~ by Stavros Stravides ~

“Mothers are right”. This was a graffiti slogan written on the walls of Medellin, in Colombia. Last January remains of slaughtered people were found in the rubbish dump la Escombrera of Communa 13. These were people brutally killed by the Colombian army and paramilitaries during a so-called counter guerilla invasion to this neighborhood (Operation Orion on 2002) in which many were executed on site or “disappeared” as is usually the case of mass crimes produced by unrestrained state violence.

Mothers are right: The mayor of Medellin erased the graffitis saying at the same time that they are expressions of unruly behavior and make the city look ugly. But this simply made the slogan travel in many cities of the country and effectively empower protesters.

Mothers are right Because it was the Mujeres Caminando por La Verdad (Mothers walking for Truth) who managed to unearth evidence for this unpunished brutality. They were the ones who insisted that the area should be deeply excavated  so that truth itself will come to light. “The Earth started to speak” [La Tierra ha comenzado a hablar] they say. Could it be that during all those years of their struggle they had been listening to the words of Mother Earth, who was transferring to them the power of truth?

Mothers are right. Like the Mothers of the Plaza de 5 de Mayo who for years protest every week in front of Buenos Aires’s Presidential building demanding justice for their “disappeared” children, victims of Videla’s dictatorship.

Mothers are right in today’s Palestine when they demand protection for their children against the genocidal murdering machine of Israel. Theirs is the demand for the right to live in the land they were born. Theirs is the demand to be able to ensure a free and just future for their children.

Mothers are right. Like the mothers of the students who died in the tragic train clash that caused the death of 57 people two years ago in Tempi junction, Greece. Listen to their voice. Listen to one of them who two years now struggles to keep her child alive: “Today all you politicians shut up. Mothers scream…” Hear the voice of another one who has lost both her twin daughters in the crash: “We won’t stop the struggle, we will not leave you in peace until the last vein in our heart beats.” And the words of another mother that encapsulate the power of an unyielding struggle: “We have all experienced the cruel face of the now pervasive corruption. We have discovered forces that we were previously unaware of their existence. As mothers, we must preserve what remains of our children, their memory, to bring about safety for the children who are alive and those who will come to life… I address the killers of our children. You have insulted and disrespected our dead. You have committed the greatest hubris and you will receive your due through the pulse of nemesis.” These passionate and determined mothers are the voice of all the fathers and families of the victims of what definitely is a state crime (combining negligence for proper safety infrastructure, privatization choices and corruption). Her voice is strong: seeking justice and truth, a truth that government officials hastily concealed by the obliteration of evidence and the cover up of criminal acts.

Mothers demand justice in Mexico too, while seeking to locate mass graves and to uncover mass crimes by drug cartel paramilitaries connected to local authorities. It was members of Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco (Fighting Researchers of Jalisco) digging with their own bare hands who recently discovered indications of mass murders in a ranch in Jalisco. However, the place was deliberately “cleaned” by authorities after the specific findings and the formulation of complaints to be investigated.

Mothers are always right when they fight against wars and when they care about life, the life that sustains the world. Their decisiveness has supported all diaspora communities, their stubborn, silent and inexhaustible power has made immigration caravans possible and has sustained the kitchens of collective survival in dire times and against cruel people.

Mothers are right when they demand justice. When they accuse the powerful that they define justice according to their own interests. When they oppose those who distort truth, those who mislead public opinions and discredit the ones who challenge their omnipotence. Mothers’ right cannot be buried though. Its power is not based on geometries and balances of power but draws from the inexhaustible source of life itself. Life understood as perseverance and demand for collective dignity rather than as a mere biological process. Life as a demand for freedom for all those who share it. Life as a presupposition of every struggle for social emancipation.

Mothers are right because it is them who managed to extend care to a force that sustains solidarity. Because it is them who can make the famous fraternité of the French Revolution’s motto an everyday experience. Because they give birth to siblings the way collective struggles for a just shared world give birth to brothers and sisters.

Mothers know what death means. They know the screams of anguish and the dark fears of despair. They survived in spite of them in Nazi occupied lands, in settler colonialist ghettos, in refugee camps and in lands stolen from indigenous people. They usually had their children to care for and protect under these cruel circumstances. But they had to defy death, to defy despair. Because their right cannot be eliminated by the powerful ones no matter how strong they are and how able they are to deceive or lure some to their illusionary promises.

Mothers’ struggles are often unseen. Unmarked by historians, underestimated by mainstream politicians and discredited by racists of every kind. By inventively sliding between suppressing barriers, by often flanking and cutting sideways in front of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, mothers always seek and find ways to ensure the life of those they feel they need to care for. However, when circumstances force them or when they decide that they need to step forward in an open confrontation, they don’t hesitate. To refuse submission they may even choose to sacrifice themselves.

Mothers who search for truth and justice are right. As Zapatista Insurgente Capitan Marcos suggests, “Buscad a las buscadoras.  Se me ocurre, no sé, que tal vez también buscan otro mañana.  Y eso, amigos y enemigos, es luchar por la vida” [Look for those who seek truth. It seems to me, I don’t know, that they are seeking for a different future too. And that, friends and enemies, is fighting for life].

Published in Spanish at  “Las madres tienen razón” (Cuchas tienen razón) – Desinformémonos

And in Italian at  Le madri hanno ragione – Comune-info