Mayday: Chile is Boring yet Extraneously Violent
Looks like Chilean police responded appropriately to a totally uneventful Mayday parade by unloading canisters of tear gas upon demonstrators and using high pressure hoses with teargas-laced water to spray down those who didn't immediately clear out.
Other reports are showing there were some rock throwers, which isn't surprising either. In Chile police/protestor violence is a chicken vs egg dilemma. By which I mean Police are the chickens and rage-filled protesters the eggs.
Safe to say that today's police response was exaggerated, as usual. This year's Mayday is auspicious because 2007 marks the 100-year anniversary of the Santa María schoolyard massacre in the northern city of Iquique. Again, a brutal ending to a peaceful protest, whose participants included women and children. Death toll estimates as high as 3,000. That was a result of the Chilean government being leaned on by British and other foreign nitrate mining firms whose workers were getting restless because of a token-payment system which essentially promoted their soul-debt to the Company Store (Pulpería). Not to mention horrid working/living conditions which decades later Pablo Neruda would decry after touring the region for his senatorial campaign.
I imagine the 1907 Iquique massacre resembling something like that scene in Ghandi with Ben Kingsley. British efficiency.
British music, too. Morrissey's "Every Day is Like Sunday" is my personal selection for a theme song to Santiago, Chile. "Every Day is Silent and Grey". Today, ever so true as dark, wintry, overcast skies enclosed a dangerous concentration of smog, and shops are closed. "Come Armageddon, come".
Other reports are showing there were some rock throwers, which isn't surprising either. In Chile police/protestor violence is a chicken vs egg dilemma. By which I mean Police are the chickens and rage-filled protesters the eggs.
Safe to say that today's police response was exaggerated, as usual. This year's Mayday is auspicious because 2007 marks the 100-year anniversary of the Santa María schoolyard massacre in the northern city of Iquique. Again, a brutal ending to a peaceful protest, whose participants included women and children. Death toll estimates as high as 3,000. That was a result of the Chilean government being leaned on by British and other foreign nitrate mining firms whose workers were getting restless because of a token-payment system which essentially promoted their soul-debt to the Company Store (Pulpería). Not to mention horrid working/living conditions which decades later Pablo Neruda would decry after touring the region for his senatorial campaign.
I imagine the 1907 Iquique massacre resembling something like that scene in Ghandi with Ben Kingsley. British efficiency.
British music, too. Morrissey's "Every Day is Like Sunday" is my personal selection for a theme song to Santiago, Chile. "Every Day is Silent and Grey". Today, ever so true as dark, wintry, overcast skies enclosed a dangerous concentration of smog, and shops are closed. "Come Armageddon, come".
posted by Chileno @ 5:26 PM
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5 Comments:
go to Spain.
Did Chile get her feelings hurt? :P
Sunny Spain is a nice alternative, but Chile is one of a kind.
Kiss and make up! ;)
Well according to film director, Raoul Ruiz he thinks it's also boring yet he is inspired by many charecteristics of old chile.
http://www.cosas.cl/Index.aspx?txtBuscador=&id_tipo=1329&id_tema=2022&IDDoc=1055367
Well, Chile has been a puppet of Europe ever since it was founded.
Now they spread their legs wide open to the Northern countries of the continent while denying education, health, and food to their own people: the Mapuches and the chileans themselves.
But most chileans still want to have a german last name, still want to travel abroad, pretend they are gringos, use refined accent when they talk, look down on any one who's got darker skin color.
...pathetic wannabes.
Without mentioning they despise the Argentine brother, the humble Peruvian, and the friendly Bolivian. And yet, they kiss the North's ass whenever, wherever.
I think our country is still too young and naive to have a mind of its own. 500 years and still don't know who you are.
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