Week 12:

This week we saw how Latin American countries continued to be failed societies.

The drug phenomenon in Latin America is interesting because of the realism it embodies, it does not matter if it is the state or a guerrilla, the drug market corrupted everyone.

On the other side, this week we read about empowered women who as Rita said represent a different and latin american type of feminism, one were women look into political justice before gender dynamics.  “Madres” is not an isolated case. After decades of terror, women have been the ones who have been looking for democratic justice. We have been witnesses of hundreds of women who are looking for their children who were disappeared by the guerrilleros or the state, but we also saw women looking for justice for themselves.  I will like to use as an example the case of “the death of the Cabitos”. “Los Cabitos” was a military base that was used to torture and kill hundreds of pseudo terrorists during the 80’s. During four decades a group of Quechua speaker mothers have looked for justice for their sons and they have achieved it this past month. The importance of this achievement lies in significance of the journey of empowerment of non-spanish speakers quechua women. I would have said that due to experience and history this outcome looked impossible. However, this and the history of Argentina’s “mothers” shows as that women’s responsibility with their family and community triggers the redefinition  of Latin American political dynamics. Nonetheless, women’s political presence in Latin America is insufficient. An example of this are the thousands of women who were raped by militaries and women who were sterilized by government campaigns and are still fighting for justice and truth in a complicated society of failing democracy.