[Xmca-l] Re: Reminding the Chilean 9/11

[David Preiss <daviddpreiss@gmail.com>]

We have had almost two weeks of full coverage in open television of the coup d'etat, new tv series, interviews with survivors and their families, many open eds in the press, re-screening of audiovisuals of the socialist government and the coup, and so. There has been an explosion of political and cultural memory. Now, I wonder for how long these memory rituals will last and what their real impact will be on the prosecution of truth and justice. The implicit script of many of these tv programs has been that the coup was unavoidable, a conclusion I disagree deeply. Some others pose the question of an eventual trade-off between political memory and social reconciliation. Many of us think that without truth and justice no reconciliation is possible. Some others think that it is time to forget and forgive. At the same time, some politicians from the right and left have publicly asked for forgiveness for their actions (or inactions) before and during the dictatorship. The supreme court was too very close in doing the same thing because of their inaction. More closely to my day to day affairs, my university granted diplomas and certificates to the students, workers and professors that were killed by the military. So, past is present here and I agree with Mike that in that we are very different to the USA. During my sojourn there, I was deeply impressed in the prelude of the Irak war of how unaware my classmates & the public was of previous experiences of american interventionism and how they could inform the bad decisions that were just about to be taken. Past was not that present and then it just was not only repeated by amplified in Abu Graib, Guantanamo and the trauma of many of the veterans, and certainly on the civilians impacted by the war.

On Sep 11, 2013, at 10:50 AM, mike cole wrote:

> Peg and David
> 
> It is remarkable, I think, that the NY Times ran no feature story on 9/11
> in the US except for an op ed piece on the same day when the President went
> before the nation to argue
> for more military action against another police/murdering state and a
> magical series of
> international diplomatic arrangements put the brakes on the process of
> escalating violence
> so that he did not have to be rebuffed by his constituents. But Chile
> remembers.
> 
> The older I get, the curiouser and curiouser the world seems.
> mike
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 6:36 AM, David Preiss <daviddpreiss@gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Thanks, Peg. Victor Jara was such a great composer and musician. What a
>> big lost for humankind was his murder by the military! We will never knew
>> what songs he would have made if he would have survived torture and
>> detention...  We lost them all... and with them the sounds of a time went
>> missing, a cultural ethos dissapeared for ever to be replaced by hate,
>> killings and the worst forms of sadism this country ever saw. And with him
>> so many others, vanished for ever. What a sad day today, here in Chile, 40
>> years later. Overwhelming is the weight of memory of a police/ murdering
>> state.
>> 
>> David
>> 
>> Enviado desde mi iPhone
>> 
>> El 10-09-2013, a las 22:15, Peg Griffin <peg.griffin@att.net> escribió:
>> 
>>> Thanks, David.
>>> Maybe people in the US could also think about adding their names to the
>> petition to extradite Pedro Barrientos from Florida to Chile so that he can
>> go on trial in the case of the killing of Victor Jara following the
>> September 11, 1973 coup d'etat.
>> http://org.salsalabs.com/o/727/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14250
>>> PG
>>> From: David Preiss <daviddpreiss@gmail.com>
>>> To:
>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 11:04 PM
>>> Subject: Reminding the Chilean 9/11
>>> 
>>> Dear friends,
>>> 
>>> As we commemorate tomorrow in Chile 40 years of Pinochet's coup d'etat,
>> I wanted to mark the occasion sharing the following links:
>>> 
>>> http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm
>>> Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the
>> Military Coup, September 11, 1973
>>> 
>>> 
>> http://especiales2.cooperativa.cl/2013/exposicion-fotografica-david-burnett/
>>> Pictures of American Photographer David Burnett
>>> 
>>> http://www.fundacionsalvado
>>> rallende.cl/en/salvador-allende/linea-del-tiempo/#
>>> Salvador Allende Timeline
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxRlhggVGoQ
>>> La Batalla de Chile by Patricio Guzman (Long documentary in Spanish).
>>> 
>>> 
>> http://books.google.cl/books?id=vWs4wT5kv-0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=los+poetas+y+el+general&hl=es&sa=X&ei=978vUq2XBYGriAKnjoGoBQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=los%20poetas%20y%20el%20general&f=false
>>> Poetry about the dictatorship
>>> 
>>> Take a minute or more than a minute to join us in reminding by clicking
>> on any of these links.
>>> 
>>> David
>>> 
>>> 
>>