week12

It is often said that the worst thing one can experience is the loss of a child. Listening to The Madres of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina, it becomes clear that the torture of not knowing if your child is passed is at least equal. The mothers and grandmothers in this video clip plea to an unknown person begging for answers, hopeful for the best, but as long as they know where their child is. Where there child’s child is is the bear minimum. Considering this as a part of Latin America’s long history of genocidal acts, both overt and subtle, being both inflicted upon and inflicted by, it’s evident that this fits in here. The tearing of children from family, from identity, from culture fractures everyones’ roots. The children have had their past ripped from them; the family, the mothers have had their future torn away. The desperation goes beyond the transfixed power of the mothers in this short clip and echoes in volumes when they speak of the “anguish” they feel because they don’t know if their children “are cold, if they are hungry”. When the doors that supposedly stay open for everyone, even the most violent, close their doors to childless mothers, where should they go look? When should they stop?