THE END OF THE WORLD

Luisa and I spent four days in Patagonia in southern Chile.  We saw King Penguins mating, lots of guanacos and other animals, amazing mountains and the Straits of Magellan.  We stayed in Punta Arenas, whish is latitude 53 south.  It was often terribly windy and cloudy, but it stayed light well passed 10 pm.

Part of our travels took us along “La Ruta del Fin del Mundo”—the Route at the End of the World.  Of course, it isn’t quite the end of the world!  But every time we looked at a map, or travelled along the Strait, we were reminded that following the 1973 coup, for many Chileans Patagonia was the end of the world.  Dawson Island was turned into a political prison, where many leaders of Chile were imprisoned, tortured and killed.

Since I was a kid, I’ve loved to look at maps and calculate how far one place is from another.  Punta Arenas’ latitude is 53º south.  For reference, Minneapolis, where I live is 45º north.  Punta Arenas and Tierra del Fuego is the farthest south I’ve ever been.  It’s not as far south as the farthest north I’ve ever been.  That would be Helsinki at 60º north.  But it is, I think, almost as far south as the farthest northern latitude my father ever crossed.

My father enlisted in the army in 1940.   On December 7. 1941, he was stationed in the Aleutian Islands. As far as we can tell—his military records were destroyed in a fire, apparently—he probably was on Attu Island at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack.  Attu Island is 53º North—as far north as Punta Arenas is south. 

To say the least, I think my father was scared that December 7.  He didn’t talk too much about the war—some stories he told to me, some to my older brother, some to no one.  He did share that they were much closer to Japan than Pearl Harbor was.  Attu is roughly 54º North 173º West.  Pearl Harbor is 158º west, 21.3º West.  Flying distance: Attu Island is a little less than 2000 miles from Tokyo, Pearl Harbor about 3850/

My mom died in 2004, my dad eight years earlier, in 1996.  When we went through my mom’s house after her funeral, we found some of Dad’s stuff from the war.  One was a program for a formal military dinner on board a ship.  It listed the Invocation, the National Anthem, the main speaker and the menu.  I think I remember that it was roast beef and potatoes.  The date of the proposed dinner was December 7. 1941. Needless to say, I don’t think that dinner took place that night.

Attu Island was the site of the only land battle on United States soil in World War II.  After the Japanese Army occupied it in 1942, they deported some 47 inhabitants.  16 of them died or were killed in camps.  The U.S. fought to take it back in 1943.  According to Wikipedia, “there were 3,929 U.S. casualties: 580 were killed, 1,148 were injured, 1,200 had severe cold injuries, 614 succumbed to infectious diseases, and 318 died of miscellaneous causes – largely from Japanese booby traps and from friendly fire. U.S. burial teams counted 2,351 Japanese dead, but it was presumed that hundreds more had been buried by naval, air, and artillery bombardments over the course of the battle.”

In addition, some 800 Aleuts—American citizens all—were deported internally to detention camps inland, where some 75 died of infectious diseases.

While in Patagonia, we went to Tierra del Fuego, where we learned the history of the indigenous people there. The native people were never conquered by Spain, though Spain claimed sovereignty over the whole southern part of the continent.  It was after Chile gained its independence—in fact, almost near the end of the 19^th century that the extermination of the indigenous Tehuelches. Onas and others began.  Chile invited immigrants—from Germany, England and especially Croatia—to settle in the south, and “gave” them land in exchange for their support of Chilean sovereignty. Of course, it wasn’t Chile’s land to give. 

The extermination began with the importation of sheep and cattle to the pampas of Patagonia.  The native people were hunters, and it was a lot easier to hunt a docile sheep than a guanaco.  They didn’t massacre the cattle and sheep, but the “pioneers” saw them as a terrible threat.  Bounties were given for ears, tongues, genitals and eventually heads of the Tehuelches and other people, until they were all but exterminated.  The last “full-blooded” indigenous person, an elderly woman, died a few years ago.

Today, the indigenous people of Chile—Mapuches in particular—continue to fight for their land, their language and their dignity.  While we were in Chile, the police shot and killed an unarmed 16-year old Mapuche boy, in the back of the head.  The circumstances around his death, and the immediate coverup were so eerily like so many shootings of African American and Native American people in the U. S.

Why do I share all this on Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S.?  Because I think memory is essential to gratitude. And essential to working for a different end for our world. Today, we went to the Museum of Memory in Santiago, a museum dedicated to remembering all those persecuted during the military dictatorship, and to working to keep it from happening again.  In the dedicatory plaque, there is this quote from former President Michele Bachelet (who herself was imprisoned, tortured and exiled):

“We cannot change our past.

We can only learn from what we lived.

That is our responsibility and our challenge.”

For all of us, I dear say.  I hope to keep imagining a different end for our world, one of beauty, justice and hope for all from 53º South to 53º North, and everything in between, and everything beyond.

Be memory.  Be justice.  Be beauty.  Be thankful.

Patrick