I think it's far too easy to stop thinking of those around us as human beings with hearts, feelings, and rights. Whenever some inconvenience stands in the way of getting our way, some of us are capable of dehumanizing those deemed responsible, thus making it easier to do whatever it takes to do away with the inconvenience. We, as a supposedly civilized species, are capable of great cruelty and evil.
Recently, there have been reports coming out of South America, and Argentina in particular, about the release of new evidence related to the brutal tortures, murders and "forced disappearances" of the 1970s and 1980s under the Argentine Military Junta and Augusto Pinochet. It's timely of course, as Margaret Thatcher's recent death shone a spotlight on her pathologically sick defense of and admiration for Pinochet.
So tonight, when the last song of U2's The Joshua Tree cued on the record player, I was immediately given over to it: Mothers of the Disappeared. If you haven't heard it, take five minutes and fourteen seconds out of your life to listen. It's an absolutely, breathtakingly haunting and heartbreaking song. It's dangerous and pleading and demanding. Try as you might, you just can't will those words out of your head..."Hear their heartbeat...We hear their heartbeat." Distraction is the only cure. I'm not a mother, but it just tears my heart apart to think of the mothers whose sons and daughters were stolen from them in such brutal and horrific fashions, and for what? A difference in political visions. For the crime of believing in political systems that promoted different values.
Answers for the Mothers and Grandmothers of Los Desaparecidos...
...Wish you were here.
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