Antonio Navalón
On a day like today, 50 years ago, the great Chilean dream came to an end. On the morning of September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende – a doctor by profession, winner of the leftist and Marxist candidacy of the Popular Unity party, and occupant of the Moneda Palace – was restless and worried. Faced with the alarming movement of troops and the impossibility of locating his most trusted man – the one appointed after Carlos Prats as Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army – Augusto Pinochet. Those who were with him say that President Allende had demanded to meet with Pinochet that morning. Pinochet appeared, but not as Allende had expected, but mounted on a tank in the shape of an airplane and opened fire on the government of the man who had been his leader moments before. This betrayal provoked the ideological firing squad and prompted the decision by President Allende to end his life, according to the testimony of his personal doctor.
Allende was a character who embodied illusion. Fifty years ago, the world was living amid a Cold War, fearful and separated by an iron curtain and with the latent and constant threat of nuclear weapons being used at any moment. The Second World War ended in 1945, but the new war, ideological and economic, and the profile of new empires were making their way in that chaotic and disorderly world. One of the parts of the world where this misalignment and the growing tension between the Soviet Union and the United States was most evident was Southeast Asia. Vietnam was a painful and bloody American defeat and a breaking point at home and abroad.
In the middle and end of the last century, the emblematic Monroe Doctrine was still in force; that is to say, the motto “America was for the Americans” was still latent. A “Big Stick” in the form of the figure of the Marines guaranteed that any leftist or communist temptation would be repressed by force and without any consideration. By that time, Cuba had escaped, or – what was the same thing – the lack of culture, unawareness, and the image of the United States, meant that by the time they realized who Fidel Castro really was and what his revolution was all about, it was already too late. From then on, and after the alliance between Cubans and the Soviets, Cuba became an uncomfortable neighbor for the United States. Not only because Castro and his regime went against what the Americans were planning for Latin America and the Caribbean but also because the intrusion by the Soviets into Cuban territory put them in a worrying and constant state of alarm. From then on, the guerrilla war, the repetition over and over again of the Cuban scheme – although also Colombian, as could be seen after the death of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán – and the establishment of societies fragmented not only by poverty but also by the ideological framework of left and right, gave very little moving ability.
López Obrador admired Salvador Allende. I think he admired him more than he admired Fidel Castro. Moreover, I believe that one of his few tears in the face of the impossibility of the dream and the sadness for the death of utopia was shed precisely on September 11, 50 years ago. I will never forget the first time he had the opportunity to meet the Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón – who already has his place in the annals of history for having achieved the arrest of Augusto Pinochet – Andrés Manuel López Obrador told us that one of the few times he had been moved in politics was when he heard on the radio that, thanks to Judge Garzón, Pinochet had been arrested.
Allende was much more than a politician. He was the triumph of utopia and goodwill. Then and now, President López Obrador was unaware of the great successes Salvador Allende had in his policies and the significant failures he had produced for his own country. It was not only the communists who voted for him and formed the government with him – such as the Socialist Party or the Radical Party of Chile – but also many members of the emerging middle class who were militants in the Popular Unity and voted for him to win the elections in 1970. His triumph closed any possibility of understanding with the middle classes and created elements of social polarization that finally, amid the great American fear that the communists – as had already happened in the case of Allende or as could happen in the case of Italy with the Eurocommunists or the French – could come to power through democratic procedures and not through revolutionary ones.
Washington – which at that time had a National Security Advisor with great sensitivity to historical evolution, such as Henry Kissinger – was extremely concerned about communist success at the ballot box. That explained the unlimited bet on the Socialist International and the enthronement of Willy Brandt. The discovery that the actual control was not only at the muzzle of the rifles but, above all, at the tip of the olive trees that made the economy motivated the policy change.
Salvador Allende was the president of what for many is the southernmost Länder of Germany, which is Chile, a country of great contrasts and social confrontations that since the last century and more now – after the victory of President Boric – had a natural border of social success and legitimacy in Plaza Italia. In addition, Chile was the country with the greatest social separation before and after Salvador Allende’s victory. But, above all, it was a country where, if the communist movements succeeded in finding the key to a tolerable government, they could be a transportable element to other Latin American countries during a moment in which Washington could not answer.
Fifty years have passed, and we continue to mourn Victor Jara, and we continue to lament that the man, sooner rather than later, will once again walk the avenues of freedom, as President Allende declared on the morning of that gray day. But the truth is that these 50 years since that coup d’état have been a failure in the Americas. The coup restored a certain social peace and imposed a military order to the development of the Chilean people; however, it did not manage to be an element of social equilibrium in Chile or other Latin American countries. Moreover, for a long time, the United States continued to believe that it was possible to maintain unchanged the powder keg that is Spanish-speaking America simply because the social gap was never balanced here.
It has taken all this time, and the control imposed by Pinochet with all the changes that took place, for us to start all over again. Today, Chile is a polarized and fragmented country as it was in the past. And the Americas have seen the rapid spread of communist elements that, without actually being communists, have had in their condition of being anti-American the most advantageous and convenient position since being an enemy of the United States is part of the package that will give populism opportunities for power. Amidst all this came the other September 11, the one in New York. From that date onwards – tomorrow is the 22nd anniversary of what happened – populists such as Hugo Chávez or so many others in America definitely had a clear path simply because the United States, which never changed the Monroe Doctrine for its own interest and understanding, had enough to seek revenge after the attack to the Twin Towers.
America today is no more left-wing, but it is no more American either. It is a no man’s land where social dissatisfaction and the inability to create development hubs are the predominant elements. Therefore, analyzing the panorama of the social balance, it can be concluded that these 50 years have been – from many points of view – a lost opportunity for the Americas to be at peace and with a base of sustained social development.
In life, it is important to be a believer; I confess that I am. Only faith and the conviction that there is a design that surpasses us all – no matter where one was born or under what conditions – explain the coincidence of the two September 11 events. The first, that of 1973 in Chile could have completely changed the course of history if, instead of being just another coup d’état, it had been taken as an opportunity to redistribute wealth better, narrowing the social gap and being a change and symbol of hope and illusion for the Latin American peoples. It was not done, and the ambition of a leader like Augusto Pinochet prevailed. The other September 11, that of 2001, in the United States, was the proof for the Americans that – even though God had privileged them for more than two hundred years by putting two oceans around them – they were not untouchable. And, despite having everything to be immortal, the United States has long been lost in its own internal tragedy. The two September 11s have a meaning and a historical shaping that far outweighs the events themselves.
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