What did we learn?

And finally we got the other side of the story. According to a Canadian Law firm, all the incidents between the Chilean U20 Soccer team in Toronto were triggered by the Toronto's police and not by the Chilean players as the Police told the media some time ago.

I don't think is time to look for who was right and who was wrong. More than that, we should be looking at what we can learn from all this. First of all, it is clear (at least to me) that prejudices can do a lot of harm: to me it is still unclear the reason why Police acted as they did and whether Toronto's Police would have acted the same way with some other team (not a south american one like Chile). Was the Toronto's police reaction triggered by the fact that they thought Chileans are just 'problematic' guys? Nobody knows that for sure, but let me tell you it remains a lot of that in the air. From the other side, there still seems to me that Chileans should also recognize their responsibility in all this: after all, if they would have followed the instructions of not getting close to fans (although this is as questionable instruction), things could have been prevented, perhaps. It's true that in countries like Chile, this is the normal way to do these things, but the fact that these guys were not in Chile should have told them to be more careful...

In summary, what I've learned is that no matter how 'integrated' or 'global' we think we are, people will always look at anyone different, differently! It didn't matter that Chile and Canada has an economical agreement (and lot of political ties) that day in Toronto, what mattered was that Canadian and Chileans are not the same, period. We might look the same (or very close) but there are fundamental differences that respond to the fact that we see and live life in different ways. And to try to hide or simply ignore those differences is plainly wrong! So next time a Canadian is in the UK or EUA (which are the closest countries to Canada that I can think of), he should bear in mind he or she is not an American or an English fellow. It seems absurd to say this, but many times people seem to forget this simple fact. And so long as we forget it, problems start to appear. So, if you are the visitor, respect your host's house and if you are the host, respect your guests! and remember that a visitor is always a visitor regardless how at home he/she feels!

Do you care?

Have you noticed that people only seem to care about 'big issues' like sports, politics, global warming or even the going of the economy? While I do think that we should care (and a lot sometimes) about things like these, I can't help thinking that we are, perhaps, spending too much energy in 'caring' about big things and letting small ones go wild. For instance, drivers couldn't care less about pedestrians and pedestrians couldn't care less about themselves. People riding on the bus couldn't care less about others (doesn't matter if others means pregnant ladies or people with disabilities) and bus drivers...well they deserve a post on their own!

The point I am trying to make is that everyday life also matters. And everyday life is made of small things. Although we can't, by simple implication, argue that improving small things will improve bigger ones, we can certainly hope that improving small things will have a tinny, though positive, impact on our lives which is by far a really big thing to care about. It might sound repetitive (I bet you hear these sort of arguments all the time) but it is not that you can simply substract yourself from them. In any case, I am not saying that this is the solution to all problems or that we can save the planet or something like that. I am just saying that if, for instance, we cared a (tinny little) bit more about things like respecting each other's turn when getting on the bus, we could all enjoy a faster and more enjoyable ride which would, very likely, have a big impact on the the rest of our day. I don't think it is too mush to ask....and at the end of the day, isn't this what we all look for when we care about big issues?