Matapacos by Yess

División

Vivir entre la Dictadura y la Democracia es luchar para un futuro mejor.
Chile, South America

Story by Yess. Edited by Melaina Dyck
Published on August 24, 2020.

This story is also available in GB ar cn it kr



¿Recuerdan las manifestaciones en Chile a finales del 2019?

Tras de eso existen historias de 40 años de gobiernos fallidos y represión.

Los invito a leer mi historia.

13 de abril 1989:

Nací en Chile, durante el fin de la Dictadura[1] y el inicio de la Democracia[2]. Nací dividida entre dos momentos que marcaron la historia de Chile.

1973 – 1990:

Por suerte, no tengo memorias traumáticas a causa de la Dictadura. Lo que sé es por mi padre. Él vivía bajo la Dictadura. Aunque era inocente, fue capturado, torturado e interrogado por militares cuando llegaba a su casa en toque de queda.[3] Fue salvado del fusilamiento por su hermano, que era un militar y comprobó su inocencia.

Muchos chilenos están marcados por esa época oscura con la desaparición de sus familiares.[4] Mientras para otros fue lo mejor que podía pasar en Chile. El sector rico—los empresarios y el gobierno—tenía mucho dinero y poder; eran intocables.

Así fue divido al pueblo chileno.

16 de octubre 2019:

Estudiantes saltaban los torniquetes del metro de Santiago en forma de protesta debido a la nueva alza del pasaje. A estos niños el gobierno los llamó "terroristas." Me pregunté, entonces, ¿quiénes son los terroristas? ¿Los que trabajen hasta morir o los empresarios que se enriquece mientras familias mueran de hambre con sueldo mínimo de 300 USD? ¿Son terroristas los padres que intentan de pagar la carrera universitaria cuatro veces su sueldo para que sus niños tengan mejor vida? ¿Son terroristas la gente que muera en la sala de espera de un hospital público por falta de recursos y atención?

¿O es terrorista el gobierno que vendió los ríos a empresas privadas y llenó cuentas de banco de sus amigos antes de pagar para educación y salud? ¿Son terroristas los líderes que olvidan de los pueblos pobres durante una pandemia global?[5]

Vivir entre la Dictadura y la Democracia significa vivir en una sociedad que acepta las leyes de autocracia porque hemos elegido un(a) presidente entre los ricos.

Significa que “terrorismo” es exigir por tus derechos siendo pobre, mientras “éxito” es exigir que los pobres sigan trabajando y muriendo así.

18 de octubre 2019:

Miraba desde mi ventana, y vi la policía arremetiendo en contra de los manifestantes que golpeaban ollas y cucharas en forma de protesta. En ese momento entendí que el pueblo decidió valientemente hacer frente a un estado represivo, el cual permite las policías de abusar a los estudiantes que ejercían su derecho democrático a protestar.

Fue entonces que decidí unirme al cacerolazo.[6] En esta ocasión los estudiantes no estarían solos. Esta vez el pueblo, mi pueblo, decidía defenderlos y sumar las peticiones ignoradas por el gobierno durante 40 años. Ahora había algo porque luchar: la dignidad.

18 de febrero 2020:

Las protestas marcan los días del calendario. Para mí y para millones de chilenos el futuro es incierto.

El gobierno continúa con su mano de acero sobre el pueblo. Seguimos en un país dividido entre ricos y pobres, pero a la vez mas unido que nunca.

Lo que significa vivir entre la Dictadura y la Democracia es luchar para un futuro mejor.  


Notas

[1] Régimen político en el que una sola persona gobierna con poder total, sin someterse a ningún tipo de limitaciones y con la facultad de promulgar y modificar leyes a su voluntad.

[2] Sistema político que defiende la soberanía del pueblo y el derecho del pueblo a elegir y controlar a sus gobernantes.

[3] Es una limitación o restricción legal de la libertad de circulación en caso de guerra o conmoción interna que afectan a un país o ciudad, y su cumplimiento suele ser supervisado por instituciones policiales y fuerzas armadas.

[4]Bernetti, Martin. “‘Where are they?’: families search for Chile’s disappeared prisoners.” The Guardian, 14 Aug 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/14/where-are-they-families-search-for-chile-disappeared-prisoners

[5] Fuentes, Valentina, and Philip Sanders. “Once a Covid Role Model, Chile Now Among the World’s Worst.” Bloomberg, 16 Jun 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-16/once-a-covid-role-model-chile-now-among-the-world-s-worst-hit

[6] Es una forma de protesta en que los manifestantes hacen saber su descontento mediante ruido acompañado, típicamente golpeando cacerolas, ollas u otros utensilios domésticos.


How does this story make you feel?

Follow-up

Do you have any questions after reading this story? Do you want to follow-up on what you've just read? Get in touch with our team to learn more! Send an email to
[email protected].

Talk about this Story

Please enable cookies to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Share your story

Every story we share is another perspective on a complex topic like migration, gender and sexuality or liberation. We believe that these personal stories are important to better understand what's going on in our globalised society - and to better understand each other. That's because we are convinced that the more we understand about each other, the easier it will be for us to really talk to one another, to get closer - and to maybe find solutions for the issues that affect us all. 

Do you want to share your story? Then have a look here for more info.

Share Your Story

Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Stay up to date with new stories on Correspondents of the World by subscribing to our monthly newsletter:

* indicates required

Follow us on Social Media

Yess

Yess

Hola! I am a 31-year-old Chilean woman. I live in Santiago de Chile. I'm a fashion designer and illustrator. I've been a vegetarian since I was 18 years old, because I really want to make a better world for everyone and that was my first step. I love my family, animals, nature, art, decoration and photography--everything that connects us as humans with ourselves and others and can make us better people. I live a simple life. I have always been interested in different societies, cultures, languages and the environment, and recently I’ve become interested in politics. I invite you to read my writing.

Other Stories in Español

ERROR: No additional fieldsERROR: No author image found
>

A story by
1 min

Read more...


Maria Sotiropoulou


Show all

Get involved

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

Share Your Story

Community Worldwide

Correspondents of the World is not just this website, but also a great community of people from all over the world. While face-to-face meetings are difficult at the moment, our Facebook Community Group is THE place to be to meet other people invested in Correspondents of the World. We are currently running a series of online-tea talks to get to know each other better.

Join Our Community

EXPLORE TOPIC Liberation

Global Issues Through Local Eyes

We are Correspondents of the World, an online platform where people from all over the world share their personal stories in relation to global development. We try to collect stories from people of all ages and genders, people with different social and religious backgrounds and people with all kinds of political opinions in order to get a fuller picture of what is going on behind the big news.

Our Correspondents

At Correspondents of the World we invite everyone to share their own story. This means we don't have professional writers or skilled interviewers. We believe that this approach offers a whole new perspective on topics we normally only read about in the news - if at all. If you would like to share your story, you can find more info here.

Share Your Story

Our Editors

We acknowledge that the stories we collect will necessarily be biased. But so is news. Believing in the power of the narrative, our growing team of awesome editors helps correspondents to make sure that their story is strictly about their personal experience - and let that speak for itself.

Become an Editor

Vision

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

View Our Full Vision & Mission Statement

Topics

We believe in quality over quantity. To give ourselves a focus, we started out to collect personal stories that relate to our correspondents' experiences with six different global topics. However, these topics were selected to increase the likelihood that the stories of different correspondents will cover the same issues and therefore illuminate these issues from different perspectives - and not to exclude any stories. If you have a personal story relating to a global issue that's not covered by our topics, please still reach out to us! We definitely have some blind spots and are happy to revise our focus and introduce new topics at any point in time. 

Environment

Discussions about the environment often center on grim, impersonal figures. Among the numbers and warnings, it is easy to forget that all of these statistics actually also affect us - in very different ways. We believe that in order to understand the immensity of environmental topics and global climate change, we need the personal stories of our correspondents.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the assumption of a "normal". Unmet expectations of what is normal are a world-wide cause for violence. We hope that the stories of our correspondents will help us to better understand the effects of global developments related to gender and sexuality, and to reveal outdated concepts that have been reinforced for centuries.

Migration

Our correspondents write about migration because it is a deeply personal topic that is often dehumanized. People quickly become foreigners, refugees - a "they". But: we have always been migrating, and we always will. For millions of different reasons. By sharing personal stories about migration, we hope to re-humanize this global topic.

Liberation

We want to support the demand for justice by spotlighting the personal stories of people who seek liberation in all its different forms. Our correspondents share their individual experiences in creating equality. We hope that for some this will be an encouragement to continue their own struggle against inequality and oppression - and for some an encouragement to get involved.

Education

Education is the newest addition to our themes. We believe that education, not only formal but also informal, is one of the core aspects of just and equal society as well as social change. Our correspondents share their experiences and confrontations about educational inequalities, accessibility issues and influence of societal norms and structures. 

Corona Virus

2020 is a year different from others before - not least because of the Corona pandemic. The worldwide spread of a highly contagious virus is something that affects all of us in very different ways. To get a better picture of how the pandemic's plethora of explicit and implicit consequences influences our everyday life, we share lockdown stories from correspondents all over the world.

Growing Fast

Although we started just over a year ago, Correspondents of the World has a quickly growing community of correspondents - and a dedicated team of editors, translators and country managers.

94

Correspondents

113

Stories

57

Countries

433

Translations

Contact

Correspondents of the World is as much a community as an online platform. Please feel free to contact us for whatever reason!

Message Us

Message on WhatsApp

Call Us

Joost: +31 6 30273938