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View all search resultsInspired by Chile: Human rights and memory
We can see a common historical destiny between Chile and Indonesia — unfortunately a bitter one.
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Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile (Shutterstock.com/Taesik Park)
I
t took me around 35 hours to reach this country. It is almost on the opposite side of the globe in the southern hemisphere. But I was excited to undertake this journey. It was my dream destination for several reasons.
In 1994, I read a book on then-president of Chile, Salvador Allende, titled Jalan Demokratis ke Sosialisme: Pengalaman Chile di Bawah Allende (The Democratic Path to Socialism: Chile’s Experience under Allende), by my favorite sociologist and activist, Arief Budiman. As a student activist, I was inspired and dreamed of seeing la via Chilena, the Chilean way, replacing authoritarianism in Indonesia at the time.
After the fall of the Soeharto regime in 1998, the human rights community started talking about the importance of resolving human rights violations as a precondition for building a democratic future for Indonesia; then another la via Chilena appeared again on my horizon.
This time was about the way the post-Pinochet regime, particularly that of Patricio Aylwin, dealt with massive human rights violations committed by his predecessor.
