30 City Press || 1 August 2010

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Ariel Dorfman went intoexile the day afterSalvador Allende, thedemocratically electedpresident of Chile, was

ousted in an American­backed coupin September 1973. What followedwere 17 years of military dictator­ship under General Augusto Pinoc­het and the murder, detention, tor­ture and disappearance of tens ofthousands of Chileans.

During this time, theexiledDorfmanused what his friend and fellow writer,Andre Brink, describes as a “keenscalpel of a mind” to remain a bone inthe neck of the Pinochet regime.

The Argentinian­born Dorfman,whose family fled Argentina for Chilein1943followingthemilitarycoupthatswept Colonel Peron to power, hasperfected myriad literary genres.Through poetry, children’s books,novels, plays, political essays,screenplays and journalism, he wagedan indefatigable quest on the part ofthefriends,comradesandcompatriotswho succumbed to Pinochet’sbrutality.

A prolific writer in both English andSpanish, his work has explored exile,death, torture,globalwarming,andthepain of history and memory.

He has also written extensivelyabout September 11, a date that had for28 years before the World TradeCenter attacks been a day of mourningfor Chileans. Allende was ousted withUS complicity on September 11 1973,which also fell on a Tuesday.

Dorfman delivered the EighthNelson Mandela Annual Lecture atJoburg’s Linder Auditorium this week.

You’ve written extensively about American impe­rialism and the ways it has sowed misery aroundthe globe. How has the Barack Obama presidencychanged your relationship with America?

My relationship with America is notonly about denouncing imperialadventures. I was brought up as a childthere. I love its people. I am indebtedto its artists, its writers, its jazz and itspopular music. America is also BobDylan and Toni Morrison. It’s not justRonald Reagan and Richard Nixon.

However, as a Latin American whohas suffered the incursions of the USandhowithasdespoiledourcountries,it is incumbent on me to speak abouthow that domination occurs and aboutfinding ways of liberating ourselves.

The Obama administration is awonderful moment for the US and the

world. We still have to see whetherObama will be trapped by America’simperial history, or whether he willescape from it.

Ten years after the terror attacks, have Americans,as you wrote at the time, seized ‘this trial as anopportunity for regeneration and self­knowledge’?

It’s too soon to tell. When a crisisoccurs, you can use it for war or peace.America did not pass the test.

George W Bush used the emotionand togetherness, and hijacked it forthe worst of purposes. I fear that theway the US has reacted to this unjusti­fied terror against them has been tomilitarise itself.

The freedoms that make America soproud are seen as if they are detrimen­tal to the security of the US, and I don’tthink that’s true. America has beengripped by fear, and that fear has been

used against American people andagainst the rest of the world.

What are your thoughts on the radical shifts inpolitics in several Latin American countries, whereChavez, Morales, Lula, Kirchner, Bachelet arecommitted to finding socialist solutions to theirpeople’s problems?

This list is a very disparate group ofpeople and from the distance of SouthAfrica they look like they are all cutfrom the same cloth. I’m critical alsoof this new left in Latin America. I’mnot in lock step with them necessarily.

I protested against Ortega in Nicara­gua because I think he’s curtailingmany liberties.

Symbolically, you have new protago­nists who are stepping into the centreofhistory.Themostnotable isEvoMo­rales. Bolivia has never had an indige­nous leader. He has led his country toanewformof justiceneverseenbefore.

Michelle Bachelet became the presi­dent of a major Latin American coun­try, not because she was the wife ofsomebodybutbecauseofherownmer­its as minister of health and ministerof defence, and of her own humanity.

In Brazil, you have Lula. He’s a work­er. He worked for many years in themetal industry. It’s not just that thetrade unionists have a say, but that atrade unionist is the president.

Workers, indigenous people andwomen are central to Latin Americanhistory, and through 500 years havenever had executive power ever.

Something very drastic is happen­ing.There isamovement tochange theforms of power and how power is exer­cised. The neo­liberal consensus isbreaking down.

It indicates that instead of puttingbudgetcutsandprivateinvestorsatthecentre of your policies, you put the

needs of the people at the centre ofyour policies.

Why did you choose Memory and Justice as thetheme for your Mandela lecture?

I felt thatgiventheparallelprocessesofChileandSouthAfrica–wehavehada similar history of oppression, ofstruggle, we both have TRCs, and havehad similar transitions to democracy– as a writer I could bring a perspectivefrom Latin America that wouldilluminate the legacy of NelsonMandela and the enormous challengesahead.

It’s full of story telling and I showeda film in the middle.

I wove these into questions aboutmemory, asking whether memory ispossible if there is no justice, and howwe determine and create a commonmemory between people who disagreeviolently.

General Pinochet died in 2006 before beingbrought to justice. Where were you when youheard of Pinochet’s death, and what thoughtsor emotions did it evoke in you?

There was a measure of justice be­cause he was detained in London,spent 18 months under house arrest,and was humiliated by this. He was in­dicted for hundreds of cases of humanrights violations in Chile. He lived hislast eight years under a barrage of law­suits. They did not leave him alone. Hedid not die in peace.

I was in Chile at the time finishinga film on my memoir. My dream forPinochet was that he should stand trialand the trial, as I saw it, was that hewound up spending his afterlife look­ing into the eyes of the hundreds ofthousands of people he ordered to betortured, murdered or sent into exile.

Pinochet had been such a part of mylife that to live without him was diffi­cult. My impression is that his shadowstill contaminates our country, just asapartheid still contaminates yours.

Do you still believe in socialism as the only pathto a just and equitable society?

What is socialism? I reject labels be­cause they don’t mean anything. I’ma human rights activist and anywherewhere people are trampled on I willprotest. I’m wary of anyone who hasparticipated in a liberation struggleand who does not continue on thatpath,andwhouses the formerstruggleas a liberator to become corrupt, en­gage in cronyism or become a thug.

You described South Africa yesterday as beingboth tragic and beautiful. Is that what you seehappening here?

South Africa is a most wondrous na­tion. It has a richness of people, of lan­guages, of resources, history and ofcolours of all sorts.

Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve seen abubbling over of ideas. People are de­bating the information law, poverty,xenophobia, the health and educationsystems, babies dying in hospital.

It’s clear that the story of South Afri­ca has not found fruition. We must rec­ognise that a lot has been done, but it’salso clear that if you go along this path,theresult isgoingtobeacountrydivid­ed, very violent and very insecure.

What is astonishing is there seem tobe more security firms than schools orhospitals. I see Chubb everywhere. Acountry where the prosperous have tolive in fear of the 75% of people ‘outthere’ is one that will end up unhappy.

Exile, anguishand aspirationGail Smith sat down with celebrated writer andthinker Ariel Dorfman, who delivered the EighthNelson Mandela Annual Lecture this week

Novelist, playwright and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman gives a talk at Boekehuis in Johannesburg || PHOTO: LUCKY NXUMALO

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‘‘History repeats itself: firstas tragedy, then as farceChilean author Ariel Dorfman