Last Tuesday, March 24th, was the 33rd anniversary of the coup d'etat in Argentina (not the only one, but the most significant) that began the "Dirty War", a.k.a.7 years of military dictatorship and uncountable human rights violations.
I spent the afternoon with Vappu, Vicky and the murga at a big march through downtown. Here's some of the hubbub before we set off:
The march was pretty awesome.... I was with the murgas the whole time, so I didn't get to see the breadth of the thing, but Vicky said that it stretched for at least 10 blocks, and there were tons of different groups there: lots of political parties, people with posters with faces of the "desaparecidos" from their town, and of course the "Mesa de Trabajo," (Work Table), an organization that consists in the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo, and HIJOS, who are children of desaparecidos. There was lots of drums, chants,and theatricality! One murga organized a little skit where people carrying posters with bad things "repressed" all the other dancers, who were walking around with red blindfolds. Then, together they shout "No to repression!" the drums pick up and the bad people disappear!
I was one of the bad guys, "Ignorance"- here I am with "Capitalism"- check out the American flag face paint!
The march was at least 3 hours long, which is way longer if you're kinda dancing throughout!
At a certain point it split up, one group ending in the Plaza San Martin and the other (the one I was in)at a police station where lots of corruption has gone on (I heard different stuff about kids even being killed there just 4 years ago but I'm not positive). There is a lot of anti-police sentiment here in Cordoba, and from what I've heard from more than one dark-skinned pal who ended up spending the weekend in jail for no good reason, it is pretty justified.So yes, I left the march pretty invigorated with all the cries for social justice and human rights, as well as the inevitable call for memory of the horrors of the dictatorship and punishment for those involved (almost all of whom are roaming free to this day, thanks to pardons from recently-deceased ex-president Raul Alfonsin and total a-hole ex-president Carlos Menem). I was therefore surprised by my conversations with a few students about the holiday.
One student, a 44 year old accountant who was an adolescent during the dictatorship, seemed very cynical about the whole thing, saying that the march was a paltry percentage of Cordoba's population (arguably true) and that most Argentines are too busy trying to get by with crazy inflation and superlow salaries that "memory" isn't really a priority. Another student, a late 20's woman at the company where I teach, told me that she didn't support the holiday or the march, that it was an excuse for a vacation and that people, essentially, have a selective memory: she mentioned how the dictatorship was preceded by a good deal of violence from the left-wing Montaneros, and that the military killed a lot of innocent people as well as said radicals because they "didn't have time" to figure out who was "good" and who was "bad"... pretty nuts.
So yeah, I am learning that the stuff that seems pretty black and white from an outsider perspective is much more complicated inside the country. I know where I stand, but it's pretty interesting to hear other perspectives!
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