How much was the struggle of our ancestors to achieve a democratic republic, how much was the struggle of our grandmothers to obtain the female vote, how much was our struggle to return to democracy, to be able to walk and say without fear what we thought and to bend a tyranny, after much suffering, only with a pencil and a stripe.
We are democracy; that exercise that is obviously silent and silent is forgotten. But today our democracy is threatened by movements that directly violate us and one is no longer free to be as one wants to be, because some seek to hegemonize common spaces.
This street element, which manifests itself in vandalism towards the different, that we have seen in the masses of organized cyclists who, protected by the group and submerged in anonymity, in fact attack the others, who are not their enemies but are simply different; it is the germ of intolerance and the beginning of the end of a democratic system.
From the street, by winning in the democratic game, we can move on to the institutions and by setting up in the institutional structures we can disarm a republican system which, already consolidated, with many problems but perfectible, ensures that all inhabitants have equal access to burdens and rights.
I am not criticising further state intervention, of course! Creator and regulator by limiting market systems, increasing public spending, coordinating with an autonomous Central Bank and everything else that a Republic demands. I think of myself as a Keynesian in the purest sense of the concept.
What I want to raise in this text is simply the care that our democracy deserves, where the obligatory opinion of all must be the one that chooses our future administrations and where the systems of checks and balances or checks and checks prevent people who do not believe in democracy and are elected, from being able to govern us by acting for the sake of the destruction of the system itself.
There may be many reasons for Hitler’s democratic triumphs, but the Weimar Republic allowed its existence. The bipartisan game in Venezuela was destroyed after Chávez’s rise to power, and today, here, there are political groups that believe that tolerance and democracy are nothing more than mere instruments for gaining power and from then on…
Political differences must be allowed and respected, the media have their role in this regard, but the vociferous criticism that says end to the neoliberal system, or political nihilism devoid of alternative democratic proposals, are the risk we are facing today.
I believe that a republic should be our system and democracy the system of government that should govern us, but always with respect for minorities.
Perhaps a little out of context, but I would like to recall an anecdote that was repeated in my family circle, which occurred between Sergio Insunza Barrios and Miguel Alex Schweitzer, recently deceased.
Although I am younger than the protagonists of this story, I want to raise it so that it is not lost in the oblivion of the times and that speaks of the minimums of the common.
The anecdote was told by Sergio Insunza, Allende’s former justice minister, and it stayed with me, recorded. After the Coup in Chile in 1973 and with Sergio exiled in Berlin, GDR, representing the government in exile, he had to make many trips and among them to New York (NY), to the headquarters of the United Nations (UN). I imagine the anecdote is from 1976-1979.
Also at that time he was visiting NY, officially, as ambassador of dictatorial Chile, Miguel Alex Schweitzer.
Both were lawyers for the U of Chile, both professors and, although on very different sides, both politicians. It is the case that, after some session of some department of this organization, late, cold, in some street of NY, both with their coats, their briefcases, they cross and recognize each other.
They get closer, they look at each other and
How are you, Sergio?
How are you, Miguel?
Separating them an abyss of differences, they recognize each other and greet each other with courtesy…
The content of this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
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