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discernment was faulty, that this close relative or son, though from a
respectable family, nevertheless did actually engage in clandestine
activities unknown to his intimates, and that certainly he had been
taken and possibly even executed by the "others." Fostering doubt is
a perennial strategy of the authorities ; undermine reality , disorient ,
place in doubt the usual means of recourse, and in so doing reinforce
the "natural" tendency of denial in the face of horror . (The accounts
by survivors of Nazi genocide corroborate the use of this strategy.)
In
fact, a disappearance, as long as it appeared to be one in a
series of isolated, individual events, was felt to be a shameful
sickness, something to hide. Silence and self-imposed isolation, for
fear of social condemnation, were generally the first reaction. And
those who avoided falling into this trap were often paralyzed by the
fear of putting their children in danger through some action that
might prove untimely or sensational.
Numbering fourteen at the outset, the women of the Place de
Mai restrained themselves in response to the "ordinary," insidious
violence of which they were daily the victims. Perhaps it was an act
of desperation in the face of the legal course they had already pur–
sued in vain, and for which nothing in their previous experience had
prepared them. At every stage of their struggle, they surmounted
their fears that any next step would do more harm than good , and,
ignoring all prohibitions, they put themselves outside the law. They
comforted themselves with their private conviction of the legitimacy
of their demand (What have you done with him?) and in their pub-
lic, collective effort.
'"
'"
'"
What do these women symbolize, who silently made their
rounds about the Place de Mai? By their
collective
presence they shat–
tered and revealed, to the rest of the world , the thinly-veiled lie that
had shrouded the disappearances, bringing into full view the politi–
cal and social implications of such disappearances.
Consequently, the authorities could no longer simply dismiss
them. Certainly, these women had transgressed official orders in
blockading the Place de Mai; even worse, the restraining order
against them had undeniable political implications. But at the same
time, women and their status as mothers conferred dignity on them,
an additional respectability that was incompatible with the image of
political dissidence. How could one confront the challenge inherent
