Arianna Huffington
Ola from the capital of
The thing that has turned my head is not the north-south dichotomy, but the way the familiar political line between left and right is blurred down here. Again and again, I've been struck with the ways that
This isn't to say, of course, that the traditional political spectrum has magically ceased to exist down here, but both countries have narrowed the range of issues to be hashed out in the left/right sandbox and widened the range of issues that have become part of the national agenda -- beyond partisan gamesmanship. This is the exact opposite of what has been going on in
The first stop on my trip was
We are only a few minutes into our interview in the blue room outside his office, dominated by a huge painting by the Chilean surrealist Matta, when he tells me: "By the end of this decade, we want
To produce those results, he is putting more resources into overhauling his country's educational system. "Nothing is more important," he told me. "We will win the battle against poverty in the classroom."
Pinera took office on the heels of a catastrophe. His inauguration came less than two weeks after the devastating
Seven months later, 33 miners became trapped in the San Jose mine -- a twist of fate that tested his leadership and became a defining moment for his country and his presidency.
In the beginning, his advisers told him to keep his distance from the disaster, lest he be too closely connected to what was almost certainly going to be a tragic outcome. But Pinera disregarded their advice, listening instead to what, in uncharacteristic language for a head of state, he describes as "my inner voice." And he attacked the crisis with his signature verve. When his experts offered him three different strategies for rescuing the trapped miners, he ordered them to do all three at the same time. "That," he told me, "is what I would do if it were my children in the mine."
The triumphant rescue has helped rebrand
Pinera's outlook is more long-range -- and unfailingly optimistic. During our talk, he repeatedly used the phrase "the sky's the limit" when talking about
When I ask Pinera about President Obama, he pauses for a moment, then tells me: "Life is tough -- and you have to be tougher than life to change the world."
From the Palacio de La Moneda I went to Bellavista, the neighborhood where Pablo Neruda lived. Over 30 years ago, I had read in Neruda's essay "Childhood and Poetry" a passionate summing up of empathy as a guiding principle both for life and for politics.
"To feel the intimacy of brothers," Neruda wrote, "is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and weaknesses -- that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things."
And this widening out of the boundaries of our being is what turns statecraft into soulcraft. And as Pinera has so far demonstrated, it is definitely beyond left and right.
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