Exorcising Terror by Ariel Dorfman

Author:Ariel Dorfman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781609802080
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2011-01-03T21:00:00+00:00

FIRST EPILOGUE

THE SHADOW OF CHILE

SO, DID WE PASS the test the world sent us when Pinochet was returned to Chile? Did we purge the past we inherited from him that day in the National Stadium as we watched the women of the disappeared dancing by themselves, asking us to dance with them, have we not accomplished that task far too often forgotten or postponed amidst the morass of the transition? Hasn’t the country that has emerged after the arrest and during the many trials of General Pinochet, hasn’t that country been changed forever and for the better, hasn’t this book insistently demonstrated that we succeeded beyond my wildest dreams?

That we did not entirely manage to finish the business begun in London and Madrid, the sad reality that we did not have the strength to morally transform our country enough to bring about that very special day when our former dictator would have been forced to hear the verdict of “guilty” in a court of law, this should serve as a warning, because it bespeaks an incomplete democracy, a land that has not yet entirely shaken off the traumatic aftereffects of brutality and terror. I do not doubt, however, that this deeper democratization of Chile will slowly dawn and I tell myself, living as I do abroad, not immersed in the day-to-day difficult struggle back home, that one must be patient.

Perhaps the day will come soon when we will be able to finally take back the country Pinochet stole from us, the country we allowed him to steal.

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