"Asi Me Gusta Chile"

CHILE! My other ‘home’ through the 90’s:

Amazing, for me, really - since I grew up in a family that didn't much like anything 'Spanish' ... tied to my parents' attachments to the "International Brigade" (they knew Dr. Norman Bethune) and the failed struggle against the Fascists of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War of the 30's. Veterans of Canada's contingent in the International Brigade were a disillusioned lot - Hitler and Mussolini were wiped out by the ensuing war but Franco lived on - until 1975 - and his brand of fascism affected many South American regimes.

There seemed to be a cultural 'wall' between Northern and Southern Europe dating back to the wars & the 'Armada', perhaps - and the same was true in the Americas - with a "muralla entre las dos Americas” - along the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande, to us). When I grew up, Spanish America was as remote to Canada as Africa, it seemed - and what we knew about it was primarily related to one dictator or another; yet another 'coup'; or our regarding Latin America as a series of convenient 'banana republics'. ("Open Veins of Latin America" by Eduardo Galeano should be taught in the schools of both Americas!)

During the 70's I'd visited Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela through work a few times - and always was uncomfortable in Latin America - with its 'great divide' between the "tienes y no-tienes" (haves and have-nots). I was vaguely aware that the Southern Cone was a little different - more European perhaps, and that Chile was more progressive in terms of education, literacy, stable quasi-democratic government and an active labour movement.

But most of us were unaware of this quiet, competent and beautiful country in the shadow of the Andes - and how it was so different from most Americans' and Canadians' view of South America.

At some level in places like the US copper industry and government agencies, Chile was better known, but most of us knew little about this 'linear' country - a vertical 'linearity' relative to Canada's 'horizontal' linear expanse.

Chilean students whom I spoke to in the 90's were surprised when I told them that we were similar geographically, in that we had a 'cordillera of cold weather’ that defined our northern populated areas and caused about 90% of us to live within 150 miles of the US border. The map of the populated area of Canada is very similar to the map of Chile - only lying on its side.

We didn't know much about this progressive oasis in South America, with its large 'middle-class' and relatively 'liberal democracy' - it's wide literacy, its labour movements and its politics. But we did wonder at this small country's revered place in 20th century literary circles. Who could miss the impact of Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda? Two Nobel Prizes in Literature from the land of Mar y Cordillera - Mistral in 1945 and Neruda in 1971.

But, all that changed - beginning in 1970 - when the first elected Marxist/Socialist government came to power with Salvador Allende - a fascinating (& eventually unsuccessful) 'social experiment' that captured the imaginations of so many young ‘60s idealists in Europe and the Americas. The 'New Songs' of Violetta Parra and Victor Jara began to be heard in folk-music festivals around the world. It was music with a message that shook Nixon and Kissinger - and companies like ITT, Anaconda and Kennecott. Young Americans, like Charles Horman and his wife, went to witness the 'Chilean Road to Socialism' - and the Costa-Gravas film "Missing" (1982) taught us more about those terrible events during and after the coup which brought General Pinochet to power.

The real international attention to Chile began after the coup in 1973, of course. The comment was made that 'caudillos' couldn't survive in Chile - and that, surely, this dictatorship would only last for two or three years at the most. Well, it lasted for 17 years. And so, Chile became known - more for its coup and following dictatorship than for its civilized and distinguished people and their history. Through the next few years, tens of thousands of Chilean exiles found their way to Canada, Sweden and Australia - "unintended immigrants" who planned to stay with us for only a few years. But time went by - they had children born in exile - and most are with us still.

Working in Seattle, during the 70’s, I had an office near the company's chairman - whose mother, a widow in her late 60's, had re-married John McCone - the former head of the CIA prior to the Nixon/Kissinger days - when the USA helped overthrow the elected Allende government in Chile. McCone officed in our building after his retirement from the CIA, and he and I would occasionally have coffee together and I came to learn about yet another South American nation that, after some 140 years of constitutional democracy (albeit 'wealthy-Spanish-family-dominated'), went down the drain to dictatorship - when General Pinochet became dictator in 1973 (with the help of yet another bunch of right-wing Americans). John was an interesting man from a ‘more-innocent’ era of the CIA - and we certainly saw things differently, even though I enjoyed hearing about his perspectives on the Allende/Pinochet days.

So, once again, I lost interest in the seeming mess of our Southern neighbors.In 1981, when I returned from Seattle to settle in Vancouver and work for an international engineering consulting firm, the company was busy building paper mills in many countries. But Simons Engineering hadn't been allowed to work in Chile for some years - partly because the unions in BC would shut us down in the post-coup 70's if we worked there, and partly because the owner/CEO was a principled guy - and a little 'leftish', despite his wealth. When that policy was relaxed in the early-80's, I was asked to go down there on some consulting assignments - and I always refused. Not for me, the Chile of Augusto Pinochet.

However, in 1986, while in Melbourne on a job, I was asked to 'stop in' in Chile on my way home - since I was in the Southern Hemisphere anyway and since Simons had just accepted a project down there. I laughed at Tom Simons and told him I would 'meet him there' - knowing that he was a bigger bleeding-heart-liberal than I was and that NO, I would not be going to Chile – anymore than he would. The next day, by coincidence, I bumped into an Amnesty International demonstration in the city centre in Melbourne - the focus of which was Chile! I wasn't aware at the time that Australia, particularly Melbourne, was the home of 20,000 Chilean 'exiles' - who had moved there after the 1973 'golpe' (coup) when Pinochet had ousted Allende. Interestingly the coup took place on September 11th - another cursed "9/11".

("Once de Septiembre" pre-dates New York’s "9/11" by 28 years - and had been just as bloody. Over the years following the coup, some 4000 Chileans were killed or 'disappeared' by the Pinochet regime - and around 200,000 more became 'exiles' in Australia, Sweden, Canada and other countries. Since 1990 and the 'return to democracy', Chile has erased most of the misery of those days and has returned to being the "England" (or Canada) of South America.
The years 1973-1989 were an anomaly in a country that had a respected constitutional democracy for about 130 years before 1973. It had been a Spanish colony with strong English and German influences (19th century immigration – not post WW-2). Interestingly, their 'George Washington' or first President was the "Libertador" Bernardo O'Higgins - the son of an Irishman from County Meath. There were three major Liberators who threw out the Spanish in the early 1800's - Bolivar of Colombia and Venezuela; San Martin of Argentina; and O'Higgins of Chile.)

The usual liberal Amnesty International speakers at the Melbourne rally were giving presentations – so I stopped to listen. One of the presenters was a 20-year-old engineering student from Santiago who had been arrested and knocked around by Pinochet’s goons after a student demonstration. Antonio ran away to Australia and had arrived in Melbourne a few months before – and was asked to tell his story at the rally. Here I was, a Canadian in Australia listening to a Chilean kid speaking in Spanish, being translated by a student from Ireland. He told a story of the shock and sadness of finding himself in a strange land, far from friends and family and exiled from his beloved Chile. Through his moving words, I discovered the beauty of Chile – in Australia, of all places.

We became friends and Antonio and his fiancée, Claudia, ‘adopted’ me as their Gringo uncle - eventually coming to Canada to live with us for a while. Thus my introduction to Chile began. They became part of my 'extended family' and I went with them for my first trip to Chile a few months after the 'plebiscito' in 1988. And I fell in love with Chile - even in those dark, but hopeful days. I returned for the election in 1989, became involved, and was invited by President Aylwin to attend his Inauguration in 1990.

Eventually I opened an office in Santiago and lived there for 3 or 4 months every year throughout the 90's. On the side, I became involved with 32 kids - boys and girls from 3 to 18 - who lived in a Hogar (group home) in Santiago. A 14 yr old boy, Patricio, became my 'hijo adoptivo' - my 'adopted southern son'. Pato is now married and living with his wife and two children in Santiago. His son is named Tomas – as is the son of Antonio and Claudia. So now there are two little Toms growing up in my southern home.

So, Chile is something I know much more about than most North Americans. I have been there 24 times! My proudest moment was when I was nominated by Pres. Patricio Aylwin in 1995 to become a "Comendador de La Orden de Bernardo O'Higgins" - so now I am partly Chileno too. I guess that happened because of my avocational work with various kid-related initiatives down there, with the Chilean community in Canada and for setting up a funded student exchange program between Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and the Universidad de Concepcion in Chile.

Chileans became known in many corners of the world because they came to live with us. Wonderful groups of musicians began to tour the Chilean communities in Vancouver, Seattle, Winnipeg, Montreal, Melbourne and Stockholm - and many other cities who were fortunate enough to have large Chilean communities. Illapu and Inti Illimani, themselves exiled, told the story and bolstered the hopes of Chileans all over the world - and the rest of us began to understand a new people, a new language, history and the wonderful warmth of Chile. It wasn't all political - it was also the stories and the music of the Andes. We learned of the huemul, the llamas, the Aymara and Quechuan people, the quena and zamponia. The Chileans amongst us were great 'ambassadors' - they were successful and respected in business, the arts, and in 'neighborhood things'.

Chile's greatest gifts to us were her people - many of whom decided to stay here after democracy returned to Chile in 1990. And now, when the word "Chile" is heard in this country, most Canadians will say that they want to visit this 'other Canada of the South'. By now, they know Chile for its sophistication, its economic growth, its success in world markets and its charming people. Perhaps that is particularly true in British Columbia where I live. Our resource economies - in forest products, fishing and mining are very similar and perhaps Canada and Chile have an important role to play in the Americas. These two small, decent, successful countries - at the 'poles of the Americas' - are too small to be a threat to anyone, and have reached enviable positions in terms of economics, educational standards and international reputation.

"Asi me gusta Chile …"

("I like Chile like this" … a campaign poster celebrating Chile's return to democracy in 1990 - after 17 years of Pinochet)