DON'T SQUANDER WHAT THE GENERAL GAVE YOU:

That other September 11th (The Economist, Sep 4th 2003)

THE date that now haunts the world has long had a different meaning in Chile. September 11th 1973 was the day on which President Salvador Allende (centre, with glasses, above) was violently removed from power. The presidential palace was bombed by the Chilean air force, and he killed himself in the ruins.

Allende had been Chile's first socialist president. When elected, in 1970, he had preached a glowing vision of economic and social equality; but nationalisation and collectivisation brought economic disaster, while the draining of Chile's reserves led to roaring inflation. The cold-war climate, too, was against him. Although he had seemed a saviour to many at home, the United States could not stomach a Marxist in power in their hemisphere. American officials encouraged the coup, and rejoiced when it succeeded.

Allende's fall brought General Augusto Pinochet to power for 17 years. His dictatorship ushered in free-market reforms that led to Chile's rapid growth in the 1990s, but it also unleashed appalling violence. Around 3,000 died, and many more—possibly hundreds of thousands, according to Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt, an historian—were tortured, in order to install and keep General Pinochet in power.

Chile has now enjoyed 13 years of elected government, the last three of them under a socialist president, and half of all Chileans living now were not yet born in the year the coup occurred. But the divisions it caused have yet to heal. This became clear as the anniversary neared. Tentative plans for a cathartic national commemoration, bringing together the armed forces and human-rights groups, came to nothing. Even the centre-left coalition could not agree: leaders of the centrist Christian Democrats wanted no part, they said, of any homage to Allende. [...]

Chile's transition to democracy will not be complete until it reforms its constitution. Mr Lagos admits that this document “doesn't pass the test of democracy”. Among other things, it allows four of the nine non-elected senators who sit alongside the 38 elected members to be retired military commanders. It has also entrenched a binominal electoral system, under which each constituency elects two representatives to each house. This virtually ensures that one candidate from each of the two main coalitions is returned, and critics maintain that, by making results predictable, it fuels abstentions and undermines the legitimacy of democracy.

Which raises the obvious question: other than liberal fetishism, why complete the "transition to democracy"? If you've got thirteen years of elected governments, rapid growth, and a host of liberties, why risk it all for the sake of the imagined purity of your democracy? If the end of democracy is to secure liberty, then you don't stand to gain much. If that's not its end, then who needs it?

Posted by orrinj at September 5, 2003 10:14 AM