Infestation
I’m being dragged under a landslide of work and these blogs just aren’t getting done. A reflection on “The Madwomen at the Plaza de Mayo” – old I know – I hope to get caught up by the end of the week.
A large crowd of grieving mothers was a frighteningly visible statement, from the point of view of the junta, that Argentina was deeply troubled in its domestic spaces, not just in isolated pockets of “subversive” activity. Various examples can be found in the article of how the junta attempted to negate this threat by sweeping the mothers into their metaphor of the nation as a sick body.
The mothers were called “las locas” by the military officials – they were supposedly driven mad by their errant children – in an attempt to deny their legitimacy. Not only were they portrayed as agents of mental illness in society, but were handled by the police in a manner that suggested that they were contagious. A fence was erected around their protest at the Plaza as if to shield the bustle of healthy, normal human traffic that might accidentally brush by or intermingle with their grief and dissent.
They were told that the government was planning to “cleanse the country very thoroughly of disturbing elements before the first tourist sets foot in Argentina” for the World Cup. Words such as “cleanse” made these women out to be grime on the face of an Argentina emerging out of sickness and wanting to make itself presentable to the world again. The authors liken themselves and other mothers to “the horrible worm that has wriggled out of a shining Argentina” – they were aware that as their movement became visible to the public eye so did the rotten foundations of the new Argentina of President Videla.
With the mothers being grouped with other social actors accused of infesting and sickening the body of the nation, it is ironic that their only supporters, at the time the article was written, were doctors.
tag: last301
A large crowd of grieving mothers was a frighteningly visible statement, from the point of view of the junta, that Argentina was deeply troubled in its domestic spaces, not just in isolated pockets of “subversive” activity. Various examples can be found in the article of how the junta attempted to negate this threat by sweeping the mothers into their metaphor of the nation as a sick body.
The mothers were called “las locas” by the military officials – they were supposedly driven mad by their errant children – in an attempt to deny their legitimacy. Not only were they portrayed as agents of mental illness in society, but were handled by the police in a manner that suggested that they were contagious. A fence was erected around their protest at the Plaza as if to shield the bustle of healthy, normal human traffic that might accidentally brush by or intermingle with their grief and dissent.
They were told that the government was planning to “cleanse the country very thoroughly of disturbing elements before the first tourist sets foot in Argentina” for the World Cup. Words such as “cleanse” made these women out to be grime on the face of an Argentina emerging out of sickness and wanting to make itself presentable to the world again. The authors liken themselves and other mothers to “the horrible worm that has wriggled out of a shining Argentina” – they were aware that as their movement became visible to the public eye so did the rotten foundations of the new Argentina of President Videla.
With the mothers being grouped with other social actors accused of infesting and sickening the body of the nation, it is ironic that their only supporters, at the time the article was written, were doctors.
tag: last301
posted by Serena at 8:33 PM
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