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Recuerdos de Santiago en 1990
I have arrived at my final stop of the trip: Santiago de Chile. The only place that I have been before.
But that was in 1990. It was a place now lost to history.
I can’t help comparing it though. Or at least comparing it to my 35-year-old memory. I had to dig through the internet to supplement, but here are some random thoughts:
Smog: Santiago is nestled at the base of the Andes. I took a class here for a month with a UC Davis professor in June/July, winter in Chile, so the mountains were snow-capped. Not that you would have known that in 1990! Santiago, especially in winter, was considered one of the most polluted cities in the world. It is still a smoggy city. Hopefully not 1990-smoggy. But I’m here now in the summer….
Pinochet: The military dictator had just stepped aside in March 1990. The country was trying to figure out what the new era really meant. Pinochet maintained a lot of power for several more years, as head of the military and as “senator for life.” But slowly the sentences of political prisoners were commuted, and in 1991 a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed to come to terms with the tortured and disappeared from the Pinochet years.
The transit system: I don’t know if I can adequately describe it: It was a completely deregulated, privatized system under Pinochet. There are peer-reviewed journal articles about it. According to my 35-year-old memory, there were small buses that roamed the city in no discernible pattern. I found these photos online to try to illustrate.
These were privately owned, so there were no set routes, bus stops, or prices. We American students were told to use them to get from our dorm-like residence to where our class was held. It was one of the most confusing things we dealt with. Some students gave up and just pooled their resources to take taxis. And that’s what many locals did as well.
In this system, anyone could start up a “bus service.” So the number of buses in the city increased, which led to increased traffic and confusion. And of course there was no regulation on emissions. The buses visibly spewed exhaust. The added polution from this insane transit system has been documented. And with no regulation or training of drivers, no official stops, and the free-market competition for passengers, buses were known to drive erratically and swerve to get passengers, causing accidents and traffic jams. It was chaos.
Taking a long view
So with these 35 years on my mind at the moment, I’m thinking about the vast arc of history. Just hang with me for a moment: In 1990, I had just returned from a different study abroad program, my junior year abroad in Budapest, Hungary, which had suddenly become part of the “former” Eastern bloc. Everyday seemed to bring news of change that hadn’t seemed possible: Germany was reunited. Nelson Mandela was released from prison. And General Pinochet willingly stepped down from power. And so some idiot wrote that it was the “End of History” because events showed that liberal democracy had “won.” If humans had been evolving toward the most successful form of government, he wrote, then they need evolve no longer. Western liberal democracy was it.
Bwahahahahaha!
