This year in Chile we have had more elections than we are generally accustomed to in any country. The processes of change have taken the agenda, not only nationally, but also in much of the world.
Personally, I think it is evident the strong desire of people to build a life project that makes more sense from the individual and collective, where we feel we can develop and have a life with more opportunities. What is the way to achieve it? I think it is the big question that comes into tension every time we look at those who today actively participate in the political world in all its range of colors and trends.
One of the things that caught my attention was what was pointed out by the candidate for Governor of the Metropolitan Region, Karina Oliva, and what was also pointed out by Deputy Maite Orsini when she said that “fear has changed sides”. Upon seeing these statements, several things came to my mind that I would like to share in this brief post.
The first thing I thought is that “there are sides”. Of course, in life in society we have different views, beliefs, ways of life, etc., do our differences make us belong to sides? If so, then the look of fragmentation and even opposition within those who live in the same geographical and normative context becomes a field of divisions instead of extracting the value of the diversity of views, talents and positions.
The second thing that came to my mind is the idea of fear, since from this statement it is extracted that before one group was afraid and now it is the other “side” who possesses it and it is pointed out as something positive, as if the fear of the other were the progress of one. Let us imagine a society that is built on the idea that we are a multiplicity of sides and that, like those who play musical chairs, personal triumph is based on the defeat of others and, even worse, on the fear that the other may have.
A society where the idea is to transfer fear to those who are different from us is a society of tyranny, emotional dictatorship and psychological yoke. Is this really what we want or what we are looking for to solve the problems of a society?
Not only did I find this expression serious and humanly poor, perhaps the result of an oversight or perhaps of an indiscreet honesty, but above all I found it worrying that almost half of the people who went to vote (with very low participation) support those who enunciate them with total abandon. Do we really want to build a society where the issue is to deposit personal fears in the transfer of these fears to other people? Personally, this is not what I long for, neither for myself nor for my family, on the contrary, a place where we can feel safe, confident about the future, enthusiastic about the present, where we can go out in the street without fear, give an opinion without fear, participate in private and intimate spaces, as well as in public life without fear of the other human being, but in the deep confidence that being different and wonderfully diverse, we will have the generosity and height to build a home where we can all shed our fear and build wellbeing.