Today is September 11th, 2013. This day marks important anniversaries all over the world. First, as an American today marks 12 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Secondly, as a current resident of Chile today marks 40 years since the military coup that ousted Salvador Allende and brought to power Augusto Pinochet. I would like to take this post to talk about the later, not to diminish the importance of the first, but the second is more relevant to my current situation.
I have now spent close to 7 months here in Chile, and as a result I have been able to gather (although still rather small) a general perspective and idea about the events that occurred today 40 years ago and the years that followed. As a country today Chile is still incredible divided by this period in time in their history and whether it was for the better or for the worse. As many people know or may not know, this dictatorship committed a series of human rights abuses. Although the scale on which these occurred and what was actually done is still debated. It is generally accepted, whether you agree with the coup or are/were against it, human rights were abused, and that many people died and suffered as a result. I have visited the sights where some these abuses were committed since I have been here, as well as the sights where many were buried, and the grave of Salvador Allende. All of which were quite moving and experiences I will never forget. As Americans we often know (and many times don't) about these type of events that have occurred around the world. But until you are able to get a first hand look and get opinions of people who were affected you will never truly begin to understand the situation. However, given as I said that these topics on some level are generally accepted I'm not going to spend too much time on them, however if anyone is interested in more information or what I think about them and more about my experiences please let me know as I am happy to share anything I can about them and my opinions.
What I would like to talk about is mainly how in general with any event or period of time, we need to look at both sides of the debate and issue. You can apply this the both the coup and dictatorship here and Chile and the the events surrounding September 11th in the US. I am NOT by any means justifying the loss of life or anything of sort regarding both events. I am completely opposed to any sort of extremism or the disregard for human life and human rights no matter the location. But as far as context and culture goes I think that we as Americans specifically but also as humans often fail to try and look at the whole picture. We let our opinions get into the way of having constructive debates and as a result we often never understand difficult situations. In addition to this even though these can be sensitive topics I think it is important to talk about them and out of respect for everyone involved on both sides and to not just turn our heads and pretend like they didn't happen.
To give everyone a little more context to what I am talking about specifically here in Chile regarding the coup and dictatorship, I would like to talk a little about the perspective I have gained since being here. First, before coming here to Chile I had heard about this time period in history, however I didn't know much beyond the general facts. But I have had the advantage to view things as an outsider and hear testimony from both sides of this debate, and since I am not Chilean I have been able to keep what I think is a fairly neutral stand point. First, as you can imagine I have heard from people who's families were affected by the human rights abuses and from people who think the dictator was horrible. But second a perspective I never would have gotten without coming is that of how life was before the coup. The economy was failing and there were abuses of power and actions against the constitution before the coup, and many people have talked about how life wasn't much better before the dictatorship. In regards to the bigger picture and what I stated earlier, my perspective of every event in the world has changed to incorporate the views of both sides. I have written a lot in this post and a lot of it is fairly general so again if anyone wants more details let me know.
But I would like to ask anyone who has made it this far through my post to; stop, pause and reflect on your view points, the view points of others, and to reflect on all of the problems in the world and whether or not you are actively trying to understand these situations.
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