There are bone fragments. Sometimes teeth. Maybe a metal button from a scrap of clothing. A lot of this sits in boxes in office buildings in Santiago. Some, the few that have been identified, are buried in gravesites or treasured as memorials by family members. But most people have nothing. I’m talking about the disappeared […]
or What People Missed While Glued to #OceanGate This was certainly not in the list of things I had intended to write about. Words like “submersible” and #OceanGate and “catastrophic implosion” being nowhere near my most used on any given day. And actually, that’s not really what I’m going to write about. I’m going to […]
Well, it did not come to pass. The circle hasn’t been fully closed, Allende’s dying promise has not finally come true. Chile’s proposed constitution failed. And failed big. It wasn’t actually a surprise that it failed since recent polls had increasingly showed discontent on behalf of the public. But the wide margin is surprising — […]
On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 1973, Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende Gossens addressed the people of his nation by radio one final time. His country’s rightwing military had launched a coup d’etat that morning and the presidential palace was under attack. Allende knew his options were limited. The coup’s leaders offered him […]
They believed their democracy would stand. And then it fell. On June 29, 1973, army tanks rolled down the wide avenues of Santiago de Chile. It was a Monday morning, just after 9, and the streets and sidewalks of the capital city were full of people on their way to work and school. A rogue […]
Part Two of a Two-Part Series Again, as I said in Part One: I’m not calling any of you dummies. If you need the basic background of the uprising that has spread across Chile for the past ten weeks, read this first. Know that neither of these pieces is an exhaustive look at every single aspect […]
Part One of a Two-Part Series Listen, I’m not calling any of you dummies. In fact, if you’re here, you’re likely pretty informed citizens. But there are a lot of conflicts going on across the globe and they’re not all covered extensively — or accurately — by the traditional media. I happen to have some […]
“It’s now or never.” That’s how 28-year old Santiago resident Josefina Cardenas describes the current opportunity Chileans have to change their country. Cardenas is no stranger to political conflict, having begun protesting at age 14 when she and her high school classmates were involved in several unsuccessful attempts to address the poor quality of state-sponsored […]