El cemeterio (august)

Alright, so I have not been diligent in keeping my blog up to date. A grand apology to those who actually read this (since I have only posted twice I would not be surprised or offended if people have stopped checking in).

On a Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, my friend Pauline and I decided to go to the General Cemetery of Santiago. The place is huge. I would guess it is at least a square mile, and it is packed with graves. Hundreds of buildings, two stories high with a basement level as well, serve as mausoleums to the majority of the deceased. Graves and tombs line the streets of the macabre town and one is surrounded by the family members of the departed who gather to decorate the graves for birthdays or other holidays. You can see the social stratification that exists in life, continued in death, with the variation of grave types. Just like the different comunas of Santiago, the sections of the graveyard are distinct, and range from simple whitewashed wooden crosses, to gigantic temples with security systems.

I am always surprised at the amount of life that a person finds in Latin American cemeteries. There are always family members cleaning the gravesites and fresh flowers and cards that decorate old headstones. In the US, once you're put underground, or scattered in your favorite meditation spot, you mostly disappear. You are remembered quietly in personal prayers and in family stories. Not that there is anything wrong with this tradition, I simply enjoy the thought that one maintains a place in the family even after death in Latin America.

The highlight of our trip was the discovery of Salvador Allende’s final resting place. (He was first buried on the coast in an unmarked grave and was not relocated until after Pinochet’s fall from power in 1990) He is interred under a post-modern, Isengeard style, monument in amidst of gothic and neo-classical architecture in the most affluent neighborhood of the cemetery. After seeing the thousands of names listed on the memorial to the victims of Augosto Pinochet’s military regime, coming across Chile’s radical communist leader was an intense experience. Both of these sites were powerful reminders of the political violence that defined Chile's transition from a socialist democracy to a dictatorship that lasted almost 30 years. Over 3000 people disappeared, were tortured, or are known to have been executed by Pinochet forces.

What struck me most in this experience was the response that I got from my host mom when I brought the conversation home. The next day,I casually brought up the fact that I had been to see Allende's grave, not looking for anything other than small talk. Turns out, Tuty is a conservative. She comes from the south which is the agricultural center of the country, and was forced to abandon her family grocery business when Allende collectivized food distribution. She also saw hardworking family and friends being kicked off of their farms as a result of the land redistribution policy that Allende put into place during his term in office. Tuty’s highly patriotic, strictly catholic family was forced to sell produce and meat on the black market in order to make a living. She says it essentially ruined her husband’s mental health to live in such a disgraceful state.

But I still cannot validate her choice in words when she said, “I know that the military may have stepped a little bit over the line on the way to re-shaping the country, but things could not go on the way they were…” She went on to add that she cannot believe people are still angry at the Chiliean military for things that were done such a long time ago. She insists that “they need to get over it.”

Tuty, 3000 people died!! Think about how many family members and friends were devastated and emotionally damaged because of these deaths. There is no way that the unorganized generation of artists, musicians, teachers, and students who were targeted could have overthrown the military, why so paranoid?? From here one encounters the eternal question of, “how could the Chilean people have let this happen?” How could the US be so caught up in our anti-communist rampage that we could fund this?

I am glad that I chose to study abroad here because there are so many opportunities to look at the intersection of politics and personal lives. The country is still recovering from the psychological damage that was wreaked on its population during the second half of the 20^th century. There are still violent riots in the streets on the anniversary of the military coup of 1973 and the country is still divided by allegiances to dead political leaders.

Chile is one of the most developed countries in the world and maintains wounds that were inflicted 30 years ago. What can this say about the recovery process for other countries with fewer resources that have suffered similar or worse atrocities? Is it possible to move on? What does that even mean?

This is Chile getting into my head.