Mothers: Conscience of Argentina

 After Juan Peron’s removal from the office and exile from Argentina, general Aramburo came to power and a bloody militaristic reign began. The efforts of Argentine revolutionaries to bring back Peron or elect his supporters were immediately annulled by the military. In 1966 the Argentine military “set up their own version of a bureaucratic authoritarian state” (Born in Blood and Fire, 294). 

The main objectives of the new state were the elimination of revolutionary threats within Argentina, holding down wages, and encouraging foreign investment. The revolutionary spirit in Argentina was rooted very deeply and elimination of the revolutionary threats posed a significant challenge.

The economic boom and inflow of foreign investment anticipated by the Argentine military leaders didn’t happen and revolutionary thinkers refused to be silenced. The challenging economic conditions and Argentine revolutionary spirit continued to fuel the socialist debates in the population. As response to the ever-present revolutionary uprisings the Argentine military government waged a dirty war on its own population. 

“The military regime undertook widespread kidnappings, torture, and murder — not only of the violent guerrilla left but also of the nonviolent leftist political activists, their sympathizers, and their families” (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/argentina.htm). In three years as many as 30,000 Argentines were killed by their own government. Anyone who disagreed with the military government was considered enemy of the state and was very likely to “disappear”.  Most Argentines tried not to notice the dirty war, however on April 30^th 1977 a group of mothers of “disappeared” children began to demonstrate in the main square of down town Buenos Aires, the Plaza de Mayo.

The movement began with a few and grew to hundreds of women marching every week in peaceful protest speaking against the brutality of the military regime and demanding answers to the whereabouts of their missing children. White headscarves embroidered with the names of their disappeared children became the trademark of the movement.

Initially the military regime didn’t take the movement seriously. The generals called the protesting “crazy women”, las locas de Plaza de Mayo (http://www.gratefulness.org/giftpeople/madres_de_plaza_de-mayo.htm). Later the movement attracted international attention and became beyond the reach of the military regime. The question here is: what stopped the Argentine military government from “disappearing” demonstrating mothers before the movement gained in size and international attention? The survival of the movement and its members is tightly tied to the traditional role of women in Latin American society.

Women in Argentina were strictly confined within the home and work place; their main objective based on the societal expectations was to become the ideal wife and mother to protect and nurture their family. This glorification and deeply culturally rooted respect for mothers could have been what prevented the military regime from exterminating the movement in its beginning. Not everyone would agree with the revolutionary thoughts or actions against the regime, however, every person in Argentina was raised by a mother and killing the Madres de Plaza de Mayo would have started a national outcry and may have led to dire consequences for the Argentine regime.

Source of the image: http://www.elmundo.es/albumes/2006/03/24/dictadura_argentina/index_3.html