Buenos Aires, Argentina: The Plaza de Mayo, the central square of the Argentine capital city of Buenos Aires, has long been a gathering area for local residents in times of political protest and contestation. The Plaza gained international fame in the 1970s, largely through the efforts of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of mothers and grandmothers who rallied against the government, holding pictures of their children and relatives, who had been kidnapped, tortured and killed over the course of the Dirty War. The mothers met several times a week, walking the length of the plaza, their heads adorned with white scarves, said to symbolize the diapers of their children when they were small. One of the founding mothers, Azucena Villaflor, was kidnapped and killed by secret police. Her remains, which were identified in 2005, are buried at the edge of the plaza.
Whenever I am in Buenos Aires on a Thursday, I make sure that I make a pilgrimage to the Plaza de Mayo and walk with the mothers. I can’t NOT do it. In the process of making the rounds with them I participate in history and in a struggle for justice. Something about it feels cathartic too. And when I once took my children with me, I felt that they were blessed when the mothers hugged them and kissed them. More sacred, somehow, than a religious person doing the same.
The last time I went, in 2007, the numbers were greatly diminished. And the two groups of mothers were clearly on the worst terms I have ever seen them. The filmmaker/politician Solanas was there that day too. He walked with one group and then with the other, not wanting to choose sides.