History- Modern latin america - Essay Example

History- Modern Latin America Argentina has a long history of struggles in which many of them contributed by politics. Its history of politics and culture is marred by regimes which instigated fear on the common man. The military as well as civilian elected governments were responsible for this sorrowful plight of poor Argentineans. Argentina’s tryst with terror linked ruling policies came to an end after its defeat in the Falklands war with Britain. Searching for life written by Rita Arditti presents the horrifying tale of struggle between the military juntas and its resistors who were branded as enemies of the state by the then rulers.

It gives a spine chilling experience about disappearance of victims and resistance organized by their mothers and relatives in Argentina. The military rulers in the country followed the Nazis ideology or the doctrine of night and fog developed by Adolph Hitler. The doctrine of national security was the new name of brutal law used exclusively for secret kidnapping and detention and murder in the country. The rulers followed the strategy of doing all these acts secretly. The kidnapping was done without much publicity, and detention and subsequent killing were made at secret centers only known to the military.

The families of the victims were terrorized through these acts and they feared of complaining because of the fact that complainants would be the next victims. Therefore there was a silence from the relatives of victims which otherwise made them in a situation to kill themselves. The vanishing created terror within the population, but without finding the bodies, no one could be blamed. Silence increased the atmosphere of terror as well as hopelessness. It placed a cruel burden on the families of the disappeared.

Moreover they were made to feel in some sense responsible. It became one of the more subtle and complex mechanisms of torture for the relatives. To accept the death of family members they had to kill them themselves mentally. The military rulers thought that the children of subversives should not be given back to the victims, they have to be brought up as decent men therefore they should be separated from their parents and brought up in decent families. These were the children the grandmothers were searching for.

The children who were born in more than 340 concentration camps where their pregnant mothers were either detained or killed as well as children who disappeared along with their detained parents. Hundreds of children were living with false identities and histories. To know about their children, the mothers and grandmothers organized marches every Thursdays at 3.30 pm. They were offering strict moral resistance against their targets. Irrespective of the pain and terror suffered during their lives, these women radiated irresistible and contagious positive energy.

By the mid nineties, due to the valiant efforts of the mothers and grandmothers, many children were found and reunited with their original families. It is true that most of the grandmothers did not find their children, but to those who have been found was very special to them. They cherished on the pride and pleasure of their valiant struggle. The movement of the grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo is a tremendous example of moral struggle undertaken to replace mistaken policies of the governments.

The struggle made by these women in Argentina beared fruits. The situation prevailing in Colombia now is somewhat same with Argentina of the 1970’s and 1980’s. There is a constant war between the good and bad. In between innocent people are either kidnapped or killed. The society in Colombia should take a leaf from the movement of grandmothers and implement in their society to prevent such acts thereby raising hopes for a bright future (Arditti). Work Cited: Arditti, Rita, Searching for life: The grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

London: University of California press ltd. 1999.