About 30,000 people "disappeared," or were killed, under the military dictatorship here between 1976 and 1983. Imagine if your brother or sister or husband or child just suddenly disappeared one day, you had no idea where, and you couldn't go to the authorities because they were probably the ones behind it. I can't. Most of the political history of Argentina since then has evolved around coming to terms with this past.
Though the junta is such a huge part of Argentine history, our program told us not to bring it up unless it is brought up for you. I haven't, and thus haven't really gotten a sense of what modern Argentines think. Tonight at the concert, however, all the music with lyrics revolved around it. It was extremely powerful to hear the singer say in introduction "this song is dedicated to the generation before us, for whom we are still searching." Though I could only understand phrases here and there, sentences like "I can hear your absence" finally made personal for me what I have been reading about for so long. It is one thing to read about statistics, quite another to be sitting in a smoky cafe listening to a man in a fedora warble about his empty barrio. The Argentine culture has been extremely friendly, warm and welcoming, but there are innumerable layers to uncover. I am so excited to keep exploring and learning about this intensely proud, intensely complex culture.
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