Center-left coalition leader and former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet looks for a second Presidential term, focusing on themes of inequality, universal education, and tax reform. But have lessons been learned from the previous coalition terms?

 

Former President Michelle Bachelet, now official center-left coalition Concertación candidate for the 2014 presidential elections has sketched out a campaign strategy based on the reduction in income inequality, “those who earn more, contribute more”, and educational reform, which she has recently suggested would be funded by an overhaul of the tax system.

 

In her formal acceptance of the Concertación nomination Bachelet said, “Combating inequality is what gives us a purpose to be here. It's the fine print that affects millions of consumers who are in debt. It's the salary gap between men and women and the inability of workers to negotiate collectively.”

Matthew Owens

Read more at upsidedownworld.org

We had a chat with Cristobal Torres, the hands behind the Chilean electronic music that is Minimental, who took time out to speak to chileno about what he's up to at the moment. Cristobal is from Santiago and his style is a

chileno:       So, what have you been up to recently Cristobal?

Well,  I`ve been releasing music on a new label based in Chile for progressive and psychedelic trance `Digital Yonkis Records`, an EP and a compilation album have been released with good feedback from everyone, so I'm really happy about it!

chileno:       How would you describe your sound and what are some of your main influences?

It's kinda difficult to define, because it's a mix of styles; progressive, deep, techno psychedelic…even experimental. It's something that flows, I can`t push myself to create a style that I don't fit in. My main influences came from the time when i produced psytrance, lots of the old school wave of the psychedelic techno sounds and of course new sounds too, to name a few: Atmos, Behind Blue Eyes, Sun Control Species, Perfect Stranger, X-Dream, Saiko pod, Kox Box, Penta, Ocelot, Iboga Records, Spiral Trax, Digital Structures, Flow, Echoes, etc.

chileno:      Are there any British sounds that you like? Boards of Canada or Aphex Twin for example?

Well, Simon Posford, Twisted Records, Tip Records, Prometheus, Eat Static, Shpongle, ManwithnoName, TRISTAN, NaNo,Dick Trevor,AMD, etc,etc,etc.

chileno:       What’s your philosophy in making music?

Just flow and create something new, not a copy, not thinking about a hit…just create.

chileno:       When did you first get into music?

At 10, when my dad gave me a drum, then I played a bit of bass til 14. After that, nothing til 2004, when I introduced myself into psychedelic trance. That´s when I met people involved and started DJing and since 2007 producing.

chileno:       Do you play in clubs a lot?

Well, there have been two years with not much music activity, playing just a few times a year, but now I'm focusing on music again, releasing and producing in my new studio.

chileno:       What’s the electronica scene like in Chile today?

Techno scene is quite big, good artists coming every month and good parties, psychedelic is serious, with some consolidated festivals and parties in the city often. Very good artists are coming up, good music and very professional in what they do, so it´s good for everyone.

chileno:       What other Chilean groups do you like?

Well, of course most of my friends producers/DJs from the label and others, they are producing massive tunes! Moaiact, Zlott, Electryxeed, Zoologic, Soldier, Sumerian Droids, Solar, Magnizm and more.

chileno:      Have you got any live gigs coming up?

Yes, but no official date to confirm.

chileno:   When you are not playing music what do you like doing?

I`m with my little daughter Rafaella a lot, but after work I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 3 times a week, and after being with Rafa i try to go cycling whenever possible, be with family, friends, outdoors, sports, cool stuff you know.

chileno:   What are you most excited about at the moment

Being a father. :)

chileno:   What are your plans for 2013?

Release a lot of music, play lots, have fun and of course, enjoy!

Keep up with Minimental via facebook.

It is often remarked upon how the English spoken by Americans isn’t really “English,” but within the small area of the United Kingdom—or even just England—a diverse range of accents and slang can make one person almost unintelligible to their neighbour.

This language barrier becomes even more pronounced when time and vast oceans separate the native tongue from the soil to which it was transplanted. Any Spanish speaker from Spain will tell you that the same language spoken in South American countries may be called “Spanish,” but they would be hard pressed to understand exactly what their Southern brethren are saying, unless they learned the country’s particular dialect.

Chilean Spanish stands apart from other Latin American dialects, due partly to the blend of indigenous languages from the original natives. As regional dialects vary from country to country, even those who speak fluent Latin American Spanish can run into miscommunication while in Chile, sometimes leading to funny results.

Background

Chilean Spanish is part of the “American Spanish group” (in contrast to the Old World varieties), alongside Mexican, Caribbean (Cuba, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Panama, and northern Colombia), Central American, Plata River (Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay) and Andean-Pacific (Peru, Ecuador, western Bolivia, Colombia and western Venezuela). Chilean Spanish is in a group by itself, unlike most other countries, which are grouped together in distinct regions.

Of the 16 million Chileans, over 90% speak Spanish as their primary language. Similar to Andalusian Spanish, it is a dialect that can be challenging for speakers of the Castilian version (from Spain) to understand.

Many indigenous groups lived in the region prior to the arrival of Spanish conquistadors, however, only 11 percent of the population is indigenous today. Many languages have become extinct or borderline extinct as the native population waned.

After the Spanish, who began intermarrying with indigenous peoples, populated Chile, the connection and reinforcement of the original Castilian Spanish began to fall away, leading to the development of this new dialect.

Differences from other Spanish dialects

Chilean Spanish has a great deal of distinctive vocabulary and slang. Many words are borrowed from neighbouring Amerindian language, Quechua. Chilenismos also borrow heavily from the native language, Mapudungun, primarily for names of plants and animals.

There are few regional divisions within the country, with the Spanish spoken in the Northern, Central, and Southern areas being relatively consistent throughout. Areas like Aysén, Magallanes, Chiloé, or Arica have greater differences, especially in the accent. There is remarkable variation in the Spanish spoken by different social classes, as well, centering on the usage of “voseo,” amongst other grammatical quirks.

We are delighted to introduce one of Chileno's new sponsors, Journey Latin America, the UK's Nº1 specialist in travel to Central and South America. Read on to find out more about the online company and click here to view their magazine and browse their South American holidays.

About Journey Latin America

Our online magazine gives us the opportunity to share our expertise of all things Latin America and engage with our customers to hear their stories too. Still independently owned, Journey Latin America have been creating award-winning holidays to every corner of the region for over thirty years: and with over 70 staff, all of whom have lived, worked or travelled throughout the area we pride ourselves on being the most knowledgeable people there are when it comes to travel to Central and South America – and passionate about it too. Co-founders, Chris Parrott and Brian Williams met while teaching in the British School in Rio de Janeiro and during their stint on the continent they travelled, separately, all over Latin America. Their combined knowledge and skills lead them to a ground-breaking plan and they began to run escorted holidays to Latin America. Some 30 years later the motivation hasn’t changed: authentic experiences, knowledge and passion are what we’re about. We aim to reflect these core principles in our online magazine too. From creative Latin American recipes to expert insight into both popular and off-the-beaten track routes, we’ve something to interest every kind of explorer, both offline and on. If you’re interested in the beaches of Brazil, snorkelling in the turquoise waters of Mexico, rubbing shoulders with the tropical penguins of the Galápagos or riding with the Gauchos of Argentina, browse our South American holidays, follow us on Facebook and Twitter or give us a call on: 02036427857. Journey Latin America are the UK's Nº1 specialist in travel to Central and South America and are happy to answer all your questions, however you wish to contact us.

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), born Lucila de María de Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga, was the first Chilean and indeed the first Latin American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1945). In 1929 Gabriela defined her project in the following immortal terms: "Nuestra obligación primogénita como escritores es entregar a los extraños el paisaje nativo" or, "it is our obligation as writers to show the world our native land." In perhaps her most well-known work, Poema de Chile, Mistral undertakes a phenomenological and existential investigation into the essence of Chile and what is means to be Chilean. In addition Gabriela Mistral was often a defender of the under-represented sections of society such as the indigenous people of Chile and these themes are found within her work. For example, she wrote a poem on the plight of the Araucanians, or Mapuche, a large indigenous people in Chile. The posthumously published book is the product of extensive travel through the length and breadth of the country and includes 77 poems which touch on the themes of animals, plants, rivers and the sea, as well as problems that face the common Chilean people. The full collection of Poema de Chile is available for download at memoria chilena and a Spanish language site has been established that is dedicated to Mistral (salamistral), documenting her life through photographs, text and and audio/visual media. You can also find a bibliography at the bottom of this page compiled by the Poetry Foundation. Check their website for any updates. Several poems follow below including an ode to the nation's most precious resource, copper and a poem on the Mapuche.

Están redimiendo el cobre

con las virtudes del fuego.

De allí va a salir hermoso

como nunca se lo vieron

las piedras que eran sus madres

y el que lo befó por necio.

  Suba el Padre Cobre, suba,

que naciste para el fuego

y te pareces a él

en el fervour de tu pecho.

Todavía, todavía

no confiesas el secreto

del amor y de la fiebre

que está en tus piedras gimiendo.

Nadie te habrá dicho hermoso,

porque el pecho no te vieron

  Día a día te volviste

la pobre piedra quedada

la pobre piedra que duerme

y dura y odia la llama

y eres, ya, todos tus muertos

antes de ser sepultada.

  Helados, llanto y sonrisa,

la oración y la palabara,

el amanacer la siesta

y la oración no arribada.

Ya es o mismo, ya es igual

la mundez que la palabara.

ARAUCANOS

  Vamos pasando, pasando
la vieja Araucanía
que ni vemos ni mentamos.
Vamos, sin saber, pasando
reino de unos olvidados,
que por mestizos banales,
por fábula los contamos,
aunque nuestras caras suelen
sin palabras declararlos.

  Eso que viene y se acerca
como una palabra rápida
no es el escapar de un ciervo
que es una india azorada.
Lleva a la espalda al indito
y va que vuela. ¡Cuitada!

  -¿Por qué va corriendo, di,
y escabullendo la cara?
Llámala, tráela, corre
que se parece a mi mama.

  -No va a volverse, chiquito,
ya pasó como un fantasma.
Corre más, nadie la alcanza.
Va escapada de que vio
forasteros, gente blanca.

  -Chiquito, escucha: ellos eran
dueños de bosque y montaña
de lo que los ojos ven
y lo que el ojo no alcanza,
de hierbas, de frutos, de
aire y luces araucanas,
hasta el llegar de unos dueños
de rifles y caballadas.

  -No cuentes ahora, no,
grita, da un silbido, tráela.

  -Ya se pierde ya, mi niño,
de Madre-Selva tragada.
¿A qué lloras? Ya la viste,
ya ni se le ve la espalda.

  -Di cómo se llaman, dilo.

  -Hasta su nombre les falta.
Los mientan "araucanos"
y no quieren de nosotros
vernos bulto, oírnos habla.
Ellos fueron despojados,
pero son la Vieja Patria,
el primer vagido nuestro
y nuestra primera palabra.
Son un largo coro antiguo
que no más ríe y ni canta.
Nómbrala tú, di conmigo:
brava-gente-araucana.
Sigue diciendo: cayeron.
Di más: volverán mañana.

  Deja, la verás un día
devuelta y transfigurada
bajar de la tierra quechua
a la tierra araucana,
mirarse y reconocerse
y abrazarse sin palabras.
Ellas nunca se encontraron
para mirarse a la cara
y amarse y deletrear
sobre los rostros sus almas.

ARAUCANIANS

  We’re passing, passing through
the old land of the Araucanians,
whom we neither see nor name.
We’re crossing without knowing it
a kingdom of the forgotten,
whom we discount as halfbreeds,
or mere legends,
though our faces go on

Wordlessly proclaiming them.

  What’s coming, coming near
like a quick word,
isn’t a fleeing stag
but a frightened Indian woman.
She carries her baby on her back
and flies on. Panic!

  -Tell me why does she run away,
hiding her face from us?
Run, call her, bring her back
for she looks like my mama.

  -She won’t come back, Little one,
she’s gone now like a ghost,
running so fast no one can stop her.
She fled because she saw
foreigners, white people.

  -Little one, listen: they were
lords of forest and mountain,
of all the eye can see
and all the eye can’t reach,
of herbs, of fruits
of the winds and lights of Arauco,
until some people got here
with rifles and horses.

  -Don’t tell about it now,
call, whistle, bring her back!

  -She’s lost already, gone my son,
swallowed up in the Mother-Forest.
Why are you crying? You just saw her,
now even her back has vanished.

  -Say what they’re called, tell me.

  -Even their name is lost.
They’re called "Araucanians"
and all they want of us
is not to see us, hear us talk.
They were dispossessed,
but they are the Old Land,
our first birth-cry
and the first word we spoke.
They are a broad ancicent chorus
that no longer laughs or sings.
Name them with me:
brave-Araucanian-people.
Go on: They were slain.
Say more: They will return tomorrow.

Let it be; one day you’ll see her
changed and transfigured
coming down from Quechuan land
to Araucanian land,
to gaze and recognize
and embrace without speaking.
They never met
to look into each other’s eyes,
to love each other, and to trace
their souls on their faces.

Translation from 'selected poems of Gabriela Mistral' by Ursula Le Guin.

Bibliography - compiled by the Poetry Foundation

BOOKS

• Desolación (New York: Instituto de las Españas, 1922; enlarged edition, Santiago: Nascimento, 1923).
• Ternura: Canciones de niños (Madrid: Saturnino Calleja, 1924; revised edition, Buenos Aires: Espasa-Calpe, 1945).
• Tala (Buenos Aires: Sur, 1938; revised edition, Buenos Aires: Losada, 1946).
• Croquis mexicano, edited by Alfonso Calderón (Mexico City: Costa-Amie, 1957).
• Recados: Contando a Chile, edited by Alfonso M. Escudero (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico, 1957).
• Poesías completas, edited by Margaret Bates (Madrid: Aguilar, 1958).
• Páginas en prosa, edited by José Pereira Rodríguez (Buenos Aires: Kapelusz, 1962).
• Motivos de San Francisco, edited by César Díaz-Muñoz Cormatches (Santiago: Editorial del Pacífico, 1965).
• Poema de Chile (Barcelona: Pomaire, 1967).
• Materias: Prosa inédita, edited by Calderón (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1978).
• Gabriela anda por el mundo, edited by Roque Esteban Scarpa (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1978).
• Gabriela piensa en . . . , edited by Esteban Scarpa (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1978).
• Gabriela Mistral en el "Repertorio Americano," edited by Mario Céspedes (San José: Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica, 1978).
• Prosa religiosa de Gabriela Mistral, edited by Luis Vargas Saavedra (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1978).
• Magisterio y niño, edited by Esteban Scarpa (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1979).
• Grandeza de los oficios, edited by Esteban Scarpa (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1979).
• Elogio de las cosas de la tierra, edited by Esteban Scarpa (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1979).
• Reino: Poesía dispersa e inédita, en verso y prosa, edited by Gastón von dem Bussche (Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso, 1983).
• Lagar II, edited by Ana María Cuneo and Pedro Pablo Zegers (Santiago: Dirreción de Bibliotecas, Archivos y Museos, Biblioteca Nacional, 1991).
• Bendita mi lengua sea: Diario íntima de Gabriela Mistral, 1905-1956, edited by Jaime Quezada (Santiago: Planeta/Ariel, 2002).
• Recopilación de la obra mistraliana, 1902-1922, edited by Zegers (Santiago: Ril, 2002).

Collections

• Antología poética de Gabriela Mistral, selected by Alfonso Calderón (Santiago: Editorial Universitaria, 1974).
• Poesía y prosa, edited by Quezada (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1993).

Editions in English

• Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral, translated by Langston Hughes (Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press, 1957).
• Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral, translated and edited by Doris Dana (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971).
• A Gabriela Mistral Reader, translated by Maria Giachetti, edited by Marjorie Agosín (Fredonia, N.Y.: White Pines, 1993).
• Selected Prose and Prose-Poems, edited and translated by Stephen Tapscott (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002).

OTHER

• Lecturas para mujeres, edited by Mistral (Mexico City: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1924).

LETTERS

• Epistolario: Cartas a Eugenio Labarca (1915-16), edited by Raúl Silva Castro (Santiago: Anales de la Universidad de Chile, 1957).
• Cartas de Gabriela Mistral a Juan Ramón Jiménez (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones de La Torre, 1961).
• Cartas de Gabriela Mistral, edited by Luis Vargas Saavedra (Santiago: Biblioteca Nacional, 1970).
• Cartas de amor de Gabriela Mistral, edited by Sergio Fernández Larraín (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1978).
• Eduardo Frei Montalva, Memorias y correspondencias con Gabriela Mistral y Jacques Maritain (Santiago: Planeta, 1989).
• Gabriela Mistral y Joaquín García Monge: Una correspondencia inédita, edited by Magda Arce (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1989).
• Tan de usted: Epistelario de Gabriela Mistral con Alfonso Reyes, edited by Vargas Saavedra (Santiago: Hachette/Editorial Universitaria Católica de Chile, 1991).
• En batalla de sencillez: De Lucila a Gabriela: Cartas a Pedro Prado, 1915-1939, edited by Vargas Saavedra, María Ester Martínez Sanz, and Regina Valdés Bowen (Santiago: Dolmen, 1993).
• Epistolario de Gabriela Mistral e Isolina Barraza (La Serena, Chile: Rosales, 1995).
• Vuestra Gabriel: cartas inéditas de Gabriela Mistral a los Errázuriz Echenique y Tomic Errázuriz, edited by Vargas Saavedra (Santiago: Zig-Zag, 1995).
• Cartas de amor y desamor, edited by Jaime Quezada and Fernández Larraín (Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1999).
• Castilla, tajeada de sed como mi lengua: Gabriela Mistral ante España y España ante Gabriela Mistral, 1933 a 1935, edited by Vargas Saavedra (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2002).
• This America of Ours: The Letters of Gabriela Mistral and Victoria Ocampo, edited and translated by Elizabeth Horan and Doris Meyer (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003).

Football was brought to Chile by the British in the 19th Century who played the sport during tours to commercial ports such as Valparaíso where locals were introduced to how the game was played. Indeed Chile's oldest football club, the Anglo-Saxon sounding Santiago Wanderers, was founded in 1892 and is based in Valparaíso. Today, football is incredibly popular in Chile and the country has one of the most competitive leagues in South America which continually produces homegrown talent through the youth systems as well as attracting the best players from abroad. Chile has produced a throng  of football stars over the years, many playing in top leagues across the world, such as the Premier League, Serie A, La Liga, to name  just a few.  The presence of Chilean players has been particularly strong in Europe, with potential stars emerging every year. For example, the exciting 17-year-old Cristian Cuevas has recently signed for Chelsea.

 Here is a list of top 5 best footballers who are showing superb form in the Chilean league.

 1. Carlos Labrín

Carlos Alfredo Labrin was born in 2nd December, 1990 in Mulchén, Chile. The 23 year old Chilean international currently plays for Huachipato. He has the ability to break or make the squad with his vision, skills and performance. The player began his career in youth ranks of Huachipato being promoted to the first 11 in 2008. Despite his lack of experience, he soon won the support of Manager Fernando Vergara, who frequently featured him in his starting team.

2. Francisco Ibáñez Campos

Francisco Javier Ibáñez Campos was born on the 13th January 1986 in Chile. He currently plays as a forward for San Marcos de Arica. The player is a natural striker, with stamina, pace and aptitude in any position on the pitch. He started his career in the Universidad de Chile youth system prior to making his debut in 2006 with Palestino.

3. Lorenzo Reyes

Lorenzo Enrique Reyes was born on the 13th of June 1991. The 21 year-old Chilean is a midfielder for Primera División club Huachipato. The player moves, passes, and dribbles the ball with grace. Reyes plays a smart and simple style of football. The young star knows what he has to do with the ball even before he gets hold of it. He is fearless and makes the game look simple, as many of the greats in football do. You hardly ever see this player lose possession of the ball.

4. Francisco Pizarro

Francisco Pizarro is a 23 year old Chilean player who plays as a forward for Cobreloa in the Chilean league. Of all the primera division stars, one would beyond doubt be hard-pressed to find a single most exceptional star than Pizarro. Anyone who has watched the Chilean can attest to his influence in the team. And without a doubt Pizarro will carry on with his skills in any of the premier league club.

5. Marcos Sebastian Pol Gutiérrez

Marcos Sebastian Pol is an Argentine player currently on the books at Primera División club Cobreloa as a striker. He started his career in the San Lorenzo youth ranks, before joining Cartaginés. In August of 2007, after showing a remarkable season in Costa Rica, Marcos joined Dacia Mioveni, where he had a poor spell, then he arrived to Bolivia, playing for Guairá and Real Potosí. Pol signed for Chilean club Cobreloa in 2012.

CONCURSO FOTOGRÁFICO  2013

Pais: CHILE.

Participantes:  Chilenos o extranjeros. Para extranjeros las fotografías deben ser de Chile.

Tema: Abierto.

Reglas del Concurso:

Las fotografías deben ser originales y propias.

El formato de las imágenes debe ser en JPEG, RAW o TIFF,  300 dpi o superior, y el tamaño del archivo debe ser hasta un máximo de 5 MB.

Todas las fotografías deben enviarse como archivos adjuntos al correo electrónico:  office[nospam]ATchileno.co.uk, con indicación de todos sus datos personales. Por favor, incluya su nombre, lugar de nacimiento y país de residencia en el email.

Pueden enviarse un máximo de 5 fotografías diferentes, una por correo electrónico.

La fecha de cierre del concurso es la medianoche, domingo 31 de agosto 2013.

Los derechos de autor de cada foto se queda con el autor, pero nosotros tenemos el derecho de publicar todas las fotos en la página web: www.chileno.co.uk

Hay tres premios:

Primero :  TBC

Segundo:  TBC

Tercero :  TBC

Los 3 primeros lugares seleccionados, serán publicados  en la página web chileno.co.uk como 1 º, 2 º y 3 º lugar.   Los ganadores serán notificados la ultima semana de mayo  2013.

Por favor, no envíe retratos de niños a menos que tengan el permiso del padre o tutor.  Al enviar su correo electrónico, usted acepta los términos de esta competencia.

Buena suerte!

CONCURSO FOTOGRÁFICO  2013

Pais: CHILE.

Participantes:  Chilenos o extranjeros. Para extranjeros las fotografías deben ser de Chile.

Tema: Abierto.

Reglas del Concurso:

Las fotografías deben ser originales y propias.

El formato de las imágenes debe ser en JPEG, RAW o TIFF,  300 dpi o

superior, y el tamaño del archivo debe ser hasta un máximo de 5 MB.

Todas las fotografías deben enviarse como archivos adjuntos al correo electrónico:  office[nospam]ATchileno.co.uk, con indicación de todos sus datos personales. Por favor, incluya su nombre, lugar de nacimiento y país de residencia en el email.

Pueden enviarse un máximo de 5 fotografías diferentes, una por correo electrónico.

La fecha de cierre del concurso es la medianoche, domingo 31 de agosto 2013.

Los derechos de autor de cada foto se queda con el autor, pero nosotros tenemos el derecho de publicar todas las fotos en la página web: www.chileno.co.uk

Hay tres premios:

Primero :  TBC

Segundo:  TBC

Tercero :  TBC

Los 3 primeros lugares seleccionados, serán publicados  en la página web chileno.co.uk como 1 º, 2 º y 3 º lugar.   Los ganadores serán notificados la ultima semana de mayo  2013.

Por favor, no envíe retratos de niños a menos que tengan el permiso del padre o tutor.  Al enviar su correo electrónico, usted acepta los términos de esta competencia.

Buena suerte!

Chileno Photography Competition 2013

Theme: Open

Competition rules:

Photographs must be taken either in Chile or by a Chilean national. The photograph must be original and taken by you.

Photographs must be in JPEG, RAW or TIFF format. dpi must be 300 or better and file size must be up to a maximum of 5MB.

All photographs must be sent as attachments to the email.

You may enter a maximum of 5 different photographs, one per email.

The closing date for the competition is midnight GMT on Sunday the 31st of August 2013.

Emails should be addressed to office[nospam]ATchileno.co.uk and include the photographer's name in the subject.

The body of each email must contain your name, town/city and country of residence.

All copyright to the photographs remains with the photographers. However, www.chileno.co.uk has the right to publish the photographs on this website. All entrants may have their images displayed on Chileno.

There are three prizes:

1st - TBC

2nd - TBC

3rd - TBC

Winners will be notified by the end of May 2013 and their work featured on Chileno.

Please do not submit portraits of children unless you have the permission of the parent or guardian.

By submitting your email you are agreeing to the terms of this competition.

Good luck!

Source: Chilean Tourist Board (www.sernatur.cl)

Junto con saludarla atentamente, el Gabinete Presidencial acusa recibo de su correo electrónico.

Al respecto, nuestro Gobierno conciente de que el turismo es una actividad capaz de generar nuevas oportunidades laborales y de desarrollo territorial, se ha propuesto gestionar de manera eficiente esta industria.

Para ello, se ha propuesto durante esta década duplicar la importancia del turismo en la economía nacional, pasando del 3% al 6%, crear 45.000 nuevos empleos directos y 160.000 indirectos y aumentar en un 45% el número de turistas extranjeros que nos visitan cada año.

Para lograr tal objetivo, las líneas de trabajo del Gobierno se basan en la creación de la Subsecretaría de Turismo, el  promover la imagen de Chile en el exterior, en la generación de inversiones en nueva infraestructura física y digital, y apoyar con créditos y capacitación a miles de pequeños y medianos empresarios y trabajadores del rubro turístico.

Para mayor información le sugerimos visitar el sitio web del Servicio Nacional de Turismo www.sernatur.cl.

Cordialmente,

FELIPE ALESSANDRI V.

Director

Dirección de Gestión Ciudadana

Chileno: How long has the process been in researching and writing the book? What has the experience been like and how much did you travel to Chile?

Dr Crow: From start to finish, about 10 years – a long time! It started as a PhD thesis (2002-2006, Univeristy College London), and then, after securing a contract for publication, I spent a couple of years revising the structure and incorporating some new material. It was a lot of hard work but it was certainly worth it to see the book finally in print! I also met some fantastic people and got to spend a lot of time in Chile (4 or 5 trips, overall about three and a half years). I have some great memories of my time in Chile, especially of meeting and getting to know writers such as Leonel Lienlaf and Cesar Millahueique – I feel very privileged to have been able to talk to them about their work – and of trips to Temuco, where I was able to participate in conferences that really helped connect the past, and the ways in which we think about the past, to the heated political debates of the present.

Chileno: In the introduction to the book, through the 'postcard Mapuche', you allude to a 'noble savage' narrative in Chile that appears to respect the Mapuche as a warrior nation that helped to defeat the Conquistadors.  The paradox is that at the same time the Mapuche seem to have been either assigned to the rubbish heap of history or marginalised. How do we reconcile these positions? Does this just make it just easier, psychologically, for Chileans to avoid the 'mapuche question' ?

Dr Crow: There are multiple narratives of Mapuche history – depending on who is narrating it and when. One exalts them as heroic freedom-fighters who successfully defended their lands against Spanish invaders in the 16^th century , namely post-independence era leaders justifying and glorifying their own fight against Spanish colonial rule in the 19^th century, but this narrative continues through to today as a key foundational fiction of Chilean nationhood, i.e. the Chilean nation was born from the coming together of two great warrior ‘races’ (the Spanish and the Araucanian). We see it in official Independence Day speeches, presidents’ inaugural lectures etc… The Mapuche that are usually marginalised are the present-day Mapuche – narrated, by the mainstream Chilean press, as having lost their bravery, honour, military prowess and strength of old, on the verge of disappearing etc… The historical Mapuche is acceptable, indeed crucial for Chilean nationalism (he is a national hero). The contemporary Mapuche who fights for his/her territorial, or political rights is often seen as a threat (in many cases deemed a terrorist threat). This is similar to the position of indigenous peoples in nationalistic discourses elsewhere in Latin America.

Chileno: Your thesis, though, is more complex than that isn't it? Are you suggesting a dynamic relationship between state/nation and people.

Dr Crow: Yes, the relationship is most definitely a constantly shifting and highly complex one. State policies are always changing and the state apparatus is made up of hundreds if not thousands of departments, ministries, institutions, administrative bodies etc… which each have hundreds if not thousands of people working for them. It is impossible to talk of the state as one uniform whole. Not all state authorities have responded to Mapuche actions and demands in the same way. They have not always or at least they have not consistently repressed Mapuche activism. Indeed, even the same state department or government in power has often elaborated multiple discourses towards and policies regarding the Mapuche; these are not always consistent with one another.  So, for example, one part of (or person/institution working for) the education system, under one particular government, might prohibit the use of indigenous language while another promotes it.  This happened even under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. More importantly, many Mapuche people have worked within the state apparatus – as policemen, soldiers, teachers, congressmen, local councillors, mayors, Agarian Reform officials etc… etc… and/ or have dialogued with the state apparatus in some way. They have made demands of the state, and articulated those demands in a way that the state can understand (to a certain extent, on the state’s own terms). But this is not in any way to suggest they are “selling out”. Rather, Mapuche people – a great diversity of people who have different political ideologies, different ways of doing things, different perceptions about the Chilean government and Chilean society and so forth – have developed numerous different strategies for survival since their territory was incorporated into the Chilean state in the late 19^th century. Sometimes they have chosen to negotiate with the state, or they have sought to change the state from within, or they have agreed with some state policies (or even benefitted from some)… the list goes on. They have also, of course, rebelled against the state and rejected state policies. Whilst the reality of power relations means that there have been few Mapuche government ministers or few wealthy Mapuche landowners, and that the Mapuche who do have a voice on the national or local political stage are not necessarily being listened to, this is not the same as to say that they have been passive victims of state actions, or indeed that they are always anti-state.

Chileno: The official version of the 19th century campaigns in La Araucanía avoided terms like 'invasion' etc. and one narrative was of an easy peace. The reality was much different wasn't it?

Dr Crow: This is the focus of chapter 1 in the book. One narrative underscored the possibility of peaceful incorporation of indigenous Mapuche people and their territory into the Chilean state; this was the narrative promoted by the president at the time of the conclusion of the military campaigns in 1883, Domingo Santa Maria. There is much evidence to support this narrative – letters from Mapuche chiefs, for example, pledging loyalty to the Chilean state authorities and promising to inform of any uprisings of rebellions they hear about. Chilean military leaders also wrote proudly of being able to ‘pacify’ indigenous Mapuche territory with very little recourse to violence. However, many other sources (again, letters, government documents, newspapers) detail the violence of the campaigns – the violence of Mapuche rebellions, but more notably the violence of the Chilean military against the Mapuche, and of those people encouraged to settle the ‘new’ territory after the military campaigns. The violence of the campaigns has now been recognised by the official teaching curriculum, a number of state museums and the recent Commission of Historical Truth and New Treatment of Indigenous Peoples (2001-2003). 

Chileno: If we look at history certain groups have been successful in using 'freedom fighting' or 'terrorism' to negotiate (e.g. the Irish). Is the willingness to fight over land and all that it brings an explanatory factor in the survival of the Mapuche people?

Dr Crow: Yes, I think so. Successive governments have rejected Mapuche land invasions, say, or violent street protests as a legitimate or ‘rational’ way of trying to get people to listen to their demands, but it does force the issue, it does get press coverage, it does mean the politicians in congress debate the issue. It is sometimes claimed – by newspapers denouncing previous government attempts to restitute some Mapuche lands – that those rural communities who have been involved with the more radical Mapuche organisations (with members in jail on charges of’ terrorism’) are also those that have received lands from the state. This storyline is presented as a criticism of Concertacion policy, but it also points to a connection between political activism and concrete achievements. 

Chileno: The penultimate chapter in the book takes us up to contemporary times. Can you talk us through this a bit?

Dr Crow: Chapter 6 is about memory and competing claims to historical ‘truth’ in the context of official policies of neoliberal multiculturalism during the Concertacion governments (1990-2010). It outlines the tensions inherent in neoliberal multiculturalism (for instance, neoliberal economic policies – such as hydroelectric dam projects, expansion of the logging industry - impacting negatively on Mapuche rural communities in the south, at the same time as the laws of the state, e.g. the Indigenous Law of 1993, promise to protect indigenous lands; also, the relationship between the ‘permitted Indian’ who works with the state and the ‘dysfunctional, conflict-prone Indian’ who protests against the state and is sometimes jailed as a terrorist for doing so) as a backdrop to the ‘new’ histories being produced by the Commission of Historical Truth and New Treatment of Indigenous Peoples (which has been highly criticised by many Mapuche but which also included many Mapuche people in its various working groups), the Mapuche newspaper Azkintuwe, a recent controversial book by Mapuche academics, and two well-known Mapuche poets. It seeks to show how contested the process of history-telling is, and also to demonstrate that the divide between the permitted and conflict-prone Indian is a blurred one, and that some Mapuche intellectuals are able to enact both roles at the same time.

Chileno: Very interesting. And so what are the future directions for you and your academic work?

Dr Crow: I am just beginning a new research project on Chilean-Peruvian intellectual encounters, still with a focus debates about the “indigenous question.” One of the aims is to look at the links between the two countries when many previous studies highlight the conflicts and disconnections, not least because of the two major wars of the nineteenth century between Chile and Peru. I am also very interested in exploring the cultural and institutional history behind certain intellectual relationships – the congresses, the joint journal endeavours, book fairs – and in investigating Peruvian experiences of life (and intellectual debates) in Chile, and vice versa. At the moment I am thinking of focusing on 4 or 5 particular relationships, for example the friendship between Gabriela Mistral and Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, but I am very much at the beginning of this project and just thinking through some possible paths of enquiry.

Chileno: These sound like fruitful lines of research. Given that Mapuche issues have been in the media a lot lately, I wondered what your views are on the recent tensions in Southern Chile? What are your views, for example, on the use of anti-terror laws in the region and violence down there?

Dr Crow: The tensions seem to be growing, and I don’t see a possible solution in sight, particularly under the government of Sebastián Piñera. The anti-terrorism legislation has been revised slightly, I think, but still remains in effect (I need to double check the exact state of affairs now). It seeks to delegitimise and indeed criminalise Mapuche political activism, but will not stop such activism. Instead, the refusal to engage seriously with the demands of the more ‘radical’ sectors of Mapuche society causes such frustration that the confrontational aspects of Mapuche political activism are likely to increase. In short, the use of anti-terrorism laws to deal with the ‘Mapuche problem’ (as newspapers label it) seems only to exacerbate the problem rather than try to resolve it. We also see a disjuncture between Mapuche violence as presented by the government (unlawful, irrational, encouraged by foreign ‘extremist’ groups etc… ) and the violence used against Mapuche activists and communities by state actors, mainly the military police, which is presented as necessary to defend law and order, the only rational policy worth pursuing etc… In other words, the use of anti-terrorism laws, and the enforcement of those laws, seems to reflect the hypocrisy of much government policy with regard to indigenous peoples.   

Chileno: Right, so what does the future hold for the Mapuche? Would you say there is going to be enough pressure for increased equality?

Dr Crow: An impossible question for a historian to answer! I think there is growing pressure – from some sectors of Chilean society and from the international community (particularly human rights groups), as well as from Mapuche organisations themselves – to recognise Mapuche rights and to stop state violence against Mapuche communities (in the form of police raids, militarisation of Araucanía etc…) but whether this will lead to any concrete changes I am not sure. At least there seems to be more debate about the situation of Mapuche people in Chile, but often those dominating the debate are the landowners and the mainstream press in the south, and business interests, which are often antagonistic to Mapuche demands for land and increased cultural and political autonomy.

Chileno: I know some Mapuche people don't recognise states such as Chile and Argentina at all, it seems difficult to me to imagine how some of the demands could ever be agreed to. Is full 'integration' whatever that means, inevitable?

Dr Crow: No, I don’t think so; I’m not sure anything is inevitable. There are many different possibilities for the future. For example, the granting of more cultural and political autonomy for the region of Araucania – where the Mapuche constitute a significant proportion of the population – could help to empower more Mapuche people at a local level, and they could reject ‘integrationist’ policies whilst still officially being part of the Chilean state (if that doesn’t sound contradictory???). I.e. They can continue to engage with the Chilean state while not necessarily seeing themselves as Chilean. At a national level, things could change – the Chilean state could be recognised as multinational (as has happened in Bolivia) and this would have major repercussions for Mapuche land rights, but I don’t see this happening in the near future. Even if Mapuche autonomist claims are not recognised though – and like you say, it’s difficult to imagine some of the demands could ever be agreed to – this doesn’t mean that such claims will be dropped. Official sources might talk of integration (with differing meanings in terms what happens to difference in the process of integration) but that doesn’t mean it will be achieved, particularly when a growing number of Mapuche seem to reject it.

Chileno: Thanks for your time in explaining your fascinating work.

The book, The Mapuche in Modern Chile is published by University Press of Florida and is out now (29/1/2013). The book is available from better bookstores, or direct, through the publisher.

Chileno interviewed several ranked Chilean chess players. They took some time out from their busy practice schedule and gave us their thoughts on some key questions on chess and what direction the game in Chile should take in the future. First up was FIDE master Joao Avalos currently ranked 56 in Chile.

Name:	Avalos Parra, Joao
Federation:	Chile
FIDE title:	FIDE Master
Highest rating:	2323
Born:	1981
Sex:	Male

 

Avalos Parra, Joao (CHI)  Profile |  Rating Progress |  Game Statistics

Chileno - When did you start to play chess and how much time do you devote to practice and development? 

Joao - Comence a los 14 años de edad, y dedico unas 4 horas al ajedrez diariamente.

Joao - I started when I was14 years old and I devote around 4 hours daily to play chess.

Chileno – What are your ambitions in chess?

Joao - Hoy en dia mis ambiciones son conseguir el titulo de maestro internacional de ajedrez y competir en el circuito mundial de este deporte.

Joao - Today my ambitions are to achieve the international master title and to compete on the world chess circuit.

Chileno - How important is studying chess theory to your game?

Joao - La teoría del ajedrez es muy importante para practicar este deporte a un nivel profesional ,debido a que es un lado importante del desarrollo de cualquier ajedrecista para poder alcanzar objetivos importantes en este deporte.

Joao - Chess theory is very important to play at a professional level.This is an important part of every chess player’s game in order to accomplish important achievements in the sport.

Chileno - Do you use computers as part of your studies?

Joao - Jugar con computadoras no realmente , si con las computadoras analizo mis partidas y estudioa de entrenamiento para comprobar pensamientos e ideas que se me pueden presentar en el entrenamiento mismo.

Joao - I don’t really play with computers, but I do analyse my chess matches using computers and learn by training and from my thoughts and ideas that may present themselves whilst training.

Chileno - The English grandmaster Nigel Short has complained that computers may destroy chess and that “cheating with computers is the gravest threat to chess today”, do you agree with that statement?

Joao - Bueno en cierta medida las computadoras pueden destruir la mistica imaginativa y creativa del juego, pero  sigo creyendo en que la inventiva e imaginación del ser humano es mas grande que el mero calculo y evaluación fría de una computadora. Por lo mismo creo que la trampa en ajedrez influye miuy poco e el juego verdadero del ajedrez en si. Es decir, dudo que el juego tramposo le gane a la inventiva humana.

Joao - I think that in a certain way, computers might destroy the imagination and creativeness of the game; however I still believe that the invention and imagination of the human being is much bigger than the cold and basic calculations of a computer. For that reason I think that cheating in chess has little influence in the real game.Therefore, I doubt that cheating will win over human creativeness.

Chileno – How vital is it to have a very powerful memory in chess - How many moves ahead can you calculate on the chess board?

Joao - La memoria es una virtud fundamental para desarrollar un buen juego de ajedrez , es algo que marca diferencia entre un jugador fuerte de uno débil, creo que  puedo calcular alrededor de 6 u 10 movimientos,aunque me encantaría que fueran mas , por el bien de mi futuro en este deporte.

Joao - Memory is a vital part to be able to develop a good chess game, it is something that marks the difference between a strong or a weak player, I think I can calculate around 6 to 10 moves ahead, although I would love to be able to do better in the future.         

Chileno – Would you say that chess is about combat perhaps fuelled by testosterone, or is it a strategic exercise?

Joao - Claramente el ajedrez es un juego de estrategia aunque como en todo deporte puede influir en situaciones determinadas  la testosterona para ganar.

Joao - Clearly, chess is a strategy game although like in every sport and in certain situations, but testosterone could help you to win.

Chileno – Fischer, and others in Chess have sometimes been associated with insanity. Do you think there is a danger of becoming obsessed with chess and it damaging your health?

Joao - Creo que el ajedrez pude causar anomalías mentales asi como cualquier deporte físico causa daños físicos como lesiones,etc. Asociar al ajedrecista con un potencial enfermo mental  es otra cosa que creo fuera de lugar … el ajedrecista peca de usar mucho su mente si eso es enfermedad bienvenida sea aquella..entonces a varias personas les favorecia este juego.. si Fischer fue considerado enfermo por ocupar su cerebro jugando ajedrez  mas que cualquier persona en este mundoen cualquier ámbito del pensamiento humano  entonces DIGANME LOCO que se los agradeceré.

Joao - I think that chess may cause mental anomalies like any other physical sport can cause physical damage like injuries etc. to associate a chess player with a potential mental illness is another thing that I think it is going too far … A chess player makes a mistake by using his mind too much and if that can be called insanity, then I welcome it!  A lot of people can take advantage of this game if that is the case then.  If Fischer was considered to be ill for using his brain to play chess more than any other person in the world or any sphere of human thought, then CALL ME  CRAZY and I would thank you for this.

Chileno - What is the chess scene like in Chile today? How does it compare to other countries and do you think it has changed over time?

Joao - Creo que Chile es un país totalmente básico en el desarrollo del ajedrez , hacen falta muchos cambios y mejoras para aspirar a obtener un nivel medianamente mundial. Comparado con otros países de america y el mundo estamos a años luz , pero tengo la esperanza de que mejore la situación de este deporte.

Joao - I think that Chile is at a very basic level in the development of chess, we need a lot of changes and better opportunities to achieve a medium world level. If we compare ourselves to other countries in the Americas and the rest of the world I think we are light years behind but I hope this situation will improve soon.

Chileno - As with the rest of the world, there are many more men than women playing at top levels in Chile. Why do you think this is?

Joao - Sin querer quedar como machista , creo que el ajedrez es un 80% paciencia por eso las mujeres lo descartan de plano, que mujer aguanta 5 horas sentadas sin moverse ni poder hablar??  Solo pensando …pocas.

Joao - Without being called a chauvinist, I think chess is 80%  patience and for that reason women are not interested, what woman will be able to stay still for 5 hours without being able to move and talk, just thinking… only a few.

Chileno – What do you think the future holds for chess in Chile? What are the three most important developments that need to happen to make improvements?

Joao - Creo que en Chile el ajedrez no mejorara sin una política clara y decidida hacia este deporte, sabemos que el ajedrez es poco comercial y masivo. Ninguna empresa privada apuesta por un deporte que le retribuya poca publicidad, creo que puntos neurálgicos para mejorar esta situación son INFORMACION a la gente sobre las bondades de este deporte, APOYO de la empresa privada y COMPROMISO con esta actividad. Con estos 3 puntos tomados en serio el ajedrez chileno puede mejorar hostenciblemente.

Joao - I think that chess in Chile won’t get better until there is a clear and dedicated policy towards this sport; we all know that chess is not very commercial and wide reaching.  A private company won’t invest in a sport that will bring hardly any publicity if any at all, I think that the major things to improve this situation are COMMUNICATION to the people about the benefits of this sport, SUPPORT from private companies and LOYALTY in this activity.  With these 3 points taken into consideration seriously Chilean chess can improve  dramatically.

Chileno – Thank you Joao for taking the time out for Chileno and we wish you good luck in your future endeavours.

http://www.chileno.co.uk/?tempskin=_rss2

The analysis was based on a joint study, carried out by the Boston College Center for International Higher Education (CIHE) and the Laboratory for Institutional Analysis (LIA) at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, in which 28 countries were surveyed. The study included all lecturers, both full and part-time and considered academic remuneration in terms of basic gross salaries in 2008 but incentives or bonuses were excluded from the analysis.

The figures are standardised using purchasing powerparity (PPP).

Top paying Chilean universities included  Talca, Tecnológica Metropolitana and Tarapacá, awarding average monthly salaries of $5,725 USD, $4,564 USD and $4,283 USD, respectively. Surprisingly, the average salary at the highly regarded Universidad de Chile in Santiago was only slightly higher than the average for the country at $3,796 USD. The worst payers were Valparaíso and Playa Ancha, dolling out a mere average of $2,600 USD (les than an annual salary of £20,000).

The full international comparison data can be seen in the table below

 Source: La Tercera.

Washington political analyst Patricio Zamorano reflects on a turbulent term for the Chilean President. For a Spanish version of this article see below.

Patricio Zamorano, political analyst

Washington DC

www.chileno.co.uk/blogs

Four publishing companies with global reach have focused their attention on the case of Chile in the last few years. Of these media, all have dealt in some way or another with the Chilean student movement of 2011-2012 (which is still active) and, by extension, with the problems of political management in Sebastian Piñera’s government. Now added to this in recent months is the Government's controversial decision to use the full force of an anti-terrorist law against Mapuche activists accused of acts of violence in southern Chile. Piñera has chosen a military rather than a socio-economic approach to the complex situation of the Mapuche people, who are engaged in a struggle to recover their lands. The Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS) José Miguel Insulza, who is also a Chilean, has recently stated that the policy of applying anti-terrorist laws against indigenous activists "has a complicated international image," and should be eliminated. Furthermore, he stated that the way the law is being implemented by the Piñera Government makes it appear that it only applies to Mapuche people implicated in acts of violence.

The topic of the student crisis has received worldwide coverage. First, The Guardian named the leader of the Chilean student movement Camila Vallejo “Person of the Year” at the end of 2011. Shortly afterwards, The New York Times described Vallejo as “the world’s most glamorous revolutionary.” In April 2012, The Economist called Piñera “inept,” a strange adjective for a conservative publication to use when, in reality, he should be a “favourite son” according to their editorial line. The same month The Wall Street Journal accused Piñera of being “weak and incompetent” and of becoming a “leftist”. The newspaper considered the implementation of social policies as a sign of weakness against the student movement which enjoyed legitimacy both internationally and at home. The student reform movement and the activism of hundreds of thousands of young people has lead to a new wave of political leaders who, despite their youth, have started political careers to be elected to the Chilean Congress, amongst them Camila Vallejo, Giorgio Jackson and Camilo Ballesteros.

Piñera, defending the role of the State?

The country, thought to be a miracle of macroeconomics, is an illusion of development which owes a huge debt: to clean up the high levels of inequality in income, the workplace, and education and, in general, to address the issues that the Concertación [centre-left coalition] did not or could not remedy. The consequences are very clear. After the aggressive assertion of The Wall Street Journal against the "leftist leanings" of Piñera’s public policies in response to the student movement, we encounter a historical paradox of huge proportions, stemming from the words of the former Secretary General of the Presidency and current Minister of the Interior, Andrés Chadwick. The leader, who defected from the radical left under the Unidad Popular party to become the most committed Pinochet devotee, is a central figure of the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), the party that represents the most conservative values in Chile, with a strong presence of Opus Dei in their ranks. When the strong criticism was published in The Wall Street Journal, Chadwick came out before the television cameras, defending the social policies of Piñera. "The State has to play a role to create equal opportunities," he said as a defence to the criticism of the US newspaper. And he suggested that the critique coming from the newspaper of Piñera's government "was not surprising" since the publication is "very committed to economic freedom and the business world" -- odd statements from one who provides advice to a President whose fortune is one of the four greatest in Chile.

The words of justification from a conservative like Chadwick defending the role of the State are interesting. They demonstrate, first, that The Wall Street Journal is indeed correct, the Piñera Government has had to move its strategy of public policies to the left. But the main issue goes beyond that: it demonstrates that, 20 years after the end of the dictatorship, there is an accumulation of progressive values in the political and economic spheres in Chile about which there is consensus in all sectors. Chilean society has learned from the debacle caused by years of aggressive neoliberal policies in the 1990s and profound inequality. The Frei Government in the Nineties had a worse distribution of wealth than the dictatorship. This process of progressing towards a more constructive role of the State as regulator and protector of the most vulnerable sectors of society opened the door to a paradigm more focused on equal opportunity as a basis for the great dream of all the political groups: to achieve the socioeconomic level of a developed country. Piñera has no other option but to continue on that path.

Popular approval: historical lows

I personally met the then Senator Piñera in the Nineties, whilst working as a reporter on the right wing parties for the now defunct newspaper La Época. I do not agree at all with the adjective "inept" offered by The Economist. I remember him as an intelligent leader who took a hard line in the political game with internal adversaries within his party, Renovación Nacional, and especially with the UDI, although he was open on social issues and values. However, at that time, the scandal that had produced audio recordings of Piñera instructing a journalist friend to ridicule his opponent in presidential primaries in a television interview, Evelyn Matthei, his current Minister of Labour, was still fresh. It never crossed my mind that the Chilean people would honour him with the Presidency. His race for the presidential seat seemed stained forever after that scandal.

Piñera now governs with a very low level of approval, which fell to a historic low of 26% according to an Adimark survey in April 2012. In the Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP) survey of May 2012, Piñera’s popularity fell even further to a mere 24 percent and, in January 2013, he was still polling at 31 percent. Furthermore, 61% believe that the government has acted "without skill or ability." 52% disapprove of Piñera’s economic management, and 63% stated that the President "does not give [them] confidence." A full 72% considered him "distant".

The errant President

President Piñera has cloistered himself in a political realism that he wasn't accustomed to. He has had to abandon all the business acumen and entrepreneurship that he surely would have wanted to use to thrive as President, and instead has had to invest all his political capital in a series of political and social crises which he has been unable to dispatch completely. This lack of proper tools in the political game can be appreciated from Washington DC. He has worn out the recurring theme of the impressive rescue of the 33 miners trapped underground in the north of Chile in October 2010 -- the only noteworthy message coming out of the Chilean Embassy in the US city for two years -- as a communicational strategy for promoting Chile. That President Obama mentioned the rescue in his State of the Union address to Congress was enough for Piñera to cling to the issue, repeating it as a monothematic message in the U.S. capital. It must be remembered, however, that Obama mentioned the Chilean rescue, on that occasion, primarily to draw attention to the US company and workers who built the evacuation tunnel that managed to reach the miners first.

Furthermore, in an incomprehensible act of political strategy last year in the aftermath of the student crisis of 2011, President Piñera appointed the former Minister of Education, Felipe Bulnes, Ambassador of Chile to the United States, perhaps the most important diplomatic post on the planet for a Chilean to hold. During Bulnes’s administration as Minister, the Government exercised tough police repression against young people in the streets, with the conflict ending in deadlock, without a concrete solution. In the same Adimark survey last April, a year after the beginning of the student demonstrations, there was still a clear 72% disapproval in the way the government handled the issue of education.

In another example of his lack of connection with political reality, Piñera still keeps Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter in the government, another politician responsible for strong police repression against the students during 2011. The police are now under the command of the Ministry of the Interior, which was directed by Hinzpeter during that period. In addition, Hinzpeter failed on the subject he had declared to be the most important of his tenure as Minister of the Interior: crime. This area was evaluated as the worst of all in April 2012, with an 82% rate of disapproval. In the CEP survey of May 2012, Hinzpeter managed to reach 30% approval. Recently, in November 2012, rather than removing Hinzpeter from the Government, Piñera appointed him Minister of Defence...

Similarly, in the case of ex-minister Bulnes, President Piñera appears to betray his own business past. "Successful management" is based on managerial responsibilities and should be directly related to results. Performance failures have consequences, and successes, rewards. But for two Ministers in key posts, Education and the Interior, with abysmal performances, far from being asked to relinquish their posts and being replaced, they have been rewarded. On Bulnes, Piñera declared that he was accepting his resignation from office and appointed Harald Beyer because the Ministry required "a person who can calm tempers, bring more temperance, rationality, dialogue," -- that is to say, a clear listing of the fundamental characteristics that Bulnes lacked. In November 2011, Bulnes was the worst Minister evaluated with only 34% approval according to Adimark. It is incomprehensible, then, that Piñera again risked his political capital by giving an enviable consolation prize, an Embassy with global influence, to the person who lead the handling of a crisis in education that most affected the popularity of his Government.

A trap of his own making

Piñera has fallen into a peculiar pattern, the same trap that the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia fell into. The centre-left coalition had to administer and maintain part of the institutional legacy of a previous Government -- in this case, Pinochet’s dictatorship -- to maintain a minimum level of governability in the country. A comparable situation now keeps the Piñera government in a similar condition: a terrible earthquake and tsunami near the beginning of his Government, and the subsequent social unrest over an educational system in deep crisis, caused Piñera to postpone more aggressive market policies and exercise instead a political realism favouring an urgent social agenda. In that sense, he has had to maintain the protective role of the State, in some ways obliged to continue the spirit of the social-welfare-state under President Bachelet, who is still extremely popular (the first female President in Chile leaving power with a historic high of 84% approval, according to an Adimark survey in March 2010). Likewise, Piñera has had to endure strong tensions with militaristic and radical sectors of his own right-wing coalition in order to preserve the progress on human rights policies promoted by Bachelet. That is, Piñera has been forced by the still precarious circumstances of the social situation in Chile to advance Bachelet policy and many of the values that his own sector opposes.

If there had been no earthquake in 2010 or social crisis over education, Piñera would have followed the script that he had prepared during his entrepreneurial career. Concepts such as "modernisation", “technology”, “generation of markets”, "forward-thinking vision", "foreign investment", and "innovation" would have been the key words of his discourse during his term. He has had to replace them with "social crisis", "earthquake and reconstruction", "educational reform", "poverty", " population in need", "protective role of the State", "inequality", "human rights", "street violence", "indigenous claims". It is not the Presidency that he dreamed of. It is not the country embodied in his socio-political ideal. Perhaps that explains his errant way of behaving on many key issues, and the criticism from the population, including a large segment that voted for him, but gives him very poor ratings in the polls.

In that sense, Piñera has not been inept in his government. Strictly speaking, he has not been able to govern. Or rather, to be fair, he has not had the Presidency he dreamed of...

SPANISH VERSION

Piñera no ha gobernado la Presidencia que soñó…

Patricio Zamorano, analista político

Washington DC

 www.chileno.co.uk/blogs

Cuatro empresas editoriales de alcance mundial han puesto su atención en el caso chileno en el último par de años. De ellas, todas han tenido que ver de alguna u otra forma con el movimiento estudiantil chileno de 2011-2012 (y aún activo) y, por extensión, con los problemas de gestión política del gobierno de Sebastián Piñera. Ahora, en los últimos meses, se suma la polémica decisión del gobierno de usar todo el rigor de la ley antiterrorista contra activistas mapuches acusados de actos de violencia en el sur de Chile. Piñera ha elegido una estrategia militarista en lugar de un acercamiento socio-económico a la compleja situación del pueblo mapuche, que lucha por la recuperación de sus tierras. El Secretario General de la OEA, el también chileno José Miguel Insulza, ha señalado recientemente respecto de esa política de aplicar la ley antiterrorista contra los activistas indígenas, que esa normativa “tiene una imagen internacional complicada”, y que esta debería ser eliminada. Asimismo, señaló que en la forma en que estaba siendo aplicada por el gobierno de Piñera, pareciera que solo se aplica en contra de los mapuches implicados en hechos de violencia.

El tema de la crisis estudiantil ha sido portada mundial. Primero, The Guardian nombra a Camila Vallejo como “persona del año” a fines de 2011. Poco después, el New York Times señala a Vallejo como “la revolucionaria más glamorosa del mundo”. En abril de 2012, The Economist calificó a Piñera de “inepto”, en una extraña adjetivación de un medio de corte conservador contra quien debería ser un supuesto “hijo predilecto” de la línea editorial. En el cuarto capítulo de esa atención “al más alto nivel” sobre el caso chileno, The Wall Street Journal, en el mismo mes de abril, acusó a Piñera de “débil e incompetente”, de haberse “izquierdizado” y de implementar políticas sociales como muestra de debilidad frente a la movilización estudiantil, que dicho sea de paso, gozó de alta legitimidad internacional e interna. La reforma estudiantil y el activismo generado en cientos de miles de jóvenes ha provocado una oleada de nuevos líderes políticos, que pese a su corta edad han comenzado carreras políticas para ser elegidos en el Congreso chileno, entre ellos Camila Vallejo, Giorgio Jackson y Camilo Ballesteros.

Piñera, ¿defendiendo el rol del Estado?

El país, supuesto milagro macroeconómico, es una ilusión de desarrollo, que tiene una inmensa deuda: sanear la fuerte desigualdad de ingreso, laboral, educativa y en general de oportunidades que la Concertación no supo o no pudo remediar. Las consecuencias son clarísimas. Tras la agresiva aserción de The Wall Street Journal contra la “izquierdización” de las políticas públicas de Piñera como respuesta al movimiento estudiantil, nos encontramos con una paradoja histórica de proporciones, tras las palabras del ex secretario general de la Presidencia y actual ministro del Interior, Andrés Chadwick. El dirigente, que emigró desde la izquierda radical bajo la Unidad Popular al pinochetismo más comprometido, es una figura fuerte de la Unión Demócrata Independiente, partido que representa los valores más conservadores de Chile, con fuerte presencia del Opus Dei en sus filas. Cuando se publicó la fuerte crítica de The Wall Street Journal, Chadwick salió en su momento ante las cámaras de televisión defendiendo las políticas sociales de Piñera. “El Estado tiene que jugar un rol, de generar igualdad de oportunidades”, señaló como defensa a las fuertes críticas del periódico estadounidense. Y recordó que las críticas contra el gobierno de Piñera de parte del periódico “no eran de extrañar” debido a que el diario era un medio de comunicación “muy comprometido con la libertad económica y mundo empresarial”. Extrañas declaraciones de quien asesora a un Presidente cuya fortuna es una de las cuatro más poderosas de Chile.

Las palabras de justificación de un conservador como Chadwick defendiendo el rol de Estado son interesantes. Demuestran, en primer lugar, que The Wall Street Journal está en efecto en lo cierto, que el gobierno de Piñera ha tenido que “izquierdizar” su estrategia de políticas públicas. Pero que el tema de fondo va más allá de eso: demuestra que tras 20 años del término de la dictadura, existe en la actualidad un cúmulo de valores progresistas en lo político-económico en Chile sobre el que existe consenso en todos los sectores. La sociedad chilena ha aprendido de la debacle provocada por los años de políticas agresivas neoliberales en los noventa y que profundizaron la desigualdad (el gobierno de Frei en los noventa tuvo una peor distribución del ingreso que durante la dictadura). Ese proceso de avance hacia un rol más constructivo del Estado como ente regulador y protector de los sectores más vulnerables, abrió la puerta a un paradigma más centrado en la igualdad de oportunidades como base para el gran sueño de todos los grupos políticos: alcanzar niveles socioeconómicos de país desarrollado. Piñera no tiene otra opción sino continuar en ese camino.

Aprobación popular: mínimos históricos

Conocí personalmente al entonces senador Piñera en los noventa, mientras cubría como reportero a los partidos de derecha para el desaparecido periódico La Época. No concuerdo en absoluto con el adjetivo de “inepto” que le ofreció The Economist. Lo recuerdo como un dirigente inteligente y de línea dura en el juego político con sus adversarios internos del partido, Renovación Nacional, y especialmente de la UDI, aunque abierto en temas valóricos y sociales. Sin embargo, en esa época aún estaba fresco el escándalo que habían provocado grabaciones de audio donde se le escuchaba a Piñera dando instrucciones a un periodista amigo para ridiculizar en una entrevista televisiva a su contrincante en primarias presidenciales, Evelyn Matthei, su actual ministra del Trabajo. En esa época, por cierto, nunca se me cruzó por la mente que el pueblo chileno lo honraría con la Presidencia. Su carrera por el sillón presidencial parecía diluirse para siempre tras ese escándalo.

Piñera ahora gobierna con un bajísimo nivel de aprobación, que ha llegado al mínimo histórico de 26% según una encuesta de Adimark de abril de 2012. En la encuesta CEP de mayo de 2012 Piñera llegó a un 24 por ciento de apoyo, y en enero de este año 2013 alcanzó todavía un bajo 31 por ciento. Asimismo, un 61% considera que el gobierno ha actuado “sin destreza ni habilidad”. Un 52% desaprueba el manejo económico de Piñera, y un 63% expresa que el Presidente “no le da confianza”. Un 72% lo considera “lejano”.

El presidente errante

El presidente Piñera está enclaustrado en el realismo político al que no estaba acostumbrado, teniendo que abandonar todo su talento de empresario y emprendedor al que seguramente deseaba echar mano para prosperar como presidente, y en cambio ha tenido que invertir todo su capital político en una serie de crisis políticas y sociales a las que no ha podido dominar completamente. Esta falta de herramientas propias en el juego político se puede apreciar en Washington DC: ha desgastado la agenda comunicacional de promoción del país con el tema del impresionante rescate de los mineros en el norte de Chile en octubre de 2010, lo único sobresaliente del mensaje de la embajada en la ciudad por dos años. Bastó con que el presidente Obama nombrara el rescate en su mensaje anual ante el Congreso, para que Piñera se aferrara al tema como mensaje monotemático en la capital estadounidense. Hay que recordar, sin embargo, que Obama nombró en esa oportunidad el tema del rescate minero en Chile para destacar principalmente a la empresa y trabajadores estadounidenses que construyeron el túnel de evacuación que logró llegar primero hasta los trabajadores.

Asimismo, el presidente Piñera, en un acto de incomprensible estrategia política, nombró el año pasado al ex ministro de Educación durante la crisis estudiantil de 2011, Felipe Bulnes, como embajador de Chile en Estados Unidos, quizás el puesto diplomático más importante de la diplomacia chilena en el planeta. Durante la gestión de Bulnes como ministro, el gobierno ejerció una fuerte represión policial contra los jóvenes en las calles, y el conflicto llegó a un punto muerto, sin ninguna solución concreta. Incluso en la misma encuesta Adimark de abril del año pasado, a un año del comienzo de las manifestaciones estudiantiles, se evidenciaba aún un 72% de desaprobación a la forma en que el gobierno gestionaba el tema de la educación.

En otra muestra de su falta de conexión con la realidad política, Piñera aún mantiene en el gobierno al ministro Rodrigo Hinzpeter, también responsable político de la fuerte represión policial contra los estudiantes durante 2011 (Carabineros está ahora bajo el mando de ministerio del Interior, que fue dirigido por Hinzpeter en ese periodo). Además, Hinzpeter fracasó en el tema que había declarado como más importante de su gestión como ministro del Interior: la delincuencia. Esa área fue en abril de 2012 la peor evaluada de todas, con un 82% de desaprobación. En la encuesta CEP de mayo de 2012,  Hinzpeter alcanzaba un 30% de aprobación. Recientemente, en noviembre de 2012, en lugar de sacar a Hinzpeter del gobierno, Piñera lo nombró ministro de Defensa…

En el mismo caso del ex ministro Bulnes, Piñera parece traicionar su propio pasado empresarial. La “gerencia exitosa” se basa en que las responsabilidades de gestión deben relacionarse directamente con los resultados, los errores de desempeño tienen consecuencias, y los éxitos, recompensas. Pero a dos ministros en puestos clave, Educación e Interior, con un pobrísimo desempeño, lejos de pedirles la renuncia y reemplazarlos, los ha premiado. Sobre Bulnes, Piñera declaró al aceptar su renuncia del cargo y nombrar a Harald Beyer que se requería en el ministerio “una persona que apacigüe los ánimos, introduzca más templanza, racionalidad, diálogo”, en decir, en forma clara enumerando las características fundamentales de las que careció Bulnes. En noviembre de 2011 Bulnes era el peor ministro evaluado según Adimark, con 34% de aprobación. Resulta incomprensible, entonces, que Piñera nuevamente arriesgue su capital político otorgando un premio de consuelo de envergadura, una embajada de alcance mundial, a quien lideró el manejo de una crisis, la educación, que más afectó la popularidad de su gobierno.

Una trampa “a medida”

Piñera ha caído en un proceso peculiar, en la misma trampa en que cayó la Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia. El conglomerado de centro izquierda tuvo que administrar y mantener parte de la herencia institucional de un gobierno anterior, en este caso, la dictadura de Pinochet, para otorgar un mínimo de gobernabilidad al país. Una situación comparable ahora mantiene al gobierno de Piñera en similares condiciones: un terrible terremoto y maremoto casi apenas iniciado su gobierno, y posteriormente el estallido social en torno a un sistema educativo en profunda crisis, provocó que Piñera tuviera que dejar pendientes políticas de mercado más agresivas y hacer, en cambio, un ejercicio de realismo político a favor de una agenda social urgente. En ese sentido, ha debido mantener un rol protector del Estado, en cierta forma obligado a continuar el espíritu asistencialista-social-estatal de la Presidenta Bachelet, altamente popular (la primera presidenta mujer de Chile dejó el poder con un máximo histórico de aprobación de 84%, según una encuesta Adimark de marzo de 2010). Asimismo, Piñera ha tenido también que soportar fuertes tensiones con sectores militaristas y radicales de su propia alianza de derecha ante la necesidad de mantener el avance en políticas de derechos humanos potenciado por Bachelet. Es decir, Piñera ha sido forzado por las circunstancias aún precarias de la situación social en Chile a llevar adelante una política continuista del bachelletismo y muchos de los valores a los que su propio sector se oponía.

De no haber habido terremoto en 2010 ni crisis social en torno a la educación, Piñera hubiera seguido el guión que tenía preparado en su vocación empresarial. Conceptos como “modernización”, “tecnología”, “generación de mercados”, “visión de futuro”, “inversión extranjera” e “innovación” hubieran sido las palabras clave de su discurso en el poder. Las ha tenido que cambiar por “crisis social”, “terremoto y reconstrucción”, “reforma educacional”, “pobreza”, “población necesitada”, “rol protector del Estado”, “desigualdad”, “derechos humanos”, “violencia callejera”, “reivindicaciones indígenas”. No es la presidencia con la que soñaba. No es el país que tenía incrustado en su ideal socio-político. Quizás por eso se explica su actuar errante en muchos temas clave, y la crítica de la población, incluyendo un amplio sector que votó por él, que le otorga pésimas calificaciones en las encuestas.

En ese sentido, Piñera no ha sido inepto en su gobierno. En rigor, no ha podido gobernar. O mejor dicho, para ser justos, no ha gobernado la Presidencia con la que soñaba...

The Centre of Latin American Studies (CLAS), University of Cambridge has appointed the prestigious Simón Bolívar Chair for 2013, Chilean Sociologist Professor Manuel Antonio Garretón. The Simón Bolívar Chair has been offered since 1968, funded by a grant from the Venezuelan government in order to bring a distinguished Latin American academic to Cambridge each year. Manuel will be speaking this MONDAY the 21st of January 2013 and several times this year in open seminars in Cambridge, definitely worth a trip. See the announcement below passed on by CLAS with the link to the seminar page at the bottom:

CLAS welcomes Professor MANUEL ANTONIO GARRETÓN for Lent Term at Cambridge where he will deliver two seminars in the series below and a symposium on March 8th, details to follow.

 Centre of Latin American Studies

University of Cambridge

Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, CB3 9DT

Seminar Room SG1    Ground Floor

Open Seminar   Lent Term 2013

Monday January 21^st 5.15pm

FORTY YEARS AFTER : NEW POLITICS IN CHILE WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF LATIN AMERICA

Manuel Antonio Garretón

University of Chile & Simón Bolívar Chair Professor, CLAS, Cambridge University

This seminar will be followed by a wine reception at CLAS to welcome Professor Manuel Antonio Garretón

ALL WELCOME

CLAS OPEN SEMINAR SERIES LENT TERM 2013

http://www.latin-american.cam.ac.uk/events/seminars/

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Photo: elclarin.cl

By Claudio Fuentes

On the heels of political controversy in Chile over the treatment of the Mapuche people in Araucanía (Southern region of Chile), political scientist Claudio Fuentes gives his considered view on the recent 'anti-terror' announcement by Chilean President Sebastían Piñera.

Translation by chileno

Militarizing Araucanía: A bad idea

Is it advisable to militarise Araucanía? Although the Government has not for the moment invoked any state of emergency, it has taken two steps. A decision was made to restrict the freedom of individuals that began with major police roadblocks and involving the armed forces with intelligence work. Indeed, in addition to an increase in the number of police officers, the President announced that police would establish a "special area of control and security in those places that have been most affected by these crimes, so as to establish permanent control daytime and night, both vehicular traffic and the identities of persons travelling in the most affected areas. "

The question that immediately arises is under what legal framework this "special zone of control and security" will be defined. The Criminal Procedure Code clearly states the circumstances under which the police can make an ‘identity stop’ [without a warrant from a prosecutor, the police may require citizens to show their identity cards]: (a) when it is considered that the person has committed an offence, (b) when it could provide useful information to investigate a crime, (c ) or if the person is wearing a hooded top. Unless we proceed from the premise that all people in the area are suspected of a crime, of course undoubtedly ridiculous, the President's announcement is problematic for two reasons: first, it significantly affects the rights enshrined in the Constitution (freedom of movement, for example), second, this decision is not supported by any legal framework that could validate the action of the police who, in fact, have already established identity checks at various points in the area.

The classic dilemma of security versus freedom is not resolved by providing a blank cheque for police. We know that too much discretion carries abuse, therefore delivering more power to police institutions ought to be backed by regulatory bodies governing their actions. By what criteria will a police officer decide to stop a person in the street tomorrow? The colour of their skin? The type of clothes they are wearing? The nervousness that they show interacting with armed police? The Guarantee Court of Pichilemu has already ruled against "nervousness" being a legitimate basis to justify an identity stop and subsequent arrest of a suspect (20/02/2011).

A second announcement by the President is also worrying. He said, "I have asked the director of the National Intelligence Agency, within its legal mandate, to collect information of a residual or complementary nature that the Armed Forces may have, and that is useful in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency in the fight against terrorism and violence in the region".

If the Armed Forces are gathering "complementary information" about events that are clearly internal matters for the police then they are violating the Law of National Intelligence. This delimits the functions of military intelligence to matters strictly having to do with "national defence" with two exceptions: concerning police functions that correspond to the naval and air authorities over maritime and air controls. Therefore the call made by the President is also inappropriate because it is not the place of the Armed Forces to hold intelligence on things that are obviously internal in nature.

The next step, proposed by the presidents of UDI and RN, has been the establishment of a state of emergency in the area, that will allow the restriction of freedom of assembly and movement and appoint a Chief of National Defence in the area. Besides constituting an extreme measure, the main difficulty is that since the amendment of the normative constitution of the Estados de Excepción [akin to state of emergency], so far a new Act to regulate them has not been established. You read correctly. Since August 2005 the provision emanating from the Constitution issued to establish a new regulatory framework for states of extraordinary circumstances, emergency and disaster has not been complied with. We have  states of emergency that have been reformed during democracy, but the law that regulates these is from 1985.

In short, to establish a zone of "control and security" and to request "complementary" information from the Armed Forces are two steps of dubious legal status and will militarise the area. We hope that these announcements are reevaluated and rationality prevails given that their eventual implementation will exacerbate tensions in the area and will force, again, the courts and the Constitutional Court to assess whether these actions conform to the rule of law.

The original Spanish version of this article appeared in Chilean online newspaper El Mostrador

About the author

Claudio Fuentes is Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Institute of Investigation in Social Science (ICSO) at Diego Portales University in Chile. Claudio graduated from Chile's prestigious Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile with a first degree in History, going on to earn his MA and Doctorate in Political Science from the University of North Carolina, USA. He has published on a broad range of political themes in books and academic journals and writes for many outlets in Chile (in Spanish) including  La Tercera, Cooperativa and El Dínamo.

Photo: www.violetalapelicula.cl

Why do I feel so much pain, Violeta Parra?

Or on how to assess the Chilean film “Violeta went to heaven” on opening night in Washington DC

© Patricio Zamorano

Translation by chileno and the author. Para la versíon original en castellano ver abajo.

So much pain I have felt tonight, Violeta, so much pain…

It hurts because Chile hurts… That’s it, isn’t it singer? Painter? Creator of forms and illusions? Chile hurt you with every second of recognition given in the few countries that through the miracle of your poverty chose to give shelter to your singing, your paintings, your intense tapestries like the brilliance of your sad eyes. Everything was empty upon returning to the homeland, down in the lost South of painful childhood and wandering life, where the people let you down in your dreams to universalize (in the half moon of the audience) each drop of creation exuded from your hands. The people let you down when the indifference of the public you longed for and loved so much hit you like a Santiago winter. How many artists have succumbed to the loneliness of the stage, beloved singer? So much despair, isn’t it? When silence is deaf to applause...

Oh singer of my soul! Chile killed you. Chile killed Víctor Jara. Chile killed Allende. Chile also killed Neruda (without a doubt, the soldiers spread the cancer with the demonic stench that grew amongst the flames from La Moneda¹). Chile killed De Rokha, another genius buried under the cold murmur spread by the mainstream. In a short time, Chile physically lost its most profound figures. It lost its land. The earth moaned.

Years before, Chile had also killed her first Nobel Laureate, the barefoot girl from Valle del Elqui, Gabriela² of profound “Mistralian” pain, always looking out of the corner of her eye towards the southern country that denied her so much, despite a sacred litany of verse and prose.

Chile killed democracy, Chile killed the communists and the socialists. Chile killed the joy of life for two, even three decades, if we add up the frustration of the Concertación³ in the nineties... Dearest Violeta, with your trigger and shot you began the dark age that was upon us, that fatal 1967, under the tent only visited during those last weeks by the wind accompanied by cold rain, as it only rains in the Mapocho Valley.

Don’t worry, my dear Violeta.

With your gunshot, Chile received an urgent affront, the fruit of our own miseries: The soldiers preyed on the people, supported at the same time by many twisted in their cannibalistic frenzies. The people killed the people. That 11th of September in 1973, dearest Violeta, your heart would have tightened in a grimace of horror to see the slaughter led by the jingoistic soldier. The Chile that ignored you in life, dear Violeta, was the same that squeezed your trigger, and the trigger of Allende, and the trigger of the soldier who took no mercy on Víctor, and the trigger of the thousands of those executed in the streets of Santiago… (the eternal trigger, as long as the rifle that the real contours of Chile represents in a map of its own geography. Santiago, where death circled the majority trapped for the massacre, is situated --oh sweet irony!-- near the firing pin…).

Oh Violeta, but your songs remain! Oh Violeta, you left us your “Volver a los diecisiete”! Violeta, you left us your hawk, the sorrows of your Arauco, your “Run-run” that made you suffer so much from unrequited love! Your guitar transpositions, peasant girl from Lautaro, universalized you. Your “Thanks to life” (“Gracias a la vida”), that profound song full of laughter and tears, is enjoyed by both rich snobs and blue-collar workers. Diplomatic bodies take advantage of you to sell the “Chile” brand, and your soul writhes… A little bit ironic, isn’t? A bit of pissing yourself laughing, that Chilean way of laughing, at the same time bitter, sarcastic and full of the joy of life, the life of islands adrift, the life of the Chilean isle, where your glory came to die in a body, a female Christ crucified on guitar timbers, to free you and liberate us from your soul that flies, now full of your desires, before the wide sky of our misery…

Notes.

¹La Moneda is the Palace in Santiago that serves as the seat of the President of the Republic of Chile.

²Gabriela Mistral was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat and feminist. She was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1945).

³Center-left political party coalition. Candidates from these parties won every election in Chile from the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship (1990) until the election victory of Sebastián Piñera in 2010.

 About the author

Patricio Zamorano is a singer song-writer, poet, writer, journalist, political analyst and academic currently at George Washington University. Recently in 2010 Patricio Zamorano won by unanimous decision the First Prize of the national competition “The Chilean Press and the Bicentennial”, organized by  the Society of Journalists of Chile and the University of Santiago, with his, “Chile en tres actos” (“Chile in three acts”) (http://patriciozamorano.com/chile_en_tres_actos.html).  Patricio Zamorano is also an analyst of international affairs and writer, and has published innumerable journalistic articles including stories, interviews and columns, in various American and Spanish media outlets. His collaborations as a political analyst and writer include CNN in Spanish, Al Jazeera, Telesur, Univision, BBC and BBC Mundo, La Opinión de California, ContraPunto de El Salvador, Radio Pacífica y Radio Miami, and various Chilean media (magazines like El Periodista, Mensaje, Caras, Plan B, The Clinic; newspapers like La Nación and La Época; radio-station like Bío Bío and Cooperativa; TV stations like TVN, CNN Chile, Canal 2). Patricio Zamorano is also a member of the Chilean Performing Rights Organization, as well as the Professional Association of Chilean Journalists, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists of the United States.

Feel free to comment below in Spanish or English.

¿Por qué me dueles, Violeta Parra?

O sobre cómo valorar la película chilena “Violeta se fue a los cielos” en noche de estreno en Washington DC

© Patricio Zamorano

Tanto me dueles, tanto me doliste esta noche…

Me dueles por que me duele Chile… Eso es, ¿no, cantora? ¿Pintora? ¿Creadora de formas y de ilusiones? Chile te dolió en cada segundo de reconocimiento en los pocos países que el milagro de tu pobreza eligió para cobijar tu canto, tus pinturas, tus arpilleras tan intensas como el brillo de tus ojos tristes. Todo era el vacío si volviendo a la patria allá en el sur perdido de dolores de infancia y de vida errante, el pueblo no te era pueblo en tus sueños de universalizar en la media luna de la audiencia cada gota de creación que exudaba de tus manos. El pueblo no te era pueblo cuando te golpeaba como invierno santiaguino la indiferencia del gran público que  añorabas y amabas tanto. ¿Cuánto artista no ha sucumbido a la soledad del auditorio, amada cantora? Cuánta desesperación, ¿no?, cuando el silencio es sordo de aplausos…

¡Ay cantora de mis adentros! Chile te mató. Chile mató a Víctor Jara. Chile mató a Allende. Chile mató también a Neruda (los milicos sin duda empujaron con su tufo de demonios el cáncer que creció junto con las llamas en La Moneda). Chile mató a De Rokha, otro genio sepultado bajo el frío rumor del Chile oficial. En una brizna de años Chile perdió físicamente a sus figuras más profundas. Perdió a su tierra.  Gimió la tierra.

Años antes, Chile también mataría a su primera premio Nóbel, a la niña sin zapatos del Valle del Elqui, Gabriela de dolores profundos mistralianos, mirando siempre de lado a esa patria sureña que le negaba tanto, a pesar de tanto verso y tanta prosa regalada como en una letanía…

Chile mató la democracia, Chile mató a los comunistas y a los socialistas. Chile mató la alegría de vivir por dos, tres décadas, si sumamos a la frustración concertacionista en los noventa… Violeta, querida, inauguraste con tu gatillo y tu disparo la época oscura que se nos venía encima, ese 1967 fatal, bajo la carpa a la que asistía en esas últimas semanas sólo el viento acompañado de lluvia fría, como solo llueve en el valle del Mapocho.

No te preocupes, Violeta querida.

Chile con tu balazo recibió como un escarnio urgente el fruto de nuestras propias miserias: los milicos se cebaron en pueblo, apoyados a su vez por tanto pueblo torcido en sus devaneos caníbales. El pueblo mató al pueblo. Ese 11 de septiembre de 1973, querida Violeta, tu corazón se habría apretado en una mueca de horror al ver la masacre liderada por el milico patriotero. El Chile que te ignoró en vida, querida Violeta, fue el mismo que apretó tu gatillo, y el gatillo de Allende, y el gatillo del soldado que se ensañó con Víctor, y el gatillo de los miles de ejecutados en la calles de Santiago… (el gatillo eterno, tan largo como el fusil que representa el contorno del Chile real en el mapa de su propia geografía. Santiago, donde la muerte rondó a la mayoría cebada por la masacre, se ubica ahí en el sector aproximado ¡oh dulce ironía! del percutor…)

¡Ay, Violeta, pero quedaron tus canciones! ¡Ay, Violeta, quedaron tus “diecisietes”! ¡Violeta, nos dejaste tu Gavilán, las penas de tu Arauco, tus run-runes que tanto te hicieron sufrir de amor de hembra! Tus guitarras traspuestas te universalizaron, campesina de Lautaro. Tus gracias a la vida, con risa y con llanto, las disfrutan pijes y obreros, cuerpos diplomáticos aprovechan de vender la marca “Chile” y tu alma se contorsiona, un poco irónica, ¿no?, un poco cagada de la risa, de esa risa a la chilena, al mismo tiempo amarga, sarcástica y llena del gozo de la vida, la vida de las islas a la deriva, la vida de la isla Chile, donde vino a morir tu gloria en cuerpo, una Cristo crucificada en maderos de guitarra, para liberarte y liberarnos de tu alma, que vuela, ahora sí, plena de tus deseos, ante el cielo ancho de nuestra miseria…

 Sobre el autor

Patricio Zamorano es cantautor, poeta, escritor, periodista, analista político y académico, actualmente de la Universidad George Washington.  Recientemente en 2010 Patricio Zamorano ganó por unanimidad el Primer Premio del concurso nacional de crónica y ensayo “La Prensa Chilena y el Bicentenario”, organizado por el Círculo de Periodistas de Chile y la Universidad de Santiago, con su relato “Chile en tres actos” (http://patriciozamorano.com/chile_en_tres_actos.html). Patricio Zamorano es también analista de temas internacionales y escritor, y ha publicado innumerables artículos periodísticos que incluyen crónicas, entrevistas y columnas en varios medios de América y España. Sus colaboraciones como analista político y cronista incluyen CNN en Español, Al Jazeera, Telesur, Univision, BBC y BBC Mundo, La Opinión de California, ContraPunto de El Salvador, Radio Pacífica y Radio Miami, entre otros, además de varios medios de comunicación de su Chile natal (revistas El Periodista, Mensaje, Caras, Plan B, The Clinic; diarios La Nación y La Época; radios Bío Bío y Cooperativa; canales de televisión TVN, CNN Chile, Canal 2). Patricio Zamorano es miembro de la Sociedad del Derecho de Autor, del Colegio de Periodistas de Chile y del National Association of Hispanic Journalists de Estados Unidos.

Camila Moreno's newly released album Panal (honeycomb) is the latest and third offering from the young Chilean musician. In something of a departure from her earlier work (e.g. about half the songs in her debut album almismotiempo are heavily influenced by Chilean folclor), Moreno makes a first step in the transition from Chilean pop-fusion to rock. The change in direction is certainly not an unconscious one; in fact Moreno has for some time been mindful of not getting bogged down in a single musical style or form. The sentiment is no better illustrated than in a December article from online Chilean news outlet emol.com that quoted Moreno as saying, "Me aburrí que me encasillaran en el folk y en toda esa movida tan estrecha" or, "I'm bored with being typecast as a folk singer and all that narrow movement". Indeed, when we told her that we were keen to cover her new album she said, "I hope that you will not call it folk!" So in the spirit of good Anglo-Chilean relations we will henceforth refrain from using the 'F' word! Camila Moreno has been compared variously to artists like Björk and PJ Harvey and indeed these are some of her influences. Significant others include The Beatles and Radiohead. Most often thus far, however, she has been compared to the Chilean Nueva Canción f**k movement of the 1960s. Nevertheless Moreno resists the label and has been determined to free herself from what she sees as the shackles of being defined as belonging to the movement or even, as some say, being part of the legacy of and torchbearer for Chilean Legends Violeta Parra and Victor Jara. Some have noticed the seeming jump from f**k to rock and suggest overtones of Radiohead are apparent in the new music. As paniko.cl succinctly put it "Mas Radiohead, Chao Parra?" This certainly would make sense given that Moreno often cites the English band as a major influence, but is there any substance to the suggestion or is it more simply a desire to change? Now that the album is out, we can decide for ourselves. Incidentally, the release of the album courted some controversy in that Panal was partly financed through the use of 'crowdfunding'. Moreno used website idea.me in which fans were encouraged to contribute to production funds in return for rewards ranging from early release copies of the album with personalised messages to intimate concerts with the singer. Moreno had received some criticism for raising funds in this way and posted a rebuttal on facebook, saying that artists deserve to be paid properly as in other professions and that ultimately, "Es super simple , si no quieres , no participes del disco , pero ahórrense la mala onda, porque eso sobra en este país y en el mundo..." "It's super simple, if you don't want to, don't participate in making the album, save yourself the bad vibe, because there's plenty of that in this country and the world ..."  the singer said.

Panal, the album:

The album starts with an explosion, that's for sure. Incendié, a well-chosen powerful 'dropped d' tuning heavy anthemic opener, remains distinctly South American in flavour (at least to the European ear) with incessant batucama-style drumming creating an immense percussive drive, fused with indigenous Mapuche instrumentation. Yet simultaneously, the track has a classic rock feel to it that recalls Led Zeppelin's Four Sticks or perhaps, with the drums marching us onwards, The Immigrant Song. Incendié leaves us wanting more and with high expectations. We are not disappointed with the follow up De Que, which one can imagine could have been influenced by Radiohead's Go To Sleep, also featuring overlaid Zeppelin-esque mandolins giving sumptuous tone. The track builds to such a bass-filled crescendo that at this point one could be forgiven for not knowing what the word f**k means! That's not to say that there aren't delicate slices to the record like the beautifully evocative title track for example. The album also holds some very wistful, melancholic tracks like the haunting piano led Te Quise which is accompanied by Moreno's powerful vocals. Panal is an intelligent album both mature and in its outlook and rooted in core passionate beliefs such as the repression of indigenous peoples (Yo Enterré). It is not a rejection of f**k but a recognition that there are great musical possibilities to be had when one is free of certain constraints. What is slightly disappointing though is that the album is not a truly novel work but rather the potential beginning of a sea change in Camila Moreno's musical sound scape. I don't think Oxfordshire's five-piece have got anything to worry about just yet but then as Camila herself recognises in her facebook rebuttal, "I don't consider myself an established artist, but hopefully an artist though. I know that I'm working on it and I love doing it." Arguably the best indication of a transition to a new sound comes from a track called 1, 2, 3, por mí, por ti, por todos mis compañeros, ironically not included in this album. Interestingly the song contains a doffing of the hat to Radiohead's Kid A track optimistic. So if Camila Moreno is still playing in a f**k band someone has clearly failed to mention it to her. Chileno gives Panal 7/10.

You can download the single Raptado free from Camila Moreno's website and get the album from Chilean music download site Portaldisc