Saturday 20 September
2008, San José, Costa Rica
CHILE:
Salvador Allende -
Greatest Chilean, by
Popular Acclaim
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO (IPS) -
The late socialist
President Salvador
Allende, who was
overthrown by the armed
forces on Sept. 11,
1973, was elected the
"greatest Chilean in
history" in a viewers'
poll organised by a
television programme
that stirred up
controversy.
The series "Great
Chileans in History,"
broadcast by the state
channel TVN, concluded
on Wednesday night with
the votes for Allende
just barely outstripping
those for naval captain
Arturo Prat, hero of the
1879-1883 War of the
Pacific waged by Chile
against Bolivia and
Peru.
Out of over four million
votes from viewers,
38.81 percent went to
Allende and 38.44
percent to Prat. In
third place, with 7.97
percent, was Saint
Alberto Hurtado
(1901-1952), a Jesuit
priest canonised by Pope
Benedict XVI in 2005.
They were followed by
folk singer and
songwriter Víctor Jara,
who was tortured and
murdered a few days
after the 1973 military
coup that ushered in the
17-year dictatorship of
General Augusto
Pinochet, and Chilean
independence heroes
Manuel Rodríguez
(1785-1818) and General
José Miguel Carrera
(1785-1821).
Next on the list were
legendary Mapuche
indigenous leader
Lautaro (1534-1557), and
poets Gabriela Mistral
(1889-1957) and Pablo
Neruda (1904-1973), both
winners of the Nobel
Prize for Literature.
Famous singer and
songwriter Violeta Parra
(1917-1967) took 10th
place.
Allende began his
political career as a
student leader and
subsequently became a
member of the lower
house of Congress, a
senator, a minister, and
finally the world’s
first democratically
elected socialist
president. Among his
most memorable deeds was
the nationalisation of
the country’s copper,
Chile's top export
product.
He shot himself in the
presidential Palacio de
la Moneda after
delivering a live radio
farewell address to
Chileans on Sept. 11,
1973, while the seat of
government was under
land and air attack by
the armed forces led by
the late General
Pinochet, who died in
2006.
Allende's first place in
the television poll
"means that the efforts
of the dictatorship, and
the social and political
sectors that supported
it, to systematically
discredit and denigrate
his memory, as well as
the shameful attempts by
governments in power
since 1990 to hide his
achievements, have been
unsuccessful," Chilean
historian Sergio Grez
told IPS.
"The continued relevance
and popularity of
Allende in Chile today
can be explained not
only by his heroic
death, but also by the
large numbers of
Chileans who continue to
cherish dreams and plans
for major social changes
that include many
aspects of Allende’s
programmes," said the
University of Chile
professor.
"Unlike other figures in
national and world
history, Allende has not
been diminished in
death. On the contrary,
his stature has grown,
in spite of the
'collapse of the walls'
and the 'end of history'
announced by some
talking heads," Grez
said.
Viewers awarded second
place to Arturo Prat
(1848-1879), the young
captain of the
Esmeralda, the ship that
was rammed and sunk by
the Peruvian armoured
warship Huáscar at the
naval Battle of Iquique
on May 21, 1879. He is
regarded as a hero for
being the first to leap
aboard the Huáscar,
facing swift and certain
death, rather than
surrender to the
superior Peruvian
forces.
Although Chile lost that
battle, it eventually
won the War of the
Pacific, a victory which
allowed it to annex
significant areas of
Peru and Bolivia, the
latter of which was left
without an outlet to the
Pacific ocean as a
result.
"Prat is a hero too, but
in contrast to Allende,
who was a hero of the
struggle for social
liberation, Prat is a
patriotic figure
belonging to the final
stages of the expansion
of the Chilean state,"
said Grez.
"Although he was not a
conservative, but more
of a liberal, during
this poll Prat has been
held up as a symbol by
today's conservative
social sectors in an
attempt to prevent a new
triumph, symbolic this
time, for Allende," he
said.
"A barrage of messages
has been flooding the
Internet, from rightwing
sectors and retired
military officers, and
it is said from those in
active service too,
calling on people to
vote for Prat to prevent
the triumph of the
'communist' Allende,"
the historian said.
In July, it was even
reported that a hacker
had interfered with the
Internet web page of the
"Great Chileans"
programme so that Prat
would win the contest.
"These conservative
sectors, unlike some
leftwing activists and
academics who looked
down on the television
contest with Olympian
disdain, fully grasped
the political
significance of this
opinion poll and
mobilised all their
forces to win this
symbolic battle," Grez
said.
The series "Great
Chileans in History" was
a licensed adaptation of
the original British
Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) series on "Great
Britons," in which
former Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
(1874-1965) was ranked
first. The show has
inspired a score of
spin-offs across the
globe.
In the United States,
former President Ronald
Reagan (1911-2004) was
selected; in Germany it
was Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer (1876-1967); in
France, statesman
Charles de Gaulle
(1890-1970) and in
India, Mother Teresa of
Calcutta (1910-1997).
In Chile, the stated
goal was to select the
man or woman who had
contributed most to
building the country,
which will celebrate the
bicentennial of its
independence from Spain
in 2010.
First an advisory
committee made up of 18
intellectuals chose 60
"Great Chilean"
candidates throughout
history, who had already
died. Foreigners whose
contribution to the
country was outstanding
were also included.
Next, students and
teachers in Chile's
primary, secondary and
higher education system
were entrusted with
selecting the 10
finalists. Voting by the
general public -- by
landline and mobile
phones, and via the
Internet -- began on
Jul. 8, when weekly
documentaries on the
life and work of the 10
contestants commenced.
Throughout the process,
the series was heavily
criticised. It was
accused, for instance,
of trivialising a debate
that deserved deeper
analysis, and for mixing
public figures from
different areas of
activity, like war
heroes, members of
religious orders and
artists.
"Although clearly the
'popular vote' cast in
the TVN opinion poll is
not equivalent to the
'verdict of history,' I
think a very interesting
situation sprang up
around what could be
referred to as the
'battle for memory,'"
said Grez.
"The 10 people selected
highlight the rift
between official
history, ever-present in
traditional
historiography and in
textbooks, on the one
hand, and the people's
memory, on the other,"
he said.
"The iconic heroes from
history lessons,
regarded as symbols of a
vision of state and
society, were not
included by our
fellow-citizens who were
asked to be the ‘jury,’"
he said.
The host of the "Great
Chileans" programme,
journalist Consuelo
Saavedra, said on
Wednesday that 60
percent of the students
and academics who
selected the list of 10
finalists were aged
between 13 and 24.
"The most conservative
sectors of Chilean
society were indignant
that the list of 10
finalists did not
include figures like
(national independence
hero) Bernardo
O'Higgins, (assassinated
statesman) Diego
Portales, (president)
Manuel Montt, (reformer
and president) Arturo
Alessandri, (general,
dictator and president)
Carlos Ibáñez del Campo
or Augusto Pinochet,
'founding' or 'refounding
fathers' of the nation's
institutions at
different points in our
history, who were nearly
all closely associated
with the armed forces,"
he said.
"On the contrary, nearly
all the people on the
final list of 10, in
spite of the wide
differences between
them, share the
hallmarks of having firm
convictions, honesty,
heroism or artistic
sensibility, and in many
cases, a tragic yet
dignified end," Grez
concluded.
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