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Memories of Chile in the Midst of an American
Presidential Campaign
by Ariel Dorfman;
Day after day over the past three years, as I watched Americans respond to the terror that
unexpectedly descended upon them on September 11th, 2001, the direst memories of Chile and
its dictatorship resonated in my mind. There was something dreadfully familiar in the
patriotic posturing, the militarization of society, the way in which anyone who dared to
be faintly critical was automatically branded as a traitor. Yes, I had seen that before:
"You are either with us or against us." I had seen it far too often -- national
security trumpeted as a justification for any excess in the pursuit of an elusive enemy.
Who could have imagined that in the United States, with its independent judiciary,
thousands of men could be rounded up in the night -- many only because of their Muslim
religion or foreign nationality -- without recourse to a trial, without even an
acknowledgment that they had been arrested? Who could have dared to suggest that there
would ever be "desaparecidos" in America? And there it was as well, torture
being discussed as a legitimate option to protect a community in peril, and then being
used in Guantanamo and Afghanistan, and even obscenely photographed in Iraq -- yes, there
they were again, the depressing echoes of my Chile.
But worse perhaps than all of this was the erosion of the moral compass of America, the
seeming indifference of the seeming majority to the suffering of others, the casual
acceptance of "collateral damage" as an unquestioned consequence of the war on
"terrorism," the demonization of an ubiquitous foe who had to be destroyed
without second thoughts -- and often without first ones as well; without, in fact, any
thoughtfulness at all. That was far more terrifying than the criminal attacks on New York
and Washington: To realize that the Chile of strongman Augusto Pinochet was not that far
away, not that difficult to imitate, that it was already hovering in the future and ready
to materialize if we were not vigilant.
I would read the news each morning in my home in North Carolina and each morning I would
feel the same sudden stab of vertigo. Was history repeating itself yet one more tired
time? Could it really be that simple to corrupt American democracy? Could the citizens of
the United States be so easily twisted and manipulated by their fear?
The answer was, in fact, no, not that easily.
Over the last year, everywhere I have turned in the United States, I have seen signs of an
amazing spirit of resistance, another sort of better America mobilizing, citizens not
moved by dread but by hope, a vast and plural and creative wave of activism that I had not
witnessed since... well, since the year 1970 when my country elected Salvador Allende as
our President, when gentle armies of my fellow countrymen and countrywomen took their
destiny into their own hands and proclaimed to the winds of history that it was possible
to build socialism using democratic means, that we did not have to terrorize or persecute
our adversaries in order to free ourselves from oppression.
If the present American campaign for the presidency reminds me of that revolutionary
moment in Chilean history more than three decades ago, it is not because John Kerry is at
all like Salvador Allende or George W. Bush is a clone of Augusto Pinochet. But there is
in the American air today the trembling prefiguration of the same sort of enthusiasm, the
same conviction that each of us can make a difference, that history belongs to those who
dare to imagine an alternative future. The world does not have to be the way we found it,
the way we have been told it must remain: a message once sent to everybody by a multitude
of hungry peasants in Chile marching to demand ownership of the land they had tilled for
centuries for the benefit of others; a message transmitted again today by millions of
angry internet subscribers to Moveon.org in the United States and defiantly announced by a
widespread coalition of progressive American activists who are much more mature than the
protestors of the Vietnam era and, I would wager, far outnumber them as well.
In Chile back then, as in the United States now, you could feel the same certainty that
the last word has not yet been said.
What I do not quite know is if the new social activism in the United States has the same
staying power as its Chilean counterpart. It took us almost a century of struggle to elect
someone like Salvador Allende to the Presidency, and when he was overthrown by Pinochet in
a military coup in 1973 -- on September 11th of all days! -- we kept fighting for
seventeen years to rid ourselves of the dictatorship that misgoverned our land. We did not
decide to give up on September 12th.
The real test will therefore come on November 3rd, the day after George W. Bush crawls
back to power or John Kerry rides this wave of social transformation into the White House.
That is when millions of American men and women who have mobilized in unprecedented
numbers over the last months will be faced with the real dilemma of their times: Are they
to pack up and go home to the old apathy and submissiveness, or do they deeply understand
that, no matter who wins or loses the election, it depends on them, one by one by one and
all together, that their country never turn into even a semblance of the Chile of
Pinochet?
The struggle for the soul of America has barely begun.
October 2004
Copyright C2004 Ariel Dorfman
Ariel Dorfman, the Chilean writer, holds the Walter Hines Page Chair at Duke University.
His most recent book Other Septembers, Many Americas: Selected Provocations, 1980-2004
(Seven Stories Press), a perfect introduction to his work, explores the ways Americans
apply amnesia to their yesterdays and innocence to their tomorrows. His book Desert
Memories (National Geographic) just won the Lowell H. Thomas Silver Award for travel
writing.
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Proyecto para el Primer Siglo Popular:
Noticias
Proyecto para el Nuevo Siglo Estadounidense
Prontuario del imperialismo yanqui
Estrategias para transitar hacia el Primer Siglo
Popular
-
La invasión de Iraq
-
Terrorismo de Estado estadounidense
Lecturas de Apoyo
Campañas
Historia Actual On-line
-
ATTAC
Chile
Foro Social Mundial
Los manuales de tortura del ejército de los Estados Unidos
Cuba
Venezuela
-
Prontuarios:
Ronald Reagan
Los crímenes del ejército imperial de Estados Unidos
-
La columna de Max Lesnik
-
PPSP
publica artículos y ensayos de estudio crítico de los efectos políticos, económicos,
ideológicos, sociales y ambientales que la política exterior de los Estados Unidos
produce en el mundo, particularmente en Africa, América Latina y Asia. La política
exterior de los Estados Unidos sigue ahora los principios establecidos en el documento "Reconstruyendo
las defensas de Estados Unidos. Estrategia, Fuerzas y Recursos para el Nuevo Siglo ",
publicado en el año 2000. Sus autores ocupan puestos ejecutivos en el Pentágono, el
Departamento de Estado, y en algunas universidades en Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido.
Esta política intenta implementar lo que ellos llaman "Proyecto para un Nuevo
Siglo Estadounidense" que busca la dominación mundial. PPSP
fue creado con el propósito de generar opinión pública universal que sirva como sostén
social de un amplio frente unido para oponerse a la dominación por parte de Estados
Unidos y para preservar el derecho a la autoderminación de los pueblos, como un primer
paso en la construcción de un mundo mejor. PPSP
acoge ensayos y artículos sobre los problemas creados por la actitud desenfrenada del
imperialismo estadounidense, el cual está amenazando la libertad de toda la población
mundial, incluyendo la sociedad civil de Estados Unidos
(Dr. Róbinson Rojas,
1ro. de mayo, 2003) |
Banco
de Datos RRojas:
La economía política del desarrollo
Creado y dirigido por Dr. Róbinson Rojas, este
sitio académico promueve excelencia en la enseñanza y la investigación de la economía
y del desarrollo, y en los procesos de descripción, comprensión, explicación y
teorización.
-
--Globalización----Pobreza
Desarrollo sustentable
Desarrollo
Termodinámica-Sociodinámica
Africa--Asia--América Latina China
Economia básica----
Imperialismo
Hegemonía estadounidense
Notas para la acción
-
Los crímenes de los generales chilenos
Chile----
Estos mataron a Allende
-
Artículos--Libros- Notas de curso
Estadísticas 1--
Estadísticas 2--
Calculadora
Búsqueda - Glosarios - Diccionarios-- Nosotros
-
Noticias-- Informes--Tópicos
-
DEDICATORIA:
BANCO DE DATOS RROJAS está dedicado a la
memoria de Salvador Allende, José Tohá, Victor Jara, Orlando Letelier, Carlos Prats, y
miles de otros ciudadanos chilenos y extranjeros asesinados por orden de Pinochet, Merino,
Leigh y Mendoza, los cuatro bandidos que atormentaron al pueblo chileno por casi veinte
años, en complicidad con las compañías transnacionales de Estados Unidos y terroristas
estatales como Henry Kissinger para servir las necesidades económicas y políticas de la
clase capitalista internacional.
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