The Chilean Mapuche-Proof Fence

The Chilean Mapuche-Proof Fence

The movie “Rabbit-Proof Fence” unveiled the injustices committed against aborigines in Australia by the white man, who until nowadays considers himself a superior human being. I found the scenes of the little girls trying to escape from a destiny of slavery very touching and made me think immediately of the following phrase: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). It also reminded me of many similar examples through history and all around the world: The Spanish conquerors trying to turn aborigines to Catholicism, the Portuguese colonisation in Brazil, and the expansion of the British Empire to North America. All these events, including the one exposed in the movie, lead to an inevitable loss of identity. Chile is not the exception. We have continuously denied our roots because we feel ashamed of our ancestors who are still breathing the same air we breathe but they apparently don’t have the same rights a normal Chilean citizen has and suffer from discrimination by the society. Is it our fault to discriminate the Mapuche people or is it their fault because they are not synchronised with our “higher development level”?

            Now that most countries in the world are theoretically sovereign, we can compare the differences of aboriginal integration of countries of South America. For example, in Paraguay the “guaraní”, aboriginal language of their ancestors, is taught as a second language in schools, whereas in Chile the “mapudungún”, language of Mapuches has been nearly forgotten. If this people disappeared right now, this language would die with them since most Chileans are not really interested in learning it. But why is it so hard for the common Chilean citizen not to discriminate the Mapuches? According to Andrés Piqueras, “one of the processes of formation and transcendence of identity lies precisely in the fact that it is expressed as a contraposition of one another, establishing this way all the differences” (Piqueras, La identidad Valenciana. La difícil construcción de una identidad colectiva, 1996). Chile, as well as most countries in the world, has been living a globalisation process in which people tend to copy every foreign trend because they believe it is better than national trends. The advent of the technological era might have exacerbated this process. In this sense, the contrapositions to the foreign trends are the mapuches, who represent the ancestors of our country and the true Chilean tradition. They are seen as a burden, a group who does not contribute to the development, a counterproductive sector of the population, same as what happened to the aborigines in Australia. Michel Wieviorka even made a definition for this sector of the population; he named them the “primary identities”. The definition is the following: “The primary identities are, for example, the indigenous people in the three Americas, or the aborigines in Australia, peoples that already existed before the formation of nations and modern societies. At glance, these identities constitute what persists, what is fighting against modernity”. (Wieviorka, 2002).

            It is true that countries need to develop, but it is also true that a country without memory is a country without history, and we can’t just forget about our ancestors just because they don’t follow foreign trends. And it happens the other way round too. Mapuches don’t like Chileans. They are almost a different country within the Chilean territory. If someone had asked Caupolicán or Lautaro, two well-known mapuche “lonkos”, if they were Chileans, they would have probably answered with a “no”. The war they fought against the Spanish conquerors was called “Guerra de Arauco”. It lasted 347 years. (http://es.wikipedia.org). However, some representatives of the Mapuche nation say that this war is still being fought, and that the enemy now is the Chilean government. And they are probably right. It is not strange to see in the television how the police carry out raids in these communities and arrest them for no apparent reason. They also claim that their lands are being stolen. The construction of dams in their territory that supply with energy to multinational companies is also supported by the government. This is another reason for them to be mad at the authority, and so on.

            As a way of concluding this reflection and finding a proper answer for the questions presented at the beginning, we can say that the Mapuches and indigenous groups in general are not the ones to blame for the segregation process they lived or, in the Mapuche’s case, are still living. The white man is the one to blame since the indigenous represent the ancestors of the land and, therefore, they got here first. The least thing that the white man can do is treat them as equals and reinforce the integration policies for these sectors of the population. Although this tasks have been in the agenda of some of the last Chilean governments, they have not been carried out properly, hence the rejection of our ancestors to the government. Besides the government policies, which are very necessary, the change needs to be made by the Chilean citizen too. We need to start respecting our own people because that’s what they are, we come from them. A different and better country is possible and it’s up to us to decide whether we are willing to help constructing it or not.

Bibliografía

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (1948).

http://es.wikipedia.org. (s.f.). Obtenido de http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_de_Arauco

Piqueras, A. (1996). La identidad Valenciana. La difícil construcción de una identidad colectiva. Madrid.

Piqueras, A. (1996). La identidad Valenciana. La difícil construcción de una identidad colectiva. En P. Andrés, La identidad Valenciana. La difícil construcción de una identidad colectiva (págs. 274-275). Madrid.

Wieviorka, M. (2002). Diferencias culturales, racismo y democracia. Caracas: CIPOST.