It has been almost a year since I found myself preparing to visit Argentina for the first time. Then, I knew little about Argentina. Now, as I prepare to return, this time for 5 months, I feel like I am returning home - going back to a place that is familiar.
Argentina has deeply affected how I see my world, and especially how I see my country. As I learned more about the military dictatorship, my reaction went from shock to curiosity. "How could that have happened?", I kept asking. I watched movies, read, and talked to those who would talk. The more I learned, the more I was horrified. 30,000 people disappeared - many taken away in broad daylight. Pregnant women were kept alive until their children were born, the babies then given to military families who could not bear children of their own. Secret prisons, illegal detentions, torture. It all seemed so evil, so incomprehensible.
And then I returned home.
I saw how the election of 2000 was actually a coup. The election was stolen - not by driving tanks and flying helicopters into Washington D.C. and killing the sitting president, but by engineering the vote, by denying thousands of people the right to vote, by manipulating the ballot, and by the actions of the president and campaign manager of the would-be president.
Once the election was stolen, the real crimes began. Were the attacks on September 11, 2001, really a surprise? Did the twin towers collapse only from the impact of the planes (many suggest there were explosives), was the Pentagon even hit by a plane (again, many suggest, even those who were in the Pentagon, that it was a bomb). Were we told the full truth about September 11? What is clear, is that September 11 was used as an excuse to take radical measures that might not have otherwise been taken. The Patriot Act severely limited our civil rights, allowed our government to spy on us and resulted in the "disappearances" of hundreds of individuals. Now we find out that there have been secret memos and discussions which approved the use of "aggressive interrogation techniques" - torture, rendition flights that carry detainees out of the country to secret locations where they are tortured and never heard from again - the abuses at Abu Graib are nothing compared to what is probably really going on behind prison walls.
9/11 was used to get our country into two wars, which are not going very well. Our economy is in a shambles. Our treasury has been drained, while cronies of the junta who stole the election in 2000 are recording record profits - oil company profits have soared, as well as private security firms, defense contractors and private prison corporations. Now immigrants are being rounded up and herded into detention centers. Proving to be extremely profitable, these dententions are only going to continue while the American people, distracted by rising gas prices, job losses and rising food costs look the other way. Schools and libraries are closing because there is not enough money. A city near San Francisco, Vallejo, has declared bankruptcy, claiming there is not enough money to pay for services such as police and fire departments, schools or libraries. Yet, more and more detention centers are being built. After the immigrants have all been rounded up, and these detention centers sit empty, who is next?
It is frightening to see the direction that this country has gone. It is even more frightening to see where it could go.
Argentina has helped me to see things that are so obvious that they are not visible. Because of the willingness of Argentines to examine their past, I was able to see our present. My questions about how something so horrible could have happened were answered, but the unexpected result was that I was able to see what is happening now in my own country. In spite of our "balance of powers" and "branches of government", when power becomes corrupted, anything is possible. Corporate lobbyists, politicians who are afraid to speak out against public perceptions of what is patriotic (supporting our troops means you can not be anti-war), and a populace that is numb, uneducated and unwilling to look at the hard issues, and would rather go along with patriotic, flag-waving, anti-someone else (Arabs, immigrants, liberals) feelings, than actually think that those we trust with our protection are actually the enemy.
I've learned a lot since my return from Argentina, and look forward to returning so that through their process of healing, I can learn more about how corrupt power destroys everything in its path, and how a nation can return itself to a righteous path. Plus, it will be good to get away from here for awhile. The more I learn, most recently about the growing trend of building privately run detention centers and detaining immigrants, the more concerned I become. I need to get away so that I can see how I might use my voice to wake up those around me who do not want to see what is happening.
