Chile 2010: What are your views on Chile's bicentennial year?

This year had been important for our country and for all people that live here, because we celebrate two hundred years of independence, after Spanish colonization. There are many activities to celebrate this year; you can listen to live music in many part of the city, there are many shows, theatre, art, etc. I think the government have spent a lot of money, and I am not agree, because they could help poor people or in social risk.

I think money could be spent doing different things, like help people that suffer with the earthquake and tsunami to build their houses, or help poor people, build hospitals and give a better education for our children. They put much emphasis in celebrating, but they don’t measure the consequences. If government organizes many parties an activities, people spend money, and in most cases, they don’t have money and they ask for credits in a bank, credits they could not pay, because they hay to feed and dress a family, they have to give education for their children, etc. This things government doesn’t see, in this year they are blind about economic problems of people, and they incentives to spend money.

On the other hand, most of the activities are shows that organize by people with no Chilean nationality, and I think that this should not happen. If we are celebrating our bicentenary, the most logical thing is to show Chilean products and efforts. For example, the lights show projected in La Moneda, French people organized that, with their technology, because in Chile it is impossible. So we fell down into underdeveloped country concept, and we project that to the whole world, and this is not good for the country. We must believe in Chile, we can do awesome things, and we don’t need foreign people to do that.

In conclusion, we have to know how to spend our and Chilean money, because if we don’t do that, we can suffer very much and not only us, our family too. So I prefer doing shows and activities with less money, to incentivize a cheaper celebration. And we must begin to value what we have in Chile, because here we have many intelligent people who can do a lot of amazing things.