Rising Hegemon
JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the newly-elected president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet. She is a pediatrician, a socialist and a former minister of health and defense.
Her father, an air force general, was tortured and died in prison. He had been in the government of Salvador Allende, which was overthrown in a 1973 coup led by Augusto Pinochet. Michelle Bachelet and her mother were also imprisoned and tortured.
***
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I was really interested that night in the celebration many people said to me -- even people who suffered a lot under the dictatorship -- "We really appreciate the fact that Dr. Bachelet is willing to forgive".
You suffered a lot. You don't like to talk about it. Your mother was six days in a cage the size of like a square. Your father died because of the tortures -- he wrote letters you've read I'm sure that are the saddest letters one could imagine, about what happened to him.
MICHELLE BACHELET: Yes.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How do you come to this position of being so positive about the possibility for reencuentro - the coming together of the nation?
MICHELLE BACHELET: I wouldn't be honest if I told you that in some moment of my life I had a lot of rage --- probably hate -- I'm not sure of hate, but rage.
But you know what happens is that then you realize you cannot do to others what you think nobody has to do to anybody. Life is important for me and not any kind of life, quality too of life.
So probably it's strange or its difficult to understand, but everything that happened to me made me not only rationally but emotionally get to a deep conviction.
Bush's optimism, born of privilege, proved to him every time he needed something it fell into his lap. On a silver platter. His optimism is of the silk stocking variety, blue-blood to the core.
Bachelet's optimism is entirely different, born of suffering, of a life that may have allowed some advantage, but one that saw true horror. And survived.
That is an optimism I can relate to.
No comments:
Post a Comment