This week's readings, while all obviously shared themes of abuse and violations committed in or relating to Argentina in the 1970s-80s, were also similar in their tone and mood. Specifically, there were all written in an incredibly dark and somber manner, which is only fitting for the subject matter discussed. I don't mean to point out the obvious but I think it is terribly heart breaking for the Argentinian people that their history is one filled with such horrible images and accounts of mass murders, torture, exile, war, and countless other inhumane experiences. As a Canadian I suppose I take our (relatively) peaceful history for granted and therefore can't imagine how generation after generation of Argentinians (and many other nations with violent histories) have been affected by the horrific abuses of their pasts. I think it's remarkable that people who have suffered such extreme atrocities at the hands of their own unjust and oppressive governments, have been able to continue on and find strength to keep fighting against what is wrong, after virtually everything has been taken away from them. While reading this week's collections therefore, I was shocked to learn about the inhumanities committed in Argentina, by one human being to another, but even more amazed by the courage and perseverance exemplified by those who suffered the most, to keep on living, thriving, and fighting to end abuse.
The Madres of the the Plaza de Mayo, perhaps a Latin American rights group most of us are familiar with, is a prime example of this remarkable Argentinian courage. These mothers, who refused to accept that their loved ones, unlawfully captured by the government and police, were gone forever and so they quite literally took matters into their own hands, marching to court and judges, pleading habeus corpus for those disappeared. When the police started the rumour that they were crazed, pathetic women, the Madres continued on and pulled more women into their demonstration. They even went to far as to capture international media coverage during the world cup, despite the presence of the dictatorial government and police force watching their every move. These women demanded answers and demanded the return of those taken from them. They stood up to the government even after members were detained and held in prison. In short, these remarkable women said a big eff you to the government, and demonstrated that they would not be intimidated into silence and would keep causing trouble until their loved ones were rightfully returned to them.
Never Again, the compilation of Argentinian prisoners' accounts of the torture they endured during detainment by the police was a truly horrifying read. The fact that there exist human beings capable of exerting so much pain on other individuals and actually get some sort of twisted pleasure out of it makes me want to lock my door and never leave my house again. The testimonials of those people, and the thousands of untold stories of those who died under such torturous conditions, document some of the most despicable acts of mankind. And yet, I believe there is some purpose to reporting these horrible events. The people who recounted their traumas should be commended for reliving these experiences so that the people who committed such crimes can be caught and punished, and (optimistically) stop such crimes from ever occurring again. I have called this optimistic however, and probably naivee, because regardless of the number of survivors stories, such as these, that we read or hear, there will continue to be new stories in the future because bad people will continue to be moulded from society and live to commit horrible crimes.
With this in mind then, I sometimes do wonder about the importance or necessity of human rights. Inherently 'good' people (I use this term loosely to mean the average person that doesn't have a thirst for blood or violence) will be nice to other people, and respect other peoples' so called rights. But bad people, as has been made obvious by history (*cough* Hitler), will harm other people, regardless if there is a piece of paper restricting such actions because they infringe on a supposed human right. The very notion of a human right is such a sociological, intangible construct that it basically means nothing and holds little weight in the real world. It's all well and nice to sit around and talk about the need to declare the universal rights that every human being should enjoy, but the inability to enforce these rights makes them essentially useless and a waste of time. How did the UN Universal Declaration of Rights help the Madres protect their loved ones from the government? How did it enable the victims from "Never Again" to escape torture? How did human rights stop 30,000 Argentinians from being captured, tortured, and killed by their own government, the very body that is supposed to enforce such rights? The existence of "human rights" did nothing to protect the Argentinians and millions like them, who had the severe misfortune of being targeted by bad, violent people.
No comments:
Post a Comment