Dorothy Stang sees justice

I'm a little late to this (I had a guest the past two days), but yesterday, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura was found guilty in the 2005 murder of Dorothy Stang, a major voice and proponent in environmental protection movemnt in Brazil. It is extremely refreshing to see one of the people accused in her murder actually found guilty - for years, landowners have, with impunity, hired people to kill those who try to protect the land. Certainly, things haven't gone perfectly, even in the conviction - Regivaldo Galvão, another suspect with far mroe money than Moura, has yet to be charged with anything, and without question the first conviction in more than a decade in a case like this isn't going to suddenly make wealthy landowners and corporations re-think their efforts towards illegal deforestation and land seizures in a country where more than 50 precent of the land belongs to barely more than 3% of the population. Still, this is really good news overall.

Ten Underrated Rock Albums

Building on the 10 best rock albums, I thought I'd throw together a list of underrated albums. These are just some albums I thought of.

1. Midnight Oil, Blue Sky Mining--generally a greatly underrated band all around. They put out some really solid music in the 80s, a time of a whole lot of shit. Their later albums moved over that ever so fragile line from political to preachy. Blue Sky Mining might be the last of their really strong work.

2. John Cale, Fragments of a Rainy Season--I find a lot of Cale's solo material a bit trying. He overproduces almost everything, from his own work to Alejandro Escovedo's latest album. This live performance though is just him with a piano and guitar. It showcases his great material and strong voice.

3. Julian Schnabel, Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud--I remember the first time I heard about this album. I was more than skeptical that Julian Schnabel had actually put out an album. But it's actually quite strong and continues to grow on me.

4. New York Dolls, Too Much Too Soon--This one is a little complicated. For years, the Dolls were almost totally forgotten about. That was utterly ridiculous. They produced something new and real in a period (the early to mid 70s) when rock was at a real low point. Now though, their renaissance may move them clear into the overrated category considering the music itself really isn't all that amazing. But still, for now, it deserves more attention from rock fans than it gets.

5. PJ Harvey, Four Track Demos--This is extremely raw music and it works for that reason. An angry woman, loud guitars, low production. In this case, it's a recipe for utter success.

6. Pink Floyd, The Final Cut--Normally I would never say a Pink Floyd album is underrated. Quite the opposite. But this 1983 album, the last the band did before Waters left, is really quite good. No, it doesn't have the loud (and I think annoying) David Gilmour guitar solos. But it packs a lot of bitter emotion, history, and politics into a fine album. Certainly different than anything else in the Floyd canon, it remains significantly underappreciated by the band's fans and rock lovers in general.

7. Frank Zappa, We're Only In It For The Money--At this point, Zappa albums are hard to judge. Most combine great and crappy moments. I really think that with the exception of Hot Rats and The Yellow Shark, both instrumental albums, he never truly achieved a great album. His often juvenile lyrics, even if he was really making fun of juvenile lyrics as a whole, detract from the great music. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate his earlier work more because he managed to say some pretty interesting things while also producing interesting music. Nowhere does he do this more than on his 1967 album We're Only In It For The Money, where he savages both hippies and conformist mid 60s society. Great stuff.

8. Palace Music, Viva Last Blues--The most recent inclusion on this list, even though it is from the mid 90s. The various incarnations of Will Oldham usually produce really interesting music but he's never caught on much with a broader public. I like this album a lot because it rocks more than anything else he's ever done. He's always had that ability and it comes not too infrequently, but not as often as I wished. His I See A Darkness or Superwolf albums could also make this list, both while performing as Bonnie Prince Billy.

9. Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy--Zevon's best work. It's popular among big music fans but I think remains largely unknown for someone without a pretty deep appreciation of rock's history.

10. Mandrill, Composite Truth--Mandrill is the most forgotten band on this list. They were pioneers in the funk/rock/soul music of the 1970s. This multiracial band combined all the elements that more popular acts such as George Clinton, War, and Earth, Wind & Fire, but they did it first and better. They made some absolutely awesome music. Probably Composite Truth is their best album, with such tracks as "Fencewalk" and "Hagalo." Kick ass.

Historical Image of the Day

Thomas Jefferson's design for the rotunda, University of Virginia

Al Nakba Day

Today, May 15, is the day in which Palestinians remember al-Nakba ("the catastrophe"), the events surrounding the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes and lands by the paramilitary forces of the Zionist Yishuv, the subsequent war between the newly declared state of Israel and surrounding Arab countries, and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem which continues to this day.

As an American of Ukrainian descent, I approach the remembrance of this event in several ways. The year 2007 represents the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement, and the founding of the colony of Virginia. Amid all the articles, celebrations, and visits by the Queen, I recognize that my own country, indeed, my own newly adopted state, was founded on the lands and destroyed villages and homes of indigenous peoples, whose diverse cultures and societies were disregarded and crushed by European colonists.

My father's family were themselves refugees, forced to flee their homes by war. My grandparents were able to make a great life for themselves, their children, and for me, here in the U.S., but my grandmother always spoke of her homeland with a longing and an aching that never went away. I can only imagine how much more painful it would have been for her had she regularly been confronted with people insisting that the Ukrainians never existed, or that the events which caused her and her family to flee never took place, or, most ludicrously, that the Ostapenkos and a few hundred thousand of their neighbors had simply picked up and fled of their own accord. This is the sort of deeply offensive propaganda, the attempted erasing of an entire people and society from history, with which the Palestinians have had to contend since 1948.

By recognizing the tragic events of al-Nakba, and accepting the Palestinian narrative of dispossession, a narrative which has largely been vindicated by a majority of historians, both within Israel and without, my intention is not to delegitimize the state of Israel, nor to justify acts of terrorist violence against its citizens, any more than recognizing the destruction of Native American societies delegitimizes the existence of the United States. I'm very much aware that there are many who use anti-Zionism and a false solidarity with the Palestinians as cover for their anti-semitism, and I reject this, as I reject all forms of bigotry, including that which denies the existence and national aspirations of the Palestinian people.

The fact remains, unfortunately, that the government of the state of Israel is still very much in the process of dismembering Palestine, with the virtually unquestioning support of my own government. In addition to the obvious, ongoing nightmare that this has been for the Palestinians, it has had disastrous consequences both for Israel and for the U.S. It's long past time that my government used appropriate measures to stop it, and to facilitate a just resolution to the conflict.

Historical Image of the Day

John Tyler

All Dub's Children

Good Daily Star profile of the Cairo-based experimental music label 100Copies. Be sure to check out some of the great music available on the site.

Border Patrol Intimidation at Phronesisical

This is extremely disturbing.

In October 2005, Barba da Chiva at Phronesisaical wrote a post critical of the Border Patrol. Barba teaches in south Texas. Said post was just discovered by an anonymous Border Patrol agent, who threatens him in comments, which include:

"Myself, I have spoken to you on several occasions, as you drive North to Encinal. In the red VW; as a passenger in a silver VW; in a small black convertible; an old Ford; and, and older tan Chevy, as well. I have a fantastic memory and recall to boot..."

This is frightening and I think should be seen as intimidation. Frankly, this agent should be found out and fired.

Barba writes about his reactions to this here.

Historical Image of the Day

Fire, Cripple Creek, Colorado, 1896

Nothing To See Here, Move Along

You’d never know from reading this article on Jewish and Arab growth rates in Jerusalem that Israel’s attempts to de-Arabize the Holy City represent a gross human rights violation.

Israel is facing a challenge it never expected when it captured East Jerusalem and reunited the city in the 1967 war: each year, Jerusalem’s population is becoming more Arab and less Jewish.

For four decades, Israel has pushed to build and expand Jewish neighborhoods, while trying to restrict the growth in Arab parts of the city. Yet two trends are unchanged: Jews moving out of Jerusalem have outnumbered those moving in for 27 of the last 29 years. And the Palestinian growth rate has been high.

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While it is virtually impossible for Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza to move to Jerusalem if they were not born there, natural population growth and restrictions on building in Arab parts of the city mean large families often share very small apartments.

An estimated 18,000 apartments and homes, or a third of all the Arab residences in East Jerusalem, were built illegally because permits are so hard to obtain, Mr. Nasrallah said, adding that Israel has not approved the development of a new Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem since 1967.

“Israel sees Jerusalem as a demographic problem,” he said, “and sees the solution as getting rid of Palestinians.”
In contrast, Israel has established many Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and more than 200,000 Jews now live in the eastern part of the city.

Since conquering and occupying East Jerusalem in 1967, successive Israeli governments have used a combination of security and bureaucratic measures, as well as violent invasions and takeovers of Arab homes and neighborhoods by government-sanctioned Jewish settler militias, to increase the Jewish population in East Jerusalem while simultaneously limiting the increase of Arabs. I tend to think that if this were an article about similar efforts to change the ethnic character of Hong Kong, Istanbul, or Detroit, we might see some indication that such efforts are, you know, objectionable.

In Israel, this policy of ethnic cleansing (which right-wing Israelis naturally refer to as the “liberation” of Jerusalem, and which Ehud Olmert strongly supported as mayor of Jerusalem, and continues to as PM) is controversial. Less so in the U.S., where pointing out that Israel’s policy toward its Arab subjects is morally reprehensible, deeply inhumane and illegal, as well as disastrously counterproductive in terms of Israel’s security, is likely to get you labeled an anti-Semite. That Israel is apparently failing in its attempt to de-Arabize the Holy City is gratifying, but it doesn’t make the policy any less racist or provocative.

From a 2002 Christian Science Monitor article on the Israeli policy:

Benny Elon, an ultra-nationalist member of the Knesset who is spearheading the settlement effort, puts it this way: "If you don't create facts on the ground, everything blows in the wind. We saw that during Barak's time – Jerusalem was on the negotiating table."

Mr. Elon says the new sites are links in a map of Jewish territorial contiguity in East Jerusalem. His plan is to ring the old city with 17 settlement points, some just a few houses, but one, with 130 planned units. Many of the points already exist, the houses or land purchased privately but the security, roads, and infrastructure paid for by the government.

In Sheikh Jarrah, at the traditional burial site of the Judean sage Simeon the Just, authorities last month paved a road for three closely guarded settler houses. The left fork, which accesses Palestinian homes, remains a dirt path.

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Sprawling Jewish settlements, considered suburbs by Israelis, have also been built in East Jerusalem territory on land expropriated from Palestinians.

Elon says he looks forward to a time when there will be no Palestinians living around the tomb of Simeon the Just and in Simeon's Heritage, the names he prefers to Sheikh Jarrah. "It was a Jewish neighborhood and it will be a Jewish neighborhood."

At a Jerusalem Day party organized by Elon, many among the thousands of young revelers draped themselves in Israeli flags. Some sported stickers reading: "The solution: Expel the Arab enemy."

Remember: When Palestinian politicians employ eliminationist rhetoric, they are to be condemned as terrorists, and deemed unacceptable to negotiate with. When Israeli politicians do the same, they are to be hailed as evidence of Israel’s “vibrant democracy.” No partner for peace, indeed,

New Name, New Attitude

In what I think is a very significant move, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) has changed its name to the Iraqi Islamic Supreme Council , and has indicated that it will now look to Ayatollah Sistani, rather than Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, as a main source of guidance. As Juan Cole notes, just as important as the move away from Iran is the move away from Khomeinism, the rule by the jurist, in which a supreme jurisprudent can effectively overrule any government decision which he holds is not appropriately Islamic. Sistani has declared his support for a more limited, though of course still significant, role for clerics in an Iraqi Islamic republic.

President Bush received SCIRI’s leader, Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, in the White House a few months ago. It seemed odd to me that Bush was cuddling up with Hakim while continuing to try, and failing, to marginalize Muqtada al-Sadr, Hakim’s main rival. I think it’s been apparent for a while now that Sadr is the key figure in the new Iraq, representing both Shi’i ascendancy, with a social activist program modeled on Hezbollah’s, and strong Arab-Iraqi nationalism, which always made charges of his being a pawn of Iran hard to believe. Muqtada has stridently opposed the U.S. presence in Iraq since the beginning, which, in the harsh light of Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and Haditha, make him look prophetic to many Iraqis, even those who don’t particularly sympathize with his harshly conservative agenda.

The struggle for political power among Shi’i parties has, to a great extent, been a struggle between Shi’i scholarly families, most notably the Sadrs and Hakims. While Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim represents a clerical line as prominent and revered as the Sadrs, Muqtada has nationalist credentials that Hakim can’t touch. Muqtada’s uncle, Grand Ayatollah Baqr al-Sadr, is considered by many to be the most significant Shi’i scholar of the 20th century, and many Iraqi Shi’is had hoped that he would lead their own revolution after the success of Khomeini in Iran. Fearing this exact thing, Saddam did the unthinkable: He had Sadr executed in 1980, the first execution of a Grand Ayatollah in modern history.

Muqtada's father, Sadiq al-Sadr, assassinated by Saddam in 1999 along with two of Muqtada’s brothers, while not regarded as an intellectual equal of his cousin, nevertheless actualized Baqr’s theories about clerical activism, building a ministry and broad base of support among Iraq’s poor Shi’is. It was Sadeq after whom Baghdad’s Shi’i slum neighborhood Saddam City (originally built by Qassem as “Revolution City”) was renamed “Sadr City” after the fall of Saddam’s government and the neighborhood’s immediate takeover by activists and militants loyal to Sadeq al-Sadr, now represented by his son, Muqtada.

In the wake of Baqr al-Sadr’s death in 1980, scores of Iraqi Shi’i clerics, the Hakims among them, sought refuge in Iran. It was there that the Hakims helped to found SCIRI, with Iran’s support. Around the time of the U.S. invasion, Abd al-Aziz reentered Iraq as commander of the Badr Brigade, the militia wing of SCIRI, armed and trained by the Iranian Republican Guard. He took over as leader of SCIRI after his elder brother, Grand Ayatollah Baqr al Hakim, was murdered by a truck bomb in Najaf in 2003

Though both families suffered greatly from Saddam’s tyranny, the fact that the Sadrs stayed and struggled, while the Hakims fled, has been relentlessly hammered at by Muqtada’s adherents. That the Sadrists have been able to compete so well against the far better organized and funded SCIRI indicates just how effective this line of argument has been among Iraqis, and SCIRI's new name and redirection away from Iran and Khamenei indicate that they are trying to fix this.

The Pope on Poverty

This story really hits on the complexities of the religious treatment of poverty in Brazil. The pope is right in condemning the failure to address the extreme divisions between rich and poor (and even middle class) in Brazil. Many people do either ignore the poverty issue or dehumanize it, putting the blame on favelados, a race- and class-based quest that the media also greatly aids.

At the same time, it's not clear if the church itself is going to try to do anything about this, such as give greater aid to the priests who work in favelas, or fund programs that seek to help combat racism and classism or to help Brazil's poor receive better payment or treatment in the workplace. Benedict can talk all he wants, but the fact remains that he was a major warrior against liberation theology in the 1980s, and while some (but not all) liberation theologians were influenced by Marxism, that does not stop the fact that liberation theology was one of the strongest efforts within the Catholic church to try to actively address these economic issues, even while the hierarchy itself was trying to put a stop to such efforts. I'm rather skeptical that the hierarchy will try to address these issues in any way beyond rhetoric. Although she was talking more about divorce and pre-marital sex (issues which are a part of most Brazilians' lives), Elisangela do Nascimento hit it on the head - "The pope is a little too rigid".

Film Review--Eyes Without a Face (1960)

Traditionally, it’s pretty difficult for me to be moved by horror films, at least in the traditional way. I recognize and appreciate, above all other genres, the artistic sensibilities that horror brings, but I am very rarely scared or shocked by them anymore. That said, there are a few mundane subjects in real life that can still disturb me in film, no matter how many times I see them. Two of these things are doctors and dolls (china dolls, specifically). Why the dolls? I don’t really know, but facts are facts, they are disturbing. This brings us to Eyes Without a Face, the masterpiece of poetic horror from George Franju.

The scenario, another lurid tale imagined by the team of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (who combined on the screenplays for Diabolique and Vertigo), is about Professor Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a highly respected and innovative plastic surgeon, who caused an accident that left his daughter Christiane (Edith Scob) faceless (how one suffers no ill-effects except the loss of a face is anyone’s guess, but this is not the issue here). Through his guilt turned obsession, Genessier’s only goal is to restore his daughter’s beauty by any means necessary. This means kidnapping pretty young girls and removing their faces off for transplant. Christiane, watching it all go by faceless in an expressionless white mask and a china doll dress, lilts through her father’s mansion like a ghost, hoping that his disgusting operations will one day restore her beauty. She has become jaded to the procedure and the victims have become little more than meat for her to gaze upon.

We are thrust into the middle of the action, with Genessier’s nurse (Alida Valli, in a wonderfully cold performance) dragging a body and throwing it in a river. With no backstory, we are immediately taken off guard as she then goes to town to pick up another victim. Using the ruse of a room for rent, she brings this college student back to the mansion where she is drugged and prepped for surgery. Watching from above, we witness the removal of the face in an extraordinarily slow and cold sequence which starts with penciling the incision lines and finishing with the unplugging of the skin from the muscles to lift the face off the victim. It is a horrifically realistic scene executed with a nonchalance that only makes it darker and more maniacal. It is almost a relief when, after the face comes off, we see a fairly poor, definitely dated, makeup job; I was close to becoming nauseous, a feeling from a movie I have not felt in maybe 15 years. I was so stressed by the situation that it was all I could do that night to fall asleep.

But, more than just a lurid subject that gets to me personally, Eyes Without a Face is one of the most atmospheric and poetic horror movies I’ve ever seen. Every shot is set up to maximize the dread without resorting to scare tactics. There are no capture and escape sequences, this is horror of a father’s obsessive love for his child, love turned perverse through vanity and pride. What he once was, doting father and respected doctor, is long gone, replaced by cold-blooded kidnapping, murder, and psychosis. It is a simple, beautifully told story that is effective on all levels. Eugene Schuftan’s cinematography, in its muted shades of black and white, looks like a fairy tale and reminds me more of the films of Cocteau and Renoir than anything in the horror realm. In fact, the only movie that really approximates the poetry of this film is Dreyer’s Vampyr, although Eyes Without a Face is significantly more exciting than its predecessor. Maurice Jarre’s oddly ironic score, in combination with a full palette of sound effects gives a claustrophobic feeling of dread. Hearing a chorus of howling dogs every time the doors open seems, at first, menacing because of the implication that they guard something, but becomes utterly horrifying when we find out that the poor animals are the surgeon’s trial-and-error process. This makes the ending, which I will not spoil, all the more satisfying, especially the beautifully ambiguous and ultimately effective final shot.

Unfortunately, Eyes Without a Face was utterly disregarded upon its release, both in its native France and worldwide. There were some critics who lauded its artistic merit, but most dismissed it as shock for shock’s sake which, today, seems laughable (even though I’ve just said how much it horrified me, this is a personal thing and, given that we can watch surgery footage on cable television 24 hours a day, I don’t think everybody would have the same reaction as me). In the states, to build up its shocking nature, it was retitled The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus, but failed miserably when it could not live up to the expectations of the grindhouse audiences it played for. It rightfully gained a following after it was remastered and reissued a few years ago, and I would hope serve as a model for young horror filmmakers that the discomfort and oppression of horror can be more effective than the thrills that are too easy.

Criterion’s DVD is typically excellent, with one of the clearest picture restorations you will see and perfectly rendered sound. The special features, though sparse, are exceptionally interesting. First is Franju’s 1949 documentary Blood of Beasts on the French meat factories. Every bit as artistic as Eyes Without a Face, and ten times more disturbing, this had much the same impact in its time as Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” The other is a short interview with Franju on some really cheesy French sci-fi show from the ‘70s. Here, he discusses where the power of terror and dread come from and, consequently, what makes horror effective. He says, in paraphrase, that horror’s role is to accentuate the abnormal for the sake of fright. But, what is abnormality? A normal person doing normal things is normal. Also, an abnormal person doing abnormal things is normal. But the combination of the two gets to the heart of horror. Abnormal behavior by normals is bizarre and unsettling. Normal behavior by abnormals is plain surreal, and both are equally effective in carrying the weight of horror. This, such a seemingly simple statement, is the exact reason why movies like The Hills Have Eyes cannot work and Eyes Without a Face ultimately succeeds.

Historical Image of the Day

Image of California Indians, Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, 1856

"It was serious back then"

This story on forced confessions in Japan is rather disturbing. While not as severe, perhaps, as electric shock to the genitals (a common practice in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and elsewhere during their respective dictatorships) or forcing prisoners' heads under water to extract confessions. Nonetheless, incidents like 17 straight days of 10-hour interrogation sessions and forcing the charged to stop on names of their family members (which, if it is indeed an odd twist on forcing Christians to stomp on the cross, is rather unique) clearly have caused mental and physical stress on innocent people in Japan. One hopes the change to a jury-based system in 2009 will fix things for the most part, but one has to wonder if these fforced (false) confessions are just going to go away that easily.

Friday Guitar Blogging

Nori Bucci.

Lyrad's Random 10

No time to write about a song today. Gotta make it to Wane "the Train." Anyway, here's the deal:

1. Karl Amadeus Hoffman--Miserae (Symphonic Poem) for Orchestra [London PO; Leon Botstein, cond.]
2. Elysian Fields--Black Acres
3. Scorn--Lick Forvever Dog
4. Faith No More--Midnight Cowbow (Main Theme)
5. Chris Cutler--Empty House/Coffee Still Warm
6. Duke Ellington & Ivie Anderson--I'm Satisfied
7. Joao Gilberto & Stan Getz--Corcovado
8. Mildred Bailey--Love Is Where You Find It
9. GoodandEvil--Sweetbitter
10. Hank Williams--Tennessee Border

Want your first national saint? Call me!

Today, the pope canonized the first Brazilian saint. When I was in Costa Rica, there was a big deal about the sainthood of a nun who had helped poor children in the city capital in 2002 (I thought she was canonized, and I definitely remember the big hubbub, but I'll be darned if I can find it anywhere online).

So to all you countries seeking your first saint, just call me - I'll be glad to accept my airfare, and as many weeks paid vacation there until your saint is approved.

Mister Trend's Random 10

Not to rip off too much, but I'm going to offer comments on a song/artist from the Random 10 from time to time, too. However, I'm just going to arbitrarily pick one song/artist from the list each week, instead of sticking with the 1st or 7th or 10th track only.

This week, I just want to comment on Aphex Twin, who is possibly one of the most creative, intelligent, and underappreciated musicians out there. He tends to get doubly ignored, because those who don't like "techno" (in their generally false conceptions of what "techno" is) automatically discount it without hearing it. Even those music-lovers who adore experimental music in jazz, no wave, classical, and elsewhere ignore James's work as an aesthetic endeavor because it's "just techno".

Even worse, within the techno community, many put Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) in the "intelligent dance music" category, which is one of the worst titles of all time. There is really no word to describe his work. Yes, it's based on "techno" instruments (i.e., computers and beatboxes), but he pushes that medium all over the place, from Ambient (Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 1 and 2), to bass to acid to house, while never working in the conventions of any of those forms. His use of beats, beeps, reverb, and computer tones to create haunting soundscapes of all tempos is unrivalled. James is certainly a unique character - his remix album is unbelievable (and humorously, and perhaps realistically, calleed "26 Mixes for Cash"), and the mixes go so far from the original versions of the songs, a journalist asked him if he had even listened in depth to a Nine Inch Nails song he'd mixed. His response (and I paraphrase) - "I don't need to. I know my version is better".

Anyhow, check out some James, and listen to more than one of his albums - they are all over the place. My personal favorite is "Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2", but you can't go wrong with any of his works.

1. "It's Raining" - Quasi
2. "Antitech" - Efterklang
3. "Shoes" - Akron/Family
4. "Daddy Sang Bass" - Johnny Cash
5. "Urubu Malandro" - Radamés Gnattali Sexteto
6. "Start As You Mean to Go On" - Aphex Twin
7. "John McLaughlin" - Miles Davis
8. "Eine Alpensymphonie - Elegie" - Richard Strauss
9. "Tangled Up In Blue" - Bob Dylan
10. "Matamoros Banks" - Bruce Spingsteen

Historical Image of the Day

Statue of Roger Williams

Notes on Argentina (I): The Madres de Plaza de Mayo

"Until Victory, Always dear children!"

Some of the surviving Madres on stage.

Just a handful of photos of the 30,000 disappeared

By pure chance, I happened to time my honeymoon so that I was in Buenos Airs on April 30, 2007, which happened to mark the official 30th anniversary of the first march of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. As I've mentioned in previous posts, the Madres are one of the more important groups not just in helping Argentina overthrow its own military dictatorship (1976-1983), but also in serving as a model for protest in other parts of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Since the Plaza de Mayo was just 4 blocks from my hotel, I took advantage of the opportunity and attended the official rally, where many of the surviving madres were present.

The rally itself was remarkable. First and foremost, there's just the impact of what these women have done. The images of the disappeared placed on either side of the stage, the signs reminding us of the loss of 30,000 Argentines in the 7-year "dirty war", the youth who rallied around these small, elderly women who changed so much, the chants, the music (everything from tango to hymns to Che Guevar), was almost too much emotionally. There was a political solidarity and activism there that I've never seen anywhere else in my life. It's cliché, probably, but the emotion was actual palpable - some people hugging and crying, others cheering, others just standing in silence and respect to the madres.

Adding to the emotion, for me, was the simple fact that I, as an American citizen, was present. The Argentine dictatorship is one of the most awful, vulgar, horrific things the United States ever supported, with Henry Kissinger verbally giving acting president Jorge Videla a carte blanche to kill whomever he wanted until the "threat" of "subversives" was gone. Being presnt and knowing that government of my country, like in so many countries in the 20th century, had a direct hand in the propping up of one of the most repressive apparati of state terrorism in the history of the Western hemisphere, gave the rally a particularly upsetting and emotional dynamic to me personally.

Between musicians, various political activists would talk. Additionally, between each "set", they often played taped recordings of what the Madres had said in the past, often taking devastating, emotional soundbites from the dictatorship period itself. This was certainly a celebration of what the Madres have done (not just in terms of the dictatorship but in terms of protests against global oppression since the dicatotrship's end, the founding of their cultural center, and most recently, the establishment of their own college to continue the study of human rights and law), but through it all, the sheer emotion and loss (and emotional depression that creates) were palpable throughout. It may have been 30 years, but the disappeared were as present as they were in the height of the dictatorship.

In a sign of how much has changed in 30 years, while the police were present just outside the plaza, there was no violence this time. Some student ralliers who were about to parade made a clear demonstration against the police in front of their faces, but there was no violence, in itself a sign of hope for the country that saw some of its best minds killed by the state.

Overall, the experience, with all the emotion, the people, the music, the message, the banners, everything, it was just so overwhelming and amazing. Without a doubt this was the best part of being in Buenos Aires when I was.