Today is the centennial of the birth of Salvador Allende. I wonder what he would think of this country if he were alive today. The dictatorship is over and Chile is a liberal democracy, but the country lacks a social vision.
Chile is a prosperous country, but the wealth gap is the largest in Latin America. You don't see the kind of poverty that you see in other parts of Latin America, and there are virtually no homeless people in Santiago, but that doesn't mean that life is easy for poor people here. Classism is omnipresent and polarizing. Education and literacy are compulsory and universal, but a good education is very expensive and it's nearly impossible to climb the social ladder to greater opportunities without it. Health care is universal and very good for a developing country, but it can also be expensive. Chile is at peace with its neighbors and the world. The labor movement is very weak, but worker safety protections are strong and women have the right to up to a year of paid maternity leave. On the other hand, women can't have abortions and contraceptives are very difficult to come by. The Catholic Church and Opus Dei have a great deal of power. Racism against Bolivian and Peruvian migrant workers and the Mapuche is commonplace. And there is a great deal of internalized, unconscious racism: Chileans tend to think of themselves as Europeans living in South America, rather than as descendents of both the Europeans and the Mapuches. Foreigners control most of the important resources, including water and the mines. Utilities and communications are outrageously expensive (and transportation is moderately expensive); the cost of living is high. Progress is impeded by the Pinochetista constitution and legislators, and Chile can feel stagnant. Twenty years of authoritarianism, disappearances and torture focused the Chilean left singularly on ending the dictatorship, but afterwards they were in complete disarray. Many key figures were co-opted by the government following the transition to democracy, leaving the left without strong leadership or organization. Only now are they beginning to rebuild.
And why? The simple fact of the matter is that Salvador Allende's democratic socialist revolution threatened the United States exactly because it was a democratic socialist revolution. It's easy to dismiss the horrific excesses of Stalinist Russia or Mao's Cultural Revolution. And though in no way comparable to Russia or China, Cuba loses credibility by failing to hold democratic elections and inhibiting freedom of speech. But what if the world could witness the rise of socialism in a democracy, without violence or repression, with full public participation? Wouldn't that be the greatest threat of all to neoliberal capitalism? Of course, Henry Kissinger, et al. thought so.
They sent money and supplies to help Pinochet bomb the presidential palace and seize control of the country. I walk by La Moneda (the presidential palace) every day when I go to work. It's since been rebuilt, of course. But it's incredible to think that on that September day in 1973 war planes flew overhead and destroyed the symbol of Chilean democracy. That was us. That was our government. We did it, just like we did with Mossadegh, the democratically elected socialist leader of Iran, in the 1950s (and look how that turned out). To you reading this, Chile may seem like just another third world country. But like every country in the world, it's full of real people whose lives are just as real as your life, whose families are just as real as your family, whose dreams and ideals and aspirations are just as real as yours. We all bear the responsibility for the actions of government. We are all responsible for Iraq, just as we were all responsible for Chile. When will we stop kidding ourselves that we are the "policemen" of the world, and wake up to the fact that we are undetakers.
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