Kyle Hepp

January 10, 2011

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So, as you may or may not have noticed, I’m working hard on trying to go every other day with photography and personal posts. So today’s post is about our weekly date night, date day, whatever. We just started this tradition. Two weeks ago Seba and I went to the Embalse el Yeso with Maria and Luis. We had so much fun peeling ourselves away from our computers, getting out of the house and doing something different for a change (other than go out to eat, which we always do), that we decided we’d try to make it a weekly thing. So last week, we hit up Museo de la Memoria y  Los Derechos Humanos.

It’s right near our house and we watched as they built it, about a year ago. Ever since we learned of it’s existence, we’ve been saying we were going to go, but they have fences around the whole of the outside so we thought it hadn’t opened yet. We finally got around to googling and found out that yes, it’s open. Yes, it’s also free. See, you really have no excuse not to go.

I find the whole concept fascinating. I’m not so much interested in the history of Chile as I am in the way history of Chile affects the now of Chile. In English, the name of the place is Museum of Memory and Human Rights.

To give you a quick run down: Back in the day, Salvador Allende was president. I believe he was a Marxist. There was a coup d’etat (where the military overthrows the government) on September 11th of 1973. Then Augusto Pinochet and the armed forced of Chile took over the country and Pinochet became self-elected president/dictator through 1990. Pinochet killed/kidnapped/tortured/exiled thousands of people in Chile who weren’t on his side, even some who weren’t on any side.

There’s your background story. I’m not going further into it because I’m not a historian, but the museum follows the story of what happened during the dictatorship and goes into a little bit of human rights around the world. Though it doesn’t touch on the fact that the U.S. played a part in the coup. However, I don’t know enough about that so I’m not even going to mention it.

So we arrived on a Thursday afternoon. As you can tell, the place was packed.

I can’t remember how much parking was, but in case you want to get there by public transportation, the green line takes you to the Quinta Normal stop, where the metro is connected directly to a museum entrance. You don’t even have to see the light of day to get from the metro into the exhibits.

The first thing that caught my eye, aside from the very cool, very modern architecture, was a few lines of a poem on the wall. It’s by Victor Jara, one of Chile’s most famous victims of the dictatorship.

What struck me about the poem was the line where it asked something about “How many of us are there?” I really never thought too much about how brutal the dictatorship was in Chile until now. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the thousands of people that died in Chile from 1973-1990 isn’t many compared to the millions of people that died during the Holocaust. But again in the grand scheme of things, a life is still a life. When I looked at the photos on a wall of the museum of most of the victims, I just kept remembering that they were all somebody’s dad, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s husband.

I wouldn’t say it was the most uplifting date I’ve ever been on.

This is some kind of human rights declaration on the wall outside.

That’s Seba and I in the reflection — our self portrait for the day, if you will.

I think the museum in and of itself is worth a visit even if you don’t want to go in, just because it’s so pretty.

The architecture also has special meaning. One of the recurring themes throughout the entire museum was that what happens to one victim happens to all of us — it stays in the collective consciousness, it affects the way Chile is today. So the way the museum looks with all the connecting beams and fragmented pieces is supposed to represent humanity (or at least Chilean humanity, I’m not sure).

And that was the concept that was so fascinating to me.

To this day, Pinochet still has many supporters in Chile. It absolutely blew my mind that when he died the country was divided between people grieving and people celebrating. Maybe it’s because I’m young, but I see things in black and white. If Obama suddenly decided to kill off all the Republicans, but passed the health care bill and then died, I wouldn’t be celebrating his life because he got a reform through. I’d be angry that he killed my compatriots, because whether they believed the same thing as me or not, they’re still my fellow countrymen, and more importantly, they’re still human beings. Nobody deserves to die for a political stance they’ve taken. Yet, people in Chile will defend Pinochet as if their own life defended on it. It’s true that he did a lot that was good for the country economically, but at what price? And how does that excuse the fact that he murdered people? Plus, there are still people who deny that anyone was ever murdered under Pinochet. Not cool.

Personally, I thought that this museum had Bachelet’s stamp all over it. There were so many things that just reminded me of her personality in the way it was done. Which brings up a big point — Bachelet was the first president that Chile’s had since the dictatorship that has really pushed for the acknowledgement of what happened during that time period. Under her, Juan Emilio Cheyre recognized the military’s role in the dictatorship and promised they would never again “interfere with democracy.” Bachelet’s father was a victim under the dictatorship so it’s not surprising that she was willing to fight for some small form of justice while she was president.

We took a guided tour through the museum. I was more than happy to do this because the guide knows far more about the dictatorship than I could ever imagine to. I actually ran into Eileen at the museum — how random is that? I’m far more prone to run into folks I know at my favorite bar getting my drink on than I am at places where I can absorb culture sans vino. I invited her to join our tour, but she declined because she thought that it took away from the actual museum exhibits.

It’s true that I didn’t stop to look at all of the museum exhibits in depth.

However, Seba and I learned waaaaaaaay more than we ever would’ve on our own. Believe it or not, Seba learned nada about the dictatorship during his formative years. Nada means nothing in case you’re confused. Though, I can’t say that I can find fault with the logic — part of his formative years were during the dictatorship. And even after the dictatorship, Pinochet remained head of the military.

I absolutely loved the museum and thought it was both fascinating and very well done. I have a bone to pick with only two things.

1. You cannot take pictures inside. I find this ironic at a human rights museum. When I told a friend that, she said, “Why, is taking pictures a fundamental human right?” I don’t know about that, but I do know that pictures is one of the best ways to remember — and to spread the word. Very few people I’ve talked to in Santiago have been to El Museo de la Memoria, let alone even know it exists. The reason given to us as we entered the building was that many of the artifacts were donated by the families of the victims. However, throughout the museum we went through many exhibits that were brand spanking new and had definitely been created with the sole purpose of being in Museo de la Memoria. Putting a sign by the ones you can’t photograph and then letting you take pictures of everything else would’ve sufficed. Though that’s more of a gringo point of view in which I assume everyone is a rule follower like me

I find that it’s a HUGE disservice to the country of Chile that you can’t take photos inside the museum. If you could take pictures there, my personal opinion is that more people would know the truth about what happened in this country from 1973-1990. It really is still a little-talked-about subject here and I think that this museum that is SO incredible and interesting and again, very, very well-done, could really open up a dialogue.

Seba was shocked watching the video of the planes bombarding La Moneda (the Chilean White House) on September 11th, 1973. Shocked. I really wanted to take a picture of his face just to show how impacted he was by this video. I just wish that photos were allowed in the museum.

That being said, we were asked to check our bags at the counter. We said we were photographers and didn’t care to check very expensive equipment so we would come back another day. The lady at the desk was really nice and let us take our bags in with us as long as we didn’t take photographs.

2. I’m not sure if this is something that’s specific to our tour guide, or if this is the language they teach the tour guides to use, but the entire time our guide kept referring to the disappearances under Pinochet as having been “fueron hechos desaparecer,” or made to disappear. The only reason I take issue with this is because fueron hechos desaparecer is a verb that puts no blame on anybody. If Bob kidnaps Sue, Bob is the one who did it. If Sue is “made to disappear,” that implies that we don’t know who did it. And we know who did it — the military under Pinochet. That language bothered me throughout and even though I know that’s just the way this particular act is said in Spanish, I disliked it every time she said the words “fueron hechos desaparecer.”

I have no idea about the time frame for guided tours. We just walked in and someone grabbed us and said, “Would you like to go on a guided tour?” I also have no idea if they have tours in English. Though, some of the captions on the exhibits were in English, but not all. The tour we went on took about 2.5 hours. It was long, and I still feel like there is so much more of the museum for us to see. We plan to go back soon on our own without a tour. I do agree with Eileen that the tours take away from being able to look at all the exhibits, but I also think that even if you have a decent knowledge of Chilean history, you’d still learn a lot on one of these tours.

Please excuse the stray hair.

Overall, I can’t say enough how awesome I thought this museum was or how strongly I recommend that you visit it if you’re visiting Chile. I learned a lot and I’m foreign. Seba learned a lot and he’s Chilean. I think it’s good for everyone to hear. This is really a topic that has been swept under the rug and it’s refreshing to be able to talk about it in an open environment.

So how do we feel about date night/date day posts? Yay, nay?

We won’t always be doing stuff as boring as going to museums