On September 18 Chile commemorates 200 years of its Independence from Spain with a Bicentennial celebration. The date has generated a surge of blog posts and opinions that question the celebrations that would take place while the Mapuche indigenous group continue their prolonged hunger strike over an anti-terror law, as Global Voices previously reported, an event which has brought to light issues like identity and discrimination in Chilean society in the heart of the celebrations dedicated to the “homeland.” Questions, criticism, activism, memory and resistance are part of the assessment during the Chilean bicentennial.

Image "Chile toward the bicentennial?" by flickr user Cosmopolita. used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commmons license
Questions
Blogger and singer Alonso Núñez in the citizen news agency Medio a Miedo [es] asks: “Are we really so worried about the Bicentennial?.” “Are we all celebrating?” wonders Matías Valenzuela in SSCC Debates [es].
Tomas Bradanovic also asks, “What are we celebrating on the 18th?“:
No puedo evitar enrabiarme por esta tontera del “bicentenario” La historia que nos enseñan es una colección de fábulas, llenas de héroes que se rasgan la camisa para poner el pecho, pero en realidad la mayoría fueron ineptos, tontos y comidos por la ambición, sus actos los retratan mejor que sus discursos. La mala clase de nuestros padres fundadores es pecado original en toda América Latina, una mochila que cargamos hasta el día de hoy.
With a tweet by Patricia Ojeda (@patiojedamayorg), Twitter users like Javier Sánchez (@sanchez_javier) criticize the celebration:
64 días en huelga de hambre los presos Mapuches y los chilenos se preparan para celebrar el BICENTENARIO… NADA QUE CELEBRAR.
LOsorio (@aqui_leo) comments on another tweet which has been passed around on Twitter, evaluating the latest news circulating the Chilean web:
Cada vez me gusta menos este Pais Bicentenario, casos: Mapuches, Mineros, Jumbo, infiltrados en marchas, Barrancones, y un largo etc.
Memory and resistance
The celebration has also been overshadowed by another indigenous conflict, this time with the Rapa Nui, the native inhabitants of Easter Island who are requesting the return of their ancestral lands usurped by the state, as Ricardo Silva (Caio) [es] informs in his blog. On this issue Metiendo Ruido [es] comments that the Rapa Nui started occupying the land a couple of days after an eclipse, “a natural phenomenon that caused the inhabitants of Easter Island to experience a collective catharsis which resulted in forming a movement to reclaim the ancestral lands they had lent the Chilean state.“
Hector Ramirez Estay (@hectorm81) re-tweeted a message which connects this issue with the bicentennial:
RT @TerraChile Parlamento Rapa Nui: “Acá no nos interesa nada del Bicentenario” http://bit.ly/br6jcO // Mapuches y Rapa Nui… ay ay ay…
Marly Rayen (@marlyrayenpg) shares an interesting perspective:
desde fuera se ve muy extraña la celebración del bicentenario, con los mapuches en huelga de hambre, y peor todos culpándose
In an old video posted by CiberAmerica-Chile [es], the Mapuche poet [es] Elicura Chihuailaf warns that between the Mapuche and Chile the conversation is not interrupted because the conversation is actually non-existent; he also says that Chilean society needs to assume their beautiful dark, indigenous features.
The debate has been amplified by statements such as those written in a post by Tere Marincovic, where she calls the Mapuche “spoiled [es]” because of their actions. The post has received more than 1000 comments.
Bicentennial assessment
On the blogosphere the tendency has been toward assessment and reflection. In Distrito Digital Miguel Jesús Pedreros writes in the post, “The Mapuche: Bicentennial Denial”:
Y no solo es el estado, es un país completo el que les da la espalda a los pueblos originarios, en especial al pueblo mapuche. El desinterés evidente que reina sobre la situación del pueblo mapuche, sobre esta huelga de hambre, sobre su cultura, lo confirma. Somos un país desarraigado porque no nos interesa mirar el pasado, sino, solo cuando está lleno de vana gloria. Sin embargo, nuestra historia como seres, está llena de altos y bajos, de alegrías y dolores…como dije antes, chile tiene una asquerosa memoria selectiva, olvidamos que los mapuches fueron el único pueblo indígena que se resistió totalmente a la dominación española, eso, ya es heroico.
From an activism point of view, the blog IMC: Information Mapuche Chile [es] announces:
Del mismo modo, hacen un llamado a la ciudadanía en medio de estas fechas de esparcimiento popular a la reflexión y conminan a quienes llevan la conducción pública del estado a terminar con situaciones de injusticia, atropellos y desigualdades. En la misma línea, hacen un ferviente llamado a los sectores democráticos respetuosos de los Derechos Humanos A NO SER PARTE DE ACTOS PUBLICOS DE FESTOJO DEL BICENTENARIO, por respeto a la situación humanitaria que enfrenta el Pueblo Mapuche. BICENTENARIO: Mucho Por Cambiar, Todo Para Transformar
To conclude, the editor of the Center for Journalistic Investigation and Information (CIPER) [es] Francisca Skoknic, analyzes [es] why there are Chileans that look at the bicentennial with indignation:
El problema es que esto no es personal. La gente se informa por los medios. Sin ellos no existen los mineros, no existen los mapuche. Internet y las redes sociales en algo ayudan, pero no nos engañemos, aún no llegan a todos….Entonces se siente la indignación del bicentenario. Esa que aflora cuando las cosas no se pueden ocultar. De pronto están ahí y todos las vemos. Y no es lindo como nos quieren hace creer.
2 comments
The problem is that hatred is self validating. Anger can function like an emotional narcotic and in Latin American Society that narcotic is more epidemic than cocaine. It is easy to hate or be angry especially when one is searching for self validation. So what we see from people is a torrent of indignation, and a complete lack of piousness. They lack the ability to see beyond their own myopic hatred, that what the world needs is self control, leadership and virtue.
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