Chile Forum

admin wrote:

john wrote:

Fishboy wrote:

admin wrote:On some level, to put this in context for those new to Chile, this is directly comparable to the death of JFK, Elvis, or Mikle Jackson for Chilean society. On another level, it does not even come close. None of them were in over 60% of the living rooms in Chile, every morning, for hours, day in and day out, for years.

It is remarkably similar to what happened in the UK when Princess Di bought the farm. Personally, from where I'm sitting FC seemed to make a more positive contribution to society, but the parallels with the crowds/wider society are there.

While the comparison of FC and Princess Di seems appropriate, the impact of JFK's death around the world was an order of magnitude greater than either. For example, I was in Munich when JFK died and will never forget the spontaneous emotional reaction of the Germany people to this tragedy. I also watched (on TV) the torchlight vigil in Berlin a few hours later, which was attended by more than 60,000 people, and was amazed at the open expression of love they had for JFK.

I leave it to others to speculate on who made the most contributions to society.

I was more referring to the shear time that a large percentage of the population listened to him (even if just passively). I mean not everyone in the World listened to JFK talk every day for hours, not even in the States given the technology of the time (although, he was really the first TV celeb president, so it might sort of fit). Perhaps the Diana analogy fits better.

My wife and I where talking about a comparable disaster in the U.S. We decided that 911 did not really fit nor a lot of other national high and low points. We decided that it is more like the challenger disaster, given the nature of the people on board (mix of military and civilians) on some national cause.

I still think it is uniquely Chilean event in the scope of involvement of society. That the secretary of defense had family members on board, that people rich and poor had friends on board. I discovered watching the file footage on the news that my wife and I have a family friend that had flown on the exact same plane, with the exact same pilot, on an earlier trip to the island for the same reconstruction project with some of the people that died (she is very much alive however). 7 degrees of separation in little Chile is excessive. In Chile it is more like 1-3 depending on who you know to start.