Escape!

In line at a subterranean Banco Santander in one of the more elevated neighborhoods of Santiago, there are no ropes to cordon off patrons into a twisty snaky pattern, just a vast open expanse of white floor tiles interspersed with thin red tiles suggesting the pattern of the line. A shocking appeal to personal responsibility. Pure class.

Who knows that the ropes don't come out on payday, but for now it was fun to believe. Anyway, there was hardly anyone in line. Ahead of us was a mother standing in line and disapproving of, but hardly hindering, every action of her little boy who was sprawled out on the white-tile floor with a hot wheels tractor and three race cars.

"Are you on the beach?" asked his Mother? "Get off from the floor, it's dirty!" she said without budging from her place in line. The boy pretty much ignored her.

After a few minutes of this one-sided back-and-forth the kid split, heading across the vast, white-tiled expanse to the stairway bathed in Winter White Light of Morning that was tumbling in from the Outside, promising Freedom.

Without budging from her place in line, mother called out desperately for him to return. The boy's escape didn't escape the security guard's notice, who signaled to the Mother that everything was under control. The boy, upon reaching for the first hot, sunbaked granite step, met with two black boots that slammed down in front of him. Turning his gaze upward he saw the looming figure of Authority, and he laughed at it. But the guard wasn't phased by the kid's insolence. The guard spoke gently:

"Keep walking up those stairs and you will find a police officer waiting to arrest you." Kindly tipping his hat to the Mother, he resumed his post near the tellers. The boy returned to his mother, completely terrorized.

That's gotta be one of the most endearing examples of post-dictatorial fear tactics to date. I won't say that the same scene wouldn't repeat itself in another country; manipulation based upon the fear of authority isn't unique to Chile. But it is very Chilean, because Chile did suffer from a brutal dictatorship and still hasn't recovered.

Psychologically, Chile still needs to heal. Besides making people happier, healing would also make Chile a lot more functional. In Paul Theroux's Letter from Turkmenistan, he describes visiting the capital of that country which was still under the rule of a lunatic dictator who died around the same time Pinochet died, at the end of 2006. Entering Turkmenistan, Theroux describes a two hour nonsensical ordeal at customs in an airport "which was staffed by officials with a very slim idea of how to do their jobs -- a characteristic common to officials in most dictatorships, where fear of retribution inspires indecision and incompetence."

I see this in Chile all the time. Certainly not a 1:1 with the sitch in Turkmenistan, but the similarities are striking. For example: recently a Chilean student appealing a denied re-entrance to the University of Chile was told to wait 3 days for a final response from the Chancellor, who had the petition on his desk. Three weeks passed. The official responsible for sending this request had refused to follow up, even when prodded by the student. The reason? In his words: "I'm afraid the Chancellor will call me a fool for asking a second time".

Afraid of retribution. What kind of retribution? Being ridiculed. Timid, and ultimately incompetent since it was his responsibility to follow through, he's not a "dumb Chilean" but rather a victim of psychological repression, in my humble opinion. His fear renders him incompetent, and therefore negatively affects the lives of others (in this case the student seeking re-entrance to the University).

Chile needs escape from the blemishes of its past by fully acknowledging and reckoning with its past. Only then will it see a reduction in incompetence caused by fear. In other words, Chile needs to heal.