The Other September 11th: Chile, 1973: Memory, Resistance, and Democratization

September 11, 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of the violent overthrow of Chile’s democratically elected Socialist president, Salvador Allende, and the onset of a 17-year military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet.  September 11, 1973 became a watershed in global cold war politics. It affirmed the United States’ willingness to back brutal regimes and use its own military power throughout Latin America in the name of national security and freedom. Under Pinochet, Chile became the world’s first poster-child for neoliberal economics, radically privatizing the welfare state and making market competition the central organizing tenant of civil society. The Chilean model would be embraced by (or forced upon) most developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Recently, massive social movements have erupted across Chile condemning worsening disparities and intensified state violence.  Students at the University of Chile have been on strike for almost a year over the privatization of higher education.  Mapuche activists have sustained hunger strikes and other protests against the usurpation of indigenous rights and land by the logging industry.  Environmentalists are waging an international campaign to prevent the destruction of the Patagonia wilderness by private water companies. Chile’s current pro-democracy struggles emphasize the legacies of military rule but squarely place responsibility for enduring social injustices on elected leaders (across the political spectrum) and on a political/economic model they argue is not democratic.

The two-day conference aims to re-center the history of Latin American cold war violence within contemporary debates about radical inequality, state repression, terrorism, and democratic struggle. A total of eight planned panels and round-tables and two Chilean films will be screened.

“The Other September 11th: Chile, 1973 — Memory, Resistance and Democratization” brings together experts from Chile and across the United States, together with special Chilean guests author Carla Geulfenbein (“El Resto es Silencio,””La Mujer de Mi Vida”) and filmmaker Sergio Castilla.