Proposal for marking the 40th Anniversary(on 9/11)of the U.S. coup against Chile.

[Ken Burch]

(I need feedback on this...I see it as a possible framework for events tied to the 40th anniversary of the coup, intended to explore not only what happened then, but how that horrible event led to changes in economic and social values that are still damaging the vast majority of the human race today. Please offer any suggestions, any thoughts for ideas or groups that should be included that I've left out, and any other suggestions that come to mind. Alos, I phrased some of the ideas in the specifically for a U.S. audience, so please offer any ideas as to how to more properly "internationalize" the concept I'm developing here, with your assistance).

Working Title:

Chile. 1973.

The FIRST 9/11:

What it did to THEM-

What it did to US-

What it DOES to the world today-

Objectives:

1) To remind people of the original event(the U.S.-backed overthrow of the democratic government of Chile);
2) To explore
a)What happened;
b)Who caused it;
c) What it did to

I)Chile and the rest of Latin America
II)The World
III)Working people and the poor in the U.S.
3)To utilize
a) historical materials

I)Text and primary source materials
II)Video footage, film footage, and audio actualities of the day of the coup and the days immediately afterwords and
of the events leading to the coup;

b) possible re-enactments of some of the events(someone perfoming Allende’s farewell radio speech, for example);
c)recollections from Chileans and others who were in Chile at the time of the coup;
d)cultural work from the era(recordings or performances of “New Song/Cancion Nueva” music, displays of poster art associated with the Popular Unity movement, film footage of musicians, dancers, actors of the era in performance at the time

(option: recreation of a “pena”-sorry, that needs a “tilde” over the “n” but my computer won’t type one-the cultural evenings invented by Violeta Parra)
e)screening of documentary films about the coup and related subjects(such as the recently completed documentary about the life of Victor Jara);
f)call to the cultural workers of today to create original works exploring themes tied to the coup, such as

I) what American participation in the coup said then and says now about this country?
II) what changes occurred, not only in Chile, but throughout the rest of the world AND in the U.S., as a result of the coup, and how those developments helped change global consciousness from a sense of human connection to a huge emphasis on competition and “selling”, to a sense of “each of us against everybody else”?
III) What happens to a country and a world when everyone is forced to commodify themselves, and must “outsell” each of their fellow humans at some level just to survive?
IV) What choices to people make when their dreams are crushed and the doors they were going to walk through are locked?
V) What do you sing when you can’t sing your OWN song?
VI) Other themes as they develop:






Target Audiences/People this event SHOULD Connect With:

1.People who went through that event(in Chile and other countries) and who need to see that what they worked for then(and what some people they cared about gave their lives for then)was not lost and that the effort to reshape life that was brought to a temporary end when Chilean democracy was crushed was not pointless;
2.Working folks of all ages who never knew what was being created in Chile or what was taken from them in the coup, and who need to find the ways to gain or regain what was taken NOW;
3.Young people who were raised without any knowledge of what happened in that era, how it damaged their lives, and who are still young enough to gain a full awareness of their conditions;
4.Indigenous groups/POC(who may or may not know of the ways in which indigenous culture and other non-European culture) was crushed in Chile during the coup, and who can relate that to their own subjugation and to the commodification/trinketization of indigenous and Rainbow cultures today;
5.Creative workers, who would gain from learning about an era when music, art, theatre, and dance spoke to working people in a direct, immediate way, and in which much of what was created was made by working-class people themselves and arose from their reality;


The basic idea would be to work with these groups, first, as particular subsets, educating them on the history as needed and on the related post-1973 social transformations that occurred, then bringing all the groups together in a forum in which barriers would be broken down and all would gain from listening to the way each group absorbed and perceived all that was being discussed;

In the end, you’d want, in addition to what each group would bring to the event, to see some sort of common projects developed that tied together the larger sensibilities of all those involved.

_________________

Just looking fr feedback from people as to whether this is workable, what is good, what is bad, any other positive suggestions.

This is a crucial anniversary, so we need to make use of it.

[WinkyDink]

1. IDGI. Are you talking about producing a TV show? Writing an article? BTW: Nobody in the US

will really care, as we never did before, the movie "Missing" notwithstanding.

I mean no offense, as your post shows profound interest in late-20th C. Chile per se and its "meaning". I am aware of the Allende coup. But South America, though JFK tried with the OAS, has never really caught the imagination of los Estados Unidos.

[Ken Burch]

2. Not a tv show-a series of activities.

The idea is, in part, to show people in THIS country what the coup helped take away from them-because that act helped working people start losing ground in the overall class struggle(and even though most U.S. workers were afraid to admit it, they only ever gained anything THROUGH organizing by class), and led directly to the rise of people like Reagan and Thatcher(and Clinton and both Bushes, as well as Blair)who fought against workers and were able to pretty much do everything they wanted to do TO workers during the last few decades in office.

My hope is to have this be a national event...with coordinated actions in every city and, if possible, in the working-class towns in the Northeast and upper Midwest(and the ones in the South that are beginning to lose ground themselves, despite the "free market" promises that deluded so many for so long.

Chile's 9/11 is where the long era of lost ground and crushed dreams began.

[mitchtv]

3. Good Luck!

I witnessed much of the turmoil from Peru and Bolivia, I stayedd out of chile. I remember when they killed Gen Rene Schnieder in a botched kidnap. Everyone knew the CIA was behind it. No one here even knew where Chile was, much less cared.