In September you can see a lot of national flags on the streets, since Sept 18 is national patriot day and people prepare for the celebration.

But there is other big event, where people use the flag to manifest a forgettable event, o rather an event for not forgetting as if to say “Do you remember that day?”

Sept 11 of 1973, 41 years later, the government of Salvador Allende was attacked by the military coup led by general Augusto Pinochet, who stayed in dictatorial power until 1990.

During those 17 years, many people were kidnapped, tortured and assassinated. And these 2 women in the following photo have a common scar given that their fathers were both murdered by the military government. The person on the left is senator Isabel Allende (daughter of ex-president), and on the right, current president Michelle Bachelet.

(Source of the photo:Cooperativa.cl)

Just like Attack on World Trade center in New York 2001, there will be commemoration every year in Chile for 9.11. What’t important here is not only reminding it but also act toward the future based on the lessons learnt/

Currently, there exists controversy on the educational reform and I liked the fact that yesterday many people addressed the importance of incorporating this dictator history into educational system to deal with the past and the future.

Last year, 40 years after the military coup, I participated in some workshops where then-victims shared their stories. Although I am not a victim nor citizen of this country, I think I can contribute myself to something either dissemination of the information through blog or telling their stories to the next generations to prevent this kind of thing happening again. As long as I remember this theme, I will keep telling.

(Commemoration Ceremony_Source of the photo:Cooperativa.cl)

Speaking of the memory, I am reading an interesting book about how memory and memorization work, and maybe I can write about it on next entry or something.
Thank you for reading.