I have been tossing up whether or not to put this one up; it has been haunting me a bit. Our guide explained how it is a memorial to all those who were imprisoned, tortured, died in custody or just disappeared as political prisoners in the long and brutal Stroessner dictatorship that controlled the country of Paraguay for 35 years up to 1989. Unfortunately it is an experience that most south american countries have had in their most recent history.
The sheer oppressiveness expressed in this sculpture reminds me that I and Australians of my age and younger, and our children, barely comprehend what it can mean to live through and survive such a period. I have talked with several Uruguayans over the past few years – they do not talk easily about their troubled recent past, and their faces still show fear and sadness while and indeed, if, they do talk.
Walking along the street here I am able to observe and compare the carefree young faces with some of the older ones – every now and then I see a remarkable face in front of me – I hesitate to try to capture on film the suspicion, fear or anxiety that seems to have marked that face. In Australia recently, I noticed how older people in airports, food halls, coffee terrraces and pedestrian malls showed more relaxed, open, and fewer worried faces. And no wonder – apart from a brief attempt by the Japanese up around Darwin during the WWII, we have never experienced foreign invasion, civil war, nor military dictatorship. Despite our pollies’ raucous haranging that passes for debate in our houses of parliament, and the heated commentary on the state of our nation in our media, the ups and downs of Life for most people in our country are due to fire, flood, drought, tempest or changed economic conditions producing changes in the work place. Undeniably traumatic to those involved, but fortunately only a portion of the nation is ever thus traumatised at one time. Australia IS a very Lucky Country. 
Hi Alison – how very right you are. We here in Australia have the best of lives. I doubt that we truly appreciate how good we have life. And our children who reap the benefits from our wealth and never have to struggle for anything. How would they survive the tough times?
Jen
Well said Alison, it is always startling to realize just how good we’ve really got it, compared to the rest of the world. That sculpture is quite oppressive, as well as expressive.