On March 8, women of all ages filled Washington Square in New York, and many other squares and streets in the world. On seeing those many faces, that spoke of different ages and origins, but of similar yearnings, memory ran unavoidably into the past. Old images superimposed themselves on current ones; voices, slogans and choirs mingled with each other. Enthusiasm remained intact. And once again we came to understand how fragile human rights are and will continue to be; how far we are from reaching gender parity, and how long is the road that we, who not only belong to currently discriminated minorities, but who feel united in the desire for a more just, supportive, ethical and respectful-of-the-environment world, have still to travel.
There are times in the history of countries, even of the most developed ones, when many of these goals seem to have been reached. A change of government though is enough to endanger everything again.
With the impudence of power, new rulers find justification to reinstate terrible measures as torture and deportation; deepen inequality in sensitive fields as education and health, which determine social differences; implement measures to sweep or at least limit Strongly fundamental rights such as abortion; and may end up condemning to humiliation entire communities, such as those of transgender, denying them the right to go to the bathroom of their choosing.
The strength wanting to dismantle our rights is so subtle, and has the economic and often political power to achieve it, that we cannot allow ourselves to be taken by surprise. We must be attentive to any possible backsliding in the field of human rights, since this is the only way we can prevent them.
Remembering is essential in order to achieve this. The past can alert us of dangers, solutions and errors. The testimonies of dramatic events that seem far away in time, which are yet stalking, disguised and updated, are more important than ever. There is nothing more dangerous than forgetfulness and indifference. It is for this reason that we want to share with you the text that Priscilla and Gustavo Gac-Artigas wrote on the occasion of the exhibition Memorias, Geografía de una década – Chile 1973-1983 (Memoirs, Geography of a Decade – Chile 1973-1983), that will be presented at the Instituto Cervantes.
Gustavo and Priscilla are the living testimony of what it may mean to fall into hell while living a dream. They wrote:
On September 11, 1973 a ray of fire crossed Chile from north to south, from the mountain range to the sea, wounding the heart and reason of being of a people.
Military forces silenced the chant with the noise of the shrapnel and the cannons; in Santiago they attacked the Palace of La Moneda, the government building, trying to destroy the head.
On September 11, 1973, in the mountains in the north, Gustavo, in the Chuquicamata copper mine, was preparing with his theater group to continue his last Chilean tour, with a call to oppose the military coup. Freedom-Freedom!, resounded the cry of young comedians, workers, students, workers from another copper mine (that of El Teniente), in the center of the country.
On September 11, 1973, on the campus of the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Priscilla paraded, along with hundreds of other students, calling for a halt to the massacre, and for respect for the lives of Chilean political prisoners.
When Gustavo was on his way to the prison in Rancagua, in the center of the country, 2000 kilometers south of Chuquicamata, he thanked her before having met her.
Months later, expelled from Chile, and under the protection of the United Nations, Gustavo arrived in France, at rue de Trévise, to the first shelter opened for Chilean asylees in the heart of Paris.
There was an old abandoned theater room in the shelter. He sat down on its dusty armchairs, balm for the wounds of body and soul, and began to dream of his first show in exile: «L’Amérique latine chante au Chili» (Latin America sings to Chile).
Photographers / reporters from the Gamma news agency arrived at the shelter in search of the friendly faces of those they had covered with their cameras to help them survive during their work in Chile at the time of the coup.
They arrived also in search of new faces; faces that would speak, denounce and admonish from the silence of a photograph.
They couldn’t tell, by the colors on their faces and their bodies, whether the beings before them were a Van Gogh or a Picasso.
They found Gustavo at the theater, heard his story, photographed his face and gave him a series of slides that had been taken on September 11, 1973, to help him walk again on the paths of theater.
With the passing of time «L’Amérique latine chante au chili», returned to the theater.
Years later, Priscilla joined that path, as part of the «Théâtre de la Résistance-Chili», and they began touring all of France and, later on, all of Europe, not only as a theater, but also carrying paintings, crafts, music, in weeks dedicated to Latin America, in every corner, room, international festival that opened its arms to them.
From then on they existed no longer as Chile but as world. The land they had walked on was stolen from them; but they were given the world, to dream.
And this was the way how this exhibition was compiled and formed.
After a failed attempt to return to Chile in 1984, the exhibition was stored in drawers and it traveled through rivers underground and on the top of the mountain range, crossed seas and oceans, and did not see the light until today.
Thirty five years went by, until during a trip we made to participate in the Congreso de las Academias de la Lengua Española (Congress of the Academies of the Spanish Language) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, we opened the boxes and, from the dust and the cobwebs, the slides jumped to our arms; and, from our arms, to your eyes and, we hope, to your hearts.