Unwelcome presidential visit to Chile

Sounds like things got a little hot in my two-week absence from Antofagasta. A couple weeks ago Chile held a meeting of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders in its capital of Santiago. Among others, President Bush attended. To say that he was an unwelcome guest only hints at the river of contempt that flows for President Bush in Chile. From tip to tip of this string bean of a country, Chileans protested his presence. The capital, home to more than five million (which is one-third of the country's total population), had to be shut down completely for two days because of security concerns.

The locals might have thanked President Bush, because they got a free holiday out of it; instead, thousands gathered and marched around chanting "Gringo, go home!" Those with more incendiary tendencies unleashed their pyromania on the Stars and Stripes, in which the importers did swift business.

Here in Antofagasta, the enterprise that has come to symbolize all things gringo -- McDonald's -- did not open on the day of the conference. Instead of Ronald and the popular McPalta ("palta" means avocado), would-be customers were greeted by armed guards, which probably wasn't a bad idea, given that two years ago a McDonald's in Santiago was burned to the ground in anti-American protest.

Even innocuous representations of the United States became fair game. Such was the case with the American school in Antofagasta. I teach two advanced conversation classes a week at the school, and though it boasts a 15-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty and a framed photo of George W. Bush (which my students claim represent contradictory stances on the subject of freedom), I have yet to meet a student or a teacher there who is not Chilean. Nonetheless, the school was closed during the APEC conference due to bomb threats and the protests on its doorstep. And this was in Antofagasta -- a relative backwater more than 1,200 miles from where President Bush actually was!

How much ill will would it take to motivate people so far from the action to go to such extremes to demonstrate their displeasure with the mere presence of one man in their country? But that is exactly what exists worldwide: venom and contempt for the United States and its leaders (and increasingly, its citizens). Global politics will not -- and should not -- ever be a popularity contest; but at some point should we not start paying attention to the chorus of dissenting voices?

As a country, we have had serious problems with dogmatic individuals in recent years -- the terrorists. But what does the word dogmatic mean? It means to maintain absolute certainty while ignoring or suppressing competing points of view. That sounds uncomfortably familiar.