86 days and counting

Mapuche flag. By Patricio. Under a Creative Commons Licence.

It's been 86 days since Mapuche political prisoners in jails across Southern Chile started a hunger strike. All I can say is my heart, my mind, my love is with them.

Since young I've had this idea of Chile as one of the most developed countries in Latin America. I proudly announce I am Chilean when someone asks where I come from, and I eagerly tell stories about my beautiful country. I am sure most Chileans abroad do the same. Certainly, we all share this patriotism. Maybe it's the fact that so many Chileans left the country in the 70's to live in exile. When someone leaves his/her home, city, country for reasons beyond their control, with fear of prosecution, knowing that many of your friends have been taken to prison, some of them murdered or forcibly dissapeared, then it's understandable that you feel such passion and love when you remember your land.

As a child of the exile, I always grew up hearing stories about Chile, about its beautiful fjords, its green hills and its arid desert. Little I heard of Mapuche. Little I was told that my dark skin might as well be some gene I have inherited from my Mapuche ancestors. Little I was told of the terrible circumstances of their existance.

When I moved to Chile still being a child things didn't change much. I had to wait until just a few years ago, living in Europe, to understand what Mapuche people have had to endure. Since before the Spaniards arrived in what is now Chile, the Mapuche nation managed to keep away even the mighty Inca empire. The Spaniards themselves could do little to conquer the lands inhabited by the Mapuche. Only after the independence from Spain, and after many dubious treaties signed between the newly created Chilean State and some Mapuche chiefs during the Pacification of Araucania, did the Mapuche people fell to the armies of a foreign nation.

Today, their struggle continue. The Chilean government continues to deny the fact that they have stolen the land of the Mapuche. Hydroelectric plants have been built in the Bío-Bío river which have created an artificial lake destroying ancient Mapuche land. Farmers have taken even more, and the Mapuche have found themselves exiled on their own soil. They live in extreme poverty, while the government signs international treaties to promote and defend indigenous cultures. Treaties that are not more than pieces of paper in a country where Mapuche language is endangered, yet not given any status or protection in any way, and where Mapuche children can't afford to attend school or have access to proper health care.

I am sad to see, read and hear their suffering. I am sad to know that during 20 years after the dictatorship ended, having had presidents who were themselves tortured and exiled during such hard times, little has been done to recognise the rights of people that still today are neglected and tortured. I'm sad to know that last year, president Michelle Bachelet opened a museum of Human Rights violations, in order to never forget what went on during Pinochet's regime, yet Human Rights violations still happen in Chile in a regular basis while no one seems to care.

I hope one day soon we will look at the mirror and realise that we're not that different from those who inflict pain, from the dictators that kill and destroy families. We are the same because we do nothing to stop a situation such as this, and many more that happen throughout the world, in the name of development and economic growth. In reality this is all a game of greed and power, regardless of consequences to our people, our land, our planet.