Madre Power

A few days ago, I went to Plaza de Mayo, the Pennsylvania Avenue of Buenos Aires, fronting the house of the country's president. As it happens, that house is salmon pink, not white, perhaps befitting the recent election of a woman president.

My purpose on this day was to observe, and acknowledge, the weekly march of the Mothers of the Disappeared.

From 1976 to 1983, Argentina shuddered with a horrendous deracination. Young radicals -- perhaps modeling themselves after student protesters in America and Europe -- opposed the military junta then in power. (For more on the ideological convolutions, see Wikipedia on Argentina's "Dirty War.")

The junta's response was to "disappear" them -- into detention centers of torture and murder. Some youngsters were sedated and tossed into the River Plata from planes. Officially, the count of the "disappeared" is just under 9,000. Unofficially, it could be as high as 30,000. Whole families vanished, picked up by the notorious white Ford Falcons of the secret police.

Within a year, some of the mothers of these young people began to organize. Their protests centered on the Plaza de Mayo and their emblem was to wear a white babushka. At least one of the founders was "disappeared" herself. (The intransitive verb has acquired a sinister transitive usage.) Today, there is an avenue in a new part of town named for her, as Argentina struggles to deal with this chapter of its past.

Over the years, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo has split three ways: There are the original, founding mothers, who are devoted to bringing their children's murderers to justice; the Asociacion Madres de Plaza de Mayo, which is working for a leftist political agenda similar to that their children espoused; and the Abuelas (Grandmothers) de Plaza de Mayo, who seek to reunite children who were born to interned mothers with their biological families. Most of these children were adopted by couples loyal to the ruling junta after their mothers were killed. So far, 87 young people have sought out and found their original families.

There have been trials and convictions of some of the people responsible for the disappeared. Just this week, another was arrested and charged with kidnapping, torture and assassination.

The work of each of these groups is mostly behind the scenes. But every Thursday at 3:30PM they give the world at large a photo op when a few of them march around the statue of General San Martin, founder of modern Argentina. Off to the side, they sell pamphlets, teeshirts, posters and keychains, and talk with the curious about their cause. By now, most of the madres are abuelas themselves, or would be. Their children were young adults when mine were pre-schoolers.

Their march is symbolic, even perfunctory. But I found it immensely moving. I saw a woman overcome by tears speaking to one of the Madres. I wondered if someone close to her was disappeared. Or perhaps, like me, she had lost a child as a young adult and was identifying with mothers fighting for their children. Or maybe she was just overwhelmed by the power of what these women have accomplished. They have kept the issue of the Dirty War front and center for 30 years. Argentina does seem to be confronting this shameful part of its past, however fitfully, and for that I give the country credit. (As a measure of comparison, how long was it before Americans started to come to terms with slavery?)