The Mapuche and the Myth of Chile [Los Mapuche y el Mito de Chile] | The Big Picture

Traducción de textos en español (América Latina)

A movie by Sanjiev Johal

In September 2022, following three years of widespread protests towards crippling financial inequality, the folks of Chile went to the polls to vote “Sure” or “No” for a brand new structure. It will be probably the most progressive structure ever proposed for any nation in historical past, recognising, amongst different issues, the nationhood of the Mapuche – Chile’s largest Indigenous group.

However Chile voted “No”.

Varied explanations have been put ahead as to why a structure that promised unparalleled rights, illustration and protections for girls, the LGBTQ+ group, the surroundings and long-marginalised Indigenous teams, did not get the bulk approval of the Chilean folks. However on the darkish coronary heart of this refusal is a long-cultivated fact in regards to the nation’s relationship with the Mapuche, specifically: Chile’s drawback with race.

Utilizing the fallout from the 2022 “No” vote, this movie examines how race and racism have formed the myths used to forge the nation of Chile from the early nineteenth century to the current day. It units out the trail for this racialised legacy and mythmaking to emerge as a major driver in rejecting the proposed new structure, and exhibits how unprecedented land rights prompt for the Mapuche, in addition to defining Chile as a “plurinational” nation made up of numerous nations, helped set off a deeply embedded wariness of Indigenous peoples amongst Chile’s majority inhabitants. It’s, as we uncover, a wariness inculcated throughout 4 centuries of racial “othering”, marginalisation and criminalisation of the Mapuche.

As Chile revises the proposed new structure and removes recognition of assorted Indigenous rights, The Massive Image: The Mapuche and the Fantasy of Chile asks if this second is the inevitable end result of the nation’s historical past, congealed across the racist foundational myths which have denied and dispossessed the Indigenous individuals who first inhabited its land.

Images courtesy of:
Penn Museum
Centro Cultural Palacio de La Moneda
Tv Nacional de Chile
Collección Museo Histórico Nacional

#information
#aljazeeraenglish
#chile
#mapuche
#documentary