September 11 in Chile

Today is September 11, which I think, as a U.S. American, semi-obligates me to re-live the crashing, torturous scenes of the twin towers falling in downtown Manhattan. But I am in Chile and here it is a quiet day, a somber day where the choice may or may not be exercised to reflect on what happened so many years ago on this day in 1973… It was the era of the Cold War, the same self-declared arms race between the super-powers of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. that sent ammunitions over the borders of Afghanistan and that intended to more than meddle in whatever other country’s local politics in order to demonstrate that the cult of Capitalism was indeed all-powerful.

On September 11, 1973, the then Chief of the Chilean Army Augusto Pinochet, with the support of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which had given $8million (USD) to destabilize Chile’s fledgling socialist government, stormed the Presidential Palace in Santiago and overthrew the democratically-elected, Socialist President Salvador Allende. Allende broadcasted a poignant farewell to his “Chilean children” on national radio before his death at the hands of a machine gun. He may or may not have pulled the trigger himself, but given the circumstances and the cruelty later inflicted by the Pinochet dictatorship, it is not difficult to reason that even if the Socialist President had committed suicide, the decision was not entirely an exercise of “free-will,” especially as bombs fell over the palace, smoldering in ruins. For the next 17 years, the Pinochet dictatorship would empower the conservative, right-wing minority with violent acts against the people, resulting in hundreds of deaths, thousands tortured, and many hundreds to this day still unaccounted for. Even though Pinochet is no longer the self-proclaimed leader of the country, the dictator wrote himself a permanent seat in the National Congress, hides from international prosecution behind his own amnesty laws, and his Constitution is still official Chilean law.

Only now are the first generations of Chileans coming to voting age who have never had to suffer the terror and censorship of the military police. Yet, still they must deal with the left-over residue of the dictatorship: the infuriating right-wing minority that protects big-business at the cost of Chile’s natural beauty and the health of its people, that refuses to reform the Pinochet-created educational system that leaves most children, especially in rural areas or from poor families, far behind their private school compatriots, and that scatters crumbs to the masses as the distance between the rich and the poor rapidly expands.

I look out the window at the rain, this beautiful Chilean countryside where even here at the end of the world Fox News now broadcasts daily over cable into nearly every home, and my thoughts stream back a little angrily to the Northern Hemisphere, to the innumerable connections between Chile and the U.S. Seeing the buildings, the rescue workers, the crying families in my mind’s eye triggers a sadness within me that is beyond memorials and testimonies. What have we, U.S. citizens, done as a people since the planes fell from the sky five years ago to really make the world a better place? Have we drastically changed the policies, the politics, and the state of affairs that caused the hate to react, the hate that hate made? Have our aggressive dealings and patronizing meddlings in our global neighborhood ceased or, unfortunately, have they increased? What will future generations think of how we have and continue to behave? What hardships are we now creating and leaving for them to solve? If we do not learn from the lessons of past mistakes and the global effects of our actions, all the memorials in the world will not make the pain and hurt go away. Instead, we will actively create new regimes, new generations of anger, and more complex and expensive situations to remedy.

I think of the final words of Allende this fateful day in 1973: “I have faith in Chile and in its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment…. You must go on, safe in the knowledge that sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open once more, and free men will march along them to create a better society….” Those days are in motion in Chile, 33 years after the fall, but I hope we will not have to wait as long in the U.S. for the same pendulum swing. I fear the world can not afford to wait that long.