Hi again! This time, I would like to show you a short documentary film about some indigenous peoples in Chile. We often speak about cutural diversity and its big importance in our lives. But, do you know how many indigenous peoples dwelt Chile a long time ago?
Here you have the choice to see some aspects of four of them at present. "Lenguas Indigenas de Chile" was produced by Visualarte, in collaboration with UNESCO Santiago and USACH. Its purpose is to create awareness of the importance of the indigenous heritage in our society.
Some people relate important aspects of its culture while we see a lot images of nature, landscapes which are simply beautiful. The music is also very different from what we hear daily, it seems to take part of the harmony that nature gives us.
Through the six segments, we can see some activities they realize daily and they explain the troubles their cultures face, too, because of the presumable loss of their heritage.
We see how, indigenous people, ligated to some art, constantly make efforts to keep alive the knowledge that has been spreading during years. Some cases are very alarming, like the last Yaghan-Speaker woman.
Here is shown a beautiful life, but we don’t see in any video something about the Mapuche conflict. We only see them in conferences about how important is saving their heritage. Maybe someone who doesn’t know about the conflicts could think that here in Chile, there’s a perfect harmony with Indigenous peoples.
Since hundreds of years ago, this conflict has been marked by peaceful times, but also, hard times. Sadly, we can’t see the whole dimension because it is limited to show the prettiest face of this situation.
I think integration goes further than showing us the different lifestyles in our country. I have the impression they are just showing a postcard to export. Our country has some commitments with these peoples, but there's still some differences between what the Government and the peoples want. We can take these videos as a starting point, but we can't stay there for ever. I hope someday these languages will be teached at schools. Not for being a succesful businessman, no. Just to keep safe a legacy that makes some people to feel ashamed, just to keep safe a legacy that makes to other people feel proud.
Do you think this kind of strategies is effective to create awareness about the importance of cultural diversity?
