The streets of the San Fernando Valley, In Los Angeles, are eerily empty on the morning of Christmas day- don’t get me wrong, they’re usually quite empty- Los Angeles a city not known for its foot-traffic. I had a unique perspective waiting for the greyhound bus sitting on a curb in Studio City. I don’t think your average car-obsessed Angelino feels the void that one experiences when simply sitting for even just a half an hour taking in the atmosphere.
It’s a world of cars, that’s for sure, but it’s also a world where space is undervalued, where what really matters is the joining of two destinations and not what actually happens in between. Each block is so exaggerated in its breadth and its absence of people is overwhelming. There’s so little dialogue possible in such a landscape, it’s as if the city were purposely designed for minimal communication between human beings, not even the basic pre-requisites for dialogue are satisfied, everything is streamlined for efficient indifference.
When two drivers cross each other at 50 miles per hour on some empty four-laned street, what exactly is the nature of their relationship? Do they even have a relationship? Are they fellow citizens? In most parts of greater Los Angeles, it’s considered bad luck if you’re forced to engage with a fellow human being outside of a properly understood and rehearsed institutional interaction (i.e. consumer/sales representative , driver/parking attendant, customer/waiter, account holder/bank teller, resident/telemarketer, employer/employee, etc) . The absence of humanity is striking.
In most traditional cultures, everyday interactions between people are buffered by cultural formalities (gestures, facial expressions, eye contact avoidance, role playing, etc), there are many such cultural habits that have developed in order to avoid real or potentially uncomfortable interactions with people. In "modern" cultures there's more of a need for this sort of avoidance but in places like Los Angeles, the landscape, the architecture, the physical space and the style of life renders these sorts of adaptations almost unnecessary, it's just easier for people to avoid extra-oficial interactions with other people. To say the least, this is a serious problem.
After a few minutes, a disaster of a woman arrives on the scene. The scene, at this point, consists of the sidewalk, a closed greyhound ticket office serving as the backdrop, and me (sitting on the curb reading “war talk” written by Ahrundati Roy). The woman is flanked by a silent mustached companion. She is a curly-haired woman in her early forties, punished by years of smoking cigarettes, wearing an old sweatshirt intended for tourists and sweatpants just begging for early-retirement. Several gaps in her teeth, bad skin, and a voice that respects few cultural norms as to pitch or volume. She stomps over to me and without introducing herself, or making a single recognizably human salutary gesture for that matter, yells, “You goin’ to Vegas?!” I realized quickly that she was hoping I would be, but nothing short of lying would have made her happier. Her bus had left her. The Vegas bus had come, had left a few minutes early, and she hadn’t been on it. She was furious and she had a right to be, Greyhound had screwed her. She kept on asking, “that’s not right, is it?” I didn’t think it mattered one way or another; who the hell was she going to complain to? America is famous for its unaccountability, and that extends to consumers as well. Buying something is as easy as apple pie if you can afford it, but trying to regain that same attention after you’ve used up your customer status is very nearly impossible. At that point you become a nuisance and nobody wants to deal with you.
At that point I noticed for the first time the presence of another Greyhound ticket holder, a fat Asian pacific man. This guy was huge. This guy was the kind of guy you’d have trouble describing to a stranger without being politically incorrect. He walks over to me and I can tell he’s listening to the kind of music that sounds better if you can't hear it at all. I ask him the time and realize that he's mentally challenged. His question to me is slightly more complicated and I couldn't understand him. My hunch was that he was on medication and that it was slurring his speech. We left it at that. Huge guy, drooling, and he's carrying what seems to be an empty leather bag. I ask myself why a person like this, barely functional, is waiting for a greyhound bus, alone on Christmas day. Meanwhile, the sweatshirt lady is bargaining with the unsuspecting driver of another bus that has just pulled in; he wants to hear less than none of it and she storms off with her companion who hasn't said a word since I first saw him.
A few minutes later, the fat Asian man's bus arrives and from its belly emerges a black bus driver. He's running on "let's get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible". The fat Asian man, however, has a different idea. He's running on "I want this black man to carry my leather bag onto the bus for me." In between them stand a few barriers of communication. Although the fat man insists that the bag is too heavy for him, the bus driver is adamant about leaving it on the sidewalk (because there's just no fucking way he's going to do anything for this slightly retarded Asian pacific man). The latter switches discourses somewhere in the middle and starts talking about his medication being in the bag. This complicates the bus driver as he starts to imagine who knows what further calamity happening onboard somewhere down the road. So he walks over to the bag and lifts it up. Obviously the bag doesn't weigh anything and this ticks him off. Why is this man causing such a scene? The bus driver decides to pull rank; after all, he's the bus driver and he's in charge. "I want you to listen very carefully sir... if you don't pick up your bag, it's staying here, do you understand?" The fat man switches discourse again, now it's capitalism. "I'll give you twenty bucks", he says.
The bus driver responds with what might have been a counter offer. "You're gonna give me forty bucks if I carry the bag onto the bus?" Meanwhile, the people on the bus have become spectators in a curbside clash of wills and I'm trying to mediate a little by clarifying the fat man's intentions to the bus driver. The bus driver decides that he can't accept money in front of all these people so he decides to leave the bag on the sidewalk for good. The fat man is already halfway up the stairs when the bus driver announces departure.
Mediation is one thing, but, "should I intervene directly?", I asked myself. Why not, nobody ever said that the anthropologist can't help out a little, as long as I don't supply machetes or epidemics. The operation took less than fifteen seconds and involved little planning. I grabbed the leather bag and brought it onboard for the fat man. Everyone was happy, the bus driver especially.
OK, so what did we learn? The disappointed Vegas-bound sweatshirt lady, the unsympathetic, forced to work on Christmas day bus driver and the semi-coherent rejected mountain of a man- this is America, these are Americans, for better or for worse, they're not the exceptions, they're the fabric, the voting public, the product of a dysfunctional society whose economic model is exported all over the world. These are the stories that are seldom heard, everyday interactions and struggles like the one above, where people bicker with each other for crumbs. Where the most trivial things become the most important and where life gets "nasty".
Friday, December 30, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Tico Storm in Quepos
On my way up to “estados confundidos” I stopped in Costa Rica to see my friend Fiorela (she’s a Peruvian Yoko Ono). This was on December 15th of this year. My port of origin is Santiago, Chile, where I’ve been living for over a year now, teaching English and filming a documentary about a Mapuche radio program. My three-part trajectory to LAX (Santiago-Lima, Lima-San Jose, San Jose-Los Angeles) afforded me this unique opportunity to revisit the country I had left only a year ago on the tail-end of our majestic drive down the Pan-American Highway (stay-tuned for future posts on this ground-breaking voyage and the documentary we filmed on the way). It was in San Jose in 2004 where I met Fiorela. She had just started to work at the hostal we were staying at near the center of the city, right across from a magnificent Argentinean restaurant with the best empanadas I’ve ever had (and also across from the San Jose tribunales de justicia, just as important). San Jose turned out to be our last destination on the journey for the three of us (Monique, Spencer and I). I continued on to Panama on a bus, and from there I took a plane to Lima where I stayed for a day before continuing south into Chile. In San Jose, I had needed at least a week to sell my Nissan Maxima (“Maximus”). I ended up selling my car to a used car dealer whose cousin we had met earlier in Liberia (North of Costa Rica). On that night, back on the 18th of September, I remember we almost crashed on the highway, which is why we decided to stay in Liberia for the night. I remember feeling extremely exhausted from the whole trip and was looking forward to checking into a decent hotel with a decent bed. On my first visit to San Jose I also sold my tent to another guy, Fabian, who was also working at the hostal and who eventually became our good friend as well.
Fiorela is a very special person and I care about her very much, although our relationship hasn’t always been that clear and I’ve been less than patient with her on many occasions (her patience with me, on the other hand, shows almost no limits). In any case, seeing that I’d be forced to switch planes in San Jose, I decided to conjure up a few days at the beach in Costa Rica with Fiorela.
I arrived in San Jose in the early afternoon and had to wait for Fiorela outside the terminal for about two hours. In those two hours I observed the familiar interactions between cultures, for example, between the Tico Taxi drivers, or the Tico tourist agency “representatives” and the gringos just arrived from Don’t Mess With Texas. It never seizes to amaze me just how arrogant North Americans are, especially when they travel. I don’t know if it’s because their stress level rises and so they are inclined to counteract by showing very little patience and a lot of intolerance. Not all Americans are like this in any case, but it saddens me to think how low Latin Americans are forced to go in order to “suck up” to these obnoxious people whose behavior is excused because they bring the money into the country. It’s also a pity that, for the most part, the people who really need the money never get it; gringos will prefer to get ripped off by a local who speaks educated English rather than deal with “people on the street” who “always wanna rob me”. The relationship between the North American and the Latin American will always be a one way relationship of subservience. I spoke with a young Taxi Driver myself, interesting guy, young, full of pride. When I talk to people on my travels, I try to invert the hegemony that has governed north and south interactions since Theodore Roosevelt, I’m always there to learn from people, even the woman who cooks “maduros” on the street knows more than I do. I try never to forget that. Of course I get annoyed when people treat me strictly as a potential customer and refuse to see me as something more than a gringo tourist (often people will continue to speak to me in broken English even after I’ve made it clear that I’m fluent in Spanish and that for all intents and purposes (as far as they know), I’m a Chilean and not a gringo. My cousins back in Chile would laugh at that statement. In any case, he talked about wanting to return to his studies at the university (the taxi-driver, we’re talking about the taxi driver!).
Fiorela arrived after a while and we went straight to her house to drop off my stuff. She had been burnt on her shoulder by a flat iron, which is why she was late. After packing a few things, we were off to the “coca-cola” bus terminal to catch a micro for the beach. Walking through down-town San Jose reminded me of mexico city but on a much smaller scale. Ticos are alive, you can sense the overwhelming energy and it makes you believe that people are alive. In Los Angeles, for the most part, the people you encounter are all dead, they’re lifeless, they’re walking droids, consumers of roles and identities. You don’t see that in San Jose, but I do sense an overall feeling of desperation. Everyone sells crap. Everywhere you look, people are selling and selling crap, some call out the name of the piece of crap they’re selling, others have little signs that communicate its price, others sing about crap, and the veterans of crap selling just sit on a stool and get old waiting for some lucky customer to buy that yellow plastic comb with the rubber handle you always wanted. The eternal hunt for someone to buy that pathetic thing you’re selling. It’s so decadent. No less decadent in the states, the only difference is that in the states the selling has a much more professional ambiance to it, so much more “respected” and you don’t really see the person who sells that same pathetic thing. There’s so much more glamour to it. In the end, it’s the same mediocre relationship between human beings.
“Quepos is much cheaper” we were told, so we decided to take the bus directly to this sleeper fishing town hoping to catch some sleep in a decent hostal and then head to the Manuel Antonio nature reserve the following morning. I tried to sleep, but it was too uncomfortable. We arrived exhausted at midnight and thought only of rest. The plan was to step-off the bus right in front of a comfortably cheap (or cheaply comfortable) hostal and rest, that was it, we didn’t want anymore excitement. Unfortunately, Quepos had decided to welcome us with a tropical storm of mammoth proportions (ok, maybe not a storm officially, but it was raining hard). Since Quepos is lower in altitude than the ocean, all the rainwater passing by Quepos doesn’t actually pass by Quepos. It just stays there. So, the streets and sidewalks were completely flooded. We waded through the water, which was up to our knees, for about an hour looking for a hostel, as cars drove by, huge waves would crash on us making visibility very difficult. I felt like I was in Cancun mexico. By the time we found one we were drenched, fatigued, and….. thirsty. The owner of the hostal was exploding with personality. The last thing he wanted to do was get up from his desk to help us, he just gave us a few towels and mumbled a few words in Tico. Basically, he told us to fuck off and leave him alone. “Fuck off!”, he said, in so many words. Since we weren’t sleepy we decided to go to a bar and get drunk (like you do). We found a floating restaurant full of Quepos residents who didn’t seem too impressed by the absolute flooding of their town. I remember noticing the level of calm inherent in the people at the restaurant; it’s a different world, a different pace. We talked for a few hours, drank a few Imperial’s and then swam back to the hotel.
We woke up the next morning and the sun had dried everything. The only visible hint of the storm’s wrath were the people sweeping water out of their homes and places of business. We left in search of breakfast. The best thing to eat in Costa Rica is the garden variety Gallo Pinto plate. This consists of fried rice and beans accompanied by your choice of meat, chicken, cheese, egg, etc, and a serving of maduros (fried bananas) on the side. This is heaven. There’s nothing like it anywhere. After a very satisfying breakfast, we were off to Manuel Antonio to spend the day at the beach. A very interesting marimba band playing on a makeshift platform in the “bus terminal” bid us farewell as we drove up the mountain, into the jungle and away from Quepos.
Fiorela is a very special person and I care about her very much, although our relationship hasn’t always been that clear and I’ve been less than patient with her on many occasions (her patience with me, on the other hand, shows almost no limits). In any case, seeing that I’d be forced to switch planes in San Jose, I decided to conjure up a few days at the beach in Costa Rica with Fiorela.
I arrived in San Jose in the early afternoon and had to wait for Fiorela outside the terminal for about two hours. In those two hours I observed the familiar interactions between cultures, for example, between the Tico Taxi drivers, or the Tico tourist agency “representatives” and the gringos just arrived from Don’t Mess With Texas. It never seizes to amaze me just how arrogant North Americans are, especially when they travel. I don’t know if it’s because their stress level rises and so they are inclined to counteract by showing very little patience and a lot of intolerance. Not all Americans are like this in any case, but it saddens me to think how low Latin Americans are forced to go in order to “suck up” to these obnoxious people whose behavior is excused because they bring the money into the country. It’s also a pity that, for the most part, the people who really need the money never get it; gringos will prefer to get ripped off by a local who speaks educated English rather than deal with “people on the street” who “always wanna rob me”. The relationship between the North American and the Latin American will always be a one way relationship of subservience. I spoke with a young Taxi Driver myself, interesting guy, young, full of pride. When I talk to people on my travels, I try to invert the hegemony that has governed north and south interactions since Theodore Roosevelt, I’m always there to learn from people, even the woman who cooks “maduros” on the street knows more than I do. I try never to forget that. Of course I get annoyed when people treat me strictly as a potential customer and refuse to see me as something more than a gringo tourist (often people will continue to speak to me in broken English even after I’ve made it clear that I’m fluent in Spanish and that for all intents and purposes (as far as they know), I’m a Chilean and not a gringo. My cousins back in Chile would laugh at that statement. In any case, he talked about wanting to return to his studies at the university (the taxi-driver, we’re talking about the taxi driver!).
Fiorela arrived after a while and we went straight to her house to drop off my stuff. She had been burnt on her shoulder by a flat iron, which is why she was late. After packing a few things, we were off to the “coca-cola” bus terminal to catch a micro for the beach. Walking through down-town San Jose reminded me of mexico city but on a much smaller scale. Ticos are alive, you can sense the overwhelming energy and it makes you believe that people are alive. In Los Angeles, for the most part, the people you encounter are all dead, they’re lifeless, they’re walking droids, consumers of roles and identities. You don’t see that in San Jose, but I do sense an overall feeling of desperation. Everyone sells crap. Everywhere you look, people are selling and selling crap, some call out the name of the piece of crap they’re selling, others have little signs that communicate its price, others sing about crap, and the veterans of crap selling just sit on a stool and get old waiting for some lucky customer to buy that yellow plastic comb with the rubber handle you always wanted. The eternal hunt for someone to buy that pathetic thing you’re selling. It’s so decadent. No less decadent in the states, the only difference is that in the states the selling has a much more professional ambiance to it, so much more “respected” and you don’t really see the person who sells that same pathetic thing. There’s so much more glamour to it. In the end, it’s the same mediocre relationship between human beings.
“Quepos is much cheaper” we were told, so we decided to take the bus directly to this sleeper fishing town hoping to catch some sleep in a decent hostal and then head to the Manuel Antonio nature reserve the following morning. I tried to sleep, but it was too uncomfortable. We arrived exhausted at midnight and thought only of rest. The plan was to step-off the bus right in front of a comfortably cheap (or cheaply comfortable) hostal and rest, that was it, we didn’t want anymore excitement. Unfortunately, Quepos had decided to welcome us with a tropical storm of mammoth proportions (ok, maybe not a storm officially, but it was raining hard). Since Quepos is lower in altitude than the ocean, all the rainwater passing by Quepos doesn’t actually pass by Quepos. It just stays there. So, the streets and sidewalks were completely flooded. We waded through the water, which was up to our knees, for about an hour looking for a hostel, as cars drove by, huge waves would crash on us making visibility very difficult. I felt like I was in Cancun mexico. By the time we found one we were drenched, fatigued, and….. thirsty. The owner of the hostal was exploding with personality. The last thing he wanted to do was get up from his desk to help us, he just gave us a few towels and mumbled a few words in Tico. Basically, he told us to fuck off and leave him alone. “Fuck off!”, he said, in so many words. Since we weren’t sleepy we decided to go to a bar and get drunk (like you do). We found a floating restaurant full of Quepos residents who didn’t seem too impressed by the absolute flooding of their town. I remember noticing the level of calm inherent in the people at the restaurant; it’s a different world, a different pace. We talked for a few hours, drank a few Imperial’s and then swam back to the hotel.
We woke up the next morning and the sun had dried everything. The only visible hint of the storm’s wrath were the people sweeping water out of their homes and places of business. We left in search of breakfast. The best thing to eat in Costa Rica is the garden variety Gallo Pinto plate. This consists of fried rice and beans accompanied by your choice of meat, chicken, cheese, egg, etc, and a serving of maduros (fried bananas) on the side. This is heaven. There’s nothing like it anywhere. After a very satisfying breakfast, we were off to Manuel Antonio to spend the day at the beach. A very interesting marimba band playing on a makeshift platform in the “bus terminal” bid us farewell as we drove up the mountain, into the jungle and away from Quepos.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Presidential Elections in Chile
On December 11th, the Chilean people voted in an election composed of four candidates. They were: Two members of a conservative alliance representing business and a small portion of both the marginalized sectors and the middle class; a member of the Chilean socialist party, a woman, representing the ruling concertacion coalition, which has, to this point, also represented the business community, as well as a larger portion of the poor and working class sectors, and a left-wing candidate representing intellectuals, students, environmentalists, social justice groups, as well as other marginalized groups in the country who are fed up with the ruling coalition and motivated by a perceived abandonment on behalf of successive concertacion governments of the democratic transition promises of social progress.
Michelle Bachelet, the socialist candidate and member of the ruling coalition, failed to receive a majority of the votes as expected by many political experts, forcing an election run-off in January where she will have to confront Sebastian Pinera again, this time in a one-on-one scenario.
Michelle Bachelet began this presidential race as a sure win, as a cruise control victory, thanks in part to a series of public polls which mysteriously placed her at the top of the short coalition list of possible candidates. It’s not clear just how she was established as being so “popular”, but it is accepted that, at one point, the media chose her as the favorite. In fact, Jose Miguel Insulza, current head of the OAS and former interior minister, was passed over as a result of this media phenomenon. A considerable portion of the population might have gotten on the Michelle bandwagon without knowing why, but as far as the election process is concerned, this is ancient history.
Bachelet’s story surely resonates in the popular sectors of Chile as it is well known that her father, a general who was critical of the military government in the seventies, was tortured and then assassinated. Bachelet herself was tortured and then forced into exile along with her mother. The idea that a torture victim could come back from exile and become the first female president is as attractive as it is strikingly pure. Just what she plans on doing if she becomes president is not so clear. Many critics have argued that Bachelet has tended to substitute heartfelt ideals with complicated studies and nebulous work proposals on issues she claims are too complex to pronounce on directly.
The Renovacion Nacional candidate Pinera, who received around 25% of the vote, was considered a long-shot when he announced his candidacy late in the election race, but slowly gained points in the dozens of polls that were unfolded by the media throughout the campaign. His media-friendly personality and his personal history were some of the factors behind his unexpected victory over Joaquin Lavin, the second conservative candidate, who was forced to admit defeat early in the recount process, thus ending his second chance at the Moneda. In 1999, he came very close to defeating the current President Ricardo Lagos who, after 6 years in office, has one of the highest approval ratings in the history of Chilean politics.
Another surprise was Thomas Hirsch, member of the Humanist Party and part of a left-wing coalition called “Juntos Podemos Mas” (together we can do more) which includes the congressionally marginalized Communist party. Although he only received five percent of the popular vote (much less than was expected), his positive public persona, as well as his charming and witty treatment of often unaddressed issues gave the left a public voice, and a face it hadn’t seen since Gladys Marin, the well-known communist leader and intensely loved fighter who died this year of cancer.
His outspoken criticism of Chile’s economic model and its symptoms (poverty, inequality, environmental destruction) became commonplace in living rooms throughout the country as the mass media spared considerable air time for his rallies and his various campaign performances, including the first presidential debate which also aired on spanish CNN. His harsh criticism of US president George W Bush and the “war on terror” will not be forgotten so quickly. Hirsch was unapologetic, smart, sharp, and delivered his blows with a substantial measure of good humor. He received criticism from various sectors when on the night of the election he announced he was going to vote blank in the run-off. After the excitement of December 11 died down, it became clear that the communist party, as part of of the Juntos Podemos Mas Coalition, would negotiate with the concertacion coalition exchanging their votes for a series of promises, which include changing the binomial election system which many have blamed for the shortage of alternative voices in congress. Michelle Bachelet, quite simply, needs those votes if she expects to win on January 15th. A package law has already been sent to congress by Ricardo Lagos dealing with the binomial system, but many have already criticized it as too general and too long-term.
Unlike in Bolivia, it is clear that the left in Chile is just waking up. Aside from the few voices emanating from the socialist party which still reflect socialist values, the left will have no voice in the upcoming government. There is no real disagreement in regards to the economic model which has been in effect in Chile since Pinochet came into power in the seventies. There is only leg room for the discourse of “corrections” and “trickle down initiatives”. Although social inequality was an issue that was present in the presidential debates, only Hirsch avoided using the discourse of “corrections”. Michelle Bachelet and the entire concertacion coalition, which seemed to be pulling her strings the entire election cycle, attempted to interpret the history of their 15-year rule as a series of important steps in the consolidation of democracy and social justice, inequality being the next big step to take. The most threatening idea for the concertacion is, or should be, that their ardent adherence to neoliberalism, especially their unwillingness to regulate or challenge the economic elite, might be the underlying cause for such concentrated wealth in a society that for the most part isn’t progressing. Why is Hirsch the only one saying the obvious? What is good for the giant economic groups isn’t good for the rest of the population. This magical “trickle-down”, even if it weren’t a myth, is hardly something to get excited about. Maybe that explains why so many people didn’t register and vote for the ruling coalition.
Bolivia, it seems, has elected an indigenous man to govern the country. In Chile, a fifth candidate was denied his right to run for office. He literally rode into every major city in Chile on horseback collecting the signatures required by a constitution written by Pinochet's military government. His name was Aucan Wilkaman, a Mapuche (people of the earth) and an internationally recognized defender of indigenous rights. The official reason for his rejection was that the signatures he had collected weren't notarized as is required by law (a process which costs about 10 dollars for each signature), but I think the real reason Aucan was denied his right to represent the indigenous of Chile (which constitute about 10 percent of the population) is that the producers and writers of this election spectacle simply wouldn't have stomached setting up another podium for a dark-skinned contendor.
Michelle Bachelet, the socialist candidate and member of the ruling coalition, failed to receive a majority of the votes as expected by many political experts, forcing an election run-off in January where she will have to confront Sebastian Pinera again, this time in a one-on-one scenario.
Michelle Bachelet began this presidential race as a sure win, as a cruise control victory, thanks in part to a series of public polls which mysteriously placed her at the top of the short coalition list of possible candidates. It’s not clear just how she was established as being so “popular”, but it is accepted that, at one point, the media chose her as the favorite. In fact, Jose Miguel Insulza, current head of the OAS and former interior minister, was passed over as a result of this media phenomenon. A considerable portion of the population might have gotten on the Michelle bandwagon without knowing why, but as far as the election process is concerned, this is ancient history.
Bachelet’s story surely resonates in the popular sectors of Chile as it is well known that her father, a general who was critical of the military government in the seventies, was tortured and then assassinated. Bachelet herself was tortured and then forced into exile along with her mother. The idea that a torture victim could come back from exile and become the first female president is as attractive as it is strikingly pure. Just what she plans on doing if she becomes president is not so clear. Many critics have argued that Bachelet has tended to substitute heartfelt ideals with complicated studies and nebulous work proposals on issues she claims are too complex to pronounce on directly.
The Renovacion Nacional candidate Pinera, who received around 25% of the vote, was considered a long-shot when he announced his candidacy late in the election race, but slowly gained points in the dozens of polls that were unfolded by the media throughout the campaign. His media-friendly personality and his personal history were some of the factors behind his unexpected victory over Joaquin Lavin, the second conservative candidate, who was forced to admit defeat early in the recount process, thus ending his second chance at the Moneda. In 1999, he came very close to defeating the current President Ricardo Lagos who, after 6 years in office, has one of the highest approval ratings in the history of Chilean politics.
Another surprise was Thomas Hirsch, member of the Humanist Party and part of a left-wing coalition called “Juntos Podemos Mas” (together we can do more) which includes the congressionally marginalized Communist party. Although he only received five percent of the popular vote (much less than was expected), his positive public persona, as well as his charming and witty treatment of often unaddressed issues gave the left a public voice, and a face it hadn’t seen since Gladys Marin, the well-known communist leader and intensely loved fighter who died this year of cancer.
His outspoken criticism of Chile’s economic model and its symptoms (poverty, inequality, environmental destruction) became commonplace in living rooms throughout the country as the mass media spared considerable air time for his rallies and his various campaign performances, including the first presidential debate which also aired on spanish CNN. His harsh criticism of US president George W Bush and the “war on terror” will not be forgotten so quickly. Hirsch was unapologetic, smart, sharp, and delivered his blows with a substantial measure of good humor. He received criticism from various sectors when on the night of the election he announced he was going to vote blank in the run-off. After the excitement of December 11 died down, it became clear that the communist party, as part of of the Juntos Podemos Mas Coalition, would negotiate with the concertacion coalition exchanging their votes for a series of promises, which include changing the binomial election system which many have blamed for the shortage of alternative voices in congress. Michelle Bachelet, quite simply, needs those votes if she expects to win on January 15th. A package law has already been sent to congress by Ricardo Lagos dealing with the binomial system, but many have already criticized it as too general and too long-term.
Unlike in Bolivia, it is clear that the left in Chile is just waking up. Aside from the few voices emanating from the socialist party which still reflect socialist values, the left will have no voice in the upcoming government. There is no real disagreement in regards to the economic model which has been in effect in Chile since Pinochet came into power in the seventies. There is only leg room for the discourse of “corrections” and “trickle down initiatives”. Although social inequality was an issue that was present in the presidential debates, only Hirsch avoided using the discourse of “corrections”. Michelle Bachelet and the entire concertacion coalition, which seemed to be pulling her strings the entire election cycle, attempted to interpret the history of their 15-year rule as a series of important steps in the consolidation of democracy and social justice, inequality being the next big step to take. The most threatening idea for the concertacion is, or should be, that their ardent adherence to neoliberalism, especially their unwillingness to regulate or challenge the economic elite, might be the underlying cause for such concentrated wealth in a society that for the most part isn’t progressing. Why is Hirsch the only one saying the obvious? What is good for the giant economic groups isn’t good for the rest of the population. This magical “trickle-down”, even if it weren’t a myth, is hardly something to get excited about. Maybe that explains why so many people didn’t register and vote for the ruling coalition.
Bolivia, it seems, has elected an indigenous man to govern the country. In Chile, a fifth candidate was denied his right to run for office. He literally rode into every major city in Chile on horseback collecting the signatures required by a constitution written by Pinochet's military government. His name was Aucan Wilkaman, a Mapuche (people of the earth) and an internationally recognized defender of indigenous rights. The official reason for his rejection was that the signatures he had collected weren't notarized as is required by law (a process which costs about 10 dollars for each signature), but I think the real reason Aucan was denied his right to represent the indigenous of Chile (which constitute about 10 percent of the population) is that the producers and writers of this election spectacle simply wouldn't have stomached setting up another podium for a dark-skinned contendor.
Television Girl
Didn't know that she’d be coming round my place
I should've seen it coming, she had that look on her face
“Would you like some coffee, tea, or a cigarette maybe?"
“Or have you come to tell me you just wanna be a friend to me?”
Well, that's not fair, I still love you!
OH, she’d do it so selfishly, television girl
She used to rob me of my weekends, where we'd do nothing
I'd watch her sleep all bloody night, until sunday morning
Well why don't you just wake the hell up, cause I'm sick of waiting
"Don't be so rude" she'd say, "it's my only day where I can sleep in"
“Don't you want some coffee, tea, or some cigarettes from the corner store?”
"Well, I can just head on down the road, you can stay here."
Well, that's not fair, I still love you.
I should've seen it coming, she had that look on her face
“Would you like some coffee, tea, or a cigarette maybe?"
“Or have you come to tell me you just wanna be a friend to me?”
Well, that's not fair, I still love you!
OH, she’d do it so selfishly, television girl
She used to rob me of my weekends, where we'd do nothing
I'd watch her sleep all bloody night, until sunday morning
Well why don't you just wake the hell up, cause I'm sick of waiting
"Don't be so rude" she'd say, "it's my only day where I can sleep in"
“Don't you want some coffee, tea, or some cigarettes from the corner store?”
"Well, I can just head on down the road, you can stay here."
Well, that's not fair, I still love you.
She'd do it so selfishly, television girl
She does it, she does it, she reminds me of me, television girl.
Outside. She's outside!
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
The Beast
War, soil erosion, cultural extinction, pollution, global warming, deforestation, famine, economic oppression, malnutrition, biological extinction, cultural homogeneity, over-consumption, poverty, misery, indifference, hunger, climate change, political repression, totalitarianism, social inequality, over-production, eradic weather patterns, illiteracy, ignorance and military occupation. These are just some of the symptoms which, when considered together, paint a very frightening picture of the health of our world. Although our cynical nature tends to trivialize what deep down we know to be true, we are in fact heading down a dangerous path. All the great thinkers of our time think so. Even the economic lords of our time are aware of the catastrophe that awaits us. The development model our political authorities in Latin America prescribe to (with an increasing number of exceptions), and whose mantra gets repeated over and over again in all the media to a point where it gets nauseous, is blinding us to the big picture; and even the small picture escapes our grasp. The compartmentalization of our world, where reality is cut-up into "realms of intervention" ("the economy", "poverty", "the environment", "crime",etc) prevents us from seeing, as clearly as we should, the malfunctioning of our societies; we have an obligation to start thinking about the underlying causes of our current predicament and becoming active participants in change.
Since the first summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 where the world’s leaders agreed that this dire situation owed its existence to the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, especially in the first world, things have actually gotten worse. As a direct result of the acceleration of “free-market” policies (key word:"globalization"), social inequality has reached levels never before seen since the Egyptian pharaohs. Chile, by the way, ranks obscenely high on the list in this category. The world’s 3 richest people are worth more money than the combined population of its 48 poorest countries. The environment (ie. where we live) is one of the first victims of this stubborn adherence to the frenzy of corporate capitalism. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 9% (18% in the US). A billion people on this earth do not have access to safe drinking water (3 billion have inferior quality) which is responsible for 30,000 deaths each day. Billions people live in "absolute poverty", a term with little meaning but we get an idea, lacking the means to nourish their bodies with even the most minimal of nutrients. 17 million hectares of forests disappear each year, aggravating global warming. 25% of mammals have become extinct due to human economic activity. Quality of life has become a bad joke of sorts. Most people on this planet are overworked, stressed, mistreated, victims of violence and drug abuse,etc. I won't go on. These are just a few of the very loud indicators we cannot afford to ignore any longer. The indisputable fact that there is something very wrong, and it's not going to simply go fix itself, least of all if we insist on giving those ultimately responsible for such devastation the freedom to regulate themselves, it's just not gonna happen.
All of the afflictions mentioned at the outset can be attributed without a doubt and with little hesitation to our capitalist industrial system of production and the culture of consumption it creates to reproduce and expand. Most of the decisions that affect the system of production (and capital accumulation, investment,etc) and consumption are made by people you only read about in industry magazines and that have so much power and money they live separate from the world they control. Our democracy, in case there was a doubt, is just an illusion; the things that really matter will never, unless there is serious change, be influenced by you and me. The capitalist industrial system of production and consumption touches every corner of the earth, its sole purpose is profit and it is simply unburdened by empathy. It is exempt from social obligations and it changes, it shifts, and it can become something else right before your eyes. It is unconstrained by space or time, and it employs science and creates harmful technology. It listens to no one, and it is never responsible. It co-opts and destroys, it creates profitable inequality and helps to foster new generations of racism and classism, sends you your bills and keeps track of your spending habits. It is a very considerable force and somehow we are all part of it, but we never know just how we are a part or why, and we never hear people on TV refer to it as something more than the normal "market"… as if it were, for all intents and purposes, as natural as the mountain spring water sitting in your fridge.
But by far, the most important thing to know about this industrial system of production and consumption is that it is controlled by very few corporations who operate undemocratically in search of profits and who disregard, outside of public relations circles, all the other interests represented by the whole of humanity. This lack of democratic control over the human system of production and consumption is both a cause and a consequence of it success. This is why it is absolutely crucial that we regain control over our own lives and over our own economy.
The second most important thing is that these agents of the production system, the corporations, are enterprises that for all intents and purposes, are institutionally insane. They are set up on the assumption that there are an infinite amount of biological, mineral and human resources that if not immediately available, can be with well-intentioned and well-organized strategies. They also assume that there is an infinite consumer market potential that, if not immediately available, can be with the help of a well-intentioned and well-organized marketing strategy. More importantly, and equally disturbing, is that they have an implicit understanding that they have a God-given right to fight for their existence using any means necessary and disregarding any and all human or environmental rights in the process- this last character trait is often defended by a strange appeal to “freedom” which presumably refers to the freedom enjoyed by corporations to do as they please with little interference from democratic institutions which, if they worked, could protect the people who get squashed by these agents of industry on their road to financial success. These agents who control the nature of the system of production and consumption (referred to as the economy on television programs) are coming from a point of view which does not, cannot, represent the reality of our world, and hence, are delusional. Their relationship with the outside world and its people can only be described as paranoia.
Because of the system’s expansion into every facet of life, we are no longer in control over what we consume, and how we attain our most basic necessities. Our impotence in the face of such power and control is one of the first things we have to address before we can embark on a truly sustainable development. We need true democracy as a means to regain control of the system of production and consumption. If there is true global democracy, one that is fueled by a truly democratic education, accessible by all, then people will be able to make decisions that will positively affect their lives and the well being of their communities. But we are so far from that.
If people lack anything, it’s first of all power, and those who do control the system that is responsible for their exploitation will never willingly hand over their power to them. So what do we do? Are we too dependent on this system, have we passed the point of no return? Let us explore these questions.
Since the first summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 where the world’s leaders agreed that this dire situation owed its existence to the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, especially in the first world, things have actually gotten worse. As a direct result of the acceleration of “free-market” policies (key word:"globalization"), social inequality has reached levels never before seen since the Egyptian pharaohs. Chile, by the way, ranks obscenely high on the list in this category. The world’s 3 richest people are worth more money than the combined population of its 48 poorest countries. The environment (ie. where we live) is one of the first victims of this stubborn adherence to the frenzy of corporate capitalism. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 9% (18% in the US). A billion people on this earth do not have access to safe drinking water (3 billion have inferior quality) which is responsible for 30,000 deaths each day. Billions people live in "absolute poverty", a term with little meaning but we get an idea, lacking the means to nourish their bodies with even the most minimal of nutrients. 17 million hectares of forests disappear each year, aggravating global warming. 25% of mammals have become extinct due to human economic activity. Quality of life has become a bad joke of sorts. Most people on this planet are overworked, stressed, mistreated, victims of violence and drug abuse,etc. I won't go on. These are just a few of the very loud indicators we cannot afford to ignore any longer. The indisputable fact that there is something very wrong, and it's not going to simply go fix itself, least of all if we insist on giving those ultimately responsible for such devastation the freedom to regulate themselves, it's just not gonna happen.
All of the afflictions mentioned at the outset can be attributed without a doubt and with little hesitation to our capitalist industrial system of production and the culture of consumption it creates to reproduce and expand. Most of the decisions that affect the system of production (and capital accumulation, investment,etc) and consumption are made by people you only read about in industry magazines and that have so much power and money they live separate from the world they control. Our democracy, in case there was a doubt, is just an illusion; the things that really matter will never, unless there is serious change, be influenced by you and me. The capitalist industrial system of production and consumption touches every corner of the earth, its sole purpose is profit and it is simply unburdened by empathy. It is exempt from social obligations and it changes, it shifts, and it can become something else right before your eyes. It is unconstrained by space or time, and it employs science and creates harmful technology. It listens to no one, and it is never responsible. It co-opts and destroys, it creates profitable inequality and helps to foster new generations of racism and classism, sends you your bills and keeps track of your spending habits. It is a very considerable force and somehow we are all part of it, but we never know just how we are a part or why, and we never hear people on TV refer to it as something more than the normal "market"… as if it were, for all intents and purposes, as natural as the mountain spring water sitting in your fridge.
But by far, the most important thing to know about this industrial system of production and consumption is that it is controlled by very few corporations who operate undemocratically in search of profits and who disregard, outside of public relations circles, all the other interests represented by the whole of humanity. This lack of democratic control over the human system of production and consumption is both a cause and a consequence of it success. This is why it is absolutely crucial that we regain control over our own lives and over our own economy.
The second most important thing is that these agents of the production system, the corporations, are enterprises that for all intents and purposes, are institutionally insane. They are set up on the assumption that there are an infinite amount of biological, mineral and human resources that if not immediately available, can be with well-intentioned and well-organized strategies. They also assume that there is an infinite consumer market potential that, if not immediately available, can be with the help of a well-intentioned and well-organized marketing strategy. More importantly, and equally disturbing, is that they have an implicit understanding that they have a God-given right to fight for their existence using any means necessary and disregarding any and all human or environmental rights in the process- this last character trait is often defended by a strange appeal to “freedom” which presumably refers to the freedom enjoyed by corporations to do as they please with little interference from democratic institutions which, if they worked, could protect the people who get squashed by these agents of industry on their road to financial success. These agents who control the nature of the system of production and consumption (referred to as the economy on television programs) are coming from a point of view which does not, cannot, represent the reality of our world, and hence, are delusional. Their relationship with the outside world and its people can only be described as paranoia.
Because of the system’s expansion into every facet of life, we are no longer in control over what we consume, and how we attain our most basic necessities. Our impotence in the face of such power and control is one of the first things we have to address before we can embark on a truly sustainable development. We need true democracy as a means to regain control of the system of production and consumption. If there is true global democracy, one that is fueled by a truly democratic education, accessible by all, then people will be able to make decisions that will positively affect their lives and the well being of their communities. But we are so far from that.
If people lack anything, it’s first of all power, and those who do control the system that is responsible for their exploitation will never willingly hand over their power to them. So what do we do? Are we too dependent on this system, have we passed the point of no return? Let us explore these questions.
An Indigenous is Called Upon to Rule Bolivia
Two important elections in December. The year winds down and Latin America, which has always been a region of stark contradictions, drifts to the left in places where people are fed up with neoliberal/free market policies. At the same time, the liberal right gains strength in places where the free market model has succeeded in transforming primary commodities into enormous returns for an economic elite who are in a unique position to speak for the rest of the country and who also enjoy near perfect consent from the population thanks to a strangely efficient, and very complex political atmosphere where ideologies are blurred and are almost unrecognizable.
A few days ago, on December 18th, Bolivians voted in what seems to be a first-round presidential victory for an indigenous coca farmer named Evo Morales, member of the MAS party (Movimiento Al Socialismo). No doubt, Evo Morales has won the support of the indigenous communities (which together constitute a majority in the country), of farmers, of the politically dispossessed and of the marginalized in general, in other words, of the majority. The runner up, Quiroga, a white, pro-business, pro-US candidate, received around 30 percent of the vote. The difference in votes is so striking that even if Morales turns out not to have received the majority of votes, congress will have no choice but to ratify the leftist’s presidential victory. What are the important aspects, what are the lessons to be learned?
Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America (one hears the word “Bolivia” almost as synonymous with “poverty”) and in the last year it has witnessed a series of street mobilizations that have paralyzed the country and even caused the resignation earlier in the year of the conservative president Carlos Mesa. Economists would refer to the situation in Bolivia as “highly unstable”. It seems obvious that Bolivians, rather than being genetically inclined to instability, are just not happy with their situation, and they have voiced this dissatisfaction by taking it to the streets and protesting (more or less peacefully). I should mention that this sort of participation is an efficient, a very legitimate, and a very democratic recourse. Evo Morales, for better or for worse, seems to represent this majority who is fed up with what’s going on in the country. So, the obvious first conclusion is that the policies espoused by the recent governments are not well received by Bolivians, and these same Latin Americans have recognized the ballot box as an acceptable path towards addressing some of these issues. That’s democracy.
The second conclusion is that we are witnessing another example of the failure of neoliberal policies in Latin America. The privatization of water, the privatization of natural gas, the opening of the country to foreign investment without restrictions, the abandonment on behalf of the state, the criminalization of coca farming (for crying out loud!). All of which merely contributes to the exacerbation of displacement, to the loss of cultural identity, to the loss of jobs, of livelihoods, etc. It’s clear that the people who are affected negatively by these policies, which favor the market over human beings, have spoken, and it should be seen by everyone as something positive. Obviously in the eyes of the economic world, this is a disaster, and all these “Indians” on the street represent a clear and present danger to the stability of the region. In fact, most of the world sees it that way. Even in Chile, the Bolivian protests were portrayed by the media as Absolute Chaos, a clear sign of Bolivian backwardness, Chileans are famous for their “ninguneos”. It might be more plausible that for the first time since its invention, the electoral system in Bolivia has actually worked. Evo Morales clearly represents the majority.
A few days ago, on December 18th, Bolivians voted in what seems to be a first-round presidential victory for an indigenous coca farmer named Evo Morales, member of the MAS party (Movimiento Al Socialismo). No doubt, Evo Morales has won the support of the indigenous communities (which together constitute a majority in the country), of farmers, of the politically dispossessed and of the marginalized in general, in other words, of the majority. The runner up, Quiroga, a white, pro-business, pro-US candidate, received around 30 percent of the vote. The difference in votes is so striking that even if Morales turns out not to have received the majority of votes, congress will have no choice but to ratify the leftist’s presidential victory. What are the important aspects, what are the lessons to be learned?
Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America (one hears the word “Bolivia” almost as synonymous with “poverty”) and in the last year it has witnessed a series of street mobilizations that have paralyzed the country and even caused the resignation earlier in the year of the conservative president Carlos Mesa. Economists would refer to the situation in Bolivia as “highly unstable”. It seems obvious that Bolivians, rather than being genetically inclined to instability, are just not happy with their situation, and they have voiced this dissatisfaction by taking it to the streets and protesting (more or less peacefully). I should mention that this sort of participation is an efficient, a very legitimate, and a very democratic recourse. Evo Morales, for better or for worse, seems to represent this majority who is fed up with what’s going on in the country. So, the obvious first conclusion is that the policies espoused by the recent governments are not well received by Bolivians, and these same Latin Americans have recognized the ballot box as an acceptable path towards addressing some of these issues. That’s democracy.
The second conclusion is that we are witnessing another example of the failure of neoliberal policies in Latin America. The privatization of water, the privatization of natural gas, the opening of the country to foreign investment without restrictions, the abandonment on behalf of the state, the criminalization of coca farming (for crying out loud!). All of which merely contributes to the exacerbation of displacement, to the loss of cultural identity, to the loss of jobs, of livelihoods, etc. It’s clear that the people who are affected negatively by these policies, which favor the market over human beings, have spoken, and it should be seen by everyone as something positive. Obviously in the eyes of the economic world, this is a disaster, and all these “Indians” on the street represent a clear and present danger to the stability of the region. In fact, most of the world sees it that way. Even in Chile, the Bolivian protests were portrayed by the media as Absolute Chaos, a clear sign of Bolivian backwardness, Chileans are famous for their “ninguneos”. It might be more plausible that for the first time since its invention, the electoral system in Bolivia has actually worked. Evo Morales clearly represents the majority.
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