The hippie mayor of a city of Cordoba | A thing …

"I do not have anything hippie, but for many I'm the" hippie mayor ", because I'm a craftsman and I have dreadlocks." In dialogue with PáginaI12, Pablo Riveros, elected mayor of the city of Villa Ciudad Parque, in Calamuchita, province of Cordoba, pointed out that the candidate of Hacemos Córdoba, of Juan Schiaretti, had been imposed by the support of groups of districts different political currents, a platform that promotes "a fair, ecologically sound, economically sustainable and culturally diverse population". Far from this clumsy belief that the hippism is "bad, drugs, rock and roll", the idea of ​​the mayor who will take office in December is "to develop a community policy because our goal is very clear: we want to be the community". Organized of which he spoke (Juan Domingo) Perón ".

An activist when he was studying sociology at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Riveros was a candidate for the national deputation of Cordoba Kirchner. He had a Marxist education, but still in Peronism. Born in the neighborhood of Caballito in Buenos Aires, he soon lived in the locality of Pilar in Buenos Aires, Guatemala and Mexico. For 15 years he has lived at Villa Ciudad Parque with his wife and three children. On two occasions he was a candidate for the head of the commune, but he won only this year. From December, when will badume as steward, the city of 3500 inhabitants will begin to be municipality.

He has always been surrounded by artisans, musicians and artists. This is how his socio-community project was set up, concretized in the Semillas del Sur organization. "We are an army of dreamers, which is why we are invincible," he says.

-How have they entered politics since the creation of Semillas del Sur?

– After five years, we became a civil badociation and we recorded a growth in volume in terms of management, work in the region, culture, community, popular economy, food sovereignty. All this led us, in 2009, to the creation of Unión Vecinal, a political group with which we participated in the elections of 2011 and 2015, when we reached the second place and obtained the secretariat within the Municipal Commission.

-What was the political strategy that led to the triumph?

-We express different forms of community, we promote the defense of the land. Beyond the political declaration, we work on the social, with the accompaniment of the neighbors at this time of crisis, without forgetting the cultural vein, the craftsmen, the music. We thus arrive to win the elections, after 26 years of hegemony of Hacemos Córdoba. This hegemony exerted pressure that limited the neighbors because it was difficult for them to expose themselves and had to be motivated to be present in the community. The focus has been on culture, but without forgetting the main problems such as water, streets, education, maternity gardens, dispensary, health, bring an ambulance . We fought all the problems of the territory and through the culture, the community carnival, the institutions of the city like the club, the cooperator.

-The task took years, which meant it was not easy.

-We went from everyday work and it gave us more power. We have achieved the certainty that we can solve the problems of people in a community way. It's a power struggle and we're fighting in the superstructure. The counter-culture has been managed in a dialogue with politics, which is unprecedented. Everything that we express directly in the field of politics.

-They also fought in the defense of the environment.

-Of our organization, we fought until our community was the first to legislate against pesticides. We are part of the Fumigar Paren Collective and we are part of the fight to kick Monsanto out of the province. We also defend the native forest and we are very active in all environmental issues. We are not only activists, activists, we are articulating ourselves with the community, with all that is new, because if we do not do it, you are finally as before.

-They now have the task of governing. How do you prepare to badume this position, position yourself from this place?

-We badume that on December 10, we have a long transition and it is a complex issue. In addition, for the first time, we will be Intendance, we will no longer be Common. We have six months left before taking office, but they are already coming to consult us about current problems. We won the election by 70 votes and our term is four years. Ours is a beautiful, beautiful folly, for many I am "hippie mayor", because I am a craftsman, because I have dreadlocks, but in reality I have nothing hippie about. And when they call me "hippie", some people think of "bad, drugs and rock and roll". They tag us, but we do the politics of the community.

There has always been some contempt for the "hippie", although the hippie movement in the United States has fought against McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, against the persecution of the new, the different.

-We have the strength of the collective, dreams, gypsy, but they want to limit us to that, lower the price. We defend the place where we live, but we do not want to be Villa Carlos Paz. We defend the dam of Los Molinos, we are against the real estate sector, we want a sustainable city, a family farming. These were our usual flags and those who came to see us, they did it because they understood that "it's the hippies who are taking care of where they are we live "(laughs). They said we were the only ones to support them, the only ones to work for the people, that we were always together. It was the most beautiful thing about the process and we hope it can be replicated. We hope for a successful experience because our goal is very clear: we want to be the organized community of Perón. That is the idea and we hope that power does not despise us.