More than once we have heard that Mercury is an institution. Even after Agustín Edwards died, changes to his board, a team of journalists and administrators, the information institution is still there. There’s no book or documentary that damages it, let alone the desty. It is that, if the centenary newspaper with the name of Roman god has faltered, it was for economic reasons, and that was when the intelligence of the United States and Pinochet were there to save him.
Saying “The Mercury Lies” is a cliché we have taken from the revolt of a 1960s rebel elite. While a simple sentence like this has been an example for cultural studies classes, the issue has always been more complex. No one escapes the state, not the market, or El Mercurio. I once heard the journalist Fernando Paulsen tell that when Don Volodia Teitelboim, was publicly back in Chile, he got an interview with him under the credential of the Magazine Analysis. Even in such a way persecuted by the civic-military dictatorship, the communist intellectual made them wait because he would first give an interview to El Mercurio. I give another example, but now modest. Researchers who believe ourselves to be “progressive” do not hesitate much to give good wedges for El Mercurio, and so, somehow, exist. Everything seems to indicate that we must live with Mercury and accommodate our ideas in such a way that we do not feel inconsequential as we become part of its pages. But what happened (once again) in Mercury cannot leave us indifferent.
The full-page communiqué of deniers and advocates of the civic-military dictatorship has once again reminded us of the power of the Edwards institution. Without the use of subliminal, disguised or in less read corners such as publishers, two official reports of status such as the Rettig or Valech report were noon dising on 11 September 2019. And this is the basics. Considering the offense that such a warning means to the memory and pain of the victims of the civic-military dictatorship is for certain right-wing people to act with self-attributed moral superiority. But it is a club of obscado with money slaining what has cost to build (winning and giving way) in terms of human rights in Chile. And today, as always, an institution like El Mercurio has shown the willingness to renew its vows of sedition.
That is why in an act of deep questioning I wonder whether it can still be contrary to legislating to sanction the apology for the violation of human rights so that, presumably, not to combat fascism with fascism. But also, in a riskyly unfair act I wonder whether the other side of the information duopoly had resisted giving in to such a warning purchase. It seems that, in the attack of historical truth and longed-for cohesion in Chile, the one who pays lies.
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
