The killing of Muammar Gaddafi/Kadafi/Qaddafi/Khadafy in Libya had me wondering if there were any dictator museums out there. Sure enough there is one.
In the capital city of Santiago you can relive the dictatorship of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet at the Museo Presidente Pinochet where his uniform, sabres, books, knives and collection of toy soldiers are on display. This is a lesson for the tea party people next time they make another ‘Obama is Hitler’ poster…there actually is a difference between Fascism and Marxism. In 1973 Pinochet led a military coup against elected Socialist President Salvador Allende that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Leftists, 80,000 imprisonments and 30,000 political tortures. Attempts to prosecute his abuses against humanity continued until his death five years ago. But even through all those human rights violations, Pinochet still had fans. So Dick Cheney – there is hope, maybe one day someone will start a museum about you. Instead of exhibiting the torture instruments he might have used on his enemies, the museum showcases the life of a man with apparently no faults. Talk about rewriting history. I hope something similar never happens in places like Libya or Iraq. It would be different if a museum was educational and tried to expose these people for who they truly were as a way to not repeat their crimes, but a celebration of a dictator’s life is wrong. It’s probably better to just forget these people ever existed.
