Mapuche: A Home Forever

While modern societies understand well and tacitly accept the role of public security agencies to guarantee the safety and well-being of their citizens, for First Nations, these are processes that rely on generational wisdom and the ability of the leaders to perpetuate the identity of their people. Their ability depends on elements they can use to establish a connection between who they are and their purpose of existence. This includes both artifacts and land.
Essentially, ancestral indigenous claims over territory are driven by the pursuit of security and well-being, represented in the perpetuation of a collective identity. Paradoxically, in this case, the pursuit of security is confronted by public security agencies and ends in killing one of the community members.
The documentary portrays the killing of the young Mapuche as a conflict between public security agencies and Indigenous Peoples. At first glance, this conflict originates in the claim of the Mapuche Nation to occupy ancestral lands and the response of a government that chooses to prioritize the economic interests of the powers that be. However, the piece uses this story to uncover another theme that is at the heart of all violent conflicts currently taking place worldwide, namely the inability of opposing parties to understand the value system of the other. It does so by depicting how colonial constructs shape and determine the opposing worldviews of tribal and modern societies and how this leads to an unstable relationship and eventually conflict.
The director establishes how the shooting of this young boy is also a byproduct of the clash between white people and people of color, between rich and poor, between powerful and powerless, between those who defend property rights and those that were educated to believe in ancestral rights. Still, it also offers a reconciling posture that speaks of the need for all parties involved to understand 'the other' at the level of symbols and cognition. The resolution to any conflict (most of the mainstream strategies for conflict resolution agree on this) resides in finding common ground and focusing the attention on the connection that can be built between the opposing parties. It is about developing a relationship between two groups of individuals that may not know each other, which are incredibly different from one another. Often, they even come from opposite ends of the spectrum of values and ideals.
Essentially, the documentary accomplishes multiple simultaneous objectives. First, it presents a sensitive story that aligns with academic and scientific research findings and that is of current concern and introspection by the international community. Second, it hints at a possible path to reconcile the parties at the conflict by introducing the importance of becoming cognitively perceptive to the symbolic structures and the value system of the other.