“You must want! You have the right to ask! You must desire!”
Eva Peron
I first became intrigued by Eva Peron when I was in Argentina. The legend of “Evita” seems to be admired as much as it is maligned. Nearly sixty years after her death there is still graffiti on the walls in Buenos Aires and flowers left at her tomb. To her supporters she was a saint who strove to overcome poverty and injustice. To her critics she was a controversial figure, who was driven by ambition and vanity.
Within three years Eva had achieved her goal and had carved out a career as a radio and film actress. In 1944, Eva encountered a politician named Juan Perón at a fund-raising concert organized to help earthquake victims: a “marvellous day” she would later recall. Within weeks, she was sharing his apartment and the following year they married. Eva worshipped Peron and devoted her life to her husband’s career.
Perón went on to become Minister of War and Vice President of the Republic, but political unrest eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment. Six days later, around 300,000 people gathered in front of the Casa Rosada, Argentina's government house, to demand Juan Perón's release, and their wish was granted. At 11pm, Eva Perón stepped on to the balcony of the Casa Rosada and addressed the crowd in the speech immortalised in the song "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical “Evita”.
Perón then decided to campaign for the presidency. Using her weekly radio show Eva delivered powerful speeches using her own humble upbringing as a way of showing solidarity with the under privileged working classes. Eva also visited every corner of the country, becoming the first woman in Argentine history to appear in public on the campaign trail with her husband (and the first woman in Argentine public life to wear trousers).
Suffrage for women was enacted in 1947, largely due to the energy and efforts that Evita poured into the campaign. She created the Female Peronist Party, which was the first large female political party in the nation. Thousands of previously apolitical women entered politics because of Eva Perón. They were the first women to be active in Argentine politics.
She kept her promise to the working classes and took such an interest that, in everything but name, she became the Secretary of Labour, supporting higher wages and greater social welfare benefits. She also took an active interest in health policy, supervising programmes to eradicate some of the most crippling diseases including tuberculosis, malaria and leprosy. Evita had the common touch, she wasn't afraid to hold the hands of lepers, or to kiss people suffering from syphilis. She also considered herself to be a bridge between Peron and the people bringing the "hopes and dreams of the people to the president".Eva also created the Eva Perón Foundation. Its funding began with 10,000 pesos provided by Evita herself. The foundation also gave scholarships, built homes, hospitals, and other charitable institutions. It purchased and distributed annually 400,000 pairs of shoes, 500,000 sewing machines, 200,000 cooking pots. Rumours were that contributions were forced, and that Peron and Eva siphoned millions of dollars into a Swiss bank account. Whatever the case, it changed many lives and Eva devoted herself to the foundation for five years, often working 22 hour days, seven days a week.
One major criticism levelled at Eva was her extravagant taste and shameless flaunting of jewels and clothes in the very faces of her worshipping descamisados - the "shirtless ones". Eva once wore 306 dresses in less than a year and had separate rooms for her furs, hats, shoes and even perfume collection. Eva took great care with how she was dressed, she felt she owed it to the people to always look glamorous saying "the poor like to see me beautiful; they do not want to be protected by a poorly dressed woman. You see they dream about me. How can I let them down?"Eva kept going, despite declining health and constant criticism from the establishment of the wealthy, the military, and those in political life. In 1952 she was given the title of 'Spiritual Chief of the Nation'. Six months later she died of cancer, aged only 33, fulfilling her own prophesy that time was her greatest enemy.
Despite the fact that Eva never held an official political office, she was eventually given an official funeral usually reserved for a head of state. A measure of her enormous appeal among the people could be seen in the outpouring of grief that followed her death. Close to a million Argentineans crowded the streets of Buenos Aires for her funeral procession, and an estimated three million filed past her casket to pay their last respects. Eva had became a living icon to the Argentine people: her picture appeared alongside the religious icons that were kept on the mantelpiece and prayed to. The myth of "Saint Eva" was kept alive by frequent requests to the Vatican for her canonization. Forty thousand such appeals were received in the two years following her death.
Despite the fact that Eva never held an official political office, she was eventually given an official funeral usually reserved for a head of state. A measure of her enormous appeal among the people could be seen in the outpouring of grief that followed her death. Close to a million Argentineans crowded the streets of Buenos Aires for her funeral procession, and an estimated three million filed past her casket to pay their last respects. Eva had became a living icon to the Argentine people: her picture appeared alongside the religious icons that were kept on the mantelpiece and prayed to. The myth of "Saint Eva" was kept alive by frequent requests to the Vatican for her canonization. Forty thousand such appeals were received in the two years following her death.
So was Eva Peron a devout humanitarian or a woman whose actions were motivated purely by a ruthless ambition to become a “woman of history” and because her "biggest fear in life was to be forgotten". I believe she was probably a mixture of both. She was driven to help the poor, because she had experienced poverty but also couldn't resist enjoying a very decadent and glamorous lifestyle. She must have been a tenacious and hard-headed woman to come from nothing to become the most powerful woman in Argentina in under a decade and I expect some people were used and discarded to serve her purposes. Never-the-less she clearly loved her husband until the end and changed many lives for the better. There is no question she was a remarkable woman who made her mark.
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