Hidden Depths

As you would expect with a country so long (2,700miles – the distance from Edinburgh to Baghdad) and so thin (150 miles – the distance from Whitby to Birmingham), there are hidden depths. These are sometimes revealed in a physical way (as when the volcano in Chaitén blew its top recently). It´s also noticeable on the buses. Simmering beneath the skin of every bus driver whacking up and down the great main drag of Santiago, known as the Alameda/ Providencia/ Apoquindo, depending on where you are, in their smart fleet of eco-friendly regulated buses, is the raging heart of a once unregulated racing bus driver. They drove their bone-shakers like chariots, with doors open, picked up (or not) whoever they fancied, drove any old how and disgorged passengers wherever they liked. What is the pent-up fury, that explodes whenever there´s a clear 3 metres of road, all about? (It can´t be that they all long for the good old days because deregulation didn´t mean job security or decent wages).

Santiago commuters face incredible temperatures on the sparkling metro (those who keep one step ahead of unemployment polish the metal bolts on the hand rails), and during rush hours, face sardine-packed buses driven by the aforementioned furies. Into this explosive mix, add icecream sellers, beggars who declaim the rights of all people not to be beggars better than any politician I´ve heard, plus often fantastic musicians, who wedge themselves and their instruments between sardines and the bucking bronco bus floor. Recipe for a commuter revolution? Or at least a posse of gobby schoolgirls loudly complaining? Absolutely not. Future mamas and the infirm unfailingly get offered seats, even 50 year old gringas benefit from a courtesy that is reminiscent of England in the 1960s. How does this acceptance square with the bus drivers’ ill-concealed rage?

Most days I´ll take a bus into town. As the driver swerves round the one way system I pass the pleasant looking Military Hospital. I was born in a military hospital, my father worked in one all his life, for me they are just ordinary places. This one tortured people under Pinochet. Santiago´s full of places like that, innocuous looking front doors, behind which Hell existed. Or you can catch a bus out to Peñalolén, a working class area at the foot of the Andes with spectacular views, and the lovely villa Grimaldi, one of Santiago´s most brutal detention centres. President Michelle Bachlelet and her mother were both tortured here. Pinochet ordered the buildings to be razed to the ground just before the return of civilian rule, and now it has been transformed into a peace park, Parque por la Paz. But for a national monument, it´s very low key. Over 5000 people were tortured here, more than 200 died, yet more disappeared, and yes, their names are movingly recorded on a great slab of rock, and in other ways. But it feels as though, after the beautiful memorial roses were planted and the gate through which the detainees were dragged was permanently locked (never again to be opened “nunca mas”), that the park´s creators held their collective breath and looked over their shoulders to check that Chileans of all political hues cold bear this tiptoe into the past.

Rage and courtesy; past brutality lurking beneath pleasant exteriors – the answers to these contradictions must, at least in part, be the responsibility of the 19 year long military dictatorship. And although it´s a long time since the coup, and compensation has been paid to affected families, and political refugees are given help on their return, justice has not been done on a large scale. Pinochet got away with it. Torturers walk free and have good jobs as accountants; that might silence a commuter.

So, I´m not sure how well the wounds inflicted by the dictatorship are healing. I think they are held within a delicate balance of wanting to forget and needing to remember.

And Hidden Dangers

In a country where many find it difficult to talk about politics, singing seems to do the job instead. So explains Natasha Young the journalist in the weekend review of the Santiago Times in a piece about a young popular folk musician here called Manuel Garcia. She writes
“The anthems of Cuba’s Nueva Trova and Chile’s own Nueva Cancíon movements (both meaning "New Song") are in the blood of most left-wing Chileans, and as García and friends switched between his own songs and those of folk heroes Victor Jara, Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés, the audience sang along with one voice."

Take a look at myspace.com/manuelgarciaepanico

Angelo Pierattini a Chilean Rock artist talks about cultural imperialism to Adam Fuller again of the Santiago Times.

¨Art is often viewed as communist,” Pierattini said. “There was great music being made in Chile by artists like Victor Jara. But when Pinochet came to power, they destroyed almost all of it, sending the Chilean music and art scene underground. Foreign groups were popularized in efforts to boost the economy, which created the image that everything outside of Chile is good and everything from Chile is bad…."“This kind of musical anti-patriotism is unique to Chile in comparison to its Latin American brethren. In Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Brazil – they have a great history of music and culture and they respect their artists…”

But, things are changing.

“We’re forming groups from our own country and producing new Chilean music. We’re not dead. More people are coming to shows and it’s spreading.”

There is definitely a sense that something is changing. We´ve met people who want to talk about the past. However. as mentioned before, what holds them back is the long running debate about remembering or forgetting.

“It is better to remain quiet and to forget. That is the only thing we must do. We must forget. And that won't happen if we continue opening up lawsuits, sending people to jail. FOR-GET: That's the word. And for that to happen, both sides must forget and continue with their work."
(Former General Augusto Pinochet, September 13 1995,two days after the 22nd anniversary of the military coup)

However the statement from the Derechos Chile group (a human rights group in Chile) counteracts that position nicely:

“If there is a call to forget, then it must be because many still remember.”

And the comment from Michelle Bachelet herself, that as a doctor she knows the power of healing but before healing can begin, the wound has to be cleaned thoroughly.
However is the need to heal and reflect on the past going to be possible, at a time when Chile appears to be the actor cast in the leading role for the next economic recovery block buster?

I refer to the sudden interest in things Chilean from the USA and the UK. You remember we wrote before about the visit of Charles and Camilla a couple of weeks ago. Lo and behold 2 weeks ago we had Vice President Jo Biden and Gordon Brown here pre the G20 summit in London.

Watch out Chile. It´s not so many years ago they were promoting the new economic phenomenon “The Celtic Tiger” in Ireland - and look at the disaster there today with the economy on its knees because of unsustainable economic growth which we now know was only ever built on credit.

Here in Chile, everywhere there are offers of credit, credit, credit and older parents are shocked at the spending of their children. They can´t understand how they can afford trainers at 62,000 pesos when many live on a weekly wage of 100,000 pesos (120 pounds sterling).
They can´t relate to a new world where their offspring are paying for the weekly food shop on credit cards! They are worried about where it all might lead…

These were our impressions of Chile´s difficult past two weeks ago; but things keep changing as we meet different people and have different experiences. And in case you think we spend all our time grappling with Chile´s hidden depths, our next blog will transport you to the stars and beyond with a few frolicking dolphins along the way!