This entry is not an ode to Pinochet. Rather, it is a reflection on one of those moments of prise de conscience, dating back to 1982, well before I had ever been cracked open by a 1984 trip to Nicaragua. And it is a ever-so brief selection of Chilean voices on the coup years later.
I had gone to visit a friend in Brittany, France. One night, she, a bunch of her friends and I went to see the 1982, newly produced Costa-Grava film, Missing, based on Thomas Hauser's book, Missing: The Execution of Charles Horman.
A plot description on the web describes the film thusly:
Costa-Gavras's tense political drama is set in an unspecified South American country, in the throes of a military coup. American activist Charles Horman (John Shea), who has been a thorn in the side of the country's military ever since his arrival, suddenly disappears. In trying to find out what has happened, his wife Beth (Sissy Spacek) is stonewalled, not only by the ruling junta but by the American consulate. His father, staunchly patriotic Ed Horman (Jack Lemmon), joins Beth in her search. Ed and his daughter-in-law have never seen eye to eye politically, and he refuses to entertain the notion that his son's disappearance might be part of a larger conspiracy or cover-up. But as the days grow into weeks, Ed comes to the shattering conclusion that he and his family have been betrayed by the American government, on behalf of the "friendly" South American dictator who holds his people in a grip of iron. Adapted by Costa-Gavras and Donald E. Stewart from a book by Thomas Hauser, Missing was inspired by the true story of the late Charles Horman. In spite of (or perhaps because of) condemnation from certain high-ranking officials in the Reagan administration, the film went on to win an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide.
The music by Vangelis is haunting. One of the themes is a simple lullaby, descriptive of the couple's house before it was ransacked by the army. And in the scene where Lemmon and Spacek go to all the morgues, the music is brutal, like biting down on aluminum foil.
The film was banned in the United States for several years; it wasn't until 1987 that I saw it in the US (just before going to Panamá and Guatemala, not exactly quiet places at the time either).
At the end of the film, my French friends all jumped on me. 'What is it with you Americans????' I couldn't say much. I was devastated with the realisation that my US passport didn't mean diddly-squat if a country all of a sudden was thrown into martial law and undergoing a coup. It was further education (in those Reagan years) that if you were against the administration's policies, you were toast.
So while my French friends wanted to debate the film, I found myself speechless. I wish I had known more of what was going on back then so I could have responded to them. Even now, what can one say?
Chilean Nobel laureate (Literature) Pablo Neruda's heart was broken by the 11 September 1973 coup. He was already dying of cancer, isolated on Isla Negra. The news basically did him in — twelve days after the coup, he died.
Ariel Dorfman, an exiled Chilean writer now living in Durham, NC, author of multitudinous books writes of the coup:
During the last 28 years, Tuesday, September 11 has been a date of mourning, for me and millions of others, ever since that day in 1973 when Chile lost its democracy in a military coup, that day when death irrevocably entered our lives and changed us forever. ('The Last September 11th,' Chile: The Other September 11).
In another essay, he adds:
It can't happen here.
Thirty years ago that is what we chanted, that is what we sang, on the streets of Santiago de Chile.
It can't happen here. There can never be a dictatorship in this country, we proclaimed to the winds of history that were about to furiously descend upon us; our democracy is too solid, our armed forces too committed to popular sovereignty, our people too much in love with freedom.
But it did happen. ('Lessons of a Catastrophe,' Other Septembers)
For those of you who want to read more about the coup from a non-US point of view, I recommend
Ariel Dorfman, Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda, Joan Jara, Beatriz Allende, Chile: the Other September 11 (Melbourne, NY: Ocean Books, 2003).
Ariel Dorfman, Other Septembers, Many Americas: Selected Provocations, 1980-2004 (New York, Seven Stories Press, 2004).
Lastly, there's Thomas Hauser's book, Missing -- New York, Simon Schuster, 1978.
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