Fotografo de Bodas, Santiago

June 22, 2010

The other night I got tipsy with my suegra and we talked about Chile from the perspective of two expat women who have lived here a long time — one significantly longer than the other, but still. We got to talking about Chile’s isolation from the rest of the world.

In many ways, this is a very cool thing. Chile is so out of the way, that the people that come here, I generally find to be very random and very interesting. You don’t just happen to pass through Chile, the way you might just happen to pass through Mexico. No. You take a usually $700+ flight, for 9+ hours if you’re coming from most places in the U.S. or elsewhere outside of South America. That requires at least a minimal amount of thought on why in the world you’d want to go through all that effort to come to this little country at The End of The World, as I refer to it.

And Chile is very isolated geographically. The Andes Mountains separate it the Eastern part of the continent, the Pacific ocean is to the West, the Atacama (driest desert in the world) is to the North, and Patagonia wilderness is to the South. So right from the get-go, as the Spaniards were busy trying to colonize those crazy Mapuches, who fought to the bitter end (and continue to fight in the Southern Chile), they realized that this place wasn’t easy to get to. Once you got here, especially back in the day, when letter had to travel by boat, then by horse, then by lord knows what else, you were cut off from the rest of the world.

Then we have the dictatorship, which I’ve heard a lot Chileans say kept them isolated as well. That may be. I’m not a Pinochetian scholar. I do know that he was in power for 17 years and put a hefty tax on books in order to keep the people from reading.

But I think that the isolation comes more from inside Chilean minds than anywhere else. The earthquake seemed to make it very clear to me that Chile still retains much of their Us Against The World Mentality. All the way from up top — President Bachelet, initially refusing foreign aid — down to the country’s largest relief effort — called “Chile Helps Chile.”

I’m just going to say it — that’s a weird name. To me.

All I have to compare this against is my experience living in the U.S., and I can’t imagine that in the face of natural disaster we would entitle our relief efforts, “The USA helps The USA.” That seems very ethnocentric. Not that the U.S. is NOT ethnocentric. We sooooooo are. However, when it comes to helping abroad U.S. citizens give more than fairly generously and I think expect to be supported by fellow mankind around the globe, even if it’s in non-monetary ways. I can’t see us starting a campaign featuring the fact that we help ourselves.

About a month after the earthquake I saw a news reporter here talking about how the entire globe was still talking about Haiti and had already moved on from Chile. Um, yeah. Maybe that’s because Chile is screaming to the world, “We Help Ourselves!” Or maybe it’s because the catastrophe here wasn’t quite on the same scale. Take your pick.

This Us Against the World mentality does seem to be a driving force for the country of Chile to effectively work hard to be a better place. But I think it also gives Chileans tunnel vision and they forget that opening up to the rest of the world is not necessarily a bad thing. Implementing good ideas from around the globe doesn’t mean that Chile will become any less Chilean. Accepting help from abroad if necessary doesn’t mean that Chile isn’t capable of helping themselves. Chile is not alone. No one is alone these days. The world is way too small. Chile can and should help Chile. But they shouldn’t close the door on everybody else. That’s all I’m saying.

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12 Comments

Interesting post. You're the second person I know to say this about Chile. One American who lived in Chile for a while said: “Chile is an island”. Coming myself from an island, I can understand this. I wonder what motivated Bachelet to refuse foreign aid. It is to preserve Chile's image as a strong economic nation (“we don't need charity”) or because of the difficulty of managing a large flow of aid? Yes, Chile is not in the news very much and for someone like me, who is interested in the country, this is intriguing.

Comment by vanessa2010 — June 23, 2010 @ 1:11 pm

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So your suegra is an expat as well? Whereabouts from, if it is all right to ask?
I agree with you on the isolation thing; I felt it more strongly than ever before when I got back from Europe, where everything seemed to be so near and yet every city was important, unlike Chile where let's face it, Santiago is by far more cosmopolitan (if) than any other city in the country. This truly IS the End of the World, I remember thinking to myself.
About our mentality, maybe there is some pride in thinking that we have come this far with little help from abroad, so why not let us keep it like that. Besides, until not so long ago it WAS difficult to get help from elsewhere since we are so far away from everything, and we couldn't wait, so we had to manage by ourselves. I may be wrong, of course, but I think that way of thinking can be applied to everything about Chile and Chileans.
You post really got me thinking!

Comment by Flo — June 23, 2010 @ 1:40 pm

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Very interesting post. In many ways I find Chile to be a contradiction, because I agree with most of what you've written here, that the “Chile against the world” mentality is very prevalent. However, how can you compare/contrast that with the sometimes self-depricating attitude that Chileans have about themselves and their country? The whole “Chile is a third world country” mentality, you know? Is it maybe that “Look at us, we're so isolated and underdeveloped, but we can do everything ourselves anyway”? Maybe that makes their accomplishments even more impressive? Or maybe these two attitudes come from different sectors of the population and exist side by side. I'm not sure, these are just random thoughts.

Comment by Abby Hall — June 23, 2010 @ 3:10 pm

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The explanation was that the gobernment needed to stablish with some accuracy what was really needed. Chile has been hit before by earthquakes and other similar catastrophes, and we end up with foreign well intentioned help, in the form of tons supplies, but sometimes, not the right ones.
The gobernment did accept foreign help, but after they realized what was needed and what wasnÂ´t. After the 85Â´ Santiago quake, great quantities of help from other countries came, but among them were, for example vaccines against malaria, a total waste for the country that sent that help, and useless in Chile.
That happened just because Chile is not really well known, and the few resources we had to receive and distribute that help had to be planned before it arrived.

Comment by Marmo — June 23, 2010 @ 3:13 pm

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I don't think that “Chile helping Chile” is weird – I think it sounds weird in English, sure, but the concept to me doesn't come across as “go away, we'll help ourselves” but more as a motivational “come on Chileans, let's come together in solidarity and help like we do for the TeletÃ³n!” I took it more as internal marketing to get people motivated than a message to outsiders to go away.

Beyond that, I think you're right that even as borders are falling – through air travel, immigration, the internet, whatever – Chileans are still used to thinking of themselves as an island. I find myself doing it too, honestly. I say Chile has no diversity, and of course next to SF or LA, it doesn't. But you can find all sorts of restaurants, and there are people from plenty of countries if you look for them. It's just that people aren't used to looking for them yet, since it's all pretty new.

Comment by emilyinchile — June 23, 2010 @ 5:01 pm

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First of all, where do you find those $700 plane tickets????

The way I understood Bachelet's reaction and even Chile helping Chile was more of pride and self-sufficiency. It was very early to have a complete assessment of the magnitude, but I think it was also a message to the worls saying “This is not Haiti.” I think the word “aninyado” fits Chile well–they are small but want to show the world that they can take care of themselves. I think this is admirable in many ways, but, of course, every country needs to accept help when their people need it. I don't know all the politics of global financial aid, but I also imagine that many kinds of “help” come with some kind of “cost”, so I can understand the wariness.

The US is big and powerful and rich so we have the luxury of “helping” when we want to… unfortunately, it often requires images of catestophe to be moved. We saw those images in Haiti and the response was overwhelming. The images from Chile were not as potent, as the poverty is not quite as great and the response was underwhelming at best.

Interesting post. I have heard all of those explanations for chilean isolation, but I don't know what the answer is…

Comment by Annje — June 23, 2010 @ 6:22 pm

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Wow, what a powerful post, I loved it!!! Chile sounds a bit like Cuba…I had no idea this was going on! “No one is alone these days. The world is way too small.” These are great words and oh so true. I wish more people thought like that all over the world, maybe we wouldn't have so many disgusting wars. I think it's great that despite Chile's faults, you remain. Maybe you can help change some of that egocentric thinking?

Comment by GlobalButterfly — June 23, 2010 @ 7:23 pm

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Andrea, nothing compared to Cuba… Cuba currently has a dictatorship AND communism – Chile HAD a dictatorship but combined with Capitalism. Also Cuba is very isolated due to its dictatorship. Chile is now very respected in the world and is on the edge of joining the “first world”

Kyle, you are right and I never thought about how difficult it is to actually come to Chile – you are right from every “non South American country” it is far and expensive and should require a lot of thought. I came here by accident – looking for sun and Spanish classes in rainy November -> and Google suggested Chile as safe, prosperous and interesting. If I had of done my homework properly I would have more likely chosen a country in the Caribbean but am really happy I did not

Comment by Andre — June 23, 2010 @ 10:23 pm

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totally agreed, that campaign sounds weird to me in english and spanish. chileans usually seem to WANT to be isolated. and again, i also seem to really enjoy all the foreigners i meet here.

Comment by Lydia — June 23, 2010 @ 11:27 pm

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Hi, my name is Diego, I'm 18, I live in santiago and I'm Chilean.
I agree when you say we're closed, I know that's bad and we must be more friendly but, I met a lot of people, chileans, mexicans, from Spain, United State, Canada, etc.. They tell me we're friendly and funny, really we're too friendly but many adults look very serious after work or when have problems with money, I think it starts with a economical problem. Chileans are earning bit of money working 8 hours or 10 hours per day, a lot of workers are sick or have a relative sick in this winter, the medicine is hard for getting it without a good work, it's too expensive, the delinquency on the streets is a preocupation for all.

We want a better country, we want emerging. The people is so worried in their things they can't see “this is a life and we must live it”, this is the most sad, I'd like to see people quiet and trouble free as in other countries.

About we're not alone, yes, I think the same. I don't undertand why the government doesn't take the help, really I'm not happy with this government, to me it doesn't work like it should.

We're closed because the people doesn't take time to rest or see what is bad in our culture…

Comment by X Cloud X2 — June 24, 2010 @ 2:09 am

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I agree with Emily that the “Chile helping Chile” motto doesn't bother me that much… perhaps it's because Mexicans are known for not being very solidary among themselves. A slogan like this would actually be a good thing, we're not very strong at promoting fraternity as you can imagine…..

However, it DID hit me how isolated Chile (Santiago and Valparaiso) felt when we visited last year. Granted we were only there for a week, but I did feel that this was an “enclosed” community. People stared at us the entire time, me probably for being blond, Andre probably for being so tall and it reminded me a lot of how we felt in Japan, another highly known isolated culture. I'm not saying Chile is completely shut off from the world, but when you compare to other countries that are more exposed to diversity in culture, language or because of pure geographic proximity you can tell the difference.

However, I'm probably very biased after all this time, after all, cultural diversity IS the norm here (I'll always remember how some mexican friends who came to Paris for the first time mentioned this was the very first time they were actually seeing asians, blacks and indians and were surprised to learn these communities lived in France!!)

Fned.

Comment by Fned — June 24, 2010 @ 11:27 am

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You really donâ€™t know about Chile on business matters these days. We are being considered one of the best places to for companies to invest in. we really aren't as closed to the world as you portray us. Even for tourism, we donâ€™t even ask for a visa! Taking the example of Chile Ayuda a Chile to sustain your argument wasnâ€™t the best move. This campaign is a way to unite the country and look for help inside of it. It was also made for people to feel more Chilean and unite with their own country, as well as help. I went with Un Techo Para Chile and with this campaign, to help. It is great that they made it as it allowed people to do this, to find a place where they could offer their help, especially young people. We also did get outside help, but Chile is pretty disorganized when it comes to that matter and there were many anonymous donations from all around the globe. The fact is, Why ask for help when you can get it from your own country? We might not be a huge country but it was just part of it that got affected by the quake. If the other part can help out, why not get help from them? Bachelet shouldnâ€™t have rejected help from outside but help came anyways. We werenâ€™t ever going to be as big news as the Haiti earthquake since we donâ€™t need as much help as they do. Anyways, Chile is becoming more and more known worldwide in many different aspects.

Comment by Magda_luk — July 3, 2010 @ 7:01 am

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