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San Cayetano's statues,
Argentina's patron saint of work, are on display at the
opening of the Foreign Debt Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
Thursday, April, 28, 2005. Sign near the statue indicates the
18 percent of unemployment in Argentina in 1995. (AP
Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
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Three years after staging the largest debt default
in modern history, Argentina recently opened what may be the first Museum
of Foreign Debt to teach people the perils of borrowing
abroad.
The subject is heavy, but the museum's creators have tried to make the
mood light and the displays accessible to everyone, especially
schoolchildren.
In one corner, a pink, doll-size kitchen
represents the recipes of the
International Monetary Fund, which Argentines blame for encouraging the
heavy borrowing in the 1990s that led to the catastrophic economic
collapse in late 2001.
"We chose a play kitchen because we are always so innocent and believe
in magic recipes from abroad," said museum designer Eduardo Lopez. "Look,
we open the freezer and the oven and there is no food."
But the museum in the University of Buenos Aires
economics department doesn't dwell only on this latest debt crisis: It goes back to
Argentina's first default in the early 1800s and gives a detailed account
of the last 30 years when the country's foreign debt woes snowballed
.
Visitors can delve
into a spongy "black hole" -- the place where all
that borrowed money ended up.
"I liked best the black hole with everything the debt swallowed --
education, families, jobs," said Fabian Jader, 34, an opening night
visitor. "I feel anger and pity for the people, but above all
helplessness."
Argentina's economy has recovered at a healthy
clip in the last two years and the country is on the cusp
of ending its default of some $100
billion (52.4 billion pounds) in foreign debt.
But 40 percent of the population in the once-wealthy nation still lives
below the poverty line, many of them in the crime-ridden industrial rust
belt around Buenos Aires.
"People know absolutely nothing about how we accumulated all this debt,
they only know about the misery they have seen lately," said museum
director Simon Pristupin, who dreamed up the idea in 2001 and struggled to
convince skeptics.
"I think this museum is going to become very important, but right now
it's just a little bird."
Pristupin said his favourite part of the museum is a golden cart
sculpture made out of cardboard.
"It symbolizes Argentina's reality: everything's golden, but it's made
of cardboard and that reminds us of all those people who today collect
cardboard for recycling."
(Agencies) |
近日，阿根廷首个外债博物馆正式对外开放。三年前，阿根廷爆发了现代史上最大的外债违约，三年后的今天此举旨在教育人们寻求海外贷款的危险性。
虽然主题很沉重，但该馆的创建者们力图营造出一个轻松的参观氛围，并且努力使每个参观者，特别是还在上学的孩子们，能够明白展览的内容。
展厅的一个角落摆放着一个粉红色的玩具小厨房，它代表着国际货币基金组织的财政建议。阿根廷人指责这些建议鼓励该国在90年代大量向外借债，从而导致了2001年末灾难性的经济崩溃。
“选择这个玩具厨房是因为我们总是十分天真的相信国外的神奇密诀。瞧，当我们打开冰箱和考箱时，里面却没有食物。”该馆的设计师爱德华多·洛佩斯说。
这个位于布宜诺斯艾利斯大学经济系的博物馆并不只限于最近发生的那次债务危机，它还展示了发生在19世纪早期的阿根廷首次债务违约以及最近30年阿根廷外债疯长的详细记录。
参观者还可以在一个有弹性的“黑洞”里摸索探寻，那个“黑洞”代表了海外贷款的最终流向。
“我最喜欢展出的那个黑洞，外债吞噬了教育、家庭和就业机会。我感到愤怒，我也很同情人们的遭遇，但是首先感到的是无助。”34岁的法比安·贾德尔说，展出开幕当晚他就前来参观了。
在过去两年里，阿根廷的经济重新回到健康而高速发展的轨道，并且有望还清高达1000亿美元（524亿英镑）的外债拖欠。
但是这个曾经富裕的国家仍然有40%的人口生存在贫困线之下。他们中很多人聚居在布宜诺斯艾利斯外围废弃的工业地带，那里犯罪频发，百业凋敝。
博物馆馆长西蒙·普里图平说：“人们完全不知道这些外债是怎么积聚起来的，他们只了解近来所看到的不幸。”普里图平馆长于2001年产生了建馆的想法，并竭力说服了持怀疑态度的人们。
“我坚信这个展馆将会变得非常重要，但是现在它才刚刚起步。”
普里图平称他最喜欢的展品是一辆用纸板做成的金色货车雕像。
“它象征着阿根廷的现实：一切看上去都是金光闪闪的，但这只是纸板糊出来的假象。这使我想到了现在那些收集纸板以循环再利用的人们。”
（中国日报网站译） |
Updated: 2005-05-08 09:22
