Hi, my task today is talk about the "Mapuche Issue", this because nowadays the hunger strike of mapuche "people" have push the discussion into de open (put the discussion even into the news).

First of all, i have to say that i wrote a huge text about this, but internet fail me, so i'll try to write againg the same text (i'll try, this text may be a little different from the original).

Well, to be honest, actually the mapuche issue isn'tvery important for me, i think that goverment and mapuche people are wrong, both of them are facing the problem in a very wrong way, in one hand the goverment is closed to any discussion about any demand from mapuche people, because of a rancid republicanism that says that the integrity of the territory is above the welfare of the people (i would say Nation, but that concept is so more old-fashioned than the old republicanism that i'm talking about) and an evident racism with deep foundations in the denial of our crossbreeding (we -chileans- can't accept our past, the very same root of our "racial" identity. And in the other hand, we have mapuche people, they are just out of focus, they wasn't look into de reality of the unfair stuffs, they always deny the option of face the problem in the "occidental way", why i said this? Because i'm a democrat and i think that the process of empowering must be inside the system, not from the outside, and them with their actions gave to the goverment the reasons to call them "outsiders", "terrorists", etc; when you alter your speech radically into the "republican and democratic logics" you can't be ignored, maybe they -the goverment- can try to silence you, but they never could call you "terrorist" and so, they could never delegitimize your demands, because you're attached to the regular instances.

Now, i may sound like a conservative, but i truly believe in democracy and its power to make changes, only when people get empowered by the respect for the other and the support of people. I said this because i don't accept in any case the violence that is used against mapuche people, i believe that is absolutely barbarian the treatment that they -mapuche people- are getting from the state; but here there's something important, i said "state" because i think that this issue isn't a matter of blocs (left, right, etc), both sides have used violence against mapuche people, and the efforts to diminish this situation, are actually... very poor. This is a cultural stuff, not just a political and legal problem like goverment wants to show us; goverment doesn't want to accept our past and mapuche keep doing things that gave reasons to goverment to use violence against them (they use the argument that they can't let unpunished the crime, but then they use the excessive violence, when no one is looking at them and their behavior).

Now, to finish this... I hope that the strike end with good results for mapuche people, but deeply i hope a change of attitude from their side, i hope that they ligitimize their demands and the state couldn't make the deaf, argue that they are terrorist.

Regards

Exhibition

Hello,

My task today is write about a cultural activity that i went to, my choice is a photographic exhibition that i went last week it was called "Ante mis ojos, iñche azkintunieel" and was in the Cultural Center "Estación Mapocho" in the "Sala Joaquín Edwars Bello".

The exhibition shows portraits of mapuche women from the Community "Millanao Ancatén" in Tirúa, the photographer lived with them for a long period in order to get more intimacy with them, to gain their trust and take better photographies, because they're always be photograph by turist but they feel themselves like "study subjects" not real people.

Personally, i enjoyed the exhibition because i found it very good, I liked the photographies because when i heard the photographer said what she pretend with those pictures i felt that she made it, i was not confused by the distribution of pictures or the qualuty of photos, and as to improve the "experience" i knew some details that the exhibition doesn't show, details from the mapuche culture and the large process of make that photographies, they weren't made in one session it was a very long process where the photographer get very envolved with them (the mapuche people).

I decided to gone to this exhibition because of a friend who invited me and i was very satisfied because actually i don't know very much about mapuche people and culture, i don't care so much about them and their problems, but i found that those photos invite you to interest on them in a new level of understanding.

As end, i left you a picture from the exhibition's opening, with the people who was photographed.