Although I acknowledged that we are going to visit the memorial museum, called “Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos” in Spanish, in Santiago, I did not expect to stay more than three hours in the museum and receive such large amount of intense information all together. There is no pictures of the inside the museum with this blog because of the no-picture policy to protect those victims who suffered in the war. Political wars are continuing not only in Chile, but also at many areas around the world, and even recent years, internal conflicts between parties still exist. It is possible that the ideal purpose of the conflict is to provide a better social structures, economics, and living styles to their people, but in reality there are always different opinions about how to improve, strategies used in one place may not always efficient in another place, and there is no perfect solution which can meet every citizen’s desire. Therefore, in my personal opinion, if the system of a country is expected to be improved and reformed, political conflicts or maybe even wars are acceptable or may be necessary though country’s development history.
However, I also find it interesting that the reactions to this event, many Chilean people are very passionate about this, on the other side, many Chilean people feel if they have a good life now, whatever happened already happened. It is important to let more people know and remember a human rights event which influenced most Chilean people’s life, but it is also necessary to look at the event a more positive way. (Even though I understand it may be impossible).
I saw and experienced from the museum that higher class people were supported the coup because they have different political thoughts and citizens were fighting for their necessities, such as food and cloth. I related my experiences at the museum to the content with the book The Shock Doctrine written by Naomi Klein. In his third chapter, “States of Shock – The bloody birth of counterrevolution,” the author states that September 11, 1973 was Allende’s partial peaceful socialist revolution, but the beginning of Pinochet’s counterrevolution at the economic aides. The group of economists who were trained by the economics department of the University of Chicago returned to Latin America, especially Chile, to spread their knowledge from the United States to help Chile become a stronger country. Economists who returned from Chicago and economists from the economics department at the Catholic University of Chile described themselves as “The Chicago Boys”. New ideas and new theories are discovered in more developed countries in 1970s, which leads the gap of economic knowledge and social structure between developing and developed countries. The political conflict in Chile was affected by the economic issues brought up from the United States. The Chicago boys and the ideological “theory” about the invisible hands in market resulted in increases in unemployment rates and inflation rates in Chile and other South American countries, and many citizens were suffered under shortage of basic needs. The unsuccessful economic acts caused sharp conflicts among people and parties, and they also created greater economic inequalities.
Moreover, I relate my visit to this museum to the book House of the Spirit, which is written by Chilean author Isabel Allende about the class clarification in Chile. In chapter five — The Lovers and chapter eleven — The Awakening, both Blanca and Alba are not allowed to fall in love with Pedro Garcia and Miguel because they are at different class level. The purpose of Esteban maybe is protecting them, and trying to give his daughter and granddaughter more comfortable lives in the future, it shows that Chile was very class conscious. People may have the thoughts that it is their life to work for higher class because it is very possible that maybe several family generations served for higher class’s families. The understanding of rights was not clear in people’s mind or they had never felt that the class gaps were wrong. Therefore, many new ideas came in from the U.S. and Europe may not fit the cultural situation and Chilean background, but the lack of knowledge and experience let Chilean government make the change.
From my life experience, I have learned many history events about how different countries or regions struggled and suffered under terrible condition, I kind of understand about why this Chilean war was not well-known by the rest of the world and I feel that sometimes history can teach people more than definitions in the book. Therefore, even I felt the sadness and the shock feeling of first looking at the stories, news, and evidences of people’s deaths, I also had the feeling that this disaster gives Chilean people a shock, which pushed Chile to change, to develop, and to improve. I do not know if it is a good example, but it let me think about the Opium war and the Chinese and Japanese war happened several decades ago. If a country is not developed enough, it will not be strong enough to protect itself from the stronger countries conquest.