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| In Resistance Since 1492! |
For a Northern Illinois University
student writing about Neo-liberalism, it is interesting that this economic
practice was ‘perfected’ just 65 miles away from this campus. From
the corn fields to the concrete jungles of Chicago, one will find the University
of Chicago’s school of economics, now called the Milton Friedman
Institute. It was here that the Neo-liberal doctrine implemented by Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys took
shape. In sum, Neo-liberalism is a
policy which removes state-sanctioned barriers such as high tariffs - which benefited
national industries – and essentially rid the nation of anything which deters
multi-national corporations to operate without restrictions. According to Chasteen, “Neoliberal jettisoned
all trappings of economic nationalism and embraced basic liberal faith in the
free market. So they sold off, or privatized, the state-run corporations and
public services that nationalist had created…”[1]
Back to
Milton Friedman, a man loved by Chilean elite but a derogatory word in Chile’s Poblaciones (shanty towns). After the US backed coup of Chile’s President
Salvador Allende, 11 Septiembre
1973, Chile was in a state of shock and crisis.
Naomi Klein termed this the Shock Doctrine in her book with the same title. Thousands
of bodies of Allende supporters, like that of Victor Jara (popular Chilean folk
singer), piled up around el Estadio Nacional de Chile in Santiago for days after
the bombing of La Moneda.
Chile, excluding those elites del Barrio
Alto, was in a state of panic. The military
coup left the political, economic, and social climate in a state of crisis; a
perfect time to derail all of Allende’s social projects and welcome
multi-nationals. Chile was now in the
hands of the pro-business, conservative, US trained Dictator Augusto Pinochet.
With the Chilean economy now in the hands of Milton
Friedman and the neoliberal Chicago boys, Chile’s elite gained much while the
majority of the population lost most. Chile became one of the countries with
the highest disparity in distribution of wealth in the world. To better understand this neo-liberalistic phenomena,
we must first analyze Friedman’s own words.
According to Friedman,
“Corporate conscious is impossible. The corporation really has no choice, so
for those who want corporations virtuous, it’s not possible; that is unless it
makes some cash for the shareholders…So
if you want your freedom, let the corporate seize the day, there really is
no better way. Let’s privatize. Choice is the way, let corporations run our schools,
[and] let the free market make the rules,
choose to privatize, I say.”
No.
This so-called ‘free market’ benefits the few while destroys the have-nots. For too long our homelands have been treated
as casinos for foreign interests who gamble with our economy, take our
resources, and destroy our environments.
These foreign interests leave the country poor, which is why we saw
millions displaced due to NAFTA in the 1990s as well as thousands of bodies
broken, bruised and killed due to the sweatshop labor of the maquiladoras.
To quote Immortal
Technique:
“Latino America is a
huge colony of countries whose presidents are cowards in the face of economic
imperialism. You see, third world countries are rich places, abundant in
resources, and many of these countries have the capacity to feed their starving
people and the children we always see digging for food in trash on commercials.
But plutocracies, in other words a government run by the rich such as this one
and traditionally oppressive European states, force the third world into buying
overpriced, unnecessary goods while exporting huge portions of their natural
resources.”
In conclusion, Latin@s in the US
are in the belly of the beast. If you
watch documentaries such as “Harvest of Empire,” “South of the Border,” or “The War on Democracy;”
you will see why many of us are here. Whether
you are second, third, or fourth generation US citizens you must never forget
how you got here and how you are connected to those people who are now called
undocumented. As Ecuador’s President
Rafael Correa said, “es prohibido olvidar” (it is forbidden to forget). Emancipate yourself from this historical
amnesia that they push out in your Texas-based textbooks.
[1]John
Charles Chasteen, “Born In Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America,”
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011), p 320.
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