A New Documentary Draws Stark Parallels Between Chile Under Pinochet and the Post-9/11 “War on Terror”
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Type of Content: Article Sophia A. McClennen Torture, the suspension of democracy and civil rights, illegal surveillance, forced displacement, and a culture of fear led by a despot who gains power through an act of violence committed on September 11. Sound familiar? Canadian director Peter Raymont’s new documentary, A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, covers familiar ground but in less familiar territory as he intertwines the life of Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman with the history of Chile and with the events of 9/11 in both Chile and the United States. Author of the award-winning play Death and the Maiden, Dorfman is a novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, journalist, and human rights activist. Born in Argentina in 1942, his family was forced to move to the United States in 1945 only to then become the victims of McCarthyism in 1954. They next fled to Chile, where Dorfman eventually gained citizenship. Exiled again from Chile in 1973, Dorfman has lived since the 1980s in Durham, North Carolina where he teaches at Duke University. Tracing the Dorfman family’s multiple displacements, the documentary is an exploration of exile and loss, but it is equally the story of persistent hope, the survival of collective ties, and the triumph of memory. Dorfman should have died on September 11, 1973 when a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet ousted the democratically-elected Socialist President of Chile, Salvador Allende. Dorfman served at the time as Allende’s cultural advisor and his name was included on a list of government officials that would be called in the event of an attack. But he wasn’t called. Rather than die alongside his friends and comrades, he lived — and lived to tell the story. Or, as he tells readers of his memoir, Heading South, Looking North, which served as the basis for the film, "If it is not true that this was why I was saved, I have tried to make it true. In every story I tell. Haunted by the certainty that I have been keeping a promise to the dead." The haunting presence of the dead and the even more haunting ways that the living hold radically contradictory memories of the dead form some of the central questions that guide Raymont’s film. What does it mean to keep a promise to the dead? For Dorfman it means first and foremost telling the story of the thousands of Chileans who were tortured, disappeared, and exiled during the Pinochet years. It means using literature and the power of words to rescue stories that history would like us to forget. It also means being a voice for those that survived but suffered the trauma of losing loved ones. In one especially moving scene Dorfman accompanies Aleida, the daughter of Sergio Leiva, to a Chilean courthouse where he signs an affidavit confirming that he saw her father shot by a sniper while he was a refugee in the Argentine embassy. Until Dorfman’s words provided a challenge to official history, she had suffered the trauma of not only losing her father but having his death completely erased from public memory. Viewed in the current context of extraordinary renditions, secret prisons, and enemy combatants, where bodies disappear and die with no public record, Dorfman’s story is both inspiring and chilling. During exile, Dorfman dedicated himself to advancing the cause of the Chilean resistance. His perfect bilingualism, due to having lived in the United States and in South America as a young man, and his skills as a writer uniquely positioned him to tell the story of the dictatorship. But, even though the exile years were spent tirelessly struggling for the return of democracy, those long years also served to distance him irremediably from Chile. This distance became painfully clear when his play, Death and the Maiden, about a torture survivor who confronts her torturer, opened in Chile to less than enthusiastic reviews. Yet it is arguably the most internationally significant play authored by a Latin American writer and has been staged across the globe — to resounding success. After receiving an Olivier Award for its production in London, it opened on Broadway with Gene Hackman, Glenn Close, and Richard Dreyfus and was later made into a film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, and Stuart Wilson. But it has yet to fully reach Dorfman’s intended audience. Dorfman’s most internationally successful work brought the story of Chile closer to the world but left him even farther away. Rather than focus merely on Dorfman’s successes as a writer, the documentary explores this gap when he has dinner with the actor, Paula Sharim, who diplomatically characterizes the play as "putting a finger in a wound." Another scene in A Promise to the Dead presses the point of his outsider status when Dorfman appears on a television talk show with a Pinochet supporter shortly after the general’s death. The debate is whether Pinochet deserves to have a military burial. Dorfman adamantly opposes the idea, arguing that a man who denies his enemies the ability to bury their dead has violated military codes of conduct. He then directly asks the program’s host when he first knew about the torture conducted under Pinochet. The simple truth of Dorfman’s words shocks the host and the viewer is left savoring one of those few moments when they have seen someone absolutely refuse to self-censor. It’s a moment reminiscent of Stephen Colbert’s speech in front of George W. Bush at the correspondent’s dinner, except in this case Dorfman was dead serious. The documentary does an excellent job of balancing between Dorfman’s life and the events he has witnessed, but the real success of Raymont’s film lies in the way that it captures essential features of Dorfman’s aesthetic approach to writing his memoir. The memoir moves back and forth through time and across nations as it recalls the events of the coup in chapters that alternate with memories of Dorfman’s life before the coup. Similarly, the film gracefully moves across time and space showing the ways that memory structures not only our sense of the past but also our dreams for the future. Memory is messy, it is flawed, it can confuse us and haunt us. A first-time visit to Dorfman’s grandmother’s grave reveals that she has been moved to a common unmarked burial ground. Dorfman, running from the loss of her death, had refused to remember her. Yet memory also is what gives him strength, what inspires his writing, and what allows him to relive the extraordinary camaraderie of the Allende years. In a brilliant scene that reveals both the limits and the resilience of memory, Dorfman meets up with old friends and they reenact a pro-Allende victory march. Linked arm and arm the three men in their 60s erupt in song. When it comes time to turn, they move in opposite directions, having forgotten the actual route they used to take. As they break into laughter over the misstep, the message is clear: Some forgetting is inevitable. Some forgetting is willful. And some forgetting is criminal. When a nation has suffered radical trauma its greatest challenge is over which memories will survive, which will be suppressed, which will be fabricated, and which will be punished. Pinochet’s systematic denial of the dead, the tortured, and the exiled has drastically scarred Chile. It is impossible to watch this film and not feel deep connections between the story of Chile under Pinochet and the post 9/11/2001 world of the war on terror. At one point, Dorfman speaks about all the people who had to have known about the torture — not just the government and the torturers, but also the people who cleaned the rooms, who cooked for the torturers, and who worked in the myriad jobs that were required to sustain them. Dorfman asks viewers to think about all of the people who knew something horrible was happening to their country and said nothing. He also visits Ground Zero in New York where the tragedy of the attacks and of the response to the attacks resonates eerily with his own memories of Chile. Measured against these bleak experiences Raymont’s film tells another story. It is a story of extraordinary hope. It is the story of the jubilance of the Allende years and the exhilaration of the vote to oust Pinochet. We watch democracy in action: first voting in a Socialist President and then removing a dictator from power. Ballots slip into a box and we think of other elections to come, other opportunities for change, other ways to keep a promise to the dead. 20 Responses to “A New Documentary Draws Stark Parallels Between Chile Under Pinochet and the Post-9/11 “War on Terror””
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May 17th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
i just wrote this to push dales comment further down.
why listen to a show that suggests ‘no-planers’ (a pun on no-brainers and planes, u see?) are likely people poorly attempting to whitewash the (stacks of) hard evidence of the inside job on 9/11.
surely your just wanting someone like me to have a go at you for your amusement?
thats pretty pathetic in either case! are you stupid or just sad?! peace.
May 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
WHAT HIT THE TOWERS NOT GRAPHICS ADDED IN..THEY WAS DRONE MISSLE PLANES AND IM STICKING TO IT WHEN SOMETHING CRASHES INTO SOMETHING IT DONT DISAPPER IT SMASHES INTO PIECES.. A BUNKER BUSTER WOULD DO WHAT IT DID TO THE TWIN TOWERS OPEN YOU EYES PEOPLE……….ENTER THEN EXPLODE COME ON IT WOULDA EXPLODED ON IMPACT NOT AFTER ITS INSIDE THE BUILDING SAME THING WITH THE PENTAGON THATS WHY WE WILL NEVER SEE THE HUNDREDS OF VIDEO THEY HAVE SHOWING THE REAL TRUTH THEY BOMBED US FOLK HAVE WE ALL FORGOTTING WHAT A PLANE CRASH LOOKS LIKE AND IN PENN WHERE THOSE SUPPOSED HEROS FOUGHT YEAH WELL WHEN A PLANE GOES STR8 DOWN INTO THE GROUND WELL LET ME TELL YA THERE WOULD BE MORE RECKAGE THEN THAT NOT LITTLE TINY BITS…OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES
May 17th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
John Philcher’s” War On Democrasy . I loved how in Venezuela and Bolivia, they stormed the capitals in MASS CROWDS and ran them back to Washington. Would love to see you guys run them out of Washington. I won’t hold my breath for Canadians to storm our Parliment however. Too many in line to kiss Harpo Bush’s ass!!!
May 17th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I recently saw John Philcher’s” War On Democrasy ” C.I.A. terrorists and criminal assassins
E. Howard Hunt and Duane Claridge appear in the film and are prominent reminders that
sadistic facist corporate fuedalists are incestuous death’s head cult facilitators for the N.A.Z.I. adgenda (where the achronymn N.A.Z.I. is now North American Zionist Inquizitors).
When you see this film there is no doubt who the terrorists really are, wittness their pathology .
Use you search engines and the world of truth will roll at your feet.
E.Howard Hunt , Frank Forini and his boss G.H.W. Bush (with L.B.J’s total support) did assassinate American President J.F. Kennedy and G.H.W.Bush attempted to assasinate
Ronald Reagan.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
People have to want to believe it in order to believe it. How can you be blind to think all is well in the world. How can you sit down and watch the cops beat the shit out of people like the gang bangers they are….no, that is an insult to the O.G.’s of this world, like the bunch of out of control, schoolyard thugs bought and paid for by the N.W.O.
All we have to do is stand up to them. Next time someone is getting beat up by the cops, the citizens should all jump in and beat the shit out of the cops. Send them a message. Let them go back to the station all lumped up. That’ll teach ‘em. If you notice, some neighborhoods the popo won’t even dare to go into cuz they are scared to.
Everytime you stand up to the bully, the bully always gets that ass taxed. I had a bully that picked on me for years. Him and his crew would literally chase me home from school, til one day, i got tired of it and beat the shit out of him. After that time, things changed and we became friends.
Once you make a stance, they change their direction. After all, they have the same fears we do, right? Who is really scared of who? If they weren’t so scared, why do they need so much backup. Didn’t they learn how to street fight? Oh, i forgot, they get a little bit of training and a weapon. They learn how to use their weapon, rather their fists.
I would love to see this scenario unfold one day, police chasing some car in L.A., the suspects pull over, and put their hands up to surrender. The cops surround the car, drag the suspects out of the car and start beating the shit out of him. Out of nowhere, 50 citizens run to the aid of the suspects being jumped by the police and start beating the shit out of the cops. Now that, that would be television. I mean, it would be pretty hard to arrest someone, lying unconscious on the ground, or all bloodied up. I bet you the cops would think twice then….Anyone agree?
May 17th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
To #12:
He’s on saturday nites 11pm-1am, Toronto time
i think you can stream it live at http://www.am640.com or go to his personal website and he has all his past shows archived,….
http://www.richardsyrett.com/index.htm
May 17th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
TheGirlWho……
Yes, I am sorry to say,…………I’ve tried desperately to keep it quiet, but, ………….alas,
I,
I,
I’m,
single,
not gay,
and, ……….and, …………and, …………………….. in my 50’s!
Oh, the shame.
Hoo Yah!!!
May 17th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
#8
#10
LOL….BraveNewWorld…are you single..lol
#5 this is war not sexnews!
May 17th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
#10 Who is Spaceman?, I havent listened to AM640 since it was a top 40 over 15 years ago
What day and time is he on, and whats his gig? like whats he talk about?
May 17th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
#9 - Eric
I’m glad your sister made it out, thousands did not.
Could I encourage you to get your sister to tell her story on the Alex Jones show?
Personal experiences and insight such as hers are what people need to hear in order for them to believe and undertsnad what is going on.