Arabe culture affect every aspect of Latin American life, even with mixed with Brazilian Samba of African origins.
Chile
Chile is the country on the Southwest Pacific coast of South America, which runs from a polar south to tropical north. 5% of Chile’s population is Arab, and the majority of that is Palestinian-Christian: Chilestino/Chilestinian.
Chile is a first world country now, very democratic. The Chilestinos are prosperous and wield incredible political power.
Anti-Semitism killed Hugo Chavez
This should amaze you. As the clout of the Palestinian Community in Chile is growing, so also is the clout of the growing Evangelical community, which is very pro-Israel.
While Islam may be converting a few thousand, Evangelicalism is converting millions per year.
This is an Evangelical TV preacher in Chile who wonders if Chavez’s anti-Israel tirade is what caused God to issue a divine judgment against Chavez, causing his death from cancer.
Forgive my poor translation, but I caught the general drift.
Below is the video of Chavez speech that the preacher was referring to. It is from 2010.
Published on YouTube: January 28, 2011
Chavez’s comments were very ugly!
April 14, 2020 – Edited: I had to find a new source for the Chavez video, and had to correct some errors.
The Problem of Iquique
Iquique, video promocional de ¡Viva Iquique! from ¡Viva Iquique! on Vimeo.
Video Opening Statement Trans: Long Live Iquique! The New Look of Iquique
By all accounts, Muslims are less that 0.025% in Chile, or around 4,000 in number out of a Chilean population approaching 18 million.
But an inordinate number of them seem to be around Iquique in Chile’s quasi-tropical1 north.
Iquique (pronounced EE-KEY-KAY) is a famous beach resort. It has a cool tropical climate which hovers around 71ºF/ 16º C, give or take a few degrees all year round. A near perfect climate.
The metro area of Iquique has roughly about 220,000 people. About 30,000 of them are Arab in ancestry, or about 15% of the local population. While this is about three times (3x) higher than the Chilean average of 5% Arabs in the population, it is still not inordinately large. Many of those Arabs would be second- or third-generation Chileans who would probably not even speak Arabic by now, and might only be half Arab.
Now, Iquique is famous for other ethnicities. There are a lot of ethnic Croatians. Australians, and Scots have retired there. But, for the purposes of this site, we are interested in the Arabs.
For a while, Iquique was famous for money laundering operations being run by Lebanese-Paraguayans who were sympathetic to Hezbollah.
Feds Call Chile Resort a Terror Hot Spot (Jewish Daily Forward)
By Marc Perelman
Published January 03, 2003IQUIQUE, Chile — The Bush administration has designated this windswept resort town and free-trade zone on Chile’s northern Pacific coast as a terrorist hot spot, second in South America only to the notorious tri-border region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet.
Indeed, American and regional officials say, Iquique — pronounced “ee-KEE-kay” — a booming free-trade zone created 30 years ago in what was once a sleepy fishing village, may be poised to compete with the tri-border area as a center of terrorism financing and support.
…
The tri-border area, with its 30,000-strong Arab community and reputation for smuggling and money-laundering, has been monitored closely by intelligence agencies during the last decade, especially following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The stepped-up law enforcement has contributed to the exodus of terrorism suspects to Chile.
Those operatives were often Shia Lebanese-Paraguayans who came from the Triple Point2 of South America, where smuggling is quite common. After the heat got turned up on them, they moved from Paraguay to Chile. They laundered money and ran protection rackets. Profits were sent back to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This was a financial operation. There was no direct threat to Chile, which was why Chile was slow to act at first.
In truth, this was possibly facilitated by the high concentration of Arabs whom they could hide among (even though almost all those Arabs were Christian who may have been uninvolved and unaware).
Now it is 10 years later since that initial report. Has anything changed?!
It seems that the Chileans have cracked down considerably.
What was most interesting is the the activity in Chile was confined primarily to financial activities. There was no direct threat to Chile.
So, if you visit Chile, be assured that you are quite safe.
Meanwhile, there are religious changes coming to Iquique.
Built in 1999 – you may have to watch it on YouTube
Recently, a Mosque has been built in Iquique. To an American or European this might not strike anyone as noteworthy, but there were no mosques at all in Chile until the 1990s – and what few Musims there were had to practice at home.
Wikipedia: (Source)
Through the 1970s and ‘80s, there were no religious leaders or centers for praying. Muslims who maintained the faith met in the residence of Taufik Rumie’ Dalu, a trader of Syrian origin. In 1990 the construction of the Al-Salam Mosque began, the first of the country
There still may be only five or six mosques in the whole country, even today. Not a whole lot. There are now mosques in:
1) Santiago, Chile (the capital) (Click Here)
2) Viña del Mar, Chile (slightly north of the capital, lots of Palesitnians) (Click Here)
3) Iquique, Chile (In the north of Chile) (Click Here)
4) Conquimbo, Chile (In the north of Chile) (Click Here)
5) Temuco, Chile (in the south of Chile)
That seems to be it for all of Chile, though I may have missed some Islamic Aid Societies. There are more Islamic Institutions around Paterson, NJ.
Three of those towns: Viña del Mar, Coquimbo, and Iquique are (sub)tropical beach resorts, from which we learn that the Arabs settled in some of the best parts of Chile.
Viña Del Mar, Chile’s biggest beach resort
Islam cannot compete with bikinis and booze
However, if we look at it rationally, we see there is more to hope about than to fear. Northern Chile will NOT become part of the Caliphate. Five mosques for 4,000 people does not indicate a flood. What it may indicate is that some outside money is coming in; and that may be a cause for worry, but that is about it.
Remember, these Muslims (what few there are) are concentrating in areas full of good looking women with bikinis on the beach. Islam will not long hold up under those pressures.
In the end, Chile is also undergoing an Evangelical Revival. We can expect many of those Muslims, or their children, probably end up being Christian in a few decades.
Have some faith!
1Iquique is sort of tropical, but it has one of the oddest climates on the planet. It rarely goes below 60ºF / 16ºC in winter, or above 86ºF / 30ºC in summer. This is caused by two competing natural enegies. The tropical sun wants to turn Iquique into a jungle, but just offshore is the cold Humboldt Current which brings cold water up from Antarctica and moderates the heat.
The bizarre consequence is that Iquique is about 71ºF / 22ºC all year round +/- 10ºF / 6ºC depending on whether it is winter or summer. It is a very odd climate. The tropical sun evaporates just enough water from the ocean that the humidity is about 70% all year, but the sun almost never evaporates enough water that it rains. Iquique is one of the driest places in the planet, but you can get mists near the shore. It is one of the nicest climates on the planet, and should be hotter; but the cold offshore current keeps Iquique in a sort of cool tropical climate.
The water at the beach might be warm; but a mile offshore where the Humboldt Current kicks in, it can get quite cooler.
2The Triple Frontier is a border area in South America where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet. It is famous for drug smugglers, counterfeit luxury items, and terrorists, as well as cheap goods.
Posted on YouTube: Jan 12, 2017
Caution: From a Chinese source
There is a city, Ciudad del Este (on the Paraguayan side), which is a free market zone, and is notorious for shady dealing. Paraguay has weak smuggling laws. Ciudad del Este is a Wild West sort of place where anything goes.
Hezbollah operatives have been caught in the Paraguayan side.
It is believed that in 1994 the Iranians ran a squad out of the Triple Point which was responsible for the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in Chile.
The USA, and South American nations, are trying to control the area; but the jungle makes it impossible to completely get a handle on smugglers; though some progress has been made.
September 2, 2020 – Made mobile friendly, replaced a dead video, and made some edits.
The Schizophrenia of Chile
The Jews of Chile
Chile is odd.
It has been rather hospitable to both Jews and Arabs.
Jewish Virtual Library – Chile
Some [Jewish] refugees – 879 in number – who reached Chile after the outbreak of World War II were accepted on condition that they settle in the south and not move to the capital.
When one adjusts for population, 879 refugees would have been like the USA accepting 14,000 Jews. They sent them to the south of Chile, to build up the land.
Jewish Virtual Library – Chile
In all, between 10,000 and 12,000 Jews were able to enter Chile in 1933–40. The two last ships, Augusto and Virgilio, arrived in January 1940 with a few hundred Jews who were moved to the south in a special train under military custody. An attempt to bring 50 French Jewish children to Chilean Jewish families who promised to adopt them was made in 1943 but failed.
In certain instances the Chilean government protected Jewish refugees of Chilean origin or Chilean citizens in zones occupied by the Nazis, to prevent their deportation to concentration camps. On a few occasions the foreign minister and the Chilean ambassador to Germany, Tobías Barros Ortíz, threatened to imprison German supporters of the Nazis who resided in Chile if Chilean citizens in Germany were detained.
When adjusted for Chile’s small population [only 18 million today], this is an enormous number. They did this when the rest of the world was refusing Jews.
EL SÁBADO GIGANTE
The most watched TV show in history. It’s hosted by Don Francisco, the Chilean born son of Jewish refugees.
Probably the most famous product of this exodus was Don Franciso (nee Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld) of El Sábado Gigante, who was born in 1940 Talca in the South of Chile soon after his Jewish refugee parents arrived. The show is the longest running TV show on the planet, and may have the biggest regular audience as well. It is shown in the United States, Spain, and all of Latin America.
This mixing of Jews and Palestinians has had the oddest effect on Chile. There are about 15-60 Thousand Jews depending on the sources. Yet, Chilean society is overall sympathetic to them. On the other hand, Chile has 500,000 Palestinians, who are middle class to rich. They cannot be ignored either.
This produces a schizophrenia in Chilean society, policy, and government attitudes towards the Mideast.
In 1947, the Palestinians were able to persuade the Zionist friendly president, Gabriel González Videla, to have Chile abstain from voting for a paritition of Palesitine, which would have created Israel.
Jewish Virtual Library – Chile
In 1945 a Pro-Palestine Committee was founded in Santiago, and its prominent member, Senator Gabriel González Videla (later president of Chile), was among those who sponsored the organization of the International Christian Conference for Palestine, which took place in Washington in 1945. In spite of his past record of goodwill toward Jewish aspirations, as president Videla gave in to the internal pressure of the Arab community (100,000 citizens of Arab descent lived in Chile at that time and were known for their financial and political influence) and instructed his delegation to the UN General Assembly to abstain from voting on the resolution to partition Palestine in 1947. Senator Humberto Alvarez, second-ranking member of this delegation, resigned in protest against that decision.
Arabs are now 800,000 in Chile, with Palestinians alone being roughly 500,000 today. Almost all the Palestinians are Christian, but they are radicalized against Israel. But even as far back as 1947, they had enough wealth and clout to throttle Chile’s pro-Zionist sympathies at the UN.
To get a sense of how schizophrenic this is:
In 2006, according to the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, Chile had the most Jewish government in the world outside Israel, but …
Most Jewish gov’t outside Israel – in Chile
Following the Israeli government, the newly elected Chilean cabinet is the most Jewish government in the world, with three Jewish ministers, one deputy minister serving in government
… what the article does not say is that there were an equal number of Arabs in the government.
This produces some bizarre occurrences coming out of Chile.
Further compounding this schizophrenia is the massive growth of Evangelicals; many of whom who support Israel.
The Evangelicals of Chile
So you have Chile which produces the largest radicalized population of Arabs in South America, but it is also extraordinarily friendly to Jews and Evangelicals.
Chile is now a first world nation. The Switzerland of South America, yet when it comes to the Mideast, the government is torn between two completely opposite groups.
In 2011, Chile recognized Palestine; and what a fight that was.
Chile Recognizes Palestinian State
The government’s resolution also noted that both Jewish and Palestinian communities have been key to Chile’s social, cultural, political and economic development for many years, working in harmony that should serve as a model for their both the Israeli and Palestinian states. It’s a message that Pinera plans to make personally during a visit to the Middle East in March.
What the above article does not mention is the Pinera put a lot of conditions on the recognition. For ex: The Chilean declaration did not mention the ’67 borders as the borders of Palestine, like the other South American countries did.
As time goes by, the demographic weight, and wealth, of the Palestinian community seems to be asserting itself. This will be interesting to watch.
Let’s hope they make the right decisions.
