Estima2 South Vergel friends, I found it interesting, this article published in the Diario El Pais (Spain), published by a writer I admire, Vargas Llosa.
COUNTRY, Sunday January 29, 2006. Yawning
Chilean Mario Vargas Llosa. Compared
with its neighbors, the civilized Chile today is a boring country. We, however, Bolivians, Argentineans, Ecuadorians, live dangerously and not get bored ever. Therefore we will as we go. As the Chileans who now seeking strong experience in literature, film or sports rather than politics! The prototypical
Third choice is that it all seems in question and return to square one, from the very nature of institutions to economic policy and the relationship between power and society. Everything can be reversed according to election results and, consequently, the country hit back, losing ago morning all cattle aged over infinitely persevere in error. Therefore, the characteristic of underdevelopment is living jumping, the farther back than forward, or in the same place without moving.
Although it is not even a first world country, and lacks enough to be, Chile is no longer an underdeveloped country. In the last quarter century has progressed systematically strengthening its democratic system, opening its economy and integrating into the world and strengthening its civil society d a way that is unparalleled in Latin America. His progress has been accompanied in the political, social, economic and cultural. Has reduced poverty levels to 18% of the population (the average in Latin America is 45%), rate of progress comparable to that of Spain or Ireland, and its middle class has grown to be relentless, now comparatively, the most widespread in Latin America. A million Chileans have ceased to be poor in the last ten years. This is why the extraordinary stability enjoyed by the Chilean society and capable of attracting foreign investment all you want and so easy to sign FTAs \u200b\u200bwith half the world (USA, EU, South Korea and now business with India, China and Japan). This has emerged
so pristine in this election. In the debate between Michelle Bachelet and Sebastián Piñera, which took place a few days before the end of the second round, had to be blind or dowser to find those points where the candidates disagreed left and right head on. Despite their efforts to distance themselves from each other, the truth is that the differences did not touch any core issues, but rather quantitative issues (not to say trivial). Piñera, for example, wanted to put more cops on the street that Bachelet.
When an open society reaches that level of consensus, he will fly well on the way of civilization. It is a catchword little admired by intellectuals lovers of barbarism is true that the latter is viewed from afar and in safety, more fun and exciting than it is synonymous with boredom and routine, "but the most effective framework to defeat hunger, unemployment, ignorance , the human rights abuses and corruption. And the only environment that guarantees citizens the right to freedom. President Ricardo Lagos
leaves power with 75% approval rate and a democracy truly unusual: only dictators, with its fudged statistics, appear to reach such a level of popularity. In the case of Ricardo Lagos, is well deserved. It was a socialist who, like Philip Gonzalez or Tony Blair, took advantage of the lessons of history and promote, without an inferiority complex, a modern economic policy, a liberal, open to the world, support for private initiative and ownership spread, which in its year rule in Chile has driven tremendous growth.
It is, moreover, a smart politician and ideas by word sober, nothing charismatic, a leader who can make the best of praise: who leaves his country much better than you found it. During his administration, anti-democratic vestiges of Pinochet's dictatorship have been planted correcting and disappearing. And the former dictator himself, in recent years, thanks to the persistent and patient of some judges, has been appearing before the world without masks autocrat proved that his supporters had made. No one would claim that Pinochet "was the only dictator who did not steal." Stole, and his hands full, so he and his family and closest accomplices are prosecuted and investigated today to respond to ill-gotten transactions of at least $ 35 million.
In these elections the Chilean right, thanks to the arrival of Sebastian Pinera, has been shaken, if not all, much of its original sin: its links with the dictatorship. Pinera campaigned against the dictator in the referendum and anyone who knows him would doubt his democratic convictions. Anyone who has built a real economic empire, many thought it would be a serious obstacle to political leadership. But there has been, and, conversely, energy and intelligence with which he defended his candidacy seem to have secured a solid future as a leader of the Chilean right. Michelle Bachelet's victory is, among other things, moral reparation of the people of Chile to all who were insulted, tortured, exiled or gagged in the years of dictatorship. And a giant step towards equality between men and women in a country where machismo seemed immovable. (This was the last Latin American country to approve the divorce.) But not only the promotion of women in Chilean society will, with the new president of Chile, an important support. Also, secularism, the indispensable condition of democratic progress. The Catholic Church in Chile has had an influence far greater than in the rest of Latin America.
Despite these promising signs, Chile can not rest on its laurels if it wants to progress. One of its most serious shortages of energy, to meet the growing demand for its industry and infrastructure expansion. For them, it is essential that the asperities Chile lime difficult time and twitch its relations with its neighbors, especially Bolivia, who opposes a conflict that has its roots in the Pacific War, 1879, because of which the country lost its access to the highlands to the sea. One of the major challenges ahead for the government of Michelle Bachelet is to end once and for all the dispute with Bolivia, and sea feuds with Peru, so that active collaboration between the three countries bring to each other tangible benefits: Chile's energy needs and is abundant in Bolivia and Peru to this and Chile's booming market for its products and technology investments required for their own development and that Chile is able to provide. This collaboration will also allow it to stop, and begin to decline, the useless and dangerous arms race, in memory disastrous in the region, and a source of suspicion and mistrust that encourages xenophobic nationalism. Chile is the biggest spender on arms in South America and only in the Lagos government has invested 2500 million in military equipment.
People like me, have closely followed the elections in Chile, where Michelle Bachelet, the center-left candidate, won the center-right candidate Sebastian Pinera, must have experienced, in addition to envy, a considerable surprise. Was that Chile, a Latin American country? The truth is that electoral competition was like one of those boring civic just as the Swiss or the Swedes change or confirm every few years to their governments, more than a third world election in which a country is played in the amphora the political model, social organization, and often even the mere survival. HERNAN
MATURANA W.
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