My Chilean family was so normal. Take out the sharp fence surrounding their property, switch English for Spanish, leave in the snow-capped Andes nearby and we could have been in Colorado. But week one into a four-month stay a proud revelation at the dinner table was startling: "Pinochet is a good man."
Swallowing some lentejas, I realized I would have to tolerate living with people that cheered democracy's disappearance for 17 years. That was how long the military regime, led by General Pinochet, lasted between 1973 and 1990. It vexed me how values could be so perverted.
Dictatorship was an acceptable substitute as long as it brought material prosperity to Chileans.Economic priorities have trumped political -- and with it ethical -- priorities.
As American flags began to burn, anti-war protests paralyzed downtown Santiago and "Bush Invades Iraq" headlines screamed across the news kiosks, I began to see how even democracy has its own misguided priorities.
"Chileans don't carry guns. They're a law-abiding people," I would think while riding Santiago's subway. The ultra-modern infrastructure in the capital (albeit seen 13 years after the restoration of democracy) contrasted with my image of the decaying fiefdom of the typical tyranny. Forty-three percent of Chileans voted "yes" for Pinochet to continue ruling during the 1989 plebiscite, and fourteen years later supporters of the authoritarian rule remain unabashed. How?
Shopping malls abounded, supermarket aisles were full, and rotos (lower class members) were out of power during the dictatorship. New malls had helped justify then-overlooked torture. That became my explanation while my friend Javiera's mom lauded the business-friendly policies of the dictatorship on our way to the neighborhood Home Depot. Economic choice reigned over political freedom for most upper-middle class types like Señora Sanhueza. For her and others, repression and a lack of democracy were the prices to be paid for modernization.
"Fifty-eight civilians killed in Baghdad market by U.S. airstrikes," the newspapers and their gruesome images continued to scream.Like the Chilean protesters' placard asked, "How many dead children does a barrel of oil cost?"
I would return from visiting a former torture center with a scarred torture victim, only to be reminded in response by what percentage the Chilean peso had inflated under the last democratic government before the military overthrew it and President Salvador Allende. Macroeconomic mismanagement could justify the human rights violations.
"Bush's approval ratings fall on weak economy while support for war continues steady," the headlines did sigh, while the hundreds continued to die.Maybe latino eyes might not be the only ones to look farther than wallets.
If latinos could only become more North American, dictators would vanish, the conventional wisdom believed. The Cerdas, my very friendly host family, have Internet connections in their bedrooms, have gone to New York for entertainment, eat hot dogs for dinner and drive two station wagons. Sophistication through modernity is supposed to enlighten citizens so they value democracy more. So I thought.
In Chile the opposite is true: the more globalized a Chilean is, generally speaking, the more inclined he is to dismiss torture claims as "exaggerations" while extolling the economic growth of Pinochet's government (though extremely poorly distributed).
Support for the dictatorship among the middle class reached a majority during its first nine years -- which included the most sinister, arbitrary killings and disappearances -- until a severe recession rattled the economy in 1982.
It waned not because of a sudden revulsion against torture but instead from a weakening economy, in the view of historian Tina Rosenberg.The thrill of a new, imported television helped many Chileans to overlook the disappearances of thousands that the state-controlled television news wouldn't show them.
In my own country seen from below, suffering happening in Iraq seemed to be less of a concern than the day's close of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Across the Andes Mountains, history proved the converse of this ignoring-bloodshed-for-money trend. The majority of Argentines and Brazilians see their past dictatorships as stains not so much for the rampant human rights abuses but instead because of these military regimes' failure to bring sustained economic growth. During the last week of my sojourn in August, Argentina's police was busy arresting former military officers for past crimes while Pinochet was on hand himself to inaugurate the new Mercedes dealership in Santiago.
Upon returning to "gringolandia" (a.k.a. the United States), I began to see the power of money in shaping political stances even among my own compatriots. The Iraqi war's ostensible motivation was for economic fuel. All public opinion polls show "the economy" as the paramount concern in deciding for which presidential candidate to vote.
Millennia ago even Sophocles, through his characters, observed, "Money! Nothing worse in our lives, rampant, so corrupting. Money -- you twist good minds and set them on to the most atrocious schemes." Around the world it is now normal to let self-interest limit morality.
(Brandon Possin is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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