In the 1980s, during Argentina’s brutal military junta, the mothers of the disappeared refused to be silenced. In an act of defiance, they wore white scarves - originally cloth diapers - on their heads, a haunting symbol of the children who had been stolen from them. Their grief became their protest. Their symbol, once personal, became political.
To this day, the image of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo marching in silent determination remains a powerful icon of resistance. So powerful, in fact, that during the trials of those responsible for the disappearances, the mothers were ordered to remove their scarves. Even in a courtroom meant for justice, their presence was seen as too disruptive, too potent. But symbols endure, just as their love and demand for truth endure.
We, too, need a symbol.
The upside-down flag signals a nation in distress.1 It is not a sign of disrespect but a plea - a cry for recognition that something is deeply wrong here. Like the mothers who marched for their stolen children, we stand in the face of loss, injustice, and betrayal, holding a prayer close to our hearts:
My Beloved
How I long for the days
when your bounty nourished me,
when your ground held me firm,
when I belonged to you
as surely as the rivers belong to the sea.
My Beloved,
how I ache for the wounds you bear -
the scars carved deep by careless hands,
by those who do not know
they wound themselves as they wound you.
My Beloved,
how I burn with anger
for those who seek to break you,
who strip away your wholeness
as if you were nothing but stone and soil.
Yet still, you endure.
Still, your roots run deep,
your breath fills the air,
and I will not turn away.
My Beloved,
I will hold you in my grief,
stand with you in your suffering,
and love you as the dawn loves the night -
faithful, unyielding,
a promise reborn.
Our love for a nation, like a mother’s love, cannot be erased. It cannot be ordered away or extinguished by fear. And it will certainly not be silent.
In 1971 Supreme Court case, Texas v. Johnson, discussed how a flag can be used in forms of protest and therefore, the upside-down flag is protected as free speech by the First Amendment.
Our love for a nation, like a mother’s love, cannot be erased. It cannot be ordered away or extinguished by fear. And it will certainly not be silent.
Thank you, Claudia.