WHEN GOOD INTENTIONS FAIL

In William Shakespeare’s Othello there is a scene with the Moor, as this main character is often referred to, having a migraine. Desdemona wants to help him by trying to bind his forehead with her handkerchief but he brushes it aside causing it to fall to the ground and to be lost. The unforseen consequences of the loss are devastating and it does seal Desdemona’s fate.

How can good intentions have bad outcomes? How can they pave the road to hell? Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, head of the government of the City of Buenos Aires, decided to install barriers around Vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s home to safeguard the physical integrity of the neighbours in Recoleta and the former president as well. Her militants started to throng the area to support her with chants objecting vehemently to the 12-year sentence requested by Prosecutor Diego Luciani for the graft charges brought against her.

Cristina misconstrued Rodríguez Larreta’s well-meant decision, saying it was a violation of freedom of speech and the barriers were removed in no time. If there had been a riot fence restricting the movement of people, the assailant that attempted to assassinate Christina wouldn’t have been able to come up so close as to aim at her from a distance of inches.

However, she will never acknowledge that Rodríguez Larreta meant well. For her “Fair is foul and Foul is fair,“as the weird sisters in Macbeth say.

Adrian Insaubralde, Santa Fe