The
Cathedrals Of South America: Breaking The Parent-child
Bond...
9 January 2010By Jane Stillwater
While in South America this month, I first visited the
main cathedral in Santiago, Chile, and then I saw the
main cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They were
both highly lovely. And they both featured a multitude
of paintings, murals and statues that glorified the
strong physical and emotional bond that exists between
adults and children. There were many statues depicting
St. Mary nurturing and protecting the baby Jesus. Then
there was St. Christopher, helping the young Jesus to
safely cross a river. And of course there was St.
Anthony. And I forget who all else. In the Buenos
Aires cathedral especially, almost every icon there
emphasized and illuminated the loving and protective
nature of this strong protective adult-child bond.
There was also a bunch of artwork portraying the
protective and nurturing bond that is supposed to
exist between God the Son and all the rest of us poor
lost sheep, God's children.
The artwork in both churches made this very
meaningful, holy and protective relationship
absolutely jump out at me. "Adults are SUPPOSED to
protect and nurture children," these statues
practically screamed. "There is a sacred and profound
nature that exists within the parent-child bond."
And face it, guys. The archetype of a benevolent god
is based on the protective nature of adults toward
children.
I bet that you know what is coming up next, right? The
world's adults today are NOT doing a good job of
protecting their children. Napalm, white phosphorus,
drones, Shock and Awe, child pornography, "spare the
rod and spoil the child," child prostitution, child
slavery, child molestation, children soldiers, you
name it. "How could ANYONE stoop so low as to hurt a
child?" you might ask. And yet children's trust in
their adult protectors is violated daily and routinely
at least a million times a day. Nothing justifies
that. End of lecture.
Another thing about Chile and Argentina that almost
blew my mind is that both countries used to be
democracies and then both countries were seized by
brutal dictatorships -- dictatorships that involved
torture, death squads, disappearances, concentration
camps, assassinations and all that other messy stuff.
Full-out dictatorships. No holds barred. CIA advisors
in the background. Knocks on the door at midnight.
Krystallnachts. Cattle prods. The whole nine yards.
And yet today both Chile and Argentina are democracies
again. Go figure. It gives one pause. Perhaps this
means that if the USA is ever taken over by dictators
too, then we too might be able to find our way back.
And I'm even going to go out on a limb here and
suggest that had America and Britain not battled
Hitler to the teeth, then sooner or later the German
people would have given him the boot too. Look what
happened in the Soviet Union. Eventually people do
tend to speak up.
Maybe there is hope for the human race yet.
And maybe, just maybe, adults and governments will
finally stop creating "collateral damage" that
involves barbecuing babies -- like what has happened
or is still happening in places like Auschwitz,
Rwanda, Baghdad and Gaza.
****
I just got some interesting information regarding Eva
Peron from someone named Ivan Guarneti, stuff that I
didn't know. Apparently Eva was one of the first
people to do battle with the IMF, among other things:
Unfortunately [many people] keep repeating all the
arguments, word by word, that the Argentine oligarchy
used between 1954-1983 to destroy my country and to
commit the second genocide in our history, after the
one perpetrated against our native nations. Juan Peron
won free and democratic elections three times in
Argentina. During none of those three times were there
any claims of fraud, not even from the vicious
pro-American opposition.
During his second presidency, Peron was kicked out of
office by a military coup supported by the IMF and
Washington.
The government which took office after mass-murdering
unarmed civilians in Plaza de Mayo by bombing them
from the air, went on to install firing squads as the
new justice system -- to such a point, that the
popular imaginary named this new government la "Revolucion
Fusiladora" (the way we all remember it nowadays) by
twisting the self-denomination of "Revolucion
Libertadora" given by the oligarchy.
They got Argentina immediately into signing agreements
with the IMF (which Peron rejected in the 1950s) and
into privitizing (of course, to American and British
companies) the new exploration for oil fields. The
process of murdering, torturing and encarcerating
poltical opponents opened in June 1955, a few months
after the bombing of Plaza de Mayo, and only ended in
October 1983, after the whole country's industrial
base and a whole generation had been destroyed and
disappeared.
Peron wasn't either a socialist revolutionary, or a
convinced democrat, nor a fascist, much less a
dictator. Peron was an extremly ecclectic and
pragmatic leader who saw an amazing opportunity to
industrialize a rich but semi-feudal country. He was a
man who understood that only the working class goes
all the way although unfortunatly, himself didn't want
to go all the way.
Argentine women were able to vote for the first time
because Peron and Evita legalized the female vote
after Peron took office.
Millions of argentine workers bought the first homes
in generations thanks to the Peron-Evita credit
policies of buy today, pay when you can (if you ever
can), no interest at all.
Workers for the first time in the history of Argentina
had the right to eight-hour days, vacations, free
health care for all, high salaries, and the right to
free education for all, from elementary school all the
way to university, Masters Degrees and PHDs -- without
paying a penny.
In only a decade, Argentina went froma stuck in the
middle ages to having a home-grown aero-space
industry, automobile industry, shipyards, oil
industry, biochemistry industry, railways and highways
all across the country, hopitals, schools,
universities, etc, etc. And the same thing happened in
culture and the arts: film, theatre, radio plays,
literature, etc, (also sports). They all flourished
during the late 40s.
Last, Argentine workers of that era had a very similar
standard of life to the American workers, and way
above European workers. No other country in Latin
America to this day has ever built an
equal-opportunity society with such levels of high
salaries, such a volume of unionization and workers
qualification and education as was had in Argentina of
late 40s an early 50s.
That was the reason that Argentina got almost 30 years
of "on and off" dictatorship between 1955-1983. The
West (USA and Europe) needed to destroy the Argentine
industrial base and the unionization of its working
class -- in order to integrate Argentina into their
"International Division of Labor" design. Back then,
there was no room in the world for an industrialized
Latin American country
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