Two important articles by political scientist Martín Tanaka on “caviarism” and “anti-caviarism” have revived the ideological debate surrounding this word of French origin.

According to Tanaka, the term “anti-Caviarismo” had made a qualitative leap in Peru from its humble status as a colloquialism – at the turn of the century – to acquiring a lineage of “political categories” to analyze, which would become its own. current state.

At the level of the state’s political reality, “derailing” the state becomes a common agenda

where right-wing and left-wing conservatives met – Peru Libre and Fuerza Popular – in achieving disputed ombudsman elections in the national Parliament, the political scientist asserted.

This convergence will also occur in the May 2022 election of the six members of the Constitutional Court.

“We will be dealing with relevant categories, which require more rigorous scrutiny,” he explained in a recent article.

“But it’s not about convergence around values, well-defined ideologies, that may be legitimate,” he explains.

“This is a strategy to take over and control institutions, bypassing procedures and excluding other sectors, where the defense of certain interests plays a central role,” he wrote in El Comercio.

Political analyst Jaime de Althaus agrees with Tanaka that “this anti-caviarism explains his association with the Fuerza Popular [y Perú Libre] for the election of the Ombudsman.

“It is also true, they share the status of being judicial defendants,” he said.

He agrees with Martín Tanaka when he points out that politicians accused of denouncing the anti-corruption flag are ‘caviar’.

“And what we will have now – he said – is an attack by those sectors to get caviar out of the judiciary, to seek impunity.”

ACCLIMATION

The term “caviar” has achieved a happy acclimatization in Peru since the early 2000s, with the emergence of “anti-Fujimorismo”.

But it is an expression without conceptual rigor, that is, it has many definitions, nuances and variants, far from its pristine French semantics.

Peru’s most famous linguist, Martha Hildebrandt, writes that this expression translates to the French equivalent applied to progressive politicians from wealthy families.

“Caviar comes from the Turkish havyar, which means very expensive cured sturgeon roe and – hence – a symbol of luxury living,” he explains.

“In our current political parlance – he says – caviar has become independent as an adjective (“una chamba caviar”) and even as a noun (“party caviar”).

This term appeared in the 80s in France (socialist government of Francois Mitterrand) from where it spread to Europe and America.

In Peru it just says “caviar” to denote “caviar left”.

In France, gauche caviar or champagne caviar is used for left caviar; in England they say “champagne socialist”; “radical chic” in the United States, “Balantine’s esquerda (for whiskey) Ballantine’s), in Brazil; in Chile, the red set (a parody of the jete set); in Argentina, “progre-caviar”; in Venezuela, “bolibourgeoisie” [burguesía bolivariana] it refers to people who are considered socialists in government who amass great wealth.

YET INTENDED

In Peru, the definition does not enjoy consensus.

According to constitutionalist opinion Ernesto Blume Fortini

“We should no longer talk about caviar but about caviar cancer.”

In his opinion, this offends the way of thinking.

“Caviar is an individual who acts as an intellectual – in some cases he may, in others he appears to be – who manages very flexible notions of what respect for principles, values, institutions, rights is. So, he accommodates every situation to his comfort like chewing gum and always clings to power to enjoy power. And that he is unclear about the concept of when his thesis is defeated, because he does not know how to lose ”.

The term in Peru has a very anti-Jumor connotation, according to Jaime de Althaus.

It is a disqualifying word because it “refers to the moral inconsistency” of wealthy people with leftist or “progressive” ideas (human rights, the environment, anti-racism, gender, abortion, strong state rule).

For journalist and political analyst Aldo Mariátegui, caviar is “a subject who defends human rights, who ‘accommodates’ in NGOs where he makes money and feels revolutionary ‘despite’ his condition as a ‘white boy’.” [en sentido racial-social] from a certain university.

“Los caviares” are the “white left” (racial) who “hates Patria Roja for cholos”, as well as people who consume expensive goods and services.

“I believe that this is a linguistic manifestation of our political vulnerability”, emphasized political scientist Alberto Vergara.

“That is, in the absence of ideas, ideologies, policy articulations, plates win.”

According to Vergara, “caviar” is the equivalent of a liberal and in Peru the person who embodies it best is Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas LLosa and not Hernando de Soto.

Aldo Mariátegui replied that caviar is not equal to liberals. No, no. Same with “social-confused”, meaning not social-democratic or social-progressive.

For Pablo Quintanilla Pérez Wicht, doctor of philosophy (PUCP), the term used by the right “to accuse all those who do not fully agree with his position (…) with a manual or decalogue, which has determined that whoever is not Asuma is mad, mad or caviar”.

The concept – says Quintanilla – appeared in the 80s in the government of Francois Mitterrand and was originally used by the French communists and trade unions to censor and criticize “everyone who, not being a proletariat, can claim to be left.”

According to Quintanilla, “neither the left nor the trade unions use it here, it is used by the extreme right”.

In Martín Tanaka’s opinion “it is almost commonplace to criticize leftists belonging to the “rich” sector who, in some way, would behave inconsistent with their own rhetoric, given their social origin”.

Remember, in the 1990s, the term was used to refer pejoratively to “Miraflorean left”.

But such categories, he said, were not taken seriously.