11 everywhere
Today it's a strange day.
I wasn't born for September 11th 1973, the day democracy died here, 34 years since the armed forces took over the goverment, and it's still an open wound in my homeland's heart. We had a militar regime for 17 years, we had Pinochet as a dictator for so long, it's scary, so many people are still missing and the ones who were tortured. It was a difficult time, a troubled one but the means were so extreme, there's no valid excuse for all the pain and punishment thousands of people suffered for simply expressing their opinions, for being different or acting in oposition. To differ... was a crime. Can you imagine that? In my case, I can't forget, this is our past, our errors and in some way the mess we inherited to change.
My country it's so marked with that day, still lingers in all of us.
Last december I met Lena and somehow we ended talking about 1989-1990 when we became a democracy again, the effervescence of that moment and all the consequences of still being a generation raised in a dictatory regimen. How things were and how they changed for the better, freedom as I know it now has been a permanent struggle for my parent's generation and the ones that follow. I was blessed for being born on the last term of the regime, my friends didn't disappeared or were tortured, my liberties weren't stolen or constricted, I was a happy ignorant child that didn't understand life had much more freedom than the one I knew. The legacy I gained was a fractured country, were sides and positions about the need of a militar intervention on the socialist democracy of Salvador Allende.
Was Pinochet a saint or a devil?, when the force stops in name of the reason, whose reason? Lena and I discussed a lot, it was emotional and sincere, putting all my hopes and views on the matter. Pinochet died a day later, and I celebrated and cried, this was a step forward, maybe the wound in all of us will heal, maybe we'll forgive or understand.
I don't know if it ends with me, the feelings and disagreements run so deep inside of us, is there's a way we can overcome what happened? God I hope we can, I'm a idealist, I studied law because I believe in the power of changing the future through democratic acts, expressing the people's voice is an alternative. Someone said: when there's a will, there's a way. I pray for getting that knowledge. I'm proud of being chilean and everytime I cast my vote, I take a deep breath because this a priviledge, this simple act it's a work in progress.
September 11th 2001, I was with a fever at home, it was 7am when I started watching TV because I couldn't sleep, of boredom I started watching the news. I can tell you what PJs I was wearing and how I couldn't eat anything that day. I watched every single minute in BBC and CNN while I translated to my maid who thought the world was ending.
My best friend was sick too (she had mono), I can remember clearly her frightened tone over the phone: Please tell me you're watching the TV.... we stayed over the phone for hours, most of the times just breathing and praying, a mix of hails marys and our fathers (in spanish and english) that would have made Sister John Mary so proud. Her uncle was on NY that day on business trip, we heard from him the next day and he was safe.
I've never been in NY, not even in the US but that day touched us, connected by grief and tears, the whole world changed and suffered that day.
What I'm trying to say is that is 11 everywhere or 3 or 29, days that mark people's lifes, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, but people keep being killed in every corner of the world and we don't recognize it. Accepting differences and embracing them is what's going to save us all of remembering dates with grief, there's no effort in loving the ones who think exactly like us, the effort resides in understand diversity in every aspect of life, disagreeing is not a bad thing, with the difference of points of views comes debate and in the end: compromise, a way of saying we're different but we accept this and work with that.
To all of you, there's beauty in diversity, you just need to take a minute to see it. A minute.