Gratitude and trust – The Counter

The Constitutional Convention is finishing its mandate. With the closure of the transitory articles, it will give us a project within the established deadline. Now it will be up to us, the people, to decide if we accept that proposal or if we will prefer the one that was imposed by the dictatorship. It is a yes, which points to the future, or a no, which leaves us where we are. Half measures do not fit when deciding when voting on the project: the blank vote does not count. These are the rules of the game, which were not imposed, but arose from universal, free and secret suffrage. That simple and pure truth is not always simple and is never pure, as Oscar Wilde said, but there it is and places us in front of a historic decision that will mark the future of our coexistence. Which forces us to think about how we will come out after the plebiscite. Now is the time to think about it because, whether we like it or not, our actions in the legitimate strife that is coming, will leave a mark that will last over time. In my modest opinion — after ninety years of life participating in the sorrows and joys of my country — we should be grateful for the hard and sacrificial work of the Convention, because it has fulfilled its task and has put us in an inescapable trance: to assume the consequences of the decisions that the majority of us take.  No one demanded from the constituents that this commission be a tailor-made suit that would leave everyone happy, because that would be an impossible task: we know that the measurements, waist and size of Chileans are not the same or have the same fabric.
We must also thank the Convention because it has taught us an indelible lesson: the two-thirds lock that prevented us from advancing in the past, after the dictatorship, can be opened without being violated. The master key is constant dialogue with society and democratic respect for the ideas that each one defends, putting the common interest before the inflexible positions first. The common interest of the constituents has been none other than to fulfill the mandate that the people gave them. Many bet that wouldn’t be possible. Others rightly chose to make it fail. The successive waves of misrepresentations, threatening prophecies and mockery that arose from day one – with the help of certain histrionic attitudes and extravagant figurations that came from within the Convention – did not prevent the ship from reaching port. We are now in a position to decide on a single text, with no alternatives. We wanted it to do so and — without false pride — we can see that this determination of Chileans to set a north in times of acute social and political crisis has produced great international interest. A joint Constituent Convention with the inclusion of indigenous peoples, which can only adopt agreements valid for two-thirds of its representatives, is a unique case.
We have good reason to trust our own decisions: we have taken steps that a few years ago were unimaginable to positively change a social order that has been corroding, causing injustices and iniquitous inequalities. We did it pushed by young people. The rights and their guarantees contained in the constitutional project are not written in stone, as they say, but they were written before in the heart of the vast majority of our compatriots who took to the streets asking for changes. It will be difficult to erase them once the Constituent Assembly has brought them to light. Here the same thing that happened with the proposal of a new Charter in the government of Michel Bachelet cannot happen, because in Chile what Tocqueville maintained happens: “The evil that was patiently suffered as inevitable is unbearable as soon as the idea of escaping from it is conceived.” The right persists in maintaining what is inevitable by promising another new Constitution after rejecting the current project. That alternative, at this point in the process, is an invitation to happily jump into a dark void. Other voices reiterate that they “will approve to modify”, maintaining that the Constitution should be “the house of all”, which would not happen with the current project. To what end is this explanation added that only sows confusion? Where in the draft constitution is it forbidden to change the Constitution?
If we want a new dwelling for everyone, the first thing we must do is inhabit it, tour its pieces and places, get used to respecting it and keeping it in good condition.  If with time and regular use we need to improve it paIf everyone fits and none is left out, as is now the case with the one in force, we will do so as democratically as we have been doing with the Constituent Convention. But, for this to happen, we must first open the way to the project, let it work and bring us together, as we were brought together by the long-awaited idea of changing the rules imposed on us by the dictatorship. And to do so confident in our abilities: we are walking the path that we democratically decided to take to open a new stage in our history. The biggest failure would be not having tried.
 
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The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.

Original source in Spanish