Latin America is a continent where magic is permanently mixed with reality, from the streets of Macondo in García Márquez’s “100 Years of Solitude”, the stories and novels of Cortázar, or those of Horacio Quiroga and so many others, we have reflected a magical reality that has become a literary style, magical realism, and this magical reality is often expressed in our lives, in the dreams and materialisations that we suppose will occur, in our countries, our governments, in short, in our societies.
Chile has just elected its new president who, with his government team, has the great task of initiating the profound changes that he has proposed for our society. Among the elements that are undoubtedly positive at the beginning is the great popular support that he has had, the highest vote that any president has ever had in history, the mystique that has been generated in the country, the youngest president in our history at the time of taking office, where hope has been installed as a new engine after a long time. Before the election we were in a state of general depression in the country, fuelled by the pandemic and the social outbreak at the end of 2019, where for this long night, the whole of 2020 and a good part of 2021, everything was bad and society in general saw everything through a prism of shades of grey, today, in my opinion, colour has arrived in society.
Magically the best omens have awakened, we all feel that there is a universe of new possibilities that are unfolding today for our society, it is the best thing that can happen to us. The first thing to achieve change is to visualise a horizon, a point of arrival as something possible, so it is very good that this is appearing in the Chilean social imaginary. A different society is possible, environmental respect is possible where environmental and economic interests converge in the use of natural resources, a state that protects all its members in their basic needs such as health, education and basic pensions is possible, a society where mutual respect becomes a reality among its members is possible.
Reality is stubborn and always wakes us up from our dreams, “man is God when he dreams and a beggar when he counts” goes the saying and therefore this adage is something that should now guide us, when this possible magical future world, we begin to take it into action and when we see the reality where we are today, we see how we move from today to our desired horizon.
Reality shows us that we have a significant increase in poverty throughout Latin America, where more than 5 million people have entered into conditions of extreme poverty, the same happens in Chile, where this brutal reality had almost disappeared. ECLAC indicates that Latin America has gone back almost 30 years in the fight against extreme poverty. Latin America matters to us in Chile, as thousands of people migrate to Chile every year in desperate search of better conditions than those in their home countries. The number of camps in Chile has reached its peak, these camps, which at the beginning of 2022 already exceed 969 units and bring together more than 81,643 families, approximately 400,000 people. Health waiting lists for specialised care exceed 2 million people, the highest figure since records began. The Chilean financial system and people’s savings funds have lost more than 50,000 million dollars and another similar figure is estimated to have left the country in search of other destinations, whether tax havens or investments elsewhere, either for reasons of fears that have been sown of new taxes, or future political insecurity that is presumed to occur in Chile, we are definitely a poorer country than at the beginning of the pandemic, but we can also say that under the above, we seem to have a much more certain hope of being happier.
The last facet and a very high priority in the light of the citizenship of the harsh reality, is the violence that has been installed in Chile, in a way never seen before, something that we seem to have imported is a style of violence associated with practices used with drug trafficking, these today are beginning to be more common and very surprising by Chilean standards. Our society has in the poorest neighbourhoods a fertile ground for the arrival of delinquency, very poorly prepared neighbourhoods, with few services, very few and poorly equipped squares and recreational spaces, little development of sport, overcrowding of people in social housing. All of this has pushed the figures for violence and the perception of citizen insecurity to very high levels, quite unusual for the calm Chilean society of the 20th century.
There is hope, President Boric’s government programme brings with it measures that aim to improve these multiple demands and very heartfelt social and economic improvements, but they must be done gradually so that it is possible to balance the desired magic with the current reality, to arrive with hope at the future we imagine.
Neighbourhoods must be safer and for that to happen, the communal budgets must be balanced on the basis of having a relatively similar per capita value, so that the mayors can equip and support their communities with infrastructure in a quality and quantity adequate to the number of inhabitants they have. The same with security, or at least police manning, must also be improved in the short term, given that there is also a very important difference between communes, any initial criterion of justice is that there should be police manning that is related to the population (number of people) that are under their surveillance. Both aspects are in the government programme.
Delivering the missing housing, recovering the income levels of the population to rescue many people from extreme poverty, having health and education coverage and improving the level of basic pensions, as well as employment levels, will require the generation of employment and dynamism in the local economy, that goes hand in hand with trust, innovation, private sector development, public sector efficiency in the good allocation of resources and the collection of taxes, as well as the allocation of subsidies that are determined necessary to grant. The Chilean private sector, which has developed in a very important way in the last 50 years due to the public policies that allowed it to grow, occupying all the spaces of the economy, has now the great opportunity and duty to adequately pay back with work, innovation, competitiveness, taxes and rectitude to the development of its companies and of Chile, given that when they grow, Chile grows and this is what the whole country wants, that we all do well and that a society is generated where merit is rewarded and actively contributes to communities living in a clean and peaceful environment, with local progress and harmony.
We have a gigantic challenge ahead of us in these years of the 21st century and it will require many good public policies and very good faith and the active and determined participation of the private and public sector to improve the multiple challenges we have before us, time is of the essence and using an old Patagonian adage from the south of Chile, “let’s take it easy, because I’m in a hurry”. Which I interpret as, there is so much to do that, we must take care of the details, prioritise and act now, immediately to achieve the greatest amount of progress, in the shortest possible time, so that reality is overcome with magic and hope.
