La Cultura Del Barrio— LCDB benefit T-Shirt 1

Help support La Cultura Del Barrio antifascist social and sports club in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

La Cultura Del Barrio was born 13 years ago as the first and only antifascist social and sports club in Latin America. The club is a direct continuation, and expansion, of the work of Accion Antifascista Buenos Aires, which is celebrating its 23rd anniversary in 2024. For the past 23 years we have been writing the history of organized and militant antifascism in Buenos Aires, grounding our work on three fundamental principles: grassroots organization, mutual aid, and building alternatives outside of any political party. Our proposals have accompanied the different political processes that have taken place in Argentina since 2001— we’ve participated in the social movements of unemployed workers (piqueteros), created workers cooperatives, were part of a neighborhood assembly, and we occupied a space where we built a social center.

Our belief in the social and political importance of generating alternatives independent of any political party led us to the construction of our own space. One which was originally more linked to counterculture, but over the years has become a social and sports club with a strong connection to the local neighborhood. The history of social and sports clubs in our country (formed by anarchists, socialists and the Afro-Argentine community in its beginnings) shows the importance of generating a space of belonging and resistance for the working class.

La Cultura Del Barrio is open from 8am to 11pm every day of the year. On weekends we organize events, our space is available free of charge to different collectives, organizations, bands, artists, etc. Since we founded our club 13 years ago, Argentina has gone through the strife of several different presidencies. We were persecuted, spied on, and raided during the government of Mauricio Macri (today we have the same Minister of Security)— and we experienced the process of growing poverty during the last government of Alberto Fernandez, which ended with more than half of the country’s children living under the poverty line. In the face of this reality we created a social project called Boxeo Popular in the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires, in Isla Maciel, a neighborhood considered to be “conflictive”. Led by a social worker, the Boxeo Popular project works with children and adolescents to create a space in which their rights as popular working class youths are restored and asserted while practicing the sport of boxing.

At this moment Argentina is in the middle of a an unprecedented social and economic crisis. The triumph of the ultraliberal Javier Milei accelerated the process of pulverizating worker's salaries. The purchasing power of a worker’s salary today is less than 50% of what it was only three months ago— and inflation still runs at 10%-20% per month.

La Cultura Del Barrio strives to maintain affordable and accessible membership dues at our club (nobody is ever turned away from activity due to lack of money!), as well as affordable prices for concerts, events, food, beverages, etc. But the ultraliberal reforms to the economy have completely deregulated prices and we are faced with increases in the 100% to 500% range for everything from electricity, to rent, to the purchase of equipment.

The outlook is not encouraging, but it is precisely in times such as this when the capitalist class is waging its most frontal attack on workers, trying to impose a vision of society which degrades our existence to a war of all against all just to survive that it is most important to support and maintain self-managed collective spaces. Spaces which defy the logic of capital, consumerism, and competition. Spaces which are self-managed, where all are welcome, and which serve to empower people and neighborhoods to build a vision of society in which we live in collective solidarity with one another.

We believe in international class solidarity, we believe in mutual aid among comrades, and we believe that the only way to face all this is in community, weaving networks, and demonstrating that things can be done differently.

Watch the La Cultura Del Barrio documentary trailer here.