Speaking Truth to Power: Week 12

Today when we bring up the idea of Latin America, it is almost always associated to immigrates and drugs.  The drug war is not a stereotype of Latin America, but after watching the lecture videos I realised that it is in fact a part of life, it has happened, it happens even today, and may even continue to happen in future. The military, businesses and people are all trying to extract as much money as they can- and thus causing corruption. Coming from a highly corrupt country Kenya, I know that changing the foundation of this and trying to put an end to drug cartels is extremely difficult and will probably take a while for such measures to be implemented.

The War on Drugs is my favourite video so far!  It showed us how drugs are brought into countries and the extent through which people will go through just to bring in these drug- like hiding it in coffee bags, or having people swallow and eat packets of cocaine.  Infamous people like Pablo Escobar had been depicted in the video for being the most powerful man in Latin America when he had been trafficking cocaine. It was really shocking to see how powerful this man really was.
The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo really spoke to me and evoked so much sympathy. It had been disheartening to read about this group of mothers that lost their children. 

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an association of Argentine mothers whose children "disappeared" during the dictatorship.  This era represents families being torn apart and several human rights atrocities that had been carried out by the corrupt military. They had their children “taken” from them with no explanations.

During this “Dirty War”  in Argentina from 1976 to 1983, the military government did more than just kidnap children but they went to extents of torturing people and anyone that they saw as submissive in the military they would expel them. It was truly sad to read about this- and I can only imagine how many families had to suffer as they watched their loved ones being taken from them one by one and not receiving clarifications as to what happened to them. It seemed like everyday life was a struggle in Latin America and just being able to survive seemed like a mission on it’s own.

My question for this week was: Do you think the drug cartels was beneficial in some way for Latin America? 





Comments

  1. Sophie19 November 2017 at 23:52

    Hi, nice post! The fact that children were taken away from their families is already sickening and the fact that torturing occurred as well is horrifying. I agree with you that the video on the War on Drugs was interesting, especially the different extents that people will go to in order to smuggle them.

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  2. Unknown4 December 2017 at 23:47

    Hi! I really like your question regarding the possible benefits of drug cartels for Latin America. I think it is very challenging, and I don't think that I (or anyone for the matter) can give you a right answer. I guess as far as I am concerned the question has more to do with WHO benefits from the drug cartels. If the money from drug dealing truly went to the poorest people in Latin America, then I would argue that drug cartels are indeed valuable to the region.

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