Ola from the capital of Brazil! (I had to drop the "h" when I flew in from Chile). My short South American trip is in full swing, and my head is spinning -- counter-clockwise, of course.

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 Chile and Brazil, the two countries I'm visiting on this trip, have, on key issues, transcended the tired division between left and right the United States seems hopelessly mired in.

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 United States.

The first stop on my trip was Santiago, Chile, where I interviewed President Sebastian Pinera. Pinera is a first in many ways -- most obviously, he's the first right-wing president Chileans have elected in the two decades since Pinochet. He's a billionaire; the third-richest man in Chile; a former professor with a Ph.D. from Harvard whose thesis was "The Economics of Education in Developing Countries"; and he relaxes by, among other things, skydiving and flying helicopters.

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 Chile to be the first country in South America to have eliminated poverty, to have closed the gap in income between rich and poor, and to be recognized as a developed -- not a developing -- economy."

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 February 2010 earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 500 Chileans, leveled or severely damaged 4,000 schools and left 2 million Chileans homeless. Pinera tried to put the devastation in perspective for me. "The economic damage is equal to 18 percent of Chile's gross domestic product," he said. "In comparison, the cost of Katrina was less than 1 percent of America's GDP."

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 Chile and Pinera. When I talked with rescued Chilean miner No. 21 Yonni Barrios (he was the one with the wife and mistress both holding vigil outside the mine), he said of the president: "I didn't vote for Pinera, but if he were running again I definitely would. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be alive." I later asked Barrios what his New Year's resolution is. "I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore. I take life one hour at a time."

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 Chile's prospects. It's a far cry from the Obama administration's fervent embrace of "politics as the art of the possible."

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.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

The Great Gamble

At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes

 

 

(C) 2010 Arianna Huffington. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.