Romero”, a Film About the Salvadoran Civil War and the Role of Archbishop Romero
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In the film, Romero, of the mild-mannered Catholic archbishop Oscar Romero tells the story of the civil war that intoxicated the country of El Salvador over three decades ago. Arguably, Archbishop Romero grudgingly entered into the war on the side of the poor. He developed into the most outspoken and visible critics of the crimes committed and gave a consistent voice to the theory of nonviolence during the cold war, a recourse he paid with his dear life. However, the film does not pull punches on the image of violence that it presents due to the anger of righteousness from the director who wanted to keep people awake with something hard but not fuzzy.
Government soldiers stop the public from attending Romero’s funeral by shooting them while others are circumnavigating above in a helicopter and shooting down people (Eisenbrandt, 2017). Moreover, several parties form a guerrilla group referred to as the Faribundo Mart National Liberation Front (FMNLF) in the following year. The first launch civil attacks against the government, which in return earns the backing of the United States to fight the cold war. Consequently, the United States rapidly increase its military training and aid to the government of El Salvador, totaling approximately 1.5 million dollars daily for 12 years. According to Martínez (2016), El Salvador records a death toll of between sixty thousand and seventy-five thousand out a population of six million during the conflict.
It is essential to understand the relationship and the differences between the institutional Catholic Church that bestowed a powerful influence since the Spanish conquest and the clergy who worked closely with the peasants. The institutional Catholic Church was reluctant to legitimize discrimination in El Salvador. However, the Second Vatican Council met in the 1950s intending to open a church for renewal and change in a bid to keep harmony with modernity. The Second Vatican served as a catalyst in articulating liberation theology in Latin America and grew out of the Catholic context and become prominent a decade later (Martínez, 2016). In this theological philosophy, the church viewed God as a liberator interested in people’s contemporary life as well as their eternal life. The mainstay focus was Jesus whom they conceived as a resister of oppression and suffering, and thus local church leadership becomes a crucial part in the shape of the movement through social justice and activism efforts. They sought to liberate the peasants from the effects of neo-colonialism and imperialism. Furthermore, the clergy movement grounded its theology in Jesus’ social justice teaching and ideas, which looked evidenced to them in the gospel.
The brewing social unrest erupted into open field conflict culminating in a bloody civil wall that lasted for over twelve years (Eisenbrandt, 2017). The United States government played a significant role in the El Salvador war by providing unprecedented levels of advisory to the government in power, military training, and aids. The war displaced over a million El Salvador residents within the country and throughout the United States, Mexico, Australia, and Canada. Moreover, neighboring countries such as Honduras, Panama, and Costa Rica also set up refugee Camps to accommodate residents of El Salvador fleeing from the war.
References
Eisenbrandt, M. (2017). The assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice. Univ of California Press.
Martínez, O. (2016). A history of violence: living and dying in Central America. Verso Books.