“I am not strong. “I work hard.” The quotes contain one of the many definitions with which Hebe Pastor de Bonafini, president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association, described herself until last November 20, when she died. This and several others – they are not all, since how can we ensure the definitive compilation of the definitions that Hebe spread to the universal wind? – are intermingled in the little less than 300 pages that make up “Hebe and the hat factorythe book that bears the signature of the journalist and poet Demetrius Iramain, but that she supervised, attentive. The work, which Hebe was unable to see in its final version, is a “tour” through her life more than a biography, one made of the scraps that she herself gave to those who participated in her “mateadas” or listened to her in “ La Salmona”, his radio program: anecdotes about his childhood, the family he joined with his parents and brother and the one he forged with “Toto”, Humberto Bonafini; the upbringing of her three children, the militancy of the two men, the life that changed her forever with her kidnappings, her transformation into Mother of Plaza de Mayo, the path traveled since then and until the end of her days, solidarity, commitment, the fight.
In an exercise of imagination, Iramain ventured that Argentina today would have Hebe “angry, but also very sure of what needs to be done.” “Hebe and the Mothers taught us that no battle is won foreverthat the best way to fight against impunity, to fight against the soldiers, is to make these people happy,” the author noted in an interview with Page|12 in which he explained that “Hebe and the Hat Factory” is “a painting of Hebe’s life, a chronicle perhaps.”
The poet, press worker and professor of History at the Universidad de las Madres accepted out of hand when, in December 2020, Grupo Editorial del Sur proposed to him to undertake the writing of this book. Although he proposed a counterproposal: that the work not be a “biography” and that she be involved.
The basis of “Hebe and the hat factory” were the recordings of “Mateando with Hebe and the young people”, dozens of meetings that the president of the Association led between 2018 and 2020, and the radio programs that journalist and Mother shared in AM 530, “La Salmona”. Hebe filled those spaces with anecdotes about her life: “I was in a stage of reviewing what I had traveled and it was very incredible to be next to her and listen to her, because there was much more than her life in those stories,” said Iramain. . They did the book “together.” He unrecorded, structured, stitched together, delimited contextual data. But her story is told by her, in the first person.
–There are stories about when she worked, about when she bought her first house with her husband, a house that was all in debt, and then she tells how she managed to pay those debts. They are stories of how Hebe looked for a way back to everything, as the mothers did in the face of the pain that went through them with the kidnapping of their children. And there are also guidelines, positions regarding life – he summarized. Like the idea of “freedom”, a word that today integrates the vocabulary of deniers and defenders of the last dictatorship, which guided much of Hebe’s actions: the decision to raise her children – Jorge, Omar and María Alejandra – in a place independent of his mother and father –Francisco Pastor and Josefa Bogetti–, or to enable friends of his children to do in the Bonafini house what they were not allowed in theirs. “Freedom was for Hebe, it seems to me, trusting others. And she trusted her children, she let them do, she let them be, she learned from them”Iramain completed.
The name of the book also comes from an experience that shaped Hebe’s character. This is how the author told it:
-– The hat factory was around the corner from the house where he was born, his father had been employed there for many years, it was a very important factory, one of the largest companies in Latin America. In the town, in the experiences of her father, in the knowledge that she begins to have of the workers’ conflicts, everything happens through that factory. The father participates in strikes. These stories forge her character since she was a child, the working-class codes. The Hat Factory is a great university for her life. Hebe always claimed her class belonging, even the division of Madres, she says that she does so in terms of class, a class struggle within Madres.
— What was the anecdote that caught your attention the most?
–- There is a very nice anecdote that is from before being Mother of Plaza de Mayo. She did social help work at the La Plata Children’s Hospital, volunteering: she went to cook for children who were sick with tuberculosis. And once they had decided to make a dinner to sell outside the hospital and raise funds. So, they went to ask for solidarity support from the neighborhood businesses to donate some items so they could put together the dinner. They went to ask for wine at a wine shop and they were given plenty; to some bakeries, among them a very important bakery in La Plata called El Rayo. This bakery gave them just four palm trees, when other smaller bakeries had given them much more. And then it occurred to Hebe to take out an advertisement in the newspaper The day of La Plata thanking each one of those who had collaborated to account for the contribution and also in some way make transparent what they had gathered. The revenge was to put next to each donor what he had contributed. The owner of the El Rayo bakery came, very angry, to tell him that if he knew they were going to put it in the newspaper, they would have donated much more. Hebe responded that the goal was not to make them look good, but to raise funds for the children. It’s something that the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo did throughout their history: they didn’t care who was in front. The Mothers never kept quiet, they never measured convenience, they told the truth because they had nothing to lose. As she said, the most important thing they had already lost was their children. They didn’t have to keep quiet or look good to anyone.
–Hebe is usually mentioned by Victoria Villarruel to talk about “human rights work.” Would Hebe respond?
–It would never have been spent answering you, but the answer is in light of what the Mothers were and are. Contrasting the life of Hebe or any of them with what these other people say, it becomes clear that they are the liars and the job.
– What would you say about the moment the country is going through with a denialist formula that finally won the presidency?
–I would be angry, but also very sure of what to do. And also be clear that no battle is won forever. Hebe and the Mothers taught us that: that the best way to fight against impunity, to fight against the soldiers, is to make these people happy. Hebe always said: “Rather than seeing a soldier in prison, I would rather see a happy child.” That definition is very strong, very strong. It concentrates the challenges that we have. We have had March 24 as a holiday for 20 years, and it is mandatory for all schools to talk about what happened and yet we have kids who are voting for Milei. How can it be? Surely, perhaps we miss the point and that is that the disappeared fought not for a tribute, economic reparation or a plaque in a public place: they fought to make this people happy, to make this society much more just and since we don’t have it totally fair, far from it, and the people are having a bad time, those enemies are growing strong again. In that sense the Mothers have been very clear.
2023-11-21 05:34:21
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