Oh the days of totalitarian military control...

So my host dad worked for the government during the military dictatorship. Well actually, he worked in the same government job under Allende, then Pinochet, then for another few years in the democracy after the end of the dictatorship. And according to him, yeah, Pinochet had some issues with human rights, but it was only the poor people who died. No joke. Oh, and all the political dissidents just got exiled, not killed. He says working under Allende sucked because everyone walked around with guns, but that under Pinochet, there was much less corruption, and better working conditions. Today he says the whole government is all about stealing, and while there may be some truth to that, Chile has the least corrupt government in Latin America. Also, apparently Chile under Pinochet was a utopian society where everyone who worked hard was rewarded with promotions and more money, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation. And the neoliberal policies instituted under the Pinochet regime along with the policy changes that keep the current government from changing much are the best thing ever. True, Chile has a good economy right now, but it is also locked into an economic policy it cannot free itself from, and that could eventually strangle it. Of course, my host dad is also a Bush supporter and fan of his foreign policy and all around enamored of the United States and our neoliberal economics. He wants the United States to make Chile just a satellite country that happens to speak a different language. The only way for Chile to develop is if outsiders come in and do it for them, preferably Americans, but he wouldn’t say no to Europeans. Yeah sure, it may screw over some people, but they’re mostly just the poor ones so it doesn’t matter.

Chile’s political climate with respect to the military dictatorship and the current Bachelet government is really weird. Talking about politics is generally a no-no, because the country is still divided over Pinochet. As in, a lot of people look back on those years as ‘the good old days’ and see nothing good coming from the current left-of-center government. Also, there are both the tortured and the torturers walking around on the streets in Santiago. There is no really large effort to address the human rights violations here like there are in other countries. Chile is not like Argentina, where the whole country generally agrees that there were human rights violations during the dictatorship and these need to be unearthed and discussed. In Chile, yes there are movements for discovering the truth, but there is no national drive to look at the events of the dictatorship. The country is fractured over Pinochet, and no one talks about it. Also the fact that the country has a female president is apparently just a big practical joke on the part of the youth here. Voting is mandatory, so the youth, disillusioned with politics, decided to elect a woman. So no one likes her, and everyone is sick of the current coalition that’s been in power for the last 15 years or so. It’s looking like they might switch over and elect people from the more conservative party in the next election.

So that’s my rant on politics in Chile, hope you enjoyed. I have to say, I’m a little freaked out to live with my host dad who was clearly a supporter of the military government. Freaked out more in ‘oh my gosh these people do actually exist’ rather than actually feeling uncomfortable. So now I feel like I’ve been given a very interesting opportunity to observe someone with a completely different world outlook. I’ve lived all my life in liberal places with little or no contact with seriously different political views. Because when I say conservative here, I’m not talking like a republican. I’m talking like as far right as you can go. Republicans and democrats are really not radically different, especially in comparison with the extreme political parties of other countries. So I suppose I’ll take advantage of this glimpse inside a completely foreign political mind.