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Che's
Legacy Bob Edwards in Washington; Anne Garrels in Santiago BOB EDWARDS, HOST: As a young student, Ernesto Guevara and a friend motorcycled through Latin America. His diary from that period is a tale of scrounged meals, audacious pranks, and political awakening. In Chile, the 24-year-old Guevara came face to face with what he called the heartlessness of poverty. He urged those who governed to spend less time talking about compassion and more time demonstrating it. Those youthful words were to be replaced by a much less forgiving political message and a man known not as Ernesto, but as Che. The era of Marxist revolutions has come and apparently gone, but Ernesto Guevara's youthful words still have a certain resonance. NPR's Anne Garrels reports from Santiago. ANNE GARRELS, NPR REPORTER: Last fall, Chile's universities emerged from post-Pinochet paralysis. In a frenzy of activity, students voted in leaders who sought their inspiration from the radical left. The specter of Che Guevara sent shudders through certain political circles. It reminded some Chileans of the early '70s when socialist President Salvador Allende (ph) introduced chaotic economic and social reforms and General Augosto Pinochet responded with a bloody military takeover. But this student vote wasn't so much an echo of the past, but a groping to a new future. NATALIA CHANFRIOW (PH), CHILEAN UNIVERSITY STUDENT, SPEAKING IN SPANISH GARRELS: For Natalia Chanfriow, a 24-year-old history student at Chile's Catholic University, the left isn't characterized by ideology but a sense of alienation. Che's diaries echo her rage at privilege and injustice. But his denser tomes on guerrilla warfare and economics are no longer required reading. The left at Chile's universities is a hodgepodge of parties, groups and movements who have certain things in common. They stress human rights, social justice over economic performance, and change over continuity. Both Natalia and fellow historian Rodrigo Sandaval (ph) are the children of militant socialists who disappeared under Pinochet, but they insist they're not imitating the past. RODRIGO SANDAVAL, CHILEAN UNIVERSITY STUDENT, SPEAKING IN SPANISH GARRELS: Rodrigo says they're trying to reevaluate and reinvigorate the left. They both say they've no firm models, no heroes. CHANFRIOW SPEAKING IN SPANISH GARRELS: "I could say Che," Natalia muses. But while there's much about him she values -- his dedication, his disdain for bureaucracy -- there's much she doesn't agree with. And anyway, she concludes, Che today would be impossible. These students joined half Chilean voters, who either failed to turn up or destroyed their ballots in December's parliamentary elections. While not a high figure by American standards, this is remarkable in Chile and has experts worrying about a population who feels there's no real difference between political parties and no response to their needs. Jose Salaquette (ph), a leading human rights activist and a professor of ethics at Chile's National University, describes a generation devoid of myths. JOSE SALAQUETTE, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST AND PROFESSOR OF ETHICS AT CHILE'S NATIONAL UNIVERSITY: Young people now are looking for identity in the transition between an era to another era. This is not a change from one generation to another. Probably there hasn't been a change like this since the late 18th century. We don't know where it's going and they are very disconcerted, very disoriented. And they know that the socialist experiments, the real socialism of the eastern countries in Europe and so on, failed miserably. But they don't want to renounce to the idea of justice. They don't know positively what they are for, they know what they are against. GARRELS: They're against what's called "neo-liberal capitalism," which has brought fiscal discipline, balanced budgets, a slimmed down public sector, as well as greater corruption and a deepening differentiation between rich and poor. SALAQUETTE: The idea that somehow the best economic system is one that worked on the pre-supposition of the most selfish people trying to make the most money and somehow that machinery worked for the benefit of all may be an empirical reality but still offends the sense of justice of young people -- a sense of altruism, idealism, they feel must be injected in politics. GARRELS: It's not just students who are offended. Two controversial intellectuals of the left -- Mexican Jorge Casteneda and Brazilian Roberto Unger (ph), a longtime Harvard law school professor and social theorist -- are looking for ways to do the seemingly impossible: have economic stability and greater equality. ROBERTO UNGER, LAW PROFESSOR, HARVARD: Our conviction is that this is a turning point in the sense that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the orthodox neo-liberal line, a general conviction that we can't simply return to the old populist and nationalist policies, a belief that the simple softening of orthodoxy by social assistance programs is not enough. GARRELS: Casteneda and Unger are holding regular seminars with center/center-left politicians throughout Latin American aimed at forging an alternative to the cold blooded capitalism that would appear to be the only game in town. UNGER: In the world context it's the same problem of progressives all over the world. All over the world, progressives today, having lost faith in many of the traditional leftist ideas, feel that their program is simply the program of their conservative adversaries with a 10 percent discount. What they're left with is the humanization of the inevitable. GARRELS: Unger and Casteneda are convinced there is a real alternative. It's still too early to say if this rational but compassionate way is just talk or the beginning of a viable Latin American political movement. But it's fair to say there's a lot of talk going on. I'm Anne Garrels, NPR News,
Santiago, Chile. |