The day after the election in BC, the same day as the election in Saskatchewan, another vote took place at the other end of the Americas.

            The people of Chile voted overwhelmingly to abolish the constitution imposed by dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973, after his military coup deposed elected president Salvador Allende.

            The two Canadian elections didn’t change even the flavour of government in the two provinces, let alone their ideologies. The Chilean vote changed the direction of a whole country.

            Chile’s current president called it “the beginning of a path that we must all walk together.”

            The vote didn’t actually change Pinochet’s constitution -- yet. Rather, Chileans voted by almost 80% to establish a constitutional convention, which would have a year in which to create a new constitution from the ground up.

            They also voted, at nearly the same proportion, against the present government appointing members to the convention. Rather, all 155 members would be directly elected by the people.

Small group in power

            The old constitution was devised by Juan Guzman, a far-right advisor to General Augusto Pinochet.

            Traditionally, most Latin American countries have been governed by oligarchies -- an elite, mostly the historic landowning families. Before the coup, Chile had a reputation as the most democratic country in South America.

            Pinochet’s new constitution gave power back to the elite. It privatized social welfare, penalized public education and health care, led to high costs of living and appallingly low pensions.

            To paraphrase Lincoln, it was “government of the few, by the few, for the few.”

            I had visited Chile about six months before the coup. I stayed with a Canadian woman and her Chilean husband. They took me around the barrios where they worked.

            Under Allende’s socialism, poor families received adequate food every week, meat and vegetables. Their children went to school. They had medical clinics available to them.

Divine right of corporations

            Unfortunately for them, and for Chile, Allende tried to nationalize three huge copper mines in the far north of the country, owned by American companies Anaconda and Kennecott, without compensation.

            America would not tolerate interference with the divine right of American corporations to make money. It still won’t -- witness the retaliation against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia for nationalizing their oil and gas industries.

            America in those days saw anything labelled socialism as a mask for pure communism. And communism came from America’s nuclear foe, the U.S.S.R. An irrational terror of the so-called “domino effect” led the U.S. into the Vietnam wars. And even though it failed to win that battle in Saigon, the fear of domino communism still applied to Chile.

            So, in what is now almost universally recognized as a U.S.-backed coup, Pinochet and the army took over the Chilean government.

            Instead of food, education, and healthcare, Pinochet brought in mass arrests, imprisonment, torture, and repression.

Political unrest

            Pinochet’s reign of terror lasted for 17 years. Eventually he risked his rule in a 1988 referendum, and lost. He tried to retain power, but stepped down in 1990. Even so, the constitution he set up for himself remained in place 30 years later -- putting a straitjacket on attempts at reform.

            Chile lives and breathes politics. When I was in Santiago, a political rally drew twice as many people as an international soccer match! I doubt if it it’s different now.

            All last year Chileans demonstrated against the constitution. It started in a small way -- students protested raises in metro transit fares. But it grew. Until eventually the government had to yield.

Near miracle

            Geographically, Chile is the least unified country in the continent. It is 4,300 km long -- the distance between Vancouver and Montreal -- but never more than 350 km across. As a comparison, imagine extending the Alaska Panhandle all the way south to Baja California, with all the climatic variations.

            The Atacama desert in Chile’s far north is the driest place on earth. Tierra del Fuego in the far south is one of the coldest, wettest, and windiest places on earth. In between lie mountains, and more mountains -- half of the total length of the Andes.

            For people living in that diverse a geography and climate, to vote with anything approaching unanimity is a near miracle.

            "I never imagined that us Chileans would be capable of uniting for such a change!" Maria Isabel Nunez, 46, told the Deutsche Welle news agency.

            The British Guardian newspaper called the vote “a beacon for the world.” Maybe it is.

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Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

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YOUR TURN

Friend Bob Thompson got at the core of last week’s column on the nature of democracy:  “You said, ‘So I don’t think the right to vote is the defining characteristic of a democracy.’

            “I think you are right -- the defining characteristic of a democracy is the ability to remove the government, or change the government through voting. Like you, I fear that democracy in The United States is in grave danger. One of the tools that Trump is hoping to have at his disposal is a Supreme Court heavily weighted in his favour. This is a bleak day in America, in my opinion, as the Republicans cement their hold on power, whatever the people want. I believe Trump will try to have the court refuse mail-in ballots in the States where they may tip the vote toward the Democrats. I believe that a politicized court is a tool that Trump plans to use to subvert democracy in The United States.

            “So you are right, the right to vote doesn't define democracy. But without it, there sure isn't a chance for democracy to survive.”

Bob Rollwagen had a similar comment about the U.S. election: “The world will see Democracy at work this week in the USA. They got what they deserved four years ago and what they get this time will be what they deserve. This is Democracy.”

            Bob connected the notion of majorities with the pandemic: “In Toronto, apparently, a significant majority comes from an area that is disadvantaged in many ways. The Premier says they have been focused on testing in the area, and [offering] education about how the virus spreads. It is my observation that the people living in this area work in frontline, minimum-wage jobs. They have little time to stand in line for tests, and do not have sick leave so they can stay home when this is appropriate. They are educated so they understand the need for preventive activity and do not need to be lectured on the obvious.

            “The reality is that those that are trapped in conditions favourable to Covid spread need to circulate among the privileged which results in continued high levels of disease across the entire economy and limits the ability for efficient recovery. While I have heard rhetoric [about] improving this reality for the almost 40% of the nation’s population, I have seen no positive action that makes me feel that the pandemic will end any time soon. This [too] is Democracy.”

Tom Watson took a pessimistic view: “As long as money buys political parties, and thence elections, and thence power, we don't have democracy. And if we think we do we're only kidding ourselves.”

George Bayliss picked up my reference to the Magna Carta: “…often quoted as the beginnings of Democracy in Britain. [You] hit the nail of the head by pointing out that most of the population was not considered.

            “Reform in Britain via various upheavals has moved the archipelago closer to a democracy one step at a time, by actions of Wat Tyler through to Mrs. Pankhurst and Clement Attlee. They have not progressed since 1948, but a slow removal of privilege is still creeping forward as taxation measures break up estates and such like.”

Steve Roney both agreed with my thesis, and disagreed with some of my conclusions: “I agree with you entirely that the essential thing about what we call democracy is that it is a mechanism for peacefully removing governments from power. 

            “It does not give the general public the power to make government decisions; it was designed NOT to give the general public that power. That would be mob rule, and mob rule has a bad track record.

            “This is why the US President is not directly elected. That is why the judiciary is not elected. In fact, the Senate was originally not elected either, but chosen by state legislatures. Early versions of the franchise were based on property ownership, on the premise that these were the more responsible citizens.

            “I think you have the sense of the US Constitution upside down, however, when you object that, as originally framed, it ignored the rights of the people and gave rights only to government. It could not, in principle, give any rights to the people, because, as per the Declaration of Independence, human rights are inalienable and given by God. The Constitution is a delegation of limited rights to the government by the people.”

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)

                       Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.

                       I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/

                       Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE

                       The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns.