Santiago September 15, 2006
Even when it was the phrase of several bystanders I ran with the Alameda the night of 11 September and that, unable to take the buses that would take them home, walking outraged and resigned to a violent group not allowed to arrive soon to your home. Then the next morning, all was desolation where hordes of vandals had passed.
The image we have designed these days to the world and ourselves, is that of a broken country, where modernity and its profits have not reached everyone. Therefore, this currency to be more open, transparent our differences and shortcomings. Chile's provincial regions in solitary confinement and a number we Chile globalized commercial agreements with Internet, TV reality shows and trash programs Jetset Creole pathetic. Chile's isolated, incommunicado from the 80s we moved to the country that grows more than any in Latin America, BMWs, Porches, Mercedes on the streets, but also tricycles pickers. Chile's authoritarian, we go to Chile of freedom, where expression is not a crime. Chile's anonymous, we move to a Chile that is observed and is traversed by yellow buses and the delayed Transantiago.
Chile Modernization brought a more prosperous, but that prosperity is possible to see through the windows in plasma TVs, does not reach the suburbs of cities in Chile, especially Santiago and it clear that it is frustrating. In short we have freedom, but as noted by Gerald Allan Cohen, this is not real and fully when social differences are extreme in certain sectors of the population, ie, lack of resources is against the possibility of having degrees of freedom growing. In this sense, poverty, defined as absence or lack of money, constitutes a threat to freedom, however, even though this approach seems to be valid it might be asked, yes, lack of money, lack of freedom, as argued in Cohen vehemently, then I wonder, how much money it takes to be truly free? What is the minimum to start to be a bit off? However, I am certain that the total lack of means and minimum means for living, undermine the freedom of individuals. However, as more general lack of freedom is the difference that gives respect of access to goods that people have. This is the familiar discussion of the distribution of income in Chile is outrageously unjust nations of the world. Therefore, we have a modern, free in their institutions but unfair in terms of access.
This is no justification for the Sept. 11 vandalism, violence as expressed in this journey is explained by different circumstances. There is dissatisfaction on the part of social sectors to the current system, despite this, their protest is peaceful and democratic ways to give, which is related to the organization and participation in intermediate bodies. This showed us some residents of Peñalolen, that same September 11 all night defended his office, so that the masked not destroyed. Those who come to destroy and shoot, do not for the deficiency of freedom they possess, or to defend the poor in Chile, do so because their behavior unstructured and without commitment to ideas or movements can destroy them, knowing that the social sanction diluted, that the courts do not constrain freedom and forget the collective consciousness quickly to this horde of attackers, but above all, his reaction is a validation in your group, your group, your urban tribe, which does not disapprove these actions, validate and even justified, as some leftist movements. In short, this action becomes a cool activity and low social sanction, even family, as indicated by Canadian sociologists Heath and Potter, today "rebel sell".
One way to address urban terrorism, we saw that day, is supporting those who, despite having been excluded from important degrees of freedom, as the inhabitants of Peñalolén who defended his office, involved the bright side of modernity and do not want to see Chile with a Molotov at La Moneda.
V. Andres Jouannet Dr.
Political Science University of Heidelberg
No comments:
Post a Comment