Santiago, Chile

Our April trip to Chile was capped by a visit to the Centro section of the capital city. We toured The Moneda, the center of the government and delighted in all the street activity. Numerous street performers entertained the crowds on the many pedestrian-only thoroughfares of the downtown. "Los Portenos" played a variety of 'LatinoAmericano' folktunes and I purchased a CD to bring home. The strong vocal harmonies and multi-instrumental flavor distinguished them from some of the solo performers up the street.

We strolled through the park adjoining The Moneda, (where 35 years ago Allende was bombed and overthrown by the Pinochet-led military junta) past benches seemingly designated for lovers only, and through a 'Carabineros' fair---with booths set up to proudly display the services and skills of the various branches of the Chilean police.

Our photo-taking was crashed by two of the more animated Carabineros. They liked Beth OK, but I think I really made an impression.

It struck me that 35 years ago, Pinochet was poised to execute his plan for take over of the government and widespread torture of political enemies and, even 20 or 25 years ago, anti-American sentiment was more likely to be witnessed here. What happened in the years since?

Coincidentally, Jacob had recently given me a copy of Fareed Zakaria's "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad," and I encountered a number of references to Chile while reading it on our trip. Zakaria points out that although Chile was long ruled by an oppressive military junta, a number of factors led to its present-day government. Latin values such as strong families, religious values and determination (54), land reform and economic and political reform all contributed to this progress. "It is no accident that the one Latin American country that moved first and most strongly away from that tradition (the aristocratic order) and toward free markets and free trade is now its most successful economy and stable country: Chile." (74) Zakaria contrasts the successes of Chile, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia with the difficulties in Iraq as having less to do with democracy than the level of liberty, the rule of law and economic reforms achieved by the standing governments.

Our cab driver, Carlos, who had spent a couple years in Miami before returning to Chile, noted with some displeasure that the president of Chile, a woman named Michelle Bachelet, was a Socialist. But he still seemed to appreciate the distance Chile has come since their '9/11' in 1973.

We encountered one last entertainer before Carlos picked us up at our pre-arranged spot in the Plaza de Armas. Beth noted a character dressed in pink riding by on his bike and took a photo. This was an immediate sign that he had an audience and oh, did he perform! He stopped all sorts of traffic, built a crowd in the hundreds and used me as one of his straight men. At one point he literally 'threw himself under a bus.'

By the reaction of many of the local cab drivers, we could tell he was a regular in the Centro and they played along with his antics. Other drivers were not as cooperative and their anger and annoyance only served to give him more comic material to work with.

By the time we pulled out in our cab, our pink friend was standing on the passenger-side door frame, saluting the audience while wrapped in a banner featuring the Chilean colors: red, white and blue. I don't think I stopped laughing until I fell asleep on our overnight flight back to Dallas and the Northern Hemisphere.

Sometimes the greatest experiences in life occur in places where joy and sorrow intersect.

Isla Negra, Chile

Beth and I were guests of her brother Charlie for the April vacation week on the occasion of his wedding to Luz Maria in Villa Alhue, Chile. As an English teacher, I made sure to study some of Pablo Neruda's writing before the trip (my excuse for not learning any Spanish) and noted that one of Neruda's three homes was in Isla Negra, a coastal town not far from Charlie's.



Isla Negra was Neruda's retreat from the city (he had homes in Santiago, the capital and Valparaiso, the major port) and he wrote his Memoirs there, late in his life. The home is now maintained by the Neruda Foundation: http://www.fundacionneruda.org/home.htm

His description is best:

In my house I have put together a collection of small and large toys I can’t live without. The child who doesn’t play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and he will certainly miss him. I have also built my house like a toy house and I play in it from morning till night.
These are my own toys. I have collected them all my life for the scientific purpose of amusing myself alone. (MEMOIRS, page 269)

Our tour was more of a museum than of solely visiting a great writer's home. His collections of ship figureheads, ships-in-bottles, colored glass, insects, seashells, and art reflected his travels and foreign service all over the world. These were all housed in his home, self-designed and built to imitate a sailing ship, and his office, a train.

The vista of the Pacific Ocean, even on a cloudy day, was beautiful and surely inspired his writing, although he was prolific and never lacked for inspiration no matter where he was. His love of Chile was certainly nurtured there and although the times were turbulent, he spoke with great optimism of his hope for humanity:

I want to live in a world where no one is excommunicated. I will not excommunicate anybody. I would not tell that priest tomorrow: “You can’t baptize So-and-So, because you are an anti-Communist.” I would not tell another priest: “I will not publish your poem, your creation, because you’re an anti-Communist.” I want to live in a world where beings are only human, with no other title but that, without worrying their heads about a rule, a word, a label. I want people to be able to go into all the churches, to all the printing presses. I don’t want anyone to ever again wait at the Mayor’s office door to arrest or deport someone else. I want everyone to go in and out of City Hall smiling. I don’t want anyone to flee in a gondola or be chased on a motorcycle. I want the great majority, the only majority, everyone, to be able to speak out, read, listen, thrive. I have never understood the struggle except as something to end all struggle. I have never understood hard measures except as something to end hard measures. I have taken a road because I believe that road leads us all to lasting brotherhood. I am fighting for that ubiquitous, widespread, inexhaustible goodness. After all the run-ins between my poetry and the police, after all these episodes and others I will not mention because they sound repetitious, and in spite of other things that did not happen to me but to many who cannot tell them any more, I still have absolute faith in human destiny, a clearer and clearer conviction that we are approaching a great common tenderness. I write knowing that the danger of the bomb hangs over all our heads, a nuclear catastrophe that would leave no one, nothing on this earth. Well, that does not alter my hope. At this critical moment, in this flicker of anguish, we know that the true light will enter those eyes that are vigilant. We shall all understand one another. We shall advance together. And this hope cannot be crushed. MEMOIRS, pages 227-8.

As an American, conditioned as we were in the 60s and 70s to consider Communists as the enemy, I came away transformed in my thinking. That this sensitive and extraordinary writier was a Communist seemed incongruous at first, but having read his Memoirs (which I highly recommend, especially for those of the baby-boomer generation), I'm more determined than ever to reject divisive, polarizing writing or politics of any kind.

While I have yet to appreciate the breadth of his poetry, a few of his poems have resonated with me. One in particular, dedicated to Chile, makes me ponder the future of my own country:

INSOMIA

In the middle of the night I ask myself,
what will happen to Chile?
What will become of my poor, dark country?

From loving this long, thin ship so much,
these stones, these little farms,
the durable rose of the coast
that lives among the foam,
I become one with my country.
I met every one of its sons
and in me the seasons succeeded one another,
weeping or flowering.

I feel that now,
with the dead year of doubt scarcely over,
now that the mistakes which bled us all
are over and we begin to plan again
a better and juster life,
the menace once again appears
and on the walls a rising rancor.

Essential Neruda, page 179

Neruda died in 1973 of cancer, within weeks of Chile's 9/11, the bombing of Salvador Allende in The Moneda, the Presidential Palace, in Santiago, in the Pinochet coup d'etat backed by the United States. Neruda had a close relationship with Allende and the sadness at his overthrow is evident in the last words of his Memoirs.

For more on the coup see: Chile's 9/11