held in Germany and democratic world the fall of the Berlin wall. For some of us – almost 29 years – was good news – I lived the exile of the RFA – but for many of my colleagues the news was traumatizing.
Given that we were a few days of December 14, 1989, when Patricio Aylwin was elected President of Chile. We didn’t have much time to discuss this historic milestone in world history. To tell the truth, we did not imagine that the fall of the wall was the prelude to the fall of the Communist bloc led by the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The Soviet Union, headed by President Mijaíl Gorbachov, had entered a couple of years earlier in a crisis without return, forcing Gorbachev to the profound economic reforms of perestroika to finally and anyway not prevented the weakening and finally the collapse of the Communist bloc.
How momentous the fact, the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet bloc – went without penalty or glory for the thousands that we were working day and night to defeat the dictator by the polls.
Our historic goal was, at that time, only and exclusively out of the 17 years of dictatorship military, the brutal having memory in our country.
On January 2, 1988 was born La Concertation of parties for NO and that same year, on October 5 had won the plebiscite of the non, we were so sure that of not spirited away the numbers, we would win the elections.
Three years earlier, had unified the MAPU and a group which headed Víctor Barrueto as Secretary General and I as Assistant Secretary, with a political direction that formed among others: Ernesto Galaz, Jaime Cataldo, Guillermo de el Valle, Eduardo Benitez, Carlos Montes, Viky Baeza, the endearing Adriana Sepúlveda (Polly). In our ranks were also Oscar Guillermo Garretón, Francisco Estévez, Enrique Correa, Ismael Llona, and colleagues who already left us as the named Eduardo Benítez, Alejandro Bell and Jaime Manusevich, with the firm intention to contribute to the unity on the left with the political center.
features discussions, sometimes alghidas in the MAPU, had to do with the extent of the Alliance that had to gather to defeat the dictatorship at the polls and forming a Government that would give stability to the process of democratic transition. This discussion was mediated by a sector, led by the Communist Party, which was not by this strategy.
Therefore, in May 1989 with the lawyer and Constitutionalist Francisco Geisse were authorized by the political Commission of the MAPU to probe with leaders of right which was the availability of the military Government to reform the political Constitution of 1980. certainly we were one more – and the less relevant – in the tangle of cross talks and that naturally headed who was then the “primus inter pares”, or first among equals (a delicacy for not hurting sensitivities before) time of the candidates to the Presidency of our embryonic Alliance) and later President of the Republic of the Coalition, Patricio Aylwin.
Many now criticize our Act, on the grounds that we yielded more than the account before the military: my question is that accountability, tortures, exiles, missing and suffering of the majority of the Chilean people, were going to expand an agreement to accelerate the exit of the dictatorship by peaceful means. It’s easy to talk now from the box, but most of the exonerated, tortured, persecuted, and killed put them the parties that formed the Coalition, the Communist Party and the Mir.
We incorporate as a party to the umbrella that was formed to organize the referendum and subsequent elections with the rest of political conglomerates and that gave life to the party for democracy.
After the triumph, each political party returned to his fold and “family house” which was the PPD in its early days, joined the vast movement of parties and groups left and democratic right that gave life to a new party already not instrumental but programmatic.
The people who set permanent home in this new conglomerate, came from the MAPU, Liberal Party, the various fractions of the Socialist Party, left Christian, ex-Communist, young of the Radical Party and many University of Christian roots and libertarian Socialists.
Finally in the plebiscite of July 30, the year 1989 were approved in a referendum, 54 reforms to the Constitution of the 80, thereby allowing the subsequent parliamentary and presidential election on December 14 of the same year.
With don Patricio Aylwin elected President of Chile, we began the four-year process of transition to democracy which, in my view, was a political period of unconditional surrender, unity in action among the political centre and left and with an “animus societatis”unbreakable, which unfortunately in 29 years of the triumph of December 14, 1989, were seen in most new dead.
The work and sacrifices to achieve the victory of democracy over tyranny involved millions and is not the fruit of the mind of a group of illuminated who held the No campaign. And nor is it the result of those who were leaders of the parties that formed the coalition of parties for democracy. It was a heroic gesture of those who, without belonging to an ideology or group and from a modest place in the society, contributed with their grain of sand to transform the penalty in joy and fear in power so that our children and their children move in peace and democracy.
There are thousands victims of the dictatorship to which we have to honor these dates, always remembering that without sacrifice of them we would have not come where we are.
The best way that we have that work in those years for a democracy full-still not reached – is defending the changes that we promote, and create the conditions for a fairer society.
As the proclaimed by the unit, says that a large group of political leaders endorse some days ago: “the day of today, our country faces challenges of the 21st century, that translates into changes that ensure senior s levels of development for the population, reducing inequalities and distributing the power of shape such that democracy to regain legitimacy among the citizens.
To do so, progressivism should pursue an ethical revolution, which ensures that the power of money will not prevail above the pursuit of the common good.
That is why, within the framework of this anniversary, we make a strong and clear called to all social and political forces of the center left to work for unity”in relation to this proclamation by the unit, you ask and wonder, where is the serious proposal concerning an egalitarian and democratic society. The forces that comprise it, were in Government for many years, citing similar political flags, not pursue them. Otherwise it does not explain that for the second time we give the Government right.
In the article I wrote in “The new era” El Mostrador, contend that: many have not been realized that the old regime is dead and need to create a new order. In this period, where the old died and the new not just born, Tito Libio called interregnum.
The situation of extreme despair that we are living in progressivism is expressed in a profound crisis characterized by the “fact that the old is dying and the new can not be born: in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” us graphics Antonio Gramsci, in his “the prison notebooks”.
“Gramsci, updated the idea of interregnum,” to define a situation in that the old ways of doing things and they don’t work, but the forms of solving problems in an effective manner even there or we don’t know them “.
The political parties is narrow and have ceased to be the indispensable social demands set instruments, as quite rightly says Alain Touraine, because they move “between the multiplication of lobbies, on one side, and the crushing of” social demands by action of ideologues and political apparatuses, on the other.”
According to Toureine, “when over a political party feels carrier of a model of society, instead of being a simple instrument of formation of political decisions, more democracy is weakened and more subordinates are citizens to the leaders of the parties”. In any case, the French sociologist says and rightly that democracy is not strengthened by the weakness of the political society, or for submission to economic interests or the demands of the minority.
Some sociologists, among them, Zigmunt Bauman, think that perhaps now it is occurring instead of age: that is possible that we are at world level, in the middle of a revolution, and we have not realized.
In any case, I am an optimist and I believe that the new progressivism is born, and will rise on the ashes of the obsolete current party structures
Poured in this op-ed content is the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial line nor the counter position.
