Strained relations between South American countries

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After visiting Argentina and Chile I’m getting the distinct impression that every country in South America has its own problems. One concerning factor for me is the strained relationship Latin American countries have with each other. In Europe we all speak different languages but when we are united by threat we talk and decide the best course of action to beat the threat. Look at the ‘Je suis Charlie’ incident in France, and how quickly the French, British and German leaders got together. You don’t get Angela Merkel saying ‘Oi Cameron don’t speak to me, you declared war on us back in the 1940s.’ or president Hollande saying ‘Oi Angela we don’t want your help, at least not after what your government did, using part of our country to exterminate Jews back in WW2’ No, us Europeans on many occasions we put aside our differences, and work together for a better world. However, in South America it doesn’t seem to be like that.

I’ve heard so many Chileans speak about other nationalities in a derogatory way, mainly about other South Americans such as ‘The Argentinians don’t work, they sleep all day not like us’, ‘Argentina is dangerous not like Chile which is completely safe’, ‘The Peruvians are taking our jobs.’ When I was in the last hostel, watching the news with the cleaner and the hostel owner just after we had felt the earthquake in Argentina, the news announced the earthquake but because it was in Argentina it didn’t even get a slot, just a quick headline and the news channel continued with a chat show. As soon as the staff in the hostel saw the earthquake was in Argentina they were no longer concerned, breathed a sigh of relief and got on with their daily jobs. My immediate thought was to try and find out more and see if there was something we could do to help anybody who needed it, but people here seem only concerned about what happens in Chile, and as they can’t do anything about earthquakes anyway, they consider that the little they know about it the better. I still have no idea about how the earthquake affected people in Argentina.

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