When the campaigns for Approval and Rejection already enter the right, it seems that the public debate takes on a tint that moves further and further away from what the country needs.
The discussion in the media and on social media has become violent, intolerant, lacking in rigor. The easy wedge and the extreme example, often directly false and lying, are no longer the exception. It seems that the motto is to sharpen the contradictions. We see many holding in the media interpretations of constitutional norms, which they would hardly dare to hold in the courts. We confront you with anything goes.
Approval and Rejection became a campaign booty for petty politics, a competition to capitalize on eventual triumphs and defeat the enemy to improve the post-plebiscite negotiating position.
Once the work of the convention was concluded, it was expected that our “ruling classes” would rise to the occasion, put the country ahead, establish bridges and build agreements, as that class asked of the conventional.
But the reality is different. If during the constituent process there was a criticism often justified about the actions of an important part of the conventional; today, a significant part of the country’s political class and elites are doing their own thing, with a spectacle that is becoming regrettable and shameful, and that nothing could envy of the worst of the convention.
Not to mention our intelligentsia, so bad in times when any disseminator of other people’s ideas assigns himself that category. Their discussions are closer to adolescent ego competencies, than to the construction of contributions that illuminate citizen discussion.
No further electoral process takes place on 4 September. It is a plebiscite to define a constitution that should be the basis of a way of understanding ourselves as a society in the coming decades.
Let’s not talk about the pretentious and empty phrase of “A house for all”. Let’s talk about the minimum necessary to understand each other and a legitimacy that is sufficient to respect it.
It seems that part of the political class does not remember which parties and congress are among the most discredited institutions in the country. When, in my opinion, the political system proposed in the new text is rightly questioned, it is worth asking whether with the way in which the political class acts, there will be any political system that gives stability to the country in the long term.
The same ones who get in a ring in the media; that they exploit differences to the point of ridicule; that they discredit their interlocutors; that they show a total contempt for the people in their arguments; they pretend to make us believe that they will be able to do something better later. Let us hesitate.
It seems that part of the elites repeat themselves, we gave the people a chance and they were not able, so now we resume our functions and resolve ourselves. They do so without assuming in any way their incapacity and decay.
Neither Rejection nor Approval will give stability and certainty to the country without basic agreements or changes in the actions of the ruling classes. The serious thing is that it is democracy and the coexistence of the country that suffer, and when democracies succumb, it is populisms, authoritarianisms and dictatorships that arise. There are no alternative models. There are neither popular democracies nor soft dictatorships. There is no populism in which the poor do well.
The supporters of the Apruebo, among whom I include myself as an ordinary citizen, let us be clear with the obvious changes that the text needs, let us give certainties, the path is quite clear. Let’s leave the tastes aside. The people are not wise only when they agree with one.
To the supporters of rejection, put an end to the “interpretations” that you know to be false and to the campaigns of terror so often used with such bad results for everyone. Be clear on the exits they propose. If the rejection wins that? New process? Two years to draft a new proposed constitution? Who? Or is the idea rightly just to reform the constitution of ’80 again?
A few days ago Agustín Squella proposed that the country was in an atmosphere of excess. As always a gentleman. Perhaps that’s where the minimum of responsibility that we must demand goes. A humble pact, nothing bombastic. A National Agreement for Moderation. So perhaps in the remaining month we will have minimum agreements and a debate to match.
Follow us on
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.
