo and Angola, the tango itself had its roots in the Kingdom of Bakongo. Infact the word “Tango” was derived from the name “Ntangu” meaning “sun” in Kikongo and the movement of ntangu through the sky inspired dance forms on earth that gave rise to the dance movements that were later Creolized by the Spanish and Italian influences in Buenos Aires as Tango which literally means “moving in time to a beat”.

The low demographics however were as a result of a systematic and well orchestrated scheme. The decimation of the black population in Argentina was by most deliberate and is attributed to three factors.

First and foremost the Argentinean War of Independence 1810 -18 and the Paraguayan war of 1861-64 that saw large numbers of blacks enlisted where Afro-Argentine slaves were either forcibly conscripted or lured into the Argentine army with promises of manumission. They were ill equipped and lacked training but served fervently and perished in the front-lines for a country that did not recognize their rights or humanity. The black population subsequently suffered massive casualties in these wars.

Slavery was formerly banned in 1853 but the abolition of slavery only worsened the plight of the “freed” slaves. In captivity slaves were treated well and were well taken care of by their masters. However, ironically after the abolition, the systematic mistreatment of the black population began. Most lived in squalor and abject poverty with absolutely no access to medical care. They were subsequently decimated by the cholera and yellow fever epidemics that broke out in the early 1860’s.

The third factor is the alleged campaign waged upon the survivors of the above two calamities by the Argentine President from 1868-74, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s policy of covert genocide and his brutal repressive policies which were aimed at wiping out the black population.

By 1885 few blacks were left with most survivors fleeing to Uruguay and Brazil.

After the sustained elimination of the black population, Argentina then encouraged large scale migrations from Europe. European immigration was seen as the cornerstone upon which modern Argentina would be built.

Northern Europeans in particular were the preferred targets who were viewed as the remedy for Argentina’s economic and political ills. The Spanish were not sort after as they were blamed for the calamitous situation the country was in at the time. Unfortunately for architects of this weird plan, it’s the dark skinned southern Italians, Spaniards and Mediterranean Arabs and Jews who flocked to the country instead of the targeted Anglo-Saxons from northern Europe.

Between 1857 and 1915 an estimated 2.5 million migrants flocked into Argentina. This skewed mindset was the reason that enabled the Gestapo and other German Nazi war criminals from Adolf Hitler’s regime gain easy entry and settlement in Argentina after the Second World War where they lived happily ever after beyond the reach of justice.

Former President Carlos Menem is of Middle-Eastern Syrian Sunni Arab descent, while current incumbent President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is of German descent.

To illustrate the magnitude of modern Argentina’s disconnect with its heritage and denial of its history, during a State visit to the U.S in 1996, former President Menem retorted after a question from the press about the plight of Afro-Argentineans that “Black people do not exist in Argentina, Brazil has that problem!”

In light of this remark and the above historical account, with half the population of Brazil being black no wonder these two South American football giants never see eye to eye in matters football. Their rivalry goes beyond the game of football and is deeply rooted in both countries’ histories.

Can you imagine then if Brazil as the hosts had met Argentina at the 2014 World cup final at the Maracana? The word “War” would have been an understatement!

The bigger question is, if Argentina’s bigger brothers in the American continent, the U.S.A and Brazil had resorted to the above mentioned measures in dealing with their black population, would modern sports have had the privilege of savoring the talents of such greats as Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Carl Lewis, Michael Jordan, Michael Johnson, Pele, Garrincha, Romario, Ronaldo Asis, Ronaldinho and even Neymar among many others?

It’s sad to imagine that an entire nation can live in such denial even at this late stage where the world has become a digitalized global village.

Information sourced: History of Argentina; Wikipedia.com, True or False; There Are No Black People in Argentina by Prof Henry Louis Gates JR