abbreviations:
Santiago de Chile
From the Chilean desgarro to the Mexican tragedy.
César Garza arrives on January 30, 2026
Palacio de la moneda
“He who plays with monsters must be careful not to turn into them.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
THE
When you turned 17 and began to gain political awareness, there was an open cry in the Republic of Chile; Pinochet rules. In your preparatory and university years, you studied at New Cuban Find; Pablo and Silvio will touch your heart.
At the end, Pablo and Silvio divorced; Silvio decided to follow the myth: admit minor flaws, blame the interpreters, never mind.
For his part, Pablo accepted the unforgivable: the song was not telling the truth.
Intelligent men change when they learn, because they learn to change.
Loving the country does not make us lie.
The story (who writes it) usually rewards the one who is true to the story.
Memory, whether slow or fading, remembers what it tried to point out mistakes.
II
“I will visit the streets again
From who was Santiago ensangrentado
Y in a beautiful empty square
I detendre cry for guests”.
Today, for 50 years, I am here in Santiago, walking the streets and listening to the people. It is a beautiful city; It has similar problems in all the big cities of the world. Many Chileans are very cute in Mexico; They feel like Lejano herman, but they are part of the family after all. Amado.
It is in the Plaza de Armas. A few months ago, I brought you a story telling you about an extraordinary person, a math teacher who gives free lessons from 5 to 7 in the morning to anyone who needs it. You chose to meet him, you didn’t meet him, he already knows him; there are stories that are so neat they’re not worth debunking.
Everyone tells you that the center of Santiago is dangerous, that you should watch out for the thieves who roam these streets; It guards it, your cell guards it and watches you around; some people should think you are a thief.
Meet Wilbur, the plainclothes policeman at the Plaza de Armas; Mistake him for another person and try to charm him a little. He has a sweet look, is in his fifties, and tells you that he is sorry for the things that are presented especially to tourists; put your hand in the bag and it will show you some items. Upon observation he will tell you that his friends call him Jesus, why? Please ask. I was intubated at the time of COVID – the scar shows – I was in a coma for three days, after death and when I put the tape measure in the freezer, I took off the camomile. Yes, I’ll tell you, it’s good to have them ready for the camillero.
Have a good life, Jesus, you want me too; you are protected, he tells you.
You will find a street full of small arabesque decorations; Here we find tarot readers who are teachers (including women) in the art of interpreting symbols and archetypes to help counselors. Sometimes there are places available, but you may need to ask for advice, which is provided via mobile phone; At these times, it is not necessary to move to where the card reader is located to get an answer.
Walk around, observe the faces of people, young people, old men, beggars, children, those who have sex in their office, policemen, salesmen, pimps; sometimes the sights match, if they hold, if they weigh, they continue to pass.
In front of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, within five meters of you, a young boy grabs you by the collar of a lady, runs towards you, you recognize the player of the first line of American football and join him. He’s a young but tough guy, I don’t expect him; in surprise he loosens the collar and gets a gorra. He collects the gorra, gives it to the street vendor and goes with the lady who dried the ataque. Well, he’ll tell you that collar ain’t worth nothing, he’ll tell you, they don’t know, vanity can cost you more than a peso these days.
Llegas in the Plaza de la Moneda, you sit in the shade, under a water bottle and one of the traps. Look at your eyes, imagine this medium-sized space as you should be: soldiers everywhere, fearful civilians, aiming for the ground, wondering how to pass by the unwitting, invisible. You’re young now, you play, you play; yes, the square is free.
III
In the years of your youth, Chile lived under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
It was a regime of political terror, organized by the state, with a clear goal: to eliminate an ideological opponent. The figures from this period are well known. Rededor three thousand people were executed or disappeared for political reasons. Translated into the popular metric, this equates to approximately three and three victims for every thousand population in the entire dictatorship. Murder, on the other hand, was kept low: Chile looked for one or two murders for every thousand inhabitants per year. The violence was selective, controlled, concentrated in the state’s repressive apparatus.
The Chilean case moved the world, especially the American brothers.
Chile: 32 victims for every 100,000 inhabitants in 17 years
Mexico: 425 victims per 100,000 population per year for the past 17 years
Mexico: 104 disappearances per 100,000 inhabitants per year for the past 17 years
The difference is not only quantitative but qualitative. In Chile, violence everywhere, identifiable perpetrators, explicit political logic. In Mexico, violence is widespread, everyday, fragmented, and for the same reason harder to mention. There is no single perpetrator or single discourse to explain it, but the result is devastating: a social normalization of death that coexists with elections, institutions, government, and democratic rhetoric.
Comparing the two processes does not mean relativizing the live terror in Chile or justifying Mexican violence. This means, most importantly, to observe with historical honesty that Mexico has experienced, in recent times and under civilian rule, a social lethality far superior to one of Latin America’s most characteristic dictatorships. While Chile recovered and processed its past as a tragic exception, Mexico seems to have incorporated mass death as part of the landscape.
The historical question is not what tragedy was “bad” because a society so accepting as normal was deemed intolerable. I say “never again” to Chile. Until now, Mexico has continued to count the dead and missing.
Abrelatas-agv.com.mx
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