Black and White

Today I walked out on to the schools patio with my friend Diego to look over the river that runs through the city. I noticed a mural to the left painted against the schools wall, I immediately observed the faces whose eyes had been covered with a piece of cloth. I quickly linked this with the disappearances in the 1970’s. The mural was made up of large puzzle pieces some in color and others in black in white. The black and white represented Argentina’s dark history and the colored Argentina’s present. I knew what the black and white pieces where for but for some reason I found myself playing stupid. I turned to Diego asking why the faces had been blindfolded. I guess I felt was better to claim ignorance when it came to this touchy subject. He began to tell me the sad story that I already knew inside and out; but unlike most people I had talked he didn’t seem to have as much hesitation in his voice. I decided to ask more. According to Diego Manuel Belgrano is a very liberal school open to many different political ideologies. In the 1970’s the headmaster decided to rat out some of the students who’s political beliefs where dangerous and threatened society. One day the military flooded the school halls and 13 students’s disappeared forever. Many other students and teachers new they were in danger and fled the country. It’s hard to believe that every day I walk the hallways every day, studying Argentina’s dark history has become a lot more than a few books and movies but a part of my daily life. The mural stands in the back of the school as a reminder just like the one Argentineans carry in the hearts. The mural is still present but lies in its own quite place in a lonely corridor.

“The disappeared a very insistent in my imagination, very clear, while the solider, the guards. The secret police all have one face, the same eyes, move to the beat of the same heart. I think that is because they dream of power, the narrowness of their souls, leaves no room for the person the individual. The case overtakes the man as easily as the hawk swoops out of the sky and takes the foolish sparrow in its talons.” –Lawerence Thorton, Imagining Argentina.