THE MOTHERS OF THE PLAZA DE MAYO

My week character is admirable, not only one, but several characters; the representation of a movement that marked a country’s history, they dared to face oppression, to fight for the voices to be heard, to fight for a story that people could really listen to, in time and place where the word ENDURANCE was a taboo with death punishment and the word CENSORSHIP was everyday bread for the control system

“And tomorrow they’ll keep being with fire on the feet burning oblivion, silence and forgiveness, they go jumping every pain puddles that bled, scattering faith, mothers of love”.

Leon Gieco

Who was going to think that the only thing they were pretending was to have an audience with the president Jorge Rafael Videla, that’s why they chose the Plaza de Mayo and made the public peaceful manifestation asking for the whereabouts of their lovely children; Azuzena Villaflor de Vicenti, mother of one of the missing people , impulse the movement. She knew they weren’t going to listen to them by one but if they gathered together at the Plaza de Mayo, he was going to see there were too many aiming at something (an answer) Videla would have to welcome them.

The first encounter was made on Saturday, April 30th, 1977, only 14 women, the first 14 of the movement that was pretending to face the army dictation, of censorship and crime; the women pretended to gather every Sunday, but due to the suspicious that was rising inside the public force they decided to gather on Fridays, until one of them says as a superstition “not on Friday because that’s witches’ day”…. Then day change the day to Thursdays, each Thursday, gathering together in the square,Plaza de Mayo, the place that would become theirs and accomplice of a fight, fight for truth and justice.

At first there 14, a small group of mothers with something in common, the missing and censorship of their children, 14 mothers who gathered at the May plaza, the 300, 400, 500… each Thursday at the square, joining fathers, siblings, wives, children, grandchildren of the missing people and in turn there were formed groups of mothers inside the country, as in protest against a gory government, a government that had to respond and pay for its crime acts.

This passage honors to those mothers that lost their children during the process of national reorganization, men and women who could had been lawyers, singers, writers, politicians; promised teenagers in pro of change, longing for a better and equal future, a future of prosper in the country with woman’s name, teenagers that couldn’t be heard, but were never silenced. These women gave protest voice in the name of their children, they continued with the fight, with dippers in their heads as flags going around the May pyramid, protesting until being heard, imposing as a threat to censorship; mothers of May square, as a heroic, constancy, fraternity, love and strength symbol.

“Why don’t we all go to the May square? When he realizes that we are a lot, he will welcome us”

- Azuzena Villaflor – one of the 14 (April 7^th – 1924 – went missing on December 10^th 1977)